September 13 2026, 08:43
Colony
Professor Se-jeong arrives at a high-rise building in the centre of Seoul to attend a presentation by biotech company Chains Bio. Meanwhile, Seo Young-chul, a scientist and disgruntled ex-employee, phones the police to tell them he is about to commit an act of bioterrorism with a weapon based on the evolving intelligence of slime mold. He injects himself with the antidote, then attacks the Chains Bio CEO, Kang Woo-chul, infecting him and starting an outbreak.
Behind the fast-moving zombie chaos, the characters are thinking about work, ambition, family, patriarchal control, corruption in research-based companies, and government incompetence. Se-jeong is unemployed and her ex-husband, also a Professor, is trying to get her a job before he moves to the United States with his new family. He says Se-jeong’s inability to get along with people is leaving her with no friends or job opportunities. She is then thrown in with a handful of people trapped on the shopping floor where as a biological scientist she gets to observe how the infected behave, and to demonstrate her ability to work with others.
I saw this at the recently-restored Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds in a small basement cinema where they’d fitted a balcony at the back for wheelchair users. The showing was nearly full including the three wheelchair bays. One of the key characters is an initially wheelchair-bound software developer, Hyun-hee, who hides in the security centre with CCTV to guide the group through the building. Her chariot doesn’t survive the first zombie onslaught, but her brother rigs a support on his back from climbing equipment so he can carry her. There aren’t many characters in wheelchairs in horror films, and there’s a grimly amusing reveal linked to this around the halfway point illustrating how the infected learn.
There are several fun twists and turns as the group tries to apprehend Young-chul, who is plugged in to the senses of the infected. He wants the hive mind he has created to take over the world. The finale is clever, and seeing the film with other people groaning and squealing in a cinema made the experience especially memorable.
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