Stream It Or Skip It?

Zombieverse: New Blood is the second season of Zombieverse, a hard-to-categorize quasi-reality series that’s best described as Netflix Kontent (sic). This oddball Korean show, which Netflix officially calls “real-variety,” falls between the scripted/unscripted divide, casting YouTubers, musicians and other misc. celeb personalities to kinda/sorta play themselves as they participate in a staged zombie apocalypse. They have to work together to overcome various quests and challenges that never involve the classic zombie-movie move, namely, shooting and/or smashing zombies in the head to kill them, since real actors are playing the fake zombies, and the real participants who are sort of “acting” their way through all this (read: somewhat but not quite convincingly pretending that zombies are real) don’t want to be prosecuted for murder. If this sounds rather slippery and difficult to pull off convincingly, well, that’s a bingo.

Opening Shot: Soldiers and zombies fight each other during bloody mayhem during a recap of the first season.

The Gist: Seoul is overrun with the undead, so survivors are taking boats to Jeju Island, where an abandoned resort that’s been converted into a makeshift encampment with tents and food and the like. It’s a fine place for ping-pong and picnics, and I’m not joking. It’s just bliss here and it’s totally safe and will never see any zombies ever the end. No! That’s a lie! Zombie action is inevitable, people! Zombie action of the lamest sort! But first, we have to meet the contestants, who include some series newbs: Cho Sae-ho, Yook Sung-jae, Taeyeon, Kim Seon-tae, Defconn, Code Kunst and Andre Rush. They join season one participants Dindin and Tsuki for this nonsense.

Now, while we wait (too long) for the participants to banter back and forth – in character or not in character, who can tell – and try to drum up a laugh or two, we kick back and wonder if there are any “rules” for this “competition.” And all we’re left to do is wonder, because nothing is ever really explained to us. I guess the only incentive here is “survival.” Pop-up graphics direct – or misdirect on occasion – the action, sort of, and tell us that zombies don’t see very well or react to sound, things like that. Quite often, the pop-ups explain what’s happening because everything is too vague and hard to follow if they don’t. Great show you’ve got here!

Anyway. There’s a fakeout when a guy emerges from beneath a blanket stumbling and moaning, but he’s not a zombie, he’s just drunk. Ha ha, good one! Then the participants are split up so, when the zombies finally bow in, the two groups face two different weak-tea challenges: One group runs around in the encampment trying to escape a staggering horde of hungry-for-brainsters, while the other stays inside and figures out how to escape being cornered by five zombies. The first challenge is confusing; the second one is interminable. Don’t worry, though, there are a couple more challenges in this episode to be underwhelmed by!

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? This is The Walking Dead crossed with American Ninja Warrior, but don’t get excited by the promise of this idea.

Our Take: There’s a gray zone between scripted and unscripted series, and in that gray zone is a small but long, dark and empty black hole where projects that don’t work on any level fall into, never to be watched again. That’s where Zombieverse resides. One can appreciate an ambitious stab at adapting zombie-movie tropes into a kind of game show, but this series’ attempts at melding reality TV and fiction is a sloppy failure. It’s irreparably dysfunctional by the standards of either genre.

The idea is to set up the scenario and let the celebs work through it, but it seems far too complicated to effectively execute, so what we end up with is heavily staged stuff edited in as connective tissue to render weak action more exciting, and “unscripted” portions that are either dull and uninspired, or obviously being nudged along by producers and directors so all the necessary exposition makes it into the show. The opening episode clunks along without the momentum of an escalating competition, or the life-and-death drama of a scripted series. Why not just turn it into a nutty Japanese-style OTT game show with a host screaming the rules at top volume and colorful-nutjob contestants who are game for anything? I realize that’s a tired formula, but it would work better than Zombieverse, which, give it credit, tries something new. But it stumbles out of the gate and never finds its footing.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: A low-angle shot of glass falling on the camera as a zombie busts through a window to “attack” a participant climbing an obstacle-course net.

Sleeper Star: Andre Rush is an American celebrity chef with the physical build of someone who can bench-press a blue whale. You will not be surprised to see him dash into a scene and show a handful of dimwitted contestants how to bearhug a zombie and stuff it into a tent in order to neutralize it. 

Most Pilot-y Line: A Code Kunst line, taken out of context, reviews Zombieverse on the whole: “It’s the perfect setup for chaos.”

Our Call: Zombieverse: New Blood? More like Zombieverse: New Dud. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.