The theme that is pumped through every zombie film, survival, is broadened here to mean more than just breathing air as a human by the end. The Parks run a failing gas station business in the country. They resort to sabotaging drivers’ tires on the road in order to provide quick roadside service. This leads to a bill of services for the repairs leveling off in the extortion range. This is how they survive. This family is fractured. The patriarch lives in a trailer, while his grown children absorb the daily responsibilities of running the business. The pregnant daughter-in-law and eldest son dubiously run the store front. The daughter is no-nonsense but harbors guilt, and the youngest son just got fired from his big job in the city. They rally together when a zombie comes barrelling into their lives (after humorously being chased by a dog). The family locks him up in the gas station garage and feeds him cabbages, deciding how to exploit their new discovery after Mr. Park gets accidentally bitten. Everything the family was assuming would happen next, as we’ve seen a hundred times at this point, doesn’t. The zombie bite wasn’t harmful. Instead, the old man begins to gradually age backwards giving him a spry and energetic soul. The family sees dollar signs. They see survival. Before long, a flock of old men pay up to get a sample of this new wonderful fountain of youth. They just need to submit to a zombie bite. This leads to a rather funny montage; the Parks bait our zombie friend to bite more with hot sauce applied right to the customer’s arm. I don’t think I can ever look at sriracha the same way again. The daughter Hae-Gul (Soo-kyung Lee) soon bonds with their pet zombie. He is given a name, a haircut, and a new wardrobe. A personality begins to grow in him as well. Once Mr. Park steals this new hard-earned money and absconds to Hawaii in the middle of the night, the family is frustrated to start over. The youngest son decides to take the show on the road to bring in revenue but is stopped short when reality sets in. Turns out that the zombie bites that Jjong-bi (the new moniker for their undead friend) doled out have a time-release. The happy side-effects wear off and the bitten customers take a hard turn into familiar zombie movie territory. I won’t give away much more at this point. Zombie For Sale steps into familiar (if not needed) zombie tropes to raise the stakes, while finding humorous and heartfelt ways to meet them.

ACTING | CHARACTERS | DIALOGUE:

It is so easy to make a zombie movie with a paint-by-numbers approach. Mostly because they are populated with characters we’ve seen before. The burdened hero, the damsel, the smart person, the old person, the person no one takes seriously and the jerk character that exists to incite conflict. Zombie For Sale does not sidestep this completely. In some ways, we need those types of characters to create stress and urgency. While I still believe that the strength of this movie is the family dynamic that pulls together, it suffers a bit from familiarity. We still have characters that are smart and observant yet act like complete buffoons when danger is in their face. The dialogue is punchy and sharp and is limited when it needs to be.

VISUAL EFFECTS | MAKEUP | DESIGN: