[HanCinema's Film Review] "The Neighbor Zombie"

Practically every piece of zombie fiction has had that one scene where somebody realizes they've been bitten, or someone meets a loved one who's turned into a zombie, and various emotional hand-wringing ensues. The trouble is, that in a heroic post-apocalyptic narrative, these plotlines are always sublimated. We, the viewer, understand them because we are human. But everyone knows these scenes are only subplots to give us a breather from the typical standard zombie smashing action.

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"The Neighbor Zombie" takes these small scenes and throws them into full-focus. The stories that makes up this omnibus exist largely independently of the greater grand narrative of what caused the zombie plague and what ended it. What we're left with is characters who have absolutely no reason to live or care about anything- except for the way the zombie virus has infected their emotional lives and livelihood, and how they plan to survive both the outbreak and their own guilt.

There's something heartrendingly sad about a lot of these portrayals. The doom is inevitable- the characters aren't living in sustainable situations, and they know it. In nearly every story, we're looking at the last hours of a person's life. The film very effectively takes the old prompt of what people would do if they only had a short time left to live, and gives us people whose answer, while not necessarily creative, rings very true as to the kinds of simple, deliberate choices people will make when they lack the wherewithal to come up with something more impressive.

It's an extremely scary and tense movie as well. Knowing, as we do, that the characters are about to face their doom, every single instant is filled with tension and fear because there's any number of ways the narrative could end up moving forward. A lot of it is just plain gross and physically disquieting- but people in desperate situations will do gross, physically disquieting things if that's the best way they can think of to survive. The four directors of "The Neighbor Zombie" do an excellent job keeping these cinematic feelings intact even if the individual omnibus segments differ in other, more problematic ways.

Two of the shorts are near artistic in their representation, but both deal with the same basic emotion. Another deals with similar anguish, but lessens the impact somewhat due to the appearance of a rather bizarre third character who exists mainly to force the action forward. Another short it's not completely clear what's literally happening, even though the concept is quite sound. Another is practically cribbed straight from a more mainstream zombie movie, although it's a compelling enough scene that I didn't mind. Another only really has value as a metatextual statement on why someone would write zombie stories in the first place- excellent idea and execution, particularly in the context of the omnibus, but perhaps a bit too clever for most people's tastes.

The quality between these various shorts varies- nonetheless, any of them individually are worth at least a weak recommendation, and all of them put together compose an extremely effective statement on what it means to succumb, resist, accept, and regret the existential destruction that is the zombie virus. "The Neighbor Zombie" is a surprisingly intelligent film, well worth-watching for its use of zombie tropes as effective metaphors for those more mundane facets of life that will wreck the neighborhood.

Review by William Schwartz

"The Neighbor Zombie" is directed by Hong Seo-baek, Jang Youn-Jung, Oh Young-doo, Ryu Hoon and features Hong Seo-baek, Ryu Hoon and Kim Yeo-jin-I.

 

Available on DVD from YESASIA