Dead Earth (2020)
Let me be completely straight with you: if you've already sat through Paradise Z, also released under the title Two of Us, then you have already seen Dead Earth. Every single frame of it. This is not a reimagining, not a director's cut, not a fresh spin on familiar material. It is the exact same film, pulled out of the bargain bin, given a new title card, and pushed back out into the world hoping nobody notices. Well, I noticed. And I feel a genuine moral obligation to make sure you do too before you waste your time.
Wych Kaosayananda directed this, and I'll say the same thing I said about the previous incarnation of the film: there is real visual craft on display here. The cinematography is genuinely fine. Lush, sun-drenched, crystal-clear water surrounded by beautiful natural scenery. Individual frames look polished and considered. If you were flicking past this on mute, you might actually stop and give it a go. That is, in a way, the cruellest trick the film plays on you.
Because once you press play and actually commit to watching it, you very quickly realise you're in for a gruelling endurance test. For roughly sixty minutes, Dead Earth operates less like a zombie film and more like an extremely slow, meditative romance between its two lead actresses, who spend the vast majority of screen time relaxing by the pool and engaging in various romantic activities. The director is clearly going for something intimate and unhurried, building character in a quiet post-apocalyptic world. I can respect the ambition in theory. The execution, though, is another matter entirely. We're talking literal ten-minute stretches with no dialogue, no tension and absolutely no zombie activity whatsoever. What's supposed to feel contemplative just feels like a holiday video that somehow got mis-shelved in the horror section.
It's a baffling tonal mismatch. You've marketed this as a zombie survival film. People have sat down expecting dread, danger, something resembling stakes. Instead, they get the cinematic equivalent of watching someone else's sun holiday footage while waiting for a bus. The romance isn't developed with enough skill to carry the film on its own terms either, so the whole first hour just sort of drifts by, achieving very little.
Then, with about twenty minutes left on the clock, the film suddenly remembers what genre it's supposed to belong to. The undead finally show up. And here's the thing: the practical zombie makeup and gore effects are actually decent. There's clearly been some real graft put into the creature design, and it shows. In a better film, those effects would land with real impact. But the direction of these sequences is so flat, the acting so uninvolving, and the story so incoherent by this point that the finale just collapses into a chaotic, deeply unsatisfying mess. There's no horror here. No tension. Just noise and confusion before the credits roll.
I do find myself thinking about the broader Thai film scene when I watch something like this, because Thailand has produced genuinely bold, adventurous filmmaking. I've been fascinated by the slow, meditative approach of directors like Apichatpong Weerasethakul, whose work in Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives shows exactly how deliberately-paced, quiet cinema can be profound and strange and deeply affecting. Dead Earth seems to be reaching for something in that neighbourhood, and it gets nowhere near it. Patience as a filmmaking tool requires intention. This just feels like content padding.
The acting is weak throughout, the narrative is essentially non-existent, and any horror instinct is almost entirely absent until it's far too late to salvage anything. The only reason this gets one star rather than a flat zero is those genuinely nice visual compositions and the surprisingly competent gore work in the final act. It's a beautiful, well-shot failure, and I'll give it that much.
But here's the bottom line: you're not just being sold a bad film. You're being sold the same bad film twice, repackaged and relabelled in the hope that you won't clock what's happening. That kind of cynicism deserves to be called out plainly. Don't be fooled by the new title. Give this one a wide berth.
One star.
Rating: ★ | Year: 2020 | Watched: 2026-07-02
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Amazon Prime Video · Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Rent: Apple TV Store · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Buy: Apple TV Store · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: MovieSphere+ Amazon Channel
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
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