The Night Eats the World: One Man's Slow Descent into Madness

Since the release of the 1960s classic Night of the Living Dead which launched the zombie horror genre, there have been tons of (maybe too many) movies that have been put out under this genre, many of which have been Z-rated gore fests with a few gems in the pile of rubbish. These movies center on the living dead and how they became that way (usually by way of a virus) and the protagonist(s) determination to find a cure; a determination which a lot of time is fueled by losing a loved one to the virus. This particular trope can be tiring and cliché except in a few instances such as The Girl with all the Gifts, the South-Korean zombie horror Train to Busan and of course the ‘28’ franchise which all combine the usual trope while exploring themes of human greed, kindness and love.

However, The Night Eats the World is not your typical zombie horror. There is barely any dialogue or action as there is only one major character in the movie and of course this might sound boring to most people because what kind of zombie horror has barely any action in it? I mean most of us want to see the protagonist(s) seeking sweet vengeance and coming in guns blazing shooting the heads off of those living dead sons of bitches but this isn’t that kind of film. This is a heartbreaking tale of one man’s survival, loneliness and eventual descent into madness in a world infested with zombies.

The movie begins with our protagonist at a house party thrown by an ex’s new flame but he doesn’t really want to be there. He just wants to collect the old cassette tapes he left with her while they were together and be on his way but she keeps stalling him, insisting that he stay for a while maybe have a drink and socialize while she welcomes more guests to the party. Eventually he gets frustrated and tells her he doesn’t want to be there and that she should give him the tapes so he can be out of there and out of her life. She tells him she will be with him soon and shows him to a quiet room where he can go and wait for her. He gets there, has a nose bleed and eventually falls asleep while tilting back his head to stop the bleeding. He wakes the next day to find the house empty and wrecked with blood spattered all over the walls. He heads to the door to leave only to find two zombies lurking one of whom is his ex from the party the night before.

The rest of the film follows our protagonist as he first fights for basic needs such as food and water and he has no problem being alone because as we saw from the beginning of the film, he is not much of a social type and for a long while he’s content this way. He rations his food, makes and listens to music, exercises and seems happy but after a while he begins to crave human interaction and companionship so he befriends a zombie stuck in the apartment building elevator. This ghoul can’t respond to anything he says but he’s happy just having the presence of another “human”.

This is not an on the nose film in which every scene is relayed to the audience through dialogue. Instead, the audience is left to use visual cues to figure out what is happening in a scene such as the change in lighting from scene to scene as the movie progresses to indicate a long passage of time or changes in the main character’s physical appearance to show that his mental state is deteriorating.

Most zombie horror movies except a select few are nothing but rollercoaster rides for those thrill seekers who love to see blood and guts in all its beauty but The Night Eats the World challenges the genre by exploring the human psyche in such a world where humanity is lost. This out of the box thinking is indicative of a lot of foreign horror films where directors aren’t afraid to take common movie themes/tropes and dig deep enough to discover what lies beneath i.e. The inner workings of the human mind when it is pushed to the limit.

The protagonist in this movie starts out finding human interaction annoying and wants to be as far away from people as possible but by the end of the film he almost loses his mind because of a lack of it. This brings to mind our current times where some of us were forced to be alone with ourselves and with our thoughts a lot of the time and how a worldwide crisis snapped us back to reality and reminded us the importance of our daily interactions, relationships, networks and friendships; things that we typically take for granted.

On a side note, foreign horror cinema is something we all need to hop on as there is very little restriction on what kind of content filmmakers can put out there (in terms of graphic content and controversial or offensive topics). Here are some other foreign horror films to watch:

·         A Tale of Two Sisters

·         Raw

·         Train to Busan

·         Goodnight Mummy

·         Let the Right One In

·         A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

·         The Host

           The Wailing

·         The Skin I Live In

·         The Devil’s Backbone

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