10 MORE Horror Movies Where The Hero ALMOST Won
3. Train to Busan
Zombies really went from a happy return in the early noughties to outstaying their welcome more abrasively than the sight of a decomposing corpse. By the time South Korea got around to taking their chomp at the genre, our rotten friends were smelling ripe. Baffling, then, that filmmaker Yeon Sang-ho not only managed to buck that trend with Train to Busan, but delivered one of the strongest entries of the subgenre - and, surprisingly, punched you straight in the feels.
The entire plot revolves around estranged father Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) having to take an awkward commute with his daughter Seong-kyeong (Jung Yu-mi) on a long-distance train ride. By coincidence, a zombie outbreak explodes in parallel and infects their form of travel, and this wet wipe of a man finally picks up the task of being the protector of the century to his young girl.
Several busted zombie heads, heroic sacrifices, and passenger screaming matches ensue, until the finale when Seok-woo has his surviving daughter and a pregnant passenger hop onto a train heading to the last remaining safe haven (you got it - Busan!). Sadly, he’s bitten on the hand as they escape, and infection is imminent. After making sure their transport is safe, Seok-woo says goodbye to his little girl before stepping out the back and leaping to his demise as he takes a moment to remember holding his daughter on her first day alive.
Who thought a zombie movie could get you to cry? If only he could have dodged that undead.