Train to Busan filmmaker Yeon Sang-ho is back this week with Colony, the next evolution in his zombie oeuvre arriving in theaters on August 28.
The South Korean horror movie follows Professor Se-jeong as she is thrust into a terrifying hellscape when a mutating virus is unleashed during a biotech conference, forcing authorities to seal the facility to contain the outbreak.
Like George A. Romero, Yeon Sang-ho wields his zombies as a means of exploring contemporary fears and social issues, and Colony sets a target on mounting anxieties tied to artificial intelligence.
“When I’m thinking of, or imagining these films, I always think about what parts of society do I want to see reflected in this film? I think every work that I’ve ever done has some reflection of society in one way or another,” Yeon Sang-ho tells Bloody Disgusting of his approach to zombies and horror.
“The series Hellbound, for example, there are monsters,” he continues. “They deal with monsters from hell, but also, it’s a reflection of human society. The series I did, Human Vapor, also has very specific societal elements that are reflected in the series. The reason that I feel that it’s important to find some resemblance of society in these zombie genre films is because I feel like that is a way to make the fear and the horror feel much more visceral and palpable when it is closer to our society and actually does point to a facet of our society. Also, not just from a societal perspective, but I also feel like from an entertainment perspective, that is also something very important.”
“In this film particularly, I wanted to really hone in on the contrast between zombies versus humans, namely in the zombie group: they start out primitive, but as they evolve, they achieve more and more collective intelligence.”
He continues, “Whereas the humans begin as this civilized group, but over the course of the film, they descend more and more into barbaric and primitive inclinations due to their selfishness.”
How does AI factor into the zombie equation?
The filmmaker explains, “The thing that I focused on was the way that AI develops or evolves. Sometimes, AI almost feels so human and so human-like, but then there are mistakes or glitches that they would make that a human being would never make. I wanted to focus on that aspect, to come up with the way that these zombies developed as well.”
Those glitches led to inspiration for the way these zombies moved and evolved: “What I thought of was, I thought it would be good to incorporate modern dance elements into the movement of these zombies. This is sort of an abstract concept, but I wanted the zombies to learn in a way that is different from the learning process of humans. I felt that modern dance choreographers have quite a bit of experience turning abstract concepts into physical form or physical movement. I worked with a lot of modern dance choreographers to come up with a lot of these signature movements.”
That approach pays off in Colony, with some truly impressive choreographed zombie sequences.
So much so it even surprised the director, “One scene that I will say that I was very surprised by was there is a moment where one of the zombies is doing an internet search, and the choreographers really worked their choreo into that scene in a way that was quite surprising and satisfying.”
Discover it for yourself when Colony arrives in theaters this week.
