You’re Just Like Me … Violent and Depraved: The Sadness

Just another day living in the pandemic, huh? As far as Jim (Zhu Berant) and Kat (Lei Regina) know, they’re getting ready for a normal day. They shower and eat while talking head political show hosts are decrying the scare tactics of scientists like Dr. Alan Wong (Lan Wei-Hua) who warn about potential mutations and hazard surrounding the Alvin Virus—sure, it hasn’t caused any deaths or effects worse than the flu, but it’s nevertheless a danger. Or is it just scare tactics during an election cycle? Whatever. Jim’s got to see a guy about a photography shoot, and Kat has to cope with intrusive businessman (Wang Tzu-Chiang) chatting her up on the bus …

But it’s not any other day. Throughout Taipei, people are turning into crazies and giving in to their most imaginatively depraved and baser instincts. On a subway car, a guy starts stabbing strangers, grinning and weeping and demanding to know if he’s “beat the record.” In the streets, grinning people stomp arms out of shape, brutalize those who happen to be within reaching distance, and race after those who aren’t. Neighbors turn on neighbors, parents turn on children, strangers turn on strangers, cops turn on those they are supposed to protect, and citizens smash everything and everyone in sight in an orgy of violence.

Jim finds himself in a cross city trip to reunite with his lover, while Kat finds herself in a constant struggle to stay one step ahead of these grinning fiends. Sexual abuses, sadistic torments, cannibalism, and murder (though not necessarily in that order) await anyone who cannot keep moving. Canadian born and Taiwanese living writer/director Rob Jabbaz evokes the pandemic, zombie flicks, Cronenbergian mad science, and some of the most effectively repulsive violence I’ve seen on screen when he helms The Sadness (2021).

Some apocalyptic movies take off with a bang. Others start slow, show some of the spread, and then erupt into actioners. That rage virus outbreak in Montevideo flick we reviewed a few weeks back, Virus: 32 (2022) was one of the latter. So too is The Sadness, which kicks off with about ten or so minutes of regular world stuff, punctuated by the occasional bit of strangeness—an old woman in a bloody gown gazing over the rooftops, for example. Then, the film erupts into a non-stop assault. A street corner restaurant turns into a battle zone. A subway car gets drenched in gore. An insane baseball team employ playground equipment for wholly unsafe sports. A hospital becomes a place of bloodletting instead of healing. It’s all fast, it’s all insanely violent, and it’s all disturbing AF.

It takes real talent to keep up this momentum. Jabbaz, cinematographer Bai Jie-Li, and the effects team manage to continually ramp up the insanity without repeating themselves or falling into cartoonish parody. This is a movie that delivers some of the most sustained creative mayhem I’ve seen in a while. It pushes everything to the max, almost creeps over my “too far” line. Is it gratuitous? You bet. Is it meaner than a rattlesnake poked with a stick? Yep. Does it have heart as well as horror? Well, sort of. But it has plenty of ideas. And it takes jabs at politics and the bestial essence of humanity—at its core, the film says, everyone has the capacity to become this. It’s not faith or parenting that prevents us from turning into sadists, it is unblocked higher brain functions.

The killers you see are not mere zombies, following their baser instincts without understanding that what they’re doing is horrible to the survivors. The hordes in The Sadness know what they are doing is wrong, but this knowledge cannot stop them. They continue to humiliate, fuck, eat, and kill, weeping as they do so, unable to stop no matter how their trapped higher brain functions might demand, beg, cry. This is a whole other world of horror. Not only are we asked to feel for the victims, but we are also ultimately asked to sympathize with the perpetrators … they are victims too. We don’t see it right away, or even until the final act when a virologist character makes a few expository revelations, but this information actually does the job of recontextualizing everything that came before. It’s a marvel that it works but work it does.

One of the finest performances actually comes from Chen Ying-Ru, who first shows up for the subway car scene and then sticks around a bit longer than expected. Her character Molly is a shy woman with a non-traditional body type, and an endearing shyness. She spends some time in a state of shocked horror ala Barbara from Night of the Living Dead (1968), but she eventually widens her emotional range and ultimately has the widest range of all the characters.

Wang Tzu-Chiang plays a character who seems to embody the idea of a passive-aggressive incel nerd given free rein to live out his fantasies. When we first meet the nameless Businessman, he’s trying to hit on the quietly reading Kat. She kindly asks him to stop, but he doesn’t, and then he has the sack to get uppity when she yells at him to stop harassing her with threats to report him to the cops. Then, the Businessman grumbles about why is conversation a crime? Eventually, he gets infected and turns into a regular antagonist for Kat. His dialogue is all loaded with misogynistic slurs and unhinged sexual desires, Wang never breaks away from his grin as he flicks his tongue or makes promises about what he wants to do … When he finally catches up with Kat for the inevitable showdown, the businessman gleefully discovers, “You are just like me …. Violent and depraved,” as a final kiss off. Wang gives this line his all. The role is loathsome but perfectly played.

The leads are good sources of stability throughout the piece. Lei playing a woman in jeopardy who must depend upon herself while waiting for her boyfriend to come save her, and Zhu playing the stalwart guy going through hell to reunite. We never doubt they will find one another, but we do wonder if either of them will be sane and healthy.

The film draws easy comparisons with some of the better people gone nuts epidemic flicks, such as Romero’s The Crazies (1973), it’s 2010 remake, 28 Days Later (2002), as well as the sequel 28 Weeks Later (2007), and the aforementioned Virus: 32. Supposedly, the comic book series Crossed is an influence on the thing, but I somehow missed that one and cannot comment. This movie took me to a similar disturbing place that books like Richard Laymon’s One Rainy Night, Edward Lee’s Header, or Bryan Smith’s Depraved do. This is hardcore horror done with gusto and spirit, and a complete lack of inhibitions.

The Sadness will not be everyone’s cup of apocalyptic tea. Trista noped out shortly after the subway car scene. For those viewers looking for an apocalyptic scenario with the kinetic quality and insane pacing of Train to Busan (2016) and no compunctions about going too far or showing too much, then this is the dish of the week. It’s the new standard by which gorehounds can measure a successful horror flick.

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The Sadness is a Shudder Original and therefore streaming on that service. There’s also a streaming edition. At some point, there will be DVD and Blu-ray editions.

Next week, we shift gears a bit to take a look at the gorgeously shot tale of a woman serial killer plying her trade as The Stylist (2020). It is available in DVD, Blu-ray, and streaming editions.

Writing for “You’re Just Like Me … Violent and Depraved: The Sadness” is copyright © 2022 by Daniel R. Robichaud.

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