Yeon Sang-ho’s “Train to Busan” stands out as a refreshingly entertaining addition to the zombie genre, invoking nostalgia for Romero and Boyle but offering something distinct during a time kindness is critical. For years now, films centered around zombies have been premised on fearing our fellow human beings—the neighbor that walks and talks like you, but has an insatiable hunger for your brains. He’s dead inside. It’s one we all know. But “Train to Busan” goes beyond that dread by adding hopefulness that, no matter how dire the circumstances are, humanity still band together for one another—if not solely because those who step over the weak merely to save themselves will suffer greatly in the end. Put aside social critique—and it is so much more than that: wild ride with stunning built-up action sequences alongside appropriate ratios of character development and horror to make you care about what happens next.

“Train To Busan” kills on capturing emotion in monsters while sending a blast message suplex to notion of self-preservation clashing with altruism at heart when apocalypse looms overhead needing us rethink what it mean to us as humans. Ultimately this movie does everything “World War Z” truly needed do—show us chilling visions world comes crashing down while making audience think over very essence our nature instead mindless gore feast hide parts body watchers of blood tons overflow screens.

Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) is a divorced workaholic and an active businessman. He lives with his elderly mother and totally neglects his daughter Su-an (Kim Su-an) socially. Their relationship is strained to the point that he purchases a Nintendo Wii for her birthday, a gift he had previously given during Children’s Day. To make up for this discomforting present, he agrees to bring her on a much-desired trip—to Busan, which is 280 miles away from Tokyo. It is only an hour train ride from Seoul. What could go wrong? Even the set-up has beauty in its thematic symmetry because rather than just a train ride, for Seok-woo and Su-an, it’s an attempt by a father to repair broken relationships—either forged or forever fractured—in hopes at redemption. Perfect material for a zombie movie.

To start their early-morning routine, Seok-woo and Su-an see a convoy of emergency vehicles entering Seoul. On the train, Sang-ho artfully introduces his characters with beats including the train staff, two elderly sisters, a husband with his pregnant wife, a businessman (who will be Seok-woo in decades), and even a baseball team. Right before departure, an ill woman gets on the train while something unsettling but generally invisible is occurring above the station platform. In no time at all, she has transformed into a conductor turned rabid decapitating zombie who promptly turns into a mindless killing machine himself. They replicate like a virus turning entire sections of the train into zombies within seconds. These are “28 Days Later” style zombies—fast, focused, violent. They are rabid dogs ready to take over. And you thought your Metra commute couldn’t get any worse.

The fear of small spaces in “Train to Busan” becomes even more intense following a beautifully choreographed scene at a train station where our remaining travelers discover that the entire nation has gone zombie crazy. They learn that the undead are mostly blind and have severe difficulty with door handles, making sight and tunnels crucial. He gives us characters who want to do anything to survive and contrasting characters who will do everything to save others. Seok-woo tells his daughter early in the movie, “At a time like this, only watch out for yourself,” but learns that isn’t the advice we should give or hope to pass on to our kids. Without giving too much away, survivors from “Train To Busan” are so fortunate due to other people’s sacrifices. And it captures how panic turns people into monsters which makes them far stronger than your average zombies; as humans, it’s up to us to rise above these instinctual reactions during dire moments.”

Following the almost flawless first hour of “Train to Busan,” the movie does take a couple of repetitive halts, and while the pacing feels slow, the final moments are absolutely breathtaking. You could call it “Train of The Living Dead” or “Snowpiercer with Zombies.” Either way, if you like zombie movies and have one close to your area, there’s no reason to think you wouldn’t be entertained by this one.