Collective nouns can be quite entertaining; for instance, a group of flamingos is called a flamboyance, then there’s an embarrassment of pandas, a murder of crows and a crash of rhinos.

Less exciting is a colony of ants, but it’s pertinent here as this South Korean horror not only uses the term for its title, but also leans into its meaning in a grizzly fashion.

Arriving at the Doongwoori Building for a science conference are ex-couple Kwon Se-jeong (Jun Ji-hyun) and Han Gyu-sung (Go Soo). It’s being held by Chains Bio, who are revealing their new research, which is why Gyu-sung has dragged his ex-wife to it, as he thinks there may be a possibility of a job going for her with them.

Just as they’re about to leave they get caught in a furore, when the building – including the shopping mall within it – is put into lockdown by the police, as they’ve had a tip-off that it’s undergoing a bio-terrorist attack – and they’re not wrong.

Suddenly the pair find themselves in the middle of some kind of zombie attack, and are quickly thrown together with a random group of strangers. But can they survive this horror?

Yeon Sang-ho is no stranger to the outbreak of zombies, having directed 2016’s terrific Trains to Busan. Although ten years apart, his latest doesn’t quite have the same kind of bloody impact that that film had.

It shares its DNA more with George A Romero’s 1978 classic Dawn of the Dead, as it was primarily shot in a mall (Monroeville Mall just outside Pittsburgh, fact fans), just as this one is. And anyone who has roamed around such soulless malls can appreciate the zombie mentality.

It sticks hard and fast to its story, which features the science behind how ants communicate with one another in their organising skills, which translates well to the zombie world. Unfortunately it doesn’t really bring anything new to the zombie genre, besides some precise choreography that must have gotten a whole bunch of out-of-work South Korean dancers a nice little side gig – and they certainly earn their wad of won with the crazy shapes they throw.

Yes there’s some flesh chomping, and these dead critters are of the speedy variety, keeping the contained shoppers et al on their tootsies, but it’s all disappointingly lame.

It’s a shame that the creativity of the story couldn’t spill over to genuine on-screen scares featuring zombies (whose collective noun could be 'jizz' as they shoot off in all directions), which genuinely lacked the bite of Dawn of the Dead.

In fact it works better as an allegory about the mundanity of mall shopping, with the seeping muzak and trademarked mall shuffle, and should have really been sponsored by Amazon.

Although its narrative has a certain appeal, its zombies aren’t nearly deadly enough for our blood-thirsty tastes, so you may want to shop elsewhere for your zombie fix.