WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Season 1 of All of Us Are Dead, now streaming on Netflix.
One of horror’s most famous movies is 1976’s Carrie, which adapted Stephen King’s haunting novel about a young girl fighting back after being bullied. Sissy Spacek thoroughly impressed as the titular character, who decided at last to embrace her telekinesis and make a statement after years of abuse.
Interestingly, Netflix’s Korean zombie series, All of Us Are Dead, paid tribute to Carrie‘s most iconic scene, remixing it with a main character wanting to gain revenge for being bullied as well.
Carrie snapped at prom when she was tricked into being queen. The bullies lured her onstage, then dumped pig’s blood on her as part of the prank, not realizing she’d go haywire with her powers. Carrie then started tearing the place apart with her mind, damaging the lights, starting a fire and locking everyone inside. She didn’t care who was good or evil. Everyone — teachers and students alike — had to pay, because people not doing anything to help her tragic high-school life were complicit. It culminated in her going home to finish the job on her mom, Margaret, who tortured her with religious fanaticism over the years.
All of Us Are Dead had its own Carrie in Min Eun-ji, a timid young girl, who was abused repeatedly by bullies, maybe even sexually. It was heavily implied when they recorded her topless, promising to leak the tape if she didn’t do what they said, more or less making her a slave.
Like Carrie, she grew depressed and even tried to take her life, only for a classmate to try to stop her. She eventually left to find a phone after the zombies overran the school, only to get bitten and develop into a hybrid. This granted her the power of being able to heal quickly and walk amongst the zombies while retaining her human side. Per the infection, her fear manifested as rage, making her want blood. Eventually, she had the option of leaving, but Eun-ji returned to light a lab on fire as she didn’t want anyone to survive.
She was blinded by anger, just like Carrie, and felt like this was dark karma. She remembered how teachers victim-blamed her and ignored the bullying, as well as how fellow students were afraid to speak out in her defense. She took joy in torching the system, basking in revenge as she bicycled off towards the heart of Hyosan.
Admittedly, the execution played out differently in Carrie because the sprinklers at Hyosan High put the fire out, but the same spirit of vengeance was there. Eun-ji didn’t care who was still alive to fight for their lives, who was undead or who was innocent. Eun-ji totally snapped, hoping chaos would purge the place and reset a school that did nothing but cause her immense pain. It was another sympathetic, cautionary tale that turned a quiet girl into a villain, reminding bullies and non-bullies alike that when the super-powered lose patience, the collateral damage will be high.
See how Min Eun-ji becomes a zombie Carrie in Season 1 of All of Us Are Dead, now streaming on Netflix.
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