After Squid Game's critical success, Netflix is betting on a new series that is looking to become a hit: All of Us Are Dead, the new South Korean drama based on a popular webtoon of the same name. The series premiered on the streaming platform in late January. Since it was announced, many viewers were eager to see this new production of such a popular genre. As expected, after its recent arrival, the series managed to place itself among Netflix's most binge-watched productions.
In this fiction, we see how a virus that turns the infected into zombies spreads rapidly within a high school. Thus, students must fight to escape and survive. Due to the fact that it stars teenagers, more than one is guided by the heart rather than by logic, which makes their fate even more intriguing and puzzling. All Of Us Are Dead features a total of 12 episodes directed by Lee Jae-kyoo and written by Chun Sung-il, featuring a cast of top names such as Yoon Chan-young, Park Ji-hu, Cho Yi-hyun, Park Solomon and Yoo In-soo.
All Of Us Are Dead entertained the audience with an already popular and successful theme in movie history: zombies. It is not the first series to deal successfully with this theme, but it has been preceded by great successes. Here are seven successful shows prior to All Of Us Are Dead with similar themes that you should watch next.
7 The Walking Dead
The Walking Dead is an American television series premiered in October 2010 and created by Frank Darabont. The production is inspired by the comic book series of the same name written by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard and has been nominated for several awards, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Drama Television Series.
The Walking Dead's story takes place in a post-pandemic scenario in which a virus has wiped out nearly the entire world's population by turning them into zombies. Throughout its many seasons, the audience witnesses the struggle of a group of survivors to stay safe in this zombie-infested environment or, as they prefer to call them, walkers. Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), the main character of the story, is a cop who wakes up from a coma and encounters this bleak scenario. His sole reason for moving on is to find his wife Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) and son Carl (Chandler Riggs). Both of them, who are still alive, are alongside a group of survivors which also includes Rick's former patrol partner and best friend Shane Walsh. The show will conclude with its eleventh season this year, although apparently that may not be the end of the line for this renowned series' characters.
6 Kingdom
This show is set in the medieval era of the Joseon Dynasty, which took place in Korea from the 14th to the 19th century. It follows Prince Chang Lee (Ju Ji-hoon), who becomes heir to the crown, as news arrives that the current king has died. The prince must embark on a dangerous mission to investigate a mysterious epidemic that has reached the kingdom, one where the sick become infected. This leads him to discover that there is a real threat that endangers the future of the kingdom: zombies. Chang Lee must now face numerous challenges to save his people from this seemingly endless epidemic, vowing to fight whatever happens. That is why he teams up with a group of survivors who accompany him as he looks for a solution to the ongoing problems.
Kingdom was directed by Kim Seong-hun and written by Kim Eun-hee. It is one of the first South Korean productions of the genre on Netflix. It was released in 2019 and was renewed for a second season that same year. Furthermore, the show was so successful that it branched out into a 92-minute spin-off called Kingdom: Ashin of The North, as a prequel to the first season. This special premiered in July 2021.
5 Ash vs Evil Dead
Ash vs Evil Dead is an American television show within the horror-comedy genre, developed by Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi and Tom Spezialy for Starz Network. It is set within the Evil Dead universe and was released in October 2015. It ran for three seasons before getting canceled for low ratings. This show finds Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) 33 years after the events that occurred in Army of Darkness. Ash has spent all this time avoiding maturing, and has seemingly done very little with his life: he still works as an employee at Value Stop and the passage of time, along with the burden of living under the shadow of what happened in the Middle Ages, has turned him into a carefree womanizer who spends his days moving from bar to bar.
Yet, the man must step out of his comfort zone and become a hero once again as he accidentally unleashes an evil that threatens to take over the world. Ash counts on the help of Pablo (Ray Santiago), Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo) and Amanda (Jill Marie Jones), with whom he must put together a quick and fail-safe plan to stop the demons of evil from possessing the souls of the people of the world.
4 The Strain
A Boeing 767 arrives at New York's JFK airport and, upon landing, comes to an inert stop on the runway. The interior is filled with pale corpses, four of which later recover their vital functions, and a strange coffin full of dirt inside the baggage department. This is how Jusef Sardu, a vampire known as The Master (Robert Maillet), arrives in town. Dr. Goodweather (Corey Stoll), of the Center for Disease Control, investigates what at first glance appears to be a virus that caused the death of the plane's passengers, not knowing about Sardu. As his investigation continues, Goodweather contacts Abraham Setrakian (David Bradley), a man who seems to know a lot about this virus and hints that it could be a plague of vampires. At the same time, the disease spreads rapidly and in a few days all of Manhattan is infected. The ancient vampires are back with a threatening purpose: they want to control the world.
The Strain is an American television series in the horror-drama genre that premiered in 2014. It is inspired by the trilogy of novels written by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, with the same name. This television adaptation, produced by J. Miles Dale and Gennifer Hutchinson, was developed for the FX network and ran for four seasons, ending in September 2017.
3 Survivors
Survivors is a 2008 British drama miniseries broadcast by the BBC. It was a remake of a series by the same name broadcast in 1975. This new version was directed by Adrian Hodges and ran for two seasons. The story has Abby Grant (Julie Graham) as the main character and focuses on a post-apocalyptic world, as a result of a strange devastating plague that exterminated almost the entire global population. Just a few individuals survive the infection, and they unite to overcome this harsh experience and attempt to survive one day at a time. They must start over in a strange world, where everything that was once safe and familiar to them is now unknown and dangerous. This is not easy, as there are many differences and frictions between them, but they have to put those aside and work together in order to make progress in this new reality. Over time, other groups of survivors appear, from which the protagonists must defend themselves.
2 Highschool Of The Dead
This is probably the most similar production to All Of Us Are Dead on this list. Based on the Japanese manga series by Daisuke Sato and Shoji Sato, Highschool of the Dead is a twelve-episode anime released in July 2010 in Japan. It tells the story of an almost empty world due to a pandemic that causes people to transform into ghoul zombies when they are bitten by other zombies. Takashi Komuro, a student at Fujimi High School who has survived the outbreak that started this pandemic, and other students at the school with whom he befriends, try to stay alive by all means in the midst of this scenario.
To do so, however, they must break out of school and then travel through the city looking for weapons. Meanwhile, this group tries to reunite with their family in order to move them to a safe place, or at least, safer than the place they are now in. This journey is not quite easy: many times they have to work as a team to face the zombies, trying to stay alive while fighting against the undead. Not only that: a new problem appears when some humans who are not infected reveal themselves and show the worst of themselves by trying to kill this group of young people.
1 Sweet Home
This is another excellent Korean apocalyptic horror series that aired on Netflix in December 2020. Sweet Home is inspired by Kim Carnby and Hwang Young-chan's webtoon of the same name and ran for one season. The story revolves around Cha Hyun-soo, a high school student who rarely leaves his room and refuses to talk to his parents or little sister. One day, his entire family is killed in a car accident, so Cha Hyun-soo is left alone and decides to move into a small apartment. When people start turning into monsters with superpowers, this withdrawn young man must team up with other survivors trapped in his building, and together they must fight to save their lives from the monsters lurking outside. However, Hyun-soo finds himself torn between two sides when he is accidentally contaminated by one of the beasts.
Sweet Home delves into the thoughts of a young man trapped in a post-apocalyptic world, as well as into the minds of survivors trapped in a restricted space as they struggle for goods and to gain each other's trust. Moreover, like All Of Us Are Dead, the series tackles themes such as social inequality and injustice.