Zombies are everywhere in South Korea, feeding on fears and anxieties

Kim Hyeong-seek knows what he would do in a zombie apocalypse. Hollywood, which popularized the modern cinematic zombie, is planning a remake of “Train to Busan,” the 2016 blockbuster that instigated South Korea’s zombie craze. “Train to Busan” was released after two events that shook South Korea’s faith in its government: the bungled 2014 rescue response by officials that led to the drownings of hundreds of high school students in a ferry sinking, and the widespread panic caused in 2015 when the government provided little — or inaccurate — information on the spread of Middle East respiratory syndrome. “I melded within the story the South Korean society I lived through.” Kim Hyeong-seek, the cultural studies scholar, last fall published a 504-page treatise on zombies, their ontology and their resurgence in the times of neoliberalism titled “Zombiology.” For him, South Korea’s young zombie canon is distinct in that many of the stories are interested not just in the human fight for survival but also in how the undead came to be. If South Korea’s zombies are resonating elsewhere, Kim said, it’s because they touch on universal themes of class and inequality, as did the Oscar-winning movie “Parasite.” “Zombies are often thought of as ignorant, unconscious slaves that simply follow along,” he said.