The Sadness (2021)

What makes The Sadness special is its absolute commitment to horror as a physical experience—an onslaught of dread and adrenaline that never lets you settle into comfort. Rob Jabbaz stages the outbreak like a citywide descent into pure id, with relentless pacing, nasty surprises, and practical effects so convincingly grotesque they feel alarmingly real. Beneath the carnage, there’s a simple, human throughline—a couple trying to find each other—that gives the chaos a pulse and keeps the nightmare grounded. This is not a casual Friday-night fright (it’s genuinely extreme), but for hardcore horror fans who want something brutal, shocking, and ferociously effective, it’s a must-see.

The Sadness is clearly aiming to be a no-holds-barred pandemic nightmare—an endurance test of human depravity where the point is the relentless escalation, not nuanced storytelling. If you need a solid plot, believable character work, or a thoughtfully developed allegory to stay invested, this will likely feel thin, repetitive, and conceptually exhausting. The film also leans into extreme, often gratuitous sexual violence, which many viewers find not just upsetting but distracting in a way that can sour the whole experience. That said, if you’re specifically hunting for uncompromising gore, high-intensity chaos, and practical effects that don’t blink, it delivers exactly that—just don’t expect it to be “deep” or remotely comforting.