Zombieverse is the latest horror reality game show released on Netflix on August 8, 2023. It is produced by Kakao Entertainment and directed by Park Jin-kyung and Moon Sang-don. Yoo Jin-young serves as the writer of the show with eight episodes and a runtime of about 40-60 minutes.
The cast of the shows includes Lee Si-young, Ro Hong-chul, Park Na-rae, DinDin, Tsuki, Yoo Hee-kwan, Yiombi Jonathan, Yiombi Patricia, Kkwachu Hyung (Hong Seong-woo), Dex and several others.
The concept of the show is that Seoul has turned into a zombie universe, and a group of contestants must complete challenging quests for survival. It has been called as unscripted as the contestants act on their own accord without any prior information given to them.
Zombieverse Review
The show starts on the set of a dating show called Love Hunter where DinDin, Tsuki, Park Na-rae, Lee Si-young and Ro Hong-chul are present on the scene, although it’s not sure if they are the guests or MCs on the show. One of the contestants seems quite pale and uncomfortable while sitting there which turns out that she was bitten by a zombie. She ends up biting her partner and havoc wreaks on the set as everyone starts running around. This indicates that the Zombie Outbreak has reached their doorsteps and they need to find a safe place.
The celebs somehow escape in a production crew car but the fuel was running low and they had to stop at the gas station. This was their first quest – to fill the car with fuel and escape without getting caught by zombies. Right from that moment, we get a feel of how each person will act throughout the show. Hong-chul is the sneaky guy who would happily give up his team members to zombies if that ensured his safety. Na-rae already had a ligament tear on her leg and was a liability for the team. Si-young is a calm leader who wants to do things strategically and Tsuki is a warm-hearted person but always puts her team in danger.
Surprisingly, DinDin is one of the dependable people, who tries to help as much as he can and volunteers most of the time. In the first quest, the team loses the two people from the production crew to zombies and makes their way to a supermarket. There they meet some other survivors like Dex, Jonathan, Patricia, Kkwachu Hyung, Yoo Hee-kwan and regular people from daily life. Similarly, they meet new people at every new place they go to.
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While it’s exciting and funny to watch the first few episodes, soon it starts to feel repetitive and dragging with no leading factor. The cast keeps on arguing with each other about who to send out to get something or save someone and then it ends up in the same manner with everything going to chaos. The show is specially advertised as unscripted but it feels much more scripted than the weekly variety shows. Each cast has adopted a persona and behaves accordingly while breaking the character in some absurd situations.
Adding to the ‘scriptedness’ of the show is when they introduce other Korean celebrities as the Village head or show Kim Byung-man as a reporter, working on some big news story. Also, they aren’t limited to a certain area but are roaming around all around the country, to show that the whole world has turned zombie. Thus, the cast isn’t actually feeling the fear of survival but acting along, as they travel from one place to another. This could also be the reason why the female casts are a plain burden on everyone.
Except for Si-young, the other members like Tsuki and Patricia do nothing but scream at the wrong moment and other people have to put their life in danger to save them. If it was a real situation, it’s better to just leave them than waste time to save their incessantly screaming selves. Also, Hong-chul’s character was funny initially, reminding us of Lee Kwang-soo and his betraying personality but where Kwang-soo wins our hearts with his cheekiness, Hong-chul starts to feel rude and annoying after a while.
The whole show concept also reminded a lot of one episode of the Disney+ show, The Zone: Survival Mission, where Yoo Jae-suk, Lee Kwang-soo and Yuri had to survive a zombie outbreak in a traditional village. It was an entertaining mission due to the cast’s unexpected antics and also because there was a goal to be achieved within a limited time.
There’s no goal or focal point that the cast is striving to get but a chaotic mess that keeps on dragging. It’s evident that the creators have directed them to complete the quests and travel here & there but they pretend like everything is happening without any given direction/script and the camera is just following the cast. It would have been better to conclude the show in 6 episodes while keeping it dynamic or showing it like a game show with proper directions, where the viewers are also informed that have to complete given quests to gain something.
The show ends with the surviving cast (who didn’t get bit by zombies) boarding a boat of survivors. However, among the infected ones left behind, one cast member seems to become the superior zombie, acting like an evil human. If you are a few episodes into the show and wondering who will survive in the end (without wanting to watch it all) then *spoiler alert* it’s – DinDin, Tsuki, Dex, Lee Si-young and Patricia. While Na-rae bites Hong-chul as revenge for always making fun of her and he becomes the menacing human zombie, roaming around.
Rating: 3/5
Zombieverse is available for streaming on Netflix.
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