All of Us Are Dead is a grueling, overstuffed survival test
All of Us Are Dead will plunge you into an emotional and fast-paced ride to the depths of chaos, and only if you have patience to ignore its ridiculous pacing, will it be worth your time. The series does successfully weaponize the high school setting, but more often than not, it stumbles on its own ambition of becoming both a visceral zombie thriller, and a dramatic social commentary.
The show does best when the frantic and kinetic energy of the students overtakes the hallways and classrooms and transforms them into actual pressure cookers. The problem with the narrative is that it stretches itself way too thin across unusually long episodes at the expense of character development which is basically sacrificed for numerous and repetitive sequences of close call escapes that eventually lose their irgendwie.
The claustrophobia of the classroom
The series excels with its main idea: transforming the everyday geography of lockers, science labs, and cafeterias into a nightmarish landscape. The visuals show how the school traps its students in a dizzying predicament while personifying the school as a living, breathing antagonist. The school is a character.
What the show does that breaks the mold of a standard zombie show is how it uses school structures and hierarchies as a breeding ground for the infection. The outbreak is framed as an extension of the bullying and social ostracism, and this adds a layer of visceral terror that transcends mere gore. It offers a critique, sharp and blunt at times, of the social isolation and bullying that exists in schools, which reflects the real-life risks of the pressure on kids.
A bloated marathon of survival
Audience exhaustion is the show’s biggest problem. The stories seem to drag on as episode lengths have surpassed an hour, and characters enter the same cycle of death over and over again to the point that there is no tension left. Most of the time, it is a clear example of a tighter edit resulting in a better story.
The main cast, especially the core group of students, does a fantastic job of humanizing the emotional content of the more outrageous sci-fi elements. However, the script often requires them to move into emotionally disconnected melodrama that is out of place given the urgency of the situation. The show often forgets to keep the story moving. When the show stops to take a breath, it forgets to move again, often sacrificing the momentum right when it needs to the most.
Who should commit to the outbreak
This series is recommended for those who enjoy survival horror, especially when familiar locations are showcased in an unsettling way. As long as the audience does not mind the occasional slow-motion spectacle, the series offers enough inventive action for people to tune in.
On the other hand, fans of horror with a more minimalist approach should seek entertainment elsewhere. Additionally, audiences who find annoying the contrived decisions of characters for the sake of narrative convenience may find the almost 65-minute duration of each episode to be more of a labor than a source of excitement.
