LOS ANGELES, Aug. 24 (UPI) — Colony, in theaters Aug. 28, evolves zombie horror with disturbing complications. With elements of Dawn of the Dead and Train to Busan, Colony is effectively visceral and scary.

Suh Young-chul (Koo Kyo-hwan) threatens the Chains Bio Conference with his experimental bioweapon. Professor Kwan Se-Jeong (Gianna Jun) attends CEO Kang’s (Kim Jong-tae) keynote with her boss, Han Kyeoh sung (Go Soo).

The convention is attached to the Doongwoori mall, so when Suh infects the first person, it spreads to shoppers as well as biotech executives. The first infection happens 12 minutes into the film so it gets moving quickly.

The infected are not undead, but the chemical makes them vomit white liquid and bound on all fours, leaping like animals. They bend unnaturally, giving them an otherly appearance, eventually entwining with other infected bodies.

The survivors barricade themselves in shops and figure out how to survive and escape, learning the rules fairly quickly. The infected are drawn to light and pheromones.

So the survivors create diversions with a wheelchair, meaning the wheelchair user’s (Kim Shin-rok) brother (Ji Chang-wook) carries her on his back the rest of the movie. They douse dummies with perfume.

Still, escape from door to door, often across the mall hall, has a suspenseful time limit. Automated screens will redirect the infected’s attention, and pedestrians are understandably afraid when they have to tiptoe and run.

Like all great zombie movies, the infighting between survivors is as large a threat as the infected themselves. Many disagree about whether they should kill the infected (many saying yes).

Prof. Kwan often has to be the voice of reason and science. High school girls find their petty beefs exponentially exacerbated by the crisis. When loved ones die, the survivors blame each other.

The specifics of the biotech have something to say about potential unchecked research, but mostly they add formidable twists to the infected as they evolve throughout the day. Kang was researching collective intelligence, so all infected communicate telepathically.

Suh made himself the vaccine and as such, he can control all the infected. When the survivors find Suh, he knows they need him for the vaccine and lords it over them, refusing to help.

The mall setting is a clear homage to Dawn of the Dead, with director Yeon Sang-ho evoking the style of his own Train to Busan. Tracking shots through the infected horde follow survivors evading them.

There is a counterterrorism unit stationed outside the building. Gong Seol-hee (Shin Hyun-been), searches for a cure and relays her discoveries back to the survivors in the mall.

Colony adds plenty of new twists to the genre to update it with modern biotech and social fears. Still, it is the basics of survival horror that give it the effective skeleton to scare and thrill viewers.

Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.