A new Korean thriller just dropped, and it’s got a tight hold on us viewers just like a zombie munching on a survivor. Colony is now screening in theaters, and here’s why you need to go see it ASAP.

Colony (2026)

Directed by Yoon Sang-ho of Train to Busan fame, Colony is set in a corporate building housing a biotech conference spirals into catastrophe when a rapidly mutating virus is unleashed, trapping a group of unfortunate survivors with hive-like zombies.

Our thoughts on Colony

Just when you think you’ve seen everything the zombie genre has to offer, here comes Colony crashing down and changing the rules. Colony’s zombies aren’t mindless drones trudging slowly along, because as the infection spreads, they think collectively like a hive mind, coordinating, adapting, and learning quickly how to outsmart the humans, elevating the threat beyond chaos into something calculated and eerily intelligent. It shifts the movie from the standard run-and-hide zombie survival film into a brutal battle against an overwhelming hive mind.

And of course, you can trust that this is a zombie film you’d enjoy since Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho is the one at the helm of this project. As always, he knows how to maximize tension by isolating characters inside a sealed-off corporate building. Much like the train did in Train to Busan, the building here creates a sense of claustrophobia that only adds to the tension between the survivors trapped inside. It feels like a confident return to the genre that made him internationally known.

The film doesn’t slow down—there’s no dull moment as the situation spirals tighter and more dangerous with every scene. The stress level continuously escalates, especially as unexpected twists shift alliances and survival outcomes in unpredictable ways.

When you combine all that with a star-studded ensemble cast, you get a powerhouse lineup. Jun Jihyun as Kwon Sejeong is the emotional core of the film, becoming the leader of the survival group out of sheer necessity.

Meanwhile, Koo Kyo-hwan as Seo Young-cheol is so convincingly and amazingly unsettling that just seeing him smile makes us nervous.

Ji Changwook as Choi Hyun-seok was a bit underused. He brought to the table much of the raw physical action, but it was his desperate struggle to protect his disabled sister (played by Kim Shinrok) that delivered the most impactful emotional blow.

That said, Colony still leans on familiar character tropes: the privileged and selfish employee versus lower-level workers and the frustratingly reckless character whose poor decisions repeatedly put others in danger. While these archetypes are recognizable, they occasionally feel predictable amid the film’s otherwise inventive execution.

Moreover, Colony delivers less of the emotional punches that Train to Busan is known for and more of a captivating showcase of the cruel side of humanity. Director Yeon Sangho deliberately puts the melodrama and lengthy backstories on the backburner. Instead, we get to know the human survivors through the choices they make in the heat of a zombie-infested moment, spreading fractures of distrust among them faster than the virus.

Our verdict: see it or skip it?

We say see it — and see it in theaters. The experience of collectively gasping and screaming in a movie house full of cinemagoers is simply unmatched. Even if sometimes you’d end up hiding behind your hands.

Overall, Colony delivers a tightly wound, modern zombie thriller with strong performances, relentless pacing, and a chillingly updated concept of infection and control. It may not reinvent the genre emotionally, but it values intelligence just as much as it values scares, keeping the pressure high until the very end.

We get why the Cannes audience gave it a standing ovation.

Colony is now screening in theaters nationwide.

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Photos from Colony via IMDB