AMC’s horror streaming service, Shudder, has acquired Rob Jabbaz’s directorial feature debut The Sadness. Jabbaz’s zombie horror film delighted audiences in its initial festival run premiering at Fantasia International Film Festival where the movie picked up Best First Feature and earned Jabbaz a Best Director award at Fantastic Fest. The Canadian filmmaker's previous work consists primarily of animated shorts.
The Sadness was shot exclusively in Taipei, Taiwan, where the film takes place. Jabbaz, originally from Mississauga, Ontario, now resides in Taipei, making it the ideal location to shoot. The film follows a young couple, Regina Lei and Berant Zhu during a zombie plague that has turned the city and the world upside down. Lei and Zhu’s characters start their day as normal only to begin a desperate attempt to find each other in the chaos. Through a series of bloody gore, violence, and creepy zombies that the young lovers must fight to survive.
Jabbaz's zombies are unlike most bloodthirsty creatures willing to bite and fight for brains. The zombies of The Sadness are sexually motivated heathens that thirst for more than just blood and human flesh. One particular zombie donning a power suit and eerie smile will make even the most seasoned moviegoer squirm with his grotesque antics and thirst for female flesh. Jabbaz presents a reflection of the pandemic and the consequences that follow through the lens of this zombie horror film. As the rules become lax and humanity tries to return to normalcy the virus spawns and mutates into the worst side of humanity. Humans succumb to the violence and depravity only to be a shell of their once human form and become a depraved, sex-addicted, flesh and blood-eating society.
Shudder was eager to have The Sadness join the platform, with Craig Engler, General Manager of Shudder saying “The Sadness is a brutal, boundary-pushing shocker, one of the boldest and bloodiest we’ve ever acquired. We anticipate it having a legendary and well-deserved following among Shudder members.”
The film will be available exclusively on Shudder in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand on Thursday, May 12. You can watch the Red Band trailer below, but be warned there is plenty of blood, guts, and sex-crazed zombies!