Zombie and infection films have long been a proving ground for aspiring horror filmmakers. The subgenre is relatively inexpensive to produce, often relying on claustrophobic settings, survival scenarios, and plentiful blood-and-makeup effects. Because of this, it’s become an enticing entry point for directors looking to make their mark. But while horror can be a forgiving sandbox for experimentation, creating a film that is not just watchable but truly memorable is another matter entirely.
That’s why Rob Jabbaz’s 2021 debut feature The Sadness feels like both a breath of fresh air and a brutal gut-punch. In a cinematic landscape oversaturated with lifeless zombie rehashes, The Sadness stands out as one of the rare gems in the rough: an uncompromising, unfiltered vision that twists infection horror into grotesque new extremes.
The film’s timing alone heightens its impact. Premiering in 2021 as the world was still reeling from COVID-19, The Sadness unfolded against a backdrop of real-world uncertainty and fear. Set in Taipei, it follows a young couple, Jim (Berant Zhu) and Kat (Regina Lei), as they struggle to reunite while a viral outbreak ravages the city. But this isn’t a traditional zombie plague. Those infected don’t stumble through streets in mindless hunger—instead, they shed every shred of empathy and morality, indulging instead in the darkest, most depraved impulses imaginable.
What makes this outbreak particularly disturbing is not the survivalist violence we expect from zombie cinema, but the sadistic cruelty with which the infected embrace their new instincts. They don’t just kill. They torment, torture, and mutilate with gleeful abandon. And yet, in one of the film’s most haunting touches, many of the infected appear to be crying as they carry out these atrocities. Buried deep in the recesses of their corrupted minds is an awareness of the horror of their actions, a recognition that what they are doing is monstrous and wrong. But the virus strips them of the ability to stop themselves, forcing them to participate in their own cruelty even as they mourn it. This paradox of weeping while committing acts of unthinkable violence underlines the film’s title: The Sadness is not simply about gore or shock, but about the profound tragedy of human beings imprisoned within impulses they are horrified to enact.
On its surface, the film invites comparisons to Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later—especially in its depiction of a city descending into viral chaos. But where Boyle’s rage virus unleashed primal anger, Jabbaz’s strain of infection is even more terrifying: it revels in cruelty, poisoning not just the body but the soul. The Sadness also recalls Garth Ennis’ infamous Crossed comic series—widely deemed unfilmable due to its extremes. That connection is impossible to ignore, both in subject matter and in its deliberate transgressiveness.
As writer, editor, and director, Jabbaz approaches the material with unnerving precision. The first act foreshadows the viral threat in subtle ways—background chatter on TV screens, fleeting moments of sudden aggression—before Taipei collapses into anarchy almost overnight. The narrative remains lean and purposeful, stripping away filler in favor of pacing that escalates terror with brutal efficiency.
Shot in just 28 days, the film nevertheless carries an impressive polish. Cinematographer Jie-Li Bai and production designer Liu Chin-Fu infuse the movie with a grounded sense of place: crowded subways, sterile hospitals, bustling street corners. Each environment feels authentically lived-in before they transform, piece by piece, into blood-soaked arenas of carnage. Practical gore effects are prioritized over CGI, and the result is viscerally effective—sickening yet strangely mesmerizing, almost operatic in their execution. Like the best extreme horror, it locates a twisted beauty in its spectacle of destruction.
The Sadness is more than just gore for gore’s sake. Released during the height of a global pandemic, the film functions as a thematic mirror, reflecting society’s fractures under pressure—our denial of crisis, government missteps, selfish impulses, and the darkness that emerges when rules and trust collapse. Whether or not Jabbaz meant the film as a direct allegory is almost irrelevant; in its execution, it feels pandemic-era, uncannily timely, and raw.
Unsurprisingly, the horror community quickly drew parallels to Ennis’ Crossed. The comparison resonated so strongly that Jabbaz himself has since been attached to direct a live-action Crossed adaptation. If The Sadness is any indication, he may be the rare filmmaker with both the vision and the audacity to bring such an “unfilmable” work to life.
From its deceptively calm beginning to its bleak and nihilistic finale, The Sadness never loosens its grip. It is not a film for everyone—many will find it too transgressive, too nihilistic, or simply too traumatic to endure. But for horror fans who crave extremity, who embrace the genre as a place where boundaries should be tested, The Sadness is more than another zombie flick. It is a tragedy as much as it is a nightmare, and the sight of its infected monsters weeping as they commit atrocities lingers long after the credits roll. That image embodies the very essence of the title: a work that confronts not only our capacity for violence, but the unbearable sorrow of being aware of it, powerless, and consumed.
It is a defining statement in 21st-century horror: brutal, relentless, grotesque, and timely. Rob Jabbaz’s debut doesn’t just enter the infection canon—it tears through it, leaving behind a benchmark of modern extreme cinema.
Through the Shattered Lens 