Train To Busan Meets The Walking Dead In Netflix's 12-Episode Zombie Masterpiece Series

Published Oct 5, 2026, 4:28 PM EDT Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020. One of Netflix’s best horror shows blended The Walking Dead and Train To Busan, creating an all-new masterpiece in the process. Netflix has come a long way since the success of the Money Heist franchise in 2017. When the streaming service originally released that non-English-language crime thriller, it was almost unheard of for a foreign-language show to beat major titles like Orange is the New Black, BoJack Horseman, or Stranger Things to Netflix’s top spot. Nowadays, foreign-language productions often outdo English-language shows when it comes to Netflix popularity. The recent success of Netflix’s South Korean psychological thriller Mousetrap is just another piece of proof that, if the characters are compelling and the plot is twisty enough, viewers are more than willing to get past the language barrier that traditional TV executives once considered insurmountable. Of course, the international popularity of movies like Train to Busan should have been an even earlier clue to this trend. Released in 2016, Train to Busan is a propulsive, tragic, and terrifying action horror where a train of desperate survivors must fend off a zombie attack while trapped on the titular train. Compared to the patient post-apocalyptic storytelling of The Walking Dead franchise, Train to Busan felt more like Resident Evil’s chaotic, nonstop gory action horror, but the movie had more emotional stakes than most entries into the action horror subgenre. One later Netflix series, All of Us Are Dead, managed to combine the appeal of Train to Busan and The Walking Dead in one neat package. All of Us Are Dead Mixes The Walking Dead’s Character Drama With Train To Busan’s Urgent Claustrophobia Image via Netflix Set in a South Korean high school during the breakout of a zombie apocalypse, All of Us Are Dead focuses on the besieged students at the center of this crisis. Like Train to Busan, All of Us Are Dead quickly familiarizes viewers with its recognizable, archetypical characters, only for subsequent twists to deepen and subvert their seemingly simple, straightforward personalities. From the perfect class president to the penitent former juvenile delinquent to the bratty rich kid, every classic high school movie stereotype is present and accounted for. This is what makes it so compelling when All of Us Are Dead begins to pick off its characters just as viewers are getting to know the people beneath the surface. Unlike Netflix’s similarly gruesome R-rated horror The Fall of the House of Usher, All of Us Are Dead isn’t a comedy, so the show’s many brutal character deaths truly hit home. Like Train to Busan, the series uses its limited cast to make each demise truly matter. That said, the show also benefits from a longer runtime. Like The Walking Dead, All of Us Are Dead uses its lengthier run to flesh out adult supporting characters like Kim Byung-chul’s science teacher Lee Byeong-chan and Lee Kyu-hyung’s detective Song Jae-ik, as well as giving the show’s heroes, Park Ji-hu’s Nam On-jo and Yoon Chan-young’s Lee Cheong-san, room to develop their arcs. All of Us Are Dead Season 2’s Long Wait Makes The Second Season Harder Compared to Netflix’s acclaimed horror Alice in Borderland, All of Us Are Dead is more patient in its setup, and doesn’t immediately throw viewers into the gory deep end within a single episode. However, this arguably only makes the show’s story sadder and more intense upon a re-watch, since it means viewers get to truly know and care about the school kids before they are picked off by the zombie hordes. All of Us Are Dead was deservedly popular among Netflix viewers, who met the announcement of the show’s second season with delight and excitement. However, thanks to endless scheduling conflicts, it has now been over four years since season 1 was released. This means that All of Us Are Dead season 2 will feel profoundly different from season 1’s mix of The Walking Dead and Train to Busan, since its fan favorite characters will all be in an entirely different life stage by the time this sophomore outing finally takes place. Release Date 2022 - 2022-00-00 Network Netflix Writers Chun Sung-il Cast Yoon Chan-young Lee Cheong-san Creator(s) Chun Sung-il, JQ Lee, Kim Nam-su