All of Us Are Dead (2022): No One Is Coming to Save Us

All of Us Are Dead is a compelling and emotionally charged TV series about a zombie outbreak at a high school in South Korea. The zombies cause chaos, but the true horrors, as always, are the many ways society fails these kids. Ghouls discuss the parts they love of the show, what they hope to see in a season 2, and how this show differs from other zombie media. No one is coming to save us, so we must protect each other.

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Media from this week's episode:

All of Us Are Dead (2022): A high school becomes ground zero for a zombie virus outbreak. Trapped students must fight their way out or turn into one of the rabid infected.

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The Cure for the Zombie Apocalypse is Empathy

by Kat Kushin

RED: Quotes, someone else's words.

In All of Us Are Dead is a very emotional piece of zombie media. Like any teen drama you’ll find yourself frustrated with the teenagers as they do teenager things, but this time the stakes are much higher as they aren’t just fighting against the social struggles of bullying and fitting in. This time they have to deal with that plus zombies. Like most other zombie media, we see that the real monsters are the human beings who lack empathy and care for each other. In that way this zombie story is not unique, but what I really appreciated about All Of Us Are Dead were the very complex and compelling characters that we are following throughout the story. You genuinely are rooting for these kids to survive under circumstances that are stacked against them. Even the villains, as unbelievably frustrating as they were at many moments, felt believable to me. 

What All Of Us Are Dead wants you to take away is the power of empathy, and the human spirit. It really asks the watcher to look inside themselves and question the things and people we hate. It shows that hatred is the real enemy in characters like Na-Yeon, and Gwi-Nam, and delivers them consequences for that hatred and selfishness. The characters who embrace caring for each other, survive, or at least are given honorable deaths compared to our villains. With two exceptions where deaths are definitely used as plot devices to impact our two main characters of On-Jo and Cheong-san. 

If you remove the zombies from All Of Us Are Dead, you still would have a compelling teen drama about the horrors of bullying and being cruel to each other. We see really brutal and intense bullying in the beginning of the show, and many characters that feel rejected by society, their peers, and the pathway to adulthood in South Korea. Before the zombies even hit they felt helpless about their futures, and in many ways cling to those stresses even as society collapses around them. The pressures of college, career, class, and their online fingerprint are just as scary to them. The future and the way society pushes these kids into adulthood is a problem that feels just as life or death to these kids, which definitely is a critique on society and the pressures youth face in a capitalistic system. Additionally, we see the way the government, school systems and even parents are discouraged from caring about their children in this transition. 

The teachers and principal act as an example of the callousness this kids have to experience as they grow up. The government as well fails these kids even though they are supposed to be the future. We do see exceptions of this in On-Jo’s father, and Cheong-san’s mother who actively are trying to save their kids at the cost of their safety. The show seems to call for us to be kinder to each other. To care about our youth and their futures, and to create a world where everyone has a place to fit in and be themselves. That since we are lucky enough to live in a world without zombies, we should be empathetic and care for one another.