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As far as established movie monsters go, modern zombies have proven to be quite malleable throughout their cinematic career. They passed shuffling corpses (night of the living dead) to corpses running (28 days later), from flesh-eaters to brain-eaters (Return of the living dead). jorge romero gave them the ability to relearn basic human skills in day of the dead while Colm McCarthy allowed them to retain their intelligence even though they were still hungry for people in The girl of all gifts (based on the book by mike carey).
Director Yeon Sang-ho of Train to Busan fame has found a way to considerably alter the formula in his latest film Colognea film that can best be described as die hard meets resident Evil. It presents the public with one of the most terrifying and fascinating adages of the undead recipe in recent years.
Cologne centers on the actions of a bioterrorist who orchestrates a zombie outbreak inside a massive building as a means of pushing the boundaries of humanity in favor of something more efficiently interconnected. It is based on the social structures of ants (hence the title) and how they cooperate to survive. A group of survivors must try to outwit the highly coordinated zombies while searching for a way out.
Yeon Sang-ho spends a lot of time making his zombies feel fresh here, framing them as a kind of new organism that carries some of the original monster’s signature traits while deviating just enough to distance itself from tradition. And they really feel different. They follow hive mental behavior patterns, meaning they can learn as a group and then act on the knowledge they acquire. Everything is aimed at increasing their numbers, which increases the tension knowing that they share such an insidiously coherent agenda.
This gives way to some highly kinetic action sequences that make the most of the ant dynamics (which also owes a lot to the director’s background in anime). Zombies always pounce on their prey, biting off limbs with their jaws. They run and bite frantically, but violence has a method. They do what they do with a higher purpose.
Zombies also secrete a white substance that strengthens their ability to communicate, pointing to a total biological takeover of humanity. It has been shown to be a highly efficient type of fungus that reshapes the environment for its benefit, turning the zombie into an invasive force rather than a mere representation of mindless consumption. It is Darwinism at its finest and at its cruelest.
Like some of the best zombie movies before it, Cologne It is essentially about social collapse. However, unlike those films, we are presented with precisely what could replace us. His success not only leaves the world dead. It proposes a new standard of living. This, along with a few other surprises, suggests a new category of zombie horror.
The film explores very familiar but still relevant themes of unethical science and the consequences of putting the fate of technological advancement in the hands of a few powerful people, and it does so with the acuity it requires. What makes it special, however, is the decision to turn to a new variety of zombies to convey those ideas.
The zombie genre takes an important evolutionary step with Cologne. Yeon Sang-ho took it upon himself to show the audience that long-standing monsters are always ready to be put in a position to be properly upgraded. In the process, it offers a reliable model for the evolution of time-tested horrors.
