Part of our CINEMA IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS series. Saturday, June 6, 2020 @ 10p, Netflix Streaming Service: TRAIN TO BUSAN (2016 Netflix, dir by Yeon Sang-ho, streaming, 118mns)
HOW TO: While we all work to be socially responsible during the age of coronavirus, Secret Movie Club is experimenting with news ways we can all come together as a community and watch great movies.
We want to keep this very reasonable since folks have to have Netflix to start with. So donate whatever works for you. $1 is fine with us.
Just make sure you download NETFLIX PARTY on a Chrome Browser. You'll see the initials NP in the upper right hand corner of browser after a succesful download.
Secret Movie Club will email the link for the Netflix Party at 30 minutes before showtime using the email you provide here. Click that link then click the NP in upper right hand corner. This will synch you to our screening. We will start the movie at exactly 5 minutes after the hour.
There will be a chat function that allows everyone to comment as we go.
The Secret Movie Club team will be offering trivia, history, insights, articles, deep dives throughout the movie(s). We're going to work to make this as rich a feast as possible utilizing the technology at hand.
Then we'll want your feedback immediately on how we can improve/make it better! This also will allow Secret Movie Clubbers from all over the world to join in on a virtual screening!
Well gang. . .let’s get the warning out at the beginning of this: Train To Busan is not going to be the feel good zombie apocalypse horror movie you’ve been looking for. Instead, it’s going to be one of the most heart racing, pulse pounding, sweat, chills, anxiety inducing “I didn’t ask to be locked into this roller coaster ride” zombie apocalypse movies you’ve ever seen.
South Korean style.
If we have learned anything about South Korean cinema across the last decade, it’s that the South Korean cinema community never seems to do anything at 7. It’s going to 11 or nothing.
Here we get a workaholic dad, Seok-woo, who decides to take his daughter by train to visit her mother in Busan. But suddenly a very “sick and contagious” person boards the train and all hell breaks loose.
From there, Seok-woo, his daughter, and the remaining human passengers (not turned into zombies) have to figure a way to survive and get to safety while the train barrels through a South Korean quickly becoming consumed by the zombie epidemic.
As this programmer thinks about it, it’s hard to really call this “entertainment” in this time of coronavirus. But Train to Busan is such an amazing movie in terms of how it wrings so much emotion, psychology, thought out of a horror genre you would have thought was drained by now.
But in fact, the zombie genre has proven to be one of our most evergreen genres. Every generation or ten years, something about society lends itself to an examination through the lens of zombies. Maybe it’s some collective unconscious fear (well founded) that we’re going to hurtle through life without ever making any meaningful change or contributing to/changing society for the betterment of everyone.
And, if you don’t want any of that egghead stuff, you should still join us to watch how you really do a zombie movie if you want to scare the s@#t out of your audience.
Best always,
Craig Hammill
35mm Secret Movie Club Founder.Programmer