A year into a pandemic where society ignores scientists’ warnings and fails to take it seriously (sound familiar?), what the film refers to as the “Alvin virus” mutates into a rabies-like sickness that makes people torture, murder, and rape each other as Taiwan falls into total collapse — think David Cronenberg’s Rabid mixed with Joe Lynch’s Mayhem.
In the middle of the hardcore dystopia, a young couple can’t get a hold of each other, and Jim (Berant Zhu) fights off a neighbor—who initially believes the virus is a hoax to fix the stock market—and many other ravagers as he tries to reconnect with his girlfriend. Meanwhile, Kat is stuck in a train with a creepy old man (simply credited as “businessman”) as he sexually harasses her and guilt-trips her for not reciprocating his flirtations. This leads to an effectively terrifying sequence wherein Train to Busan-like fashion the passengers on the subway are trapped in with those infected and the perverted businessman’s sexual impulses are heightened to unsettling heights as he stalks and preys on Kat and another woman culminating in a repulsive climax.
The movie does not hold back on the blood and gore, but while the set pieces show why The Sadness earns its trigger warning and hard R-rating, it offers little social commentary on the pandemic after the opening scenes. Instead, it mostly exists to showcase the admittedly impressive makeup FX and how far they can push the limits. Much like the rabid zombies that show nothing beyond the extreme expressions of their “Id,” the second half drags as the two leads don’t have any meaningful characteristics, and the open-world unpredictability is confined to one overrun hospital with an unnecessary expository character.
Still, the gorehounds and genre aficionados will love the gross-out violence and the design of the zombies who have enlarged black eyes. The filmmakers don’t waste any time showcasing their “madness,” which the film should have been called instead. If only it kept the same breakneck pace until the finale instead of conforming to dystopian cliches because the rest of it has some of the most depraved scenes you will see in a horror feature.
Final Rating:
