‘Colony’ Review: Mob Mentality Can Be a Grisly Good Time When the Mob is Zombies

"Train to Busan" director Yeon Sang-ho returns with an enjoyably gnarly splatterfest that is not exactly revolutionary, but features enough (mostly practical) new flourishes to keep the K-Zom hive's bloodlust at bay.

By Jessica Kiang

Jessica Kiang

Latest

• ‘Ben’Imana’ Review: An Impassioned Exploration of the Unruly Legacy of the Rwandan Genocide 3 days ago
• Best of Cannes 2026: 20 Critics’ Picks From This Year’s Festival 7 days ago
• ‘The Dreamed Adventure’ Review: Valeska Grisebach’s Wildly Audacious Small-Town-Gangster Epic Harvests Genre From the Drama of Real Life 7 days ago

With the global craving for Korean genre entertainments showing no sign of abating, it can’t be easy to be a filmmaker tasked with feeding the beast with ever bigger, better, bonecrunching-er novelties. And that must go double for a director like Yeon Sang-ho who, with 2016’s “Train to Busan,” previously gnawed into the throat of the fast-zombie subgenre and instantly infected it with new, ravenous energy. Ten years, an animated prequel (“Seoul Station”) and a disappointing live-action sequel (“Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula”) later, Yeon returns to action-horror with “Colony” an entertaining if empty-headed exercise in familiarity, with a few neat new tricks up its bloodstained, gore-flecked sleeve. 

Related Stories

'Harry Potter’ Agency The Blair Partnership Signals Support for Paramount-WB Merger, Citing Studio’s ‘Long-Term Vision and Commitment to Exceptional Storytelling’ (EXCLUSIVE)