Reviews
Revisiting ‘Peninsula’ (2020): A Worthy Sequel, or a Road Trip Doomed to Fail?
In reality, Peninsula has a lot of intention and love put into it by Yeong Sang-ho, and it ends up being a wild expansion of the world he’s made. It’s very clear the movie was an experiment in cutting loose and having fun with the setting after a bleak prequel and a heartbreaking masterpiece. In a way, it tells a funny story of success: Sang-ho had gotten his licks in with one cinematic juggernaut and charmed the world, and Peninsula was just meant to be high-octane gravy for the accolades.
Do you remember when, in the wake of Train to Busan’s wild popularity and success, an American remake called “The Last Train to New York” was announced? Being a horror freak first, and a public transit lover second, I naturally joined in on the bashing of the concept. It felt silly given the state of American railways, and somewhat lousy American remakes paving its road (laying its tracks?); above all else, it seemed impossible to make work.
Train to Busan ripped like a firestorm through audiences across the globe in 2016 after its Cannes premiere because of its performances. It was a zombie movie that, in an era where the high saturation of zombie films had worn plenty of us out, felt like a radical change to the usual recipe. There was a once-in-a-lifetime synergy between actors, and I don’t think there was a single weak performance in the entire cast. The effects, the story, and hoo-boy that gutpunch of an ending, was in short, lightning in a bottle.
To think they could do that again, let alone think an American studio with few ties to the original cast and crew could, was a delusion. As much as I love Timo Tjahanto and James Wan, who were slated to direct and produce the film respectively, Last Train has been in development hell since 2018 for a reason, and I think that reason is not a lot of people have confidence in it making its money back.
And that last bit is what brings us to today’s conversation. A conversation about The Train to Busan franchise “sequel” that actually did happen, and was actually pretty commercially successful despite failing to please critics: Yeong Sang-ho’s 2020 film Peninsula.
PENINSULA IS AN ACTION HORROR ROLLERCOASTER—WHERE PEOPLE EXPECTED A HEARTBREAKER
You’ll notice the word sequel is in some incredibly heavy quotation marks, because the film only shares a universe with the original. Otherwise, it’s a standalone film, and a pretty weird one to follow up the first with either way. Peninsula isn’t even the first film to expand on the world of Train to Busan this way, since that would be the 3D animated prequel film Seoul Station which came before it, which Sang-ho also directed.
Seoul Station needs a whole article of its own to dissect because it is incredibly heavy, incredibly depressing, and serves as an appropriately serious insight into the early hours of the outbreak in Seoul and the rapid decay of society that ensued.
…Yeah, Peninsula, is not at all that.
Peninsula is an action-horror zombie apocalypse heist film more along the lines of Land of the Dead or Army of the Dead, filled with plenty of action set pieces that betray your idea of what a Train to Busan sequel would be like. It certainly starts off with a harrowing scene that would fit right at home in its predecessor: our main character, a military officer named Jung-seok, refusing to save a child and their parents in order to get his own family to a port for evacuation. And though he makes it to safety with them, it’s short-lived, as his family is killed by a stray infected on the boat, leaving behind only him and his brother-in-law Chul-min alive in the chaos.
Four years later, the estranged in-laws are brought together by a crime boss to head back into South Korea, now simply known as the Peninsula. Their mission is simple: retrieve a truck full of smuggled American cash back to the docks and receive $2.5 million each for their troubles. The 30-minute mark is where the film unmasks itself as being a much less serious affair, and the heist takes a backseat so we can watch a stone-faced teenage girl and her little sister drive through hordes and powerslide an SUV into a bunch of zombies.
Needless to say, it rules.
HIGH-OCTANE SETPIECES THAT MAKE REHASHED ZOMBIE MOVIE TROPES WORTH WATCHING
Between arena games with the undead, a rat king made of zombies, and Mad Max-esque chase sequences through a post-apocalyptic Seoul, Peninsula genuinely has some of the best action I’ve seen in a zombie movie to date. The film is absolutely more on the Dead Rising side of things rather than The Last of Us side, but it’s at its best when it’s embracing that.
On a technical level, the film suffers from depicting most vehicle stunts with subpar CGI. The set design of all the spaces outside of the computer-generated exteriors do feel pretty detailed, and the light flourishes we get out of existing zombie movie tropes you’ve seen before are fun. Peninsula doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but after decades of seeing the same stories play out over and over in zombie films, the bar has been raised far too high in the kind of inventiveness we’re expecting out of zombie b-movies. And this film is just inventive enough for me to work.
