The Sadness (2021)

The Sadness is a Taiwanese body horror film from Rob Jabbaz, and its cultural ledger is thin enough to see through. A young couple tries to reunite while a virus turns Taipei into a slaughterhouse of sadists. The cast is entirely Taiwanese because the film is a domestic production set in Taipei, and no representational commentary is attached to that fact. There are no LGBTQ themes, no engagement with racial identity, no climate concerns, no body positivity, no neurodivergence, and no revisionist history. The body here is a site of mutilation and revulsion, not affirmation. This is not a film with a social program.

It does contain a few faint political murmurs. Government officials downplay the Alvin virus to protect their re-election campaign, which is a cynical dig at self-interested authority. That is diffuse misanthropy, not an economic critique of wealth. The violence is gleefully misogynistic exploitation, soaked in sexual violence against women. Kat survives and bludgeons her pursuer to death with a fire extinguisher, but that is exploitation grammar, not a feminist statement. Critics noted the film feels unencumbered by any need to spell out an overarching message. It chooses visceral shock over sermonizing. Its only sermon is gore.

What we are left with is a slick gorefest: practical effects, a subway car, a hospital, an infected businessman with a fire axe. It is almost refreshing in its refusal to moralize. Almost. The film's politics are a shrug, a sneer, and a bucket of blood. We classify it as horror, not as a cultural seminar. The overall social consciousness is minimal, and the experience is visceral and unpleasant. That is the point.