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!
No way it’s the horror of 2026, but Hokum could be this year’s most solid “welcome to the big leagues, kid” horror. It’s a pill that’s got the potential to draw in new horror fans, but has enough flavor to satisfy a veteran for 101 minutes. Damian McCarthy definitely learned to polish up his idea of a nightmare from Caveat (2020), to Oddity (2024), to his best feature yet. Literally, sort of. With a single watch of each under my belt… Hokum has the same theme and tone as the previous two, just waxed and remixed. I’m not mad at it, though.
Hokum That Bridges Indie and Mainstream Appeal
Even the freaks like us who live in the underground horror tunnels can understand the public’s genre fatigue. I agree- it can seem like all these remakes and re-hashes are seriously weighing down blockbuster horror these days. The good indie stuff gets looked over, but McCarthy’s most recent film is a decent little in-between. It won’t bother you with a high cinema monologue, but it knows how to make you cringe, and will lock you in a dusty room with it.
It’s vague in exposition, not that a simple idea like this really needs to be super fleshed out. It stars Severance’s Adam Scott as Ohm Bauman, a famous Yankee novelist, a guy who grieves, and a big jerk. He arrives at a boutique Irish inn to scatter the ashes of his parents, and finish the last book in his trilogy. The challenge of writing an asshole lead that still has to convince the audience to root for them is damn refreshing. Scott’s performance holds it up too. He’s got a great jerk-face even without dialogue. He’s easy to pity, though- somewhere between Paul Sheldon from Misery, and a real life Stephen King, who shares the suspiciously balanced atmosphere that drove Jack Torrence nuts in The Shining.
Familiar Horror Influences with a Refined Execution
McCarthy borrows a lot from those two, and probably a catalog of blockbuster peek-a-boo scary movies. The reason Hokum is a good challenge for the horror gateway, is that it doesn’t try too hard to “elevate” (it does, though only a little) the genre. It listens and learns from its elders to complete the haunted hotel play-by-play. Not a repeat, but a re-do of the things that work for paranormal and folk horror. The aspect that Hokum brings home is the solid polycule made of production design, sound mixing, and cinematography. A happy, creepy home of cobwebs and jump scares.
The only hotel staff spared from Ohm’s terrible attitude is Fiona. When he learns she’s gone missing after a Halloween party he was famously blackout drunk for, he feels a responsibility to return the kindness and effort she had shown him. The last person to speak to Fiona was local kooky guy, Jerry (David Wilmot). His local status is confirmed by Ohm after Jerry claims Fiona is most likely dead in the honeymoon suite… because her ghost approached him and told him so. Jerry might be crazy, but Ohm has nothing to live for, apparently. Ohm agrees to investigate the suite that the hotel staff keep locked and out of service. It’s haunted by a witch, they say. Obviously.
Production Design and Sound Craft a Claustrophobic Nightmare
The suite, and the source of Hokum’s nightmares, is stunning work in the macabre department. Despite my distaste for them, it really is a playground for jump scares. Lighting and sound design do some real respectable heavy lifting that the viewer is forced (complimentary) to sit through. My personal playground, though, would be the dumbwaiter. The last time I had that much fun with one of those was when lowering Danny into the den of lizard aliens in Zathura (2005). Hokum’s dumbwaiter plays as much of a role as Adam Scott does in his.
Besides the horrors that persist in it, the honeymoon suite really comes alive with the one or two Resident Evil-esque puzzles in order to reach the meat of the mystery. A super engaging focus from cinematographer Colm Hogan to use frame ratio, and other visual camera tricks to induce the claustrophobia of the epicenter of scares. Bring back the dumbwaiter please.
Where Hokum Falls Short
What doesn’t work is excusable. The thin background information on Ohm’s trauma presents itself too often through a jump scare/flashback cocktail. Did this movie need to be 101 minutes, or could it have been 90? Did the viewer need to understand the weight of Ohm’s undesirable childhood? Not to this degree. I think these moments also risk confusion as to what supernatural thing we’re dealing with at the moment: the witch of the honeymoon suite, Fiona’s ghost, or the lasting haunt of Ohm’s mother’s tragic death? The film takes the “less is more” rule at about 70%- not awesome, but a passing grade, no doubt.
One of the most entertaining aspects of horror is its subgenres. Zombie films have an ever-branching group of sub-subgenres, as do slashers and paranormal films. It’s honestly exhausting to try to classify some of these films. Hell, my favorite bigfoot film, Night of the Demon, is a cryptid slasher film! Who knew that the slasher subgenre would ever have a cryptid branch to it?! But the straight-to-DVD times of the mid-aughts brought a series of weird slasher-ish films to the shelves of Walmart and FYE’s across the United States. One of those films that caught my eye (at too young an age) was a genuinely weird, trailer park, splatterpunk remake called 2001 Maniacs. (Would this technically fall under the Hellbilly slasher subgenre?)
What Is 2001 Maniacs About?
