A Zombie Movie Without a Rotten Tomatoes Score Is Chewing Up Global Competition on Streaming

On the same day as director Danny Boyle‘s long-awaited legacy sequel 28 Years Later took the 10th spot on the global Netflix viewership charts, an altogether unexpected zombie movie claimed the first. The Elixir, which hails from Indonesia, not only beat Boyle’s $60 million tent pole, but also pushed Keira Knightley‘s recent murder mystery The Woman in Cabin 10 down from the top spot. The Elixir is still being discovered by the world’s media, it seems, as it doesn’t yet have a Rotten Tomatoes score. But the audiences are one step ahead, having made it the most popular film on Netflix globally.

According to FlixPatrol, The Elixir claimed the top spot on October 24, and held on to it on October 25. The Woman in Cabin 10 stayed at number two, while Netflix’s biggest hit ever, KPop Demon Hunters, claimed the third spot. The fourth and fifth spots went to the streamer’s acclaimed new documentary The Perfect Neighbor, and the Roald Dahl adaptation, The Twits. Interestingly, each of the titles in the top five are Netflix originals.

The Elixir is directed by Kimo Stamboel, who is one half of the filmmaking duo The Mo Brothers, along with Timo Tjahjanto. Together, they’ve directed the horror films Macabre and Headshot. Tjahjanto, of course, has now broken into Hollywood, having recently directed Nobody 2, starring Bob Odenkirk. The action sequel grossed around $40 million at the worldwide box office, against a reported budget of $25 million. He’s now working on The Beekeeper 2, starring Jason Statham. It’s the sequel to the recent action hit The Beekeeper, which made over $160 million globally.

‘The Elixir’ Offers a Critique of Big Pharma

Following the success of The Elixir — remember, Tjahjanto also broke out with a Netflix hit, The Night Comes for Us — it wouldn’t be surprising if Stamboel began getting offers from the West. Set in rural Indonesia, the movie follows a family’s quest for survival after the overzealous boss of a pharmaceutical corporation launches an untested “elixir” into the market, by first infecting himself and then the rest of the population. Although the movie doesn’t yet have an official Rotten Tomatoes score, the majority of the reviews currently listed on the aggregator are positive. As word-of-mouth builds, expect more people to discover the movie and