The Sadness review: A zombie movie this gruesome doesn’t need pat morals

Ever since George Romero’s 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead turned a monster movie into a meditation on institutional racism, zombie movies have been one of the horror genre’s most effective vehicles for sociological observations: Dawn of the DeadConsumer culture is being smashed, Shaun of the DeadThe soul-sucking nature of daily life and routine work is mocked in this comedy. But that doesn’t mean every zombie movie has to take on big topics about the state of humanity. You can watch the full movie here. The sadness, Shudder’s new Taiwanese sort-of-a-zombie-movie, freshman Canadian writer-director Rob Jabbaz certainly wants to join the ranks of those classics. But he can’t find the proper measure of finesse and shamelessness to marry his grotesque gore and violence to, given the moral lessons he seems to think he’s obligated to offer.

The sadness, loosely inspired by Garth Ennis’ Crossed The comic follows the adventures of a couple from Taiwan: Jim (Berant Zihu) & Kat (Regina Lei). Jim leaves Kat at work hours ahead of a zombie outbreak, which causes them to search for one another in the chaos. These infected aren’t traditional zombies. Jabbaz has a more horrific alternative: his highly contagious virus which is very similar to Rabies can cause victims of the infection to follow their sadistic tendencies. They have no shame and no power to stop themselves — and they give in to their horrifying urges with wide, unwavering grins on their faces.

[Ed. note: The rest of this review includes brief descriptions of some particularly grotesque acts of physical and sexual violence.]

That’s a fine enough premise, but Jabbaz focuses too much on trying to find a profound metaphor that isn’t there, rather than letting the setup just be an excuse for some of the most gratuitous and ridiculous gore in recent memory.

Jabbaz attempts to make a point on many topics throughout his script. Before the film’s chaos starts, Jabbaz broadcasts a news program that features a scientist complaining about the hoaxes of in-universe pandemics and the lack of scientific evidence. As Kat bashes in the head of one infected character — a man who’s spent the entire movie trying to rape her — he exclaims that this makes her just like him, seemingly implying that on some level, almost everyone craves the chance to engage in extreme violence. This is even more evident when the movie’s non-infected protagonist, who has just finished his last breath, mentions how it feels to kill babies.

Jabbaz also spends some of the movie’s pre-infection time with Kat as she’s harassed on her commute home, briefly exploring the horror of women being accosted and threatened in everyday life. Later, her harasser infects Kat and follows her around the city. The exploration of normal gender violence is swiftly dropped and, within minutes, people are being raped on the streets by infected individuals who smile and wave at passersby.

It’s completely unclear what Jabbaz wants viewers to get from all this. Are the news broadcast’s allusions to real pandemic responses meant to bring some insight to the infection here? Is he suggesting humanity is only reined in by social order, or is the “Everyone secretly wants to carry out atrocities” idea just plain old-fashioned horror-movie cynicism? Whatever the answer, Jabbaz raises questions, then drops them altogether, which makes the movie feel hollower than if he’d never brought them up at all.

It’s a disappointment that the messaging side of the movie flounders, because The sadness is at its best when it’s shamelessly violent. Jim, who is drinking coffee at the diner, becomes infected when an infected individual walks into the restaurant and assaults someone. The virus spreads to the rest of the area. The routine of a coffee order becomes an action sequence and chase sequence. People start to tear each other apart. Jim runs out and several infected persons follow him, from back streets to busy streets. The train car then descends into violence at close quarters, ending with the whole car covered in blood.

Some outstanding prosthetics, practical effects and other devices are the underpinning of all this. Victims are beaten and maimed in all sorts of different ways. Each death stands out in its own unique, horrifying way. Jabbaz even uses the fountains of blood that spray from cuts and stabs to give the scenes forward momentum, like he’s making a red timeline of the fight on the floor and walls.

Image: Shudder

But he isn’t satisfied with resting on all that fantastic gore. The rest of his time he spends on the gore. The sadness’ run time setting up quasi-vignettes where his infected — and sometimes non-infected — characters do the worst possible things imaginable. The specific acts, from ramming a man’s crotch into a pole covered in barbed wire to a man raping a woman’s empty eye socket, are designed for shock, and they’re certainly horrific. While none of this feels incongruous with the movie’s other atrocities, it does feel out of step with the scenes from the opening. It’s as if Jabbaz is saying, “If you think sexual harassment is bad, just think about how much worse it could get.”

Plenty of great movies have played fast and loose with the grotesque — and many have been much harder to stomach than this one. But exploitation horror films like Wes Craven’s 1977 version of Hills Have EyesYou should do this with less shame, and more finesse. Jabbaz is known for having his characters remind the viewers, in the most horrendously literal ways, of the atrocities committed. When dealing with extremes like these, the line between absurdity or effectiveness can be delicate. The sadnessEnds up in absurdity far too often to be of any real shock value.

This may not sound like much in a movie, but some people feel a bit timid about being forced to give a man a handgrenade. Jabbaz tries to defend himself and deny the worst aspects of his violence at all costs. Jabbaz seems to be unsure of his own cruelty, almost as though he believes that turning violence into metaphors will make it less unacceptable. Gross-out splatter movies don’t need to strain for some thin justification — they can just exist to unsettle the brave few of us who want that, and The sadness’ tonal dissonance only gets in the way of that goal.

Zombies movies are often made in broad strokes. But the extreme exploitation horror Jabbaz works with thrives when it is tailored to its characters and circumstances. With that said, there are some things you should know. The sadnessBecause of the mass pileups of bodies, it becomes exhausting and so pervasive, any other point seems moot.

To Jabbaz’ credit, he’s playing in a difficult genre, and one that’s been content-starved for the last few years — though 2021’s It’s a wrong turnPeople who want something new and unexpected will find it easier to remake. More frustrating is that it’s clear Jabbaz is a talented director. You will find bits and pieces of Jabbaz. The sadnessIt is an amazing experience Busan to Train-style zombie action movie, but Jabbaz’s film is so weighed down by its own importance and self-destructive impulses that the action never gets a chanceYou can find more information here shine.

Cinema is full of gifted line-crossers, and provocation cinema has a long and celebrated history, from 1916’s Intolerance and 1929’s Un Chien Andalou to Cannibal HolocaustThere has been numerous movies about it since. If you’re going to make something gross, you’ve either got to do it right, or very, very wrong, and The sadness can’t quite manage either one. It just can’t acknowledge that not all zombie movies have to have a moral, a metaphor, or a message.

The sadnessShudder will start streaming from May 12th.