Film Review: THE SADNESS (2021)

 THE SADNESS (2021) Taiwan 1hr 39mins 

Director: Rob Jabbaz

"Did I beat the record?" - Attacker on the train.

The eagerly anticipated and much talked about Taiwanese horror/disaster movie THE SADNESS brings something way more brutal to the infection/viral genre than anything Danny Boyle could potentially think up.

It follows young couple Jim (Berant Zhu) and Kat (Regina Lei) as they go about their "normal" lives; talking to neighbours, going to work etc. Whilst waiting for Kat, Jim watches a news podcast talking about the recent reports on the current flu pandemic called the Alvin Virus sweeping their region. There are rumours and warnings of possible mutations causing serious symptoms but a lot of these reports were described as fictional by the host due to it being an election year. As Jim takes Kat to the tube station they pass a police crime scene with several bodies covered in bloody sheets. After the couple have left to go about their days, strange things start to happen around both of them. Jim stops at a cafe as an old woman he saw earlier on the roof of a building opposite covered in blood comes in. She spits in one customers face and proceeds to attack the cook by throwing hot oil over him. Jim manages to retreat back to his apartment as the whole cafe and street around him erupt in violence. Meanwhile, Kat seems to have caught the eye of an older businessman (Tzu-Chiang Wang) on the train, he tries in vain to start up a conversation with her. She shuns his advances and gives up her seat to another lady. About the same time that this is happening a man in sunglasses gets on the tube and to start with stands quietly watching people with an odd grin on his face. As tears roll down his cheeks he mercilessly starts to stab as many passengers as he can. Others start to get infected including the businessman who stabs the lady, Molly (Ying-Ru Chen), who was sat in Kats original seat in the eye with his umbrella. As all hell breaks loose on the train Kat and Molly manage to flee the station and head for the hospital to get help but they are followed closely by the businessman who taunts them the whole way there. Kat and Jim do manage to contact each other and Jim promises to come and find Kat and escape the madness together.

A lot has already been said about THE SADNESS and the reviews and thoughts on it have been coming in thick and fast, most giving it huge praise. I completely agree but it is not a comfortable watch by any means. It goes above and beyond in terms of brutality however, it is not the gore that I found disturbing. The gore and action is awesome, spectacular even and very messy... for me it was the dialogue that I found more disturbing than the acts depicted on screen. The acts of rape and sexual deviation are intense but they know exactly when to cut away once they've got their point across. It's the verbal threats and statements of foul intent that I found very unnerving yet incredibly effective. 

The infected here (and they are infected not zombies) don't really differ physically from normal human form however their eyes do turn black, they wear a kind of manic expression and they are constantly crying. I'm not entirely sure exactly how the virus is spread but I'm guessing it's airborne as well as passed on through bodily fluids. The reasons behind the crying are explained to Kat later on as she is "rescued" by Dr. Wong. The virus affects a persons limbic system in the brain which controls behaviour and emotional responses. Once messed with by the virus a person has no control over either of these functions resulting in increased sexual behaviour and violent urges. As the infected are compelled to commit acts of violence upon each other most of them are covered in horrific wounds or maimed in various ways and in varying states of undress. The effects appear to be practical and fairly minimal to be honest. There are some extreme and grizzly ocular wounds and intrusions, barbed wire induced genital discomfort, projectile vomiting, orgies and so much blood! The acting is spot on by all involved and they give you characters you can really route for or in the case of the businessman be really creeped out by. Very well written and expertly executed, in this instance the subtitles are even more effective then perhaps they are in some movies as you get the full effect of the meaning behind the dialogue. This subject matter has been done to death but never quite like this and none of them really come close to adapting the script or plot in the way they have managed to here.

THE SADNESS is unsettling, brutal and bleak yet incredibly compelling and emotionally crippling so you have been warned! All that being said though because it is very much more of an infection movie than zombie I am giving THE SADNESS a score of 3.5 brains out of 5.

THE SADNESS is currently streaming on SHUDDER over here in the UK. I am unsure of what it is streaming on elsewhere but I believe it is accessible to most at this current time.