THE HEROES ARE NICE, BUT THE VILLAINS SHINE
But then, how are the people inhabiting this world? How are the performances? There are some pretty distractingly bad English-speaking actors early on in the film, given thick and poorly written exposition dumps they have to deliver. I will be honest with you and say that their acting was what initially made me turn my back on the movie a few years back. But do not make that same mistake, because the actual main cast is pretty great in this.
Granted, they’re playing the same characters you’ve seen in every zombie movie ever, but they’re not doing a bad job. Jeong-Seok (Gang Dong-won) is your typical stoic soldier who is making up for the people he couldn’t save; Min-Jung (Lee Jung-Hyun) is a mother who has had to become battle-hardened to protect her children. Together they drive a lot of the tension of the film and have good chemistry. Kwon Hae-hyo is pretty delightful as the senile veteran grandfather of Min-Jung’s group, Elder Kim, who plays with a ham radio, calling for non-existent backup and stylizing himself as a renowned tactician.
But where the cast really glows is in its three main villains: Captain Seo, Private Kim, and Sergeant Hwang. They’re members of Unit 631, an abandoned military taskforce meant to secure civilians, who in four years of solitude have gone completely insane, and they nail this. Actor Kim Min-Jae plays Hwang with a sadist’s glee that would have him at home as part of some The Walking Dead antagonists, but I loved the acting of Kim Kyu-baek as the mealy-mouthed human eel that is Private Kim. It’s a shame they don’t interact that much in the movie, since they’re enemies for most of the runtime, but they both are phenomenal.
LIVING IN THE SHADOW OF TRAIN TO BUSAN
It is far from flawless, but all in all Peninsula is a pretty good film. At the very least, it’s a fun film despite some of its quality issues. I would say it even achieves a level of decent rewatchability. It was fun enough to lure audiences in globally even during the midst of a pandemic, making its money back handily; it even charted at the international box office with the biggest IMAX run in several countries in Southeast Asia according to Deadline.
Critics’ reviews were certainly not shining, but they also weren’t piling on the film, either. That didn’t come until later, when online chatter really began to focus on Peninsula just not being another Train to Busan. Despite being very clearly titled as a spin-off (with the promotional material marked Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula), everything I had heard about the movie at the time of its release, up until a few months ago, was a conversation about how it failed as a sequel.
The first review that pops up for the film on Google, as well as hundreds of reviews on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, deride the film for not being a good continuation when it never could have been. Compound that with the technical and performance issues mentioned, and it was very clear a loud contingent of fans of Train to Busan saw this as nothing but a cash grab, an idea that spread out and kind of harmed the reputation of the film online as a result.
In reality, Peninsula has a lot of intention and love put into it by Yeong Sang-ho, and it ends up being a wild expansion of the world he’s made. It’s very clear the movie was an experiment in cutting loose and having fun with the setting after a bleak prequel and a heartbreaking masterpiece. In a way, it tells a funny story of success: Sang-ho had gotten his licks in with one cinematic juggernaut and charmed the world, and Peninsula was just meant to be high-octane gravy for the accolades.
Whether his teased plans to expand into a Peninsula sequel and television series will ever come to fruition is unknown. But if they don’t, it doesn’t really matter; Peninsula already proves through its flaws that Sang-ho can take you for a wild ride when he wants– all you have to do is let him.
Happy watching horror fans!
Those expecting Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein to be similar to the book, or to any other adaptation, are in for something else. A longtime enjoyer of the creature’s story, Del Toro instead draws from many places: the novel, James Whale’s culturally defining 1931 film, the Kenneth Branagh version, there are even hints from Terence Fisher’s Curse of Frankenstein, and if the set design and costuming are to be believed, there are trace elements of the National Theatre production too.
The formulation to breathe life into this amalgam is a sort of storm cloud of cultural memory and personal desire for Del Toro. This is about crafting his Frankenstein: the one he wanted to see since he was young, the vision he wanted to stitch together. What results is an experience that is more colorful and kinetic and well-loved by its creator than any Frankenstein we’ve had yet, but what it leaves behind is much of its gothic heart. Quiet darkness, looming dread, poetry, and romance are set aside as what has been sold as “the definitive retelling” goes off to the races. It’s a fast-paced ride through a world of mad science, and you’re on it.
Victor Frankenstein’s Ambition and Tragedy
A tale as old as time, with some changes: the morbid talents and untamed hubris of Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) guide him to challenge death itself. Spurred by a wealthy investor named Henrich Harlander, and a desire for Harlander’s niece Elizabeth (Mia Goth), Victor uses dead flesh and voltaic vigor to bring a creature to life. His attempts to rear it, however, go horribly wrong, setting the two on a bloody collision course as the definitions of man and monster become blurred.
Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein is more Hellboy in its presentation than it is Crimson Peak; it’s honestly more similar to Coppola’s Dracula than either of them. The film is barely done with its opening when it starts with a loud sequence of the monster attacking Walton’s ship on the ice. Flinging crew members about and walking against volleys of gunfire, he is a monstrosity by no other name. The Creature (Jacob Elordi) cries out in guttural screams, part animal and part man, as it calls for its creator to be returned to him. While visually impressive (and it remains visually impressive throughout, believe me), this appropriately bombastic hook foreshadows a problem with tone and tempo.
A Monster That Moves Too Fast
The pace overall is far too fast for its first half, even with its heavy two-and-a-half-hour runtime. It’s also a far cry from the brooding nature the story usually takes. A scene where Victor demonstrates rudimentary reanimation to his peers and a council of judges is rapid, where it should be agonizingly slow. There’s horror and an instability in Victor to be emphasized in that moment, but the grotesque sight is an oddly triumphant one instead. Most do not revile his experiments; in fact he’s taken quite seriously.
Many scenes like this create a tonal problem that makes Victor’s tale lean more toward melodrama than toward philosophical or emotional aspects; he is blatantly wild and free, in a way that is respected rather than pitied. There are opportunities to stop, breathe in the Victorian roses and the smell of death, to get really dour, but it’s neglected until the film’s second half.
Isaac’s and Goth’s performances are overwrought at points, feeling more like pantomimes of Byronic characters. I’m not entirely convinced it has more to do with them than with the script they’re given. Like Victor working with the parts of inmates and dead soldiers, even the best of actors with the best of on-screen chemistry are forced to make do. The dialogue has incredibly high highs (especially in its final moments), but when it has lows, how low they are; a character outright stating that “Victor is the real monster” adage to his face was an ocean floor piece of writing if there ever was one.
Isaac, Goth, and Elordi Bring Life to the Dead
Jacob Elordi’s work here, however, is blameless. Though Elordi’s physical performance as the creature will surely win praise, his time speaking is the true highlight. It’s almost certainly a definitive portrayal of the character; his voice for Victor’s creation is haunted with scorn and solitude, the same way his flesh is haunted by the marks of his creator’s handiwork. It agonizes me to see so little of the books’ most iconic lines used wholesale here, because they would be absolutely perfect coming from Elordi. Still, he has incredible chemistry with both Isaac and Goth, and for as brief as their time together is, he radiates pure force.
Frankenstein Is a Masterclass in Mise-En-Scène
Despite its pacing and tone issues, one can’t help but appreciate the truly masterful craftsmanship Del Toro has managed to pack into the screen. Every millimeter of the sets is carved to specification, filled with personality through to the shadows. Every piece of brick, hint of frost, stain of blood, and curve of the vine is painstakingly and surgically placed to create one of the most wonderful and spellbinding sets you’ve seen—and then it keeps presenting you with new environments like that, over, and over.
At the very least, Del Toro’s Frankenstein is a masterpiece of mise-en-scène down to the minutest of details, and that makes it endlessly rewatchable for aesthetic purposes. This isn’t even getting into the effervescent lighting, or how returning collaborator Kate Hawley has outdone herself again with the costuming. Guillermo Del Toro tackling the king of gothic horror stories, a story written by the mother of all science fiction, inevitably set a high bar for him to clear. And while it’s not a pitch perfect rendering of Mary Shelley’s slow moving and Shakespearean epistolary, it is still one of the best-looking movies you will see all year.
Perhaps for us, it’s at the cost of adapting the straightforward, dark story we know into something more operatic. It sings the tale like a soprano rather than reciting it like humble prose, and it doesn’t always sing well. But for Del Toro, the epic scale and voice of this adaptation is the wage expected for making the movie he’s always dreamed of. Even with its problems, it’s well worth it to see a visionary director at work on a story they love.
In my home, films like Night of the Demon and Abominable are played on repeat; Stan Gordon is king. One of my favorite stories surrounding Bigfoot and Ufology is the Bigfoot/UFO double flap of 1973, which Stan Gordon has an incredible in-depth book on. The Patterson–Gimlin film couldn’t hold a flame to Stan Gordon’s dive into one of my home state’s most chronicled supernatural time periods. But as much as I love the Bigfoot topic, I’m not ashamed to say I don’t know half of the stories surrounding that big hairy beast. And one topic that I’m not ashamed to say I haven’t heard of is The Siege of Ape Canyon.
