All of Us Are Dead: 3 reasons why everyone's talking about the Korean zombie drama

South Korean series Squid Game became the most popular ever show on Netflix when it launched on the streaming service last year.

Now a new K-drama has arrived and it’s tearing up the ‘Trending’ chart all across the globe, attracting hordes of new fans binging on the 12 hour-long episodes like a blood-thirsty zombie on a corpse.

But how has All Of Us Are Dead managed to take over our screens and sink its teeth into our TV schedules?

We unleash 3 reasons why everyone’s talking about All Of Us Are Dead.

1. In the time-honoured tradition of all good zombie flicks, there’s bucketloads of blood-splattering zombie carnage

From George A. Romero classics such as Night of the Living Dead to modern zombie masterpieces like 28 Days Later, Fear The Walking Dead and Train to Busan, any zombie movie or TV show worth its salt has to go big on the body count – with an array of inventive ways to put paid to those pesky plodders intent on tucking into fresh flesh.

Thankfully, as we witnessed in Squid Game and the aforementioned Train to Busan (which is referenced in one of the episodes), South Korean filmmakers aren't shy of thinking up new and entertaining ways of causing zombie-based brutality and carnage.

All Of Us Are Dead is no different. It embodies everything that’s great about the zombie genre – terrifying transformations, contorted creatures that wouldn’t look out of place in The Exorcist, gruesome swarms of zombies and waves of frenzied undead.

Want a taster of what’s in store? Take a look at the trailer below. 

2. All Of Us Are Dead breathes new life into the zombie genre

There’s a school of thought that says if you’ve seen one zombie show, you’ve seen them all.

There may be some truth in that – many zombie films and shows have gone down the well-trodden path of flooding our screens with flesh-eating hordes of the undead with no real depth below the gore and special effects.

Yet despite all of its adrenaline-soaked action, All Of Us Are Dead isn’t just non-stop zombie destruction. The series explores themes of bullying, suicide, family, viruses and how they can be manipulated, quarantines, a mistrust of adults, and teenage relationships. It also mixes scenes that are serious and hard to watch with sequences full of dark humour, and slower paced character-led parts with non-stop action.

All Of Us Are Dead is based on the popular Naver webtoon of the same name by webtoon creator Joo Dong-geun. Webtoons are vertical, continuous strips of mobile-friendly illustrated stories that can span genres from romance to horror. Some boast cult followings and have been turned into hugely popular films, games and TV dramas.

And unlike other zombie franchises where the undead roam the earth, here the action is confined to a school setting – our heroes are pretty much all youngsters faced with the unimaginable while dealing with much of the teenage angst and drama you’d typically associate with those school years.

Director Lee JQ told Netflix: “There are a lot of zombie series, but what caught my attention about this was that everything happens in a closed space, a school, with young and immature students.”

3. It’s got fans starving for more zombie mayhem

Just like the zombies, All Of Us Are Dead has left fans of the show hungry for more. And without giving anything away, the way season 1 concludes offers some hope for All Of Us Are Dead Season 2.

Even after more than 12 hours of zombie goodness, fans are baying for more blood. Some have even taken to Twitter to make their pleas heard:

All Of Us Are Dead is available to watch on Netflix now.