When you spend six plus years writing a zombie book, people think you must be obsessed with zombies. So, naturally you get all sorts of zombie related gifts from your friends and family. Refrigerator magnets with goofy sayings, bumper stickers, buttons, zombie dolls, games, and the list goes on. The funny thing is, although my dogs love the stuffed zombies, I’m not really a collector of anything but books. And maybe shoes. And t-shirts. And bicycles. OK, I just don’t collect zombie stuff ;-)
Having said that, I am obsessed with zombie stories (just like Jerry Wilson from my book). I’ll watch most any zombie movie and at least give the books a fifty page look. If anyone has any recommendations, or if you want to talk about zombies, let me know. The latest movie recommendation came from my brother, who read the headline, and maybe the first paragraph of the New York Times review for Train To Busan and passed it to me because; zombies ;-b It turned out to be a great suggestion. A fun treatment of the zombie plague with the majority of the action taking place inside the eponymous train on its way to Busan. The production values were surprisingly good for this type of movie. Especially since it’s also a Netflix original, which can be iffy. Their foreign movies are all over the place on quality. Maybe it’s the Korea connection. There have been some good films made in the country over the past couple of years and even another good zombie series. Check out The Kingdom, which is like a Korean Game Of Thrones with a zombie angle. Also great production values and an interesting plot
Back to Train To Busan. There are some great zombie-mob scenes--some humorous, like the final zombies-chasing-the-train--and a good story with characters you care about. Even the secondary/peripheral people are more believable than a lot of what you see in the genre and the plot moves along pretty well. Some of the dialogue felt a little wooden, but I’m going to chalk that up to it being translated from Korean. Who watches a zombie movie for the dialogue anyway;-) Side note, don’t spend too much time watching how long it takes the zombies to turn and you won't be upset by the inconsistencies there.
Over all this was a solid zombie movie and well worth the time it takes to watch.
Thanks, Bro!
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