The Harrowing Events of Ape Canyon
Washington State, 1924. A group of miners (originally consisting of Marion Smith, Leroy P. Smith, Fred Beck, John Peterson, August Johannson, and Mac Rhodes) was on a quest to claim a potential gold mine. Literally. The miners would eventually set up camp on the east slope of Mount Saint Helens. Little did they know their temporary shelter would be the start of a multi-day barrage of attacks from what they and researchers believed to be Bigfoot. What transpired in those days would turn out to be one of the most highly criticized pieces of American lore, nearly lost to time and history…nearly.
I need to set the record straight on a few things before we get started. One, I don’t typically like watching documentaries. Two, I believe in Bigfoot. Three, this documentary made me cry.
Image courtesy of Justin Cook Public Relations.
Reviving a Forgotten Bigfoot Legend in The Siege of Ape Canyon
Documentarian Eli Watson sets out to tell one of the most prolific Bigfoot stories of all time (for those who are deep in Bigfoot mythology). It’s noted fairly early in the film that this story is told often and is well known in the Washington area. So then, how do people outside of the incident location know so little about it? I’ve read at least 15 books on and about Bigfoot, and I’ve never once heard this story. This isn’t a Stan-Gordon-reported story about someone sitting on the john and seeing a pair of red eyes outside of their bathroom window. The story around Ape Canyon has a deeper spiritual meaning that goes beyond a few sightings here and there.
Watson’s documentary, though, isn’t just about Bigfoot or unearthing the story of Ape Canyon. Ape Canyon nearly became nothing more than a tall tale that elders would share around a campfire to keep the younglings out of the woods at 2 AM. If it weren’t for Mark Myrsell, that’s exactly what would have happened. The Siege of Ape Canyon spends half its time unpacking the story of Fred Beck and his prospecting crew, and the other half tells a truly inspiring tale of unbridled passion, friendship, and love.
Mark Myrsell’s Relentless Pursuit: Friendship, Truth, and Tears
Mark Myrsell’s undying passion for everything outdoors inevitably led to bringing one of Bigfoot’s craziest stories to light. His devotion to the truth vindicated many people who were (probably) labeled kooks and crazies. Throughout Myrsell’s endless search for the truth, he made lifelong friends along the way. What brought me to tears throughout The Siege of Ape Canyon is Watson’s insistence on showing the human side of Myrsell and his friends. They’re not in this to make millions or bag a Bigfoot corpse; they just want to know the truth. And that’s what they find.
The Siege of Ape Canyon is a documentary that will open your eyes to a wildly mystical story you may not have heard of. And it does it pretty damn well. Whereas many documentaries feel the need to talk down to the viewer just to educate them, Watson’s documentary takes you along for the ride. It doesn’t ask you to believe or not believe in Bigfoot. It allows you to make your own decisions and provides the evidence it needs to. If you’ve ever had a passing interest in the topic of Bigfoot, or if you think you’re the next Stan Gordon, I highly recommend watching The Siege of Ape Canyon.
The Siege of Ape Canyon stomps its way onto digital platforms on November 11. Give yourself a little post-Halloween treat and check it out!
Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2025: The Creep Tapes Season 2
The Horror Press Podcast Ep 51: Frankenstein & Stranger Things
‘Frankenstein’ Review: Guillermo Del Toro Is Off to the Races
‘The Siege of Ape Canyon’ Review: Bigfoot Comes Home
The Best Horror You Can Stream on Shudder in November 2025
‘The Addams Family’ (1991) First-Time Watch Review
Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2025: ‘Slayed’ LGBTQ+ Shorts Block
Brooklyn Horror Film Fest 2025: ‘CAMP’ Review
Brooklyn Horror Film Fest 2025: ‘The Serpent’s Skin’ Review
The Best Horror You Can Stream on Netflix in November 2025
‘The People Under the Stairs’ Review: A Brilliantly Bizarre Undercover Horror Classic
Slappy Was the Blueprint: How the Dummy from Goosebumps Became A Horror Icon
Glen and Glenda: Don Mancini’s Reverence for Queerness in ‘Seed of Chucky’ (2004)
‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ and The Story of William Afton Explained
‘Truth or Dare’: Who Did it Best?
The 11 Most Disturbing Horror Movies Ever, According to an Actual Horror Fan
V/H/S Franchise Ranked, Best to Worst
Everything You Need to Know About Jason Voorhees
[REVIEW] ‘Cherry Falls’ (1999) Brittany Murphy Shines in This Cult Classic Slasher