Anderson Lee (Jay Gillespie), Corey Jones (Matthew Carey), and Nelson Elliot (Dylan Edrington) are three college kids on their way to Daytona for Spring Break. As their college graduation looms, or lack of graduation, they want to go out with a bang. Literally. A detour leads the three and two other groups into the overly cheery town of Pleasant Valley. But this stuck-in-their-ways town has danger lurking beneath it. The town’s mayor, George W. Buckman (Robert Englund), who dons a Confederate flag eye patch, welcomes the eight travelers in with open arms. And just like that, the Guts n’ Glory festival is set to begin! Though who will make it out alive, and who will get turned into tonight’s pot roast?
A Movie that Shares Some Odd Company
I’ll be completely honest. I haven’t watched this movie in over a decade. There was a time in my life when I was hellbent on finding the most messed-up movies I could. As my watchlist grew, so did my desensitization. Movies like this, Freakshow (which proudly boasted it was banned in 47 countries), August Underground, and The Girl Next Door filled out my formative film-viewing years. While I can understand why some of these disgusting movies were made, some completely befuddled me as to why they were even made. Out of all of these films, 2001 Maniacs stuck in my head as the most perplexing of the bunch.
Writers Tim Sullivan and Chris Kobin, with direction from Tim Sullivan, are very competent voices in horror. They co-wrote Driftwood together, which, while not amazing, is better than the reviews suggest. Their work on Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror resulted in a great anthology film that gets overlooked in most conversations about anthologies. And Tim Sullivan wrote/directed the second-best segment in Chillerama, “I was a Teenage Werebear”. So, why this movie? Why remake Herschell Gordon Lewis’s just as perplexing Two Thousand Maniacs!?
2001 Maniacs’ Surprising Connection to Cabin Fever
Quick aside, since we’re also covering Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever this month. What’s interesting is that this film stars Giuseppe Andrews as Harper Alexander (who reprises his role of Deputy Winston in Cabin Fever 2). And towards the beginning of this film, Eli Roth reprises his role of Justin from Cabin Fever. So, Eli Roth exists in this world as his character from Cabin Fever, but Giuseppe Andrews exists as a completely different entity. That’s neither here nor there. Just an interesting observation that implies the flesh-eating disease also exists within this world. What are the odds? As much as I despise Eli Roth, it would have been fascinating to see this group of characters battle Confederate ghosts AND a flesh-eating disease.
Okay, where were we?
The Incredibly Shaky Acting in 2001 Maniacs
Nothing about this film works, except for a handful of practical effects. You can all hate me for what I’m about to say…and that’s okay. Robert Englund and Lin Shaye are not good actors. I will concede that Englud is great as Freddy, and he has worked his way into his legendary status. Beyond that? Not so much. Lin Shaye just…she’s a nepo sister who got in while the getting was good. Her high-pitched, high-energy line readings get old after more than 30 seconds of screentime. It’s easy to see why she has so many fans, and I’m happy that they have thousands of films to watch her in. I just think she took the spot of a potentially better actor. Though you should not mistake what I said as me saying the other actors in this movie are great. Because that is simply untrue. Nearly every scene feels as if the actors are reading their lines from a teleprompter slightly off-screen.
Do the Kills Make it Worth Sitting Through?
“But the point of this movie is the gory kills!” Okay, and? A few of the kills in 2001 Maniacs are fun and inventive, but you have to sit through endless filler until you get there. It gets to a point where this movie’s horniness becomes so over the top that even a hypersexual Joe Bob Briggs fan would become annoyed. You can say that it’s because this movie is a horror comedy, or that it’s supposed to be tongue-in-cheek. And I can come right back and say that there is not a single bit of ‘comedy’ in this movie that works. Vampires Suck is funnier than this. Hell, Disaster Movie is funnier than this.
2001 Maniacs is a Big Skip
2001 Maniacs is the closest I’ve come to a DNF when covering a film for Horror Press. The movie’s blatant racism-played-for-jokes becomes old before it even gets started. Decent practical effects are ruined by mid-aughts digital effects that would make the SciFi Channel cringe. God, how many times can you scream, “The South’s gonna rise again,” before it stops becoming satire and becomes weird? Calling this movie satire would be unfair because there is not a single moment of awareness throughout. Yes, they make Southerners look like pig-screwing dimwits, but it feels like it’s only done to cover their asses.
Do not watch 2001 Maniacs. It is a truly terrible movie. And that’s coming from someone who has watched nearly every SciFi Original, Mongolian Deathworm, and has sat through Verotika eight times.
The Horror Press Podcast Episode 59: Shudder & Sequels
[INTERVIEW] Alice Maio Mackay Talks ‘The Serpent’s Skin’
Overlook Film Festival: ‘Hokum’ Review
‘2001 Maniacs’ Is Spring Break…For Racists?!
‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’ Review: A Reboot With Mixed Results
5 Horror Movies To Watch When You’re Super Stoned
Everything You Need To Know About ‘From’
‘Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever’ Review: A Meth Trip That Never Ends
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‘The People Under the Stairs’ Review: A Brilliantly Bizarre Horror Classic
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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)
‘Truth or Dare’: Who Did it Best?
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