In his directorial debut The Sadness, Rob Jabbaz delivers everything that the trailers promised: complete chaos, gore, extreme (and very graphic) violence.
With an oversaturated zombie sub-genre, it is very difficult to come up with a fresh approach, but here we have a very “infectious” dynamic movie.
Instead of using zombies, people become infected with a “flu-like” virus that affects the limbic system (in our brains), especially the part that controls our human sexual behavior and aggression.
We are left with our most primitive instincts; turned into completely irrational beings.
We can see archetypes as the main characters, even if you can tell what is going to happen, it doesn’t make the ride less enjoyable.
In a society where we have learned how to behave and make it work so we can live in harmony together, many could say we have been suppressing ourselves, our true selves.
If you are wondering what would happen if we surrender to those “killer thoughts”, this movie could give us a very good glimpse of this.
All characters are reduced to their basic instincts, but intensified by a million.
The character design is really well done. Not only because of the prototypes and their development; but the makeup is top-notch, well-executed for a viral infection…
They are humans that have lost their humanity, not living dead, and we can see that.
The story is really easy to follow:
There’s a virus, the Alvin Virus, that is changing people and making them succumb to their dark side: torturing, killing, raping, and sometimes, even eating people.
We have a couple, Jim and Kat, who live happily together. She has to go to work and are separated when all hell breaks loose.
Now Jim has to go and rescue Kat while both of them try to survive, especially Kat, who her stalker wants to rape and kill.
A scientist tried to warn them, but nobody listened and the virus spreads dangerously fast.
It is a clear reference to what we are living right now, just crazier and bloodier.
There are a few nods to other “horror” films, one in particular to “A Serbian Film” (no, it’s not the baby scene!), “Irreversible”, “Mayhem”, “Kansen”, “Train to Busan”, etc; just to mention a couple.
This is a very graphic film, it depicts sexual violence, torture, and gore, I highly recommend not watching it with your children, even if they are teens and “love horror”.
If you like slasher or extremely violent movies, this Taiwanese horror film is a must for you.
Blu-ray will be released on April 15, 2022, preorders are available.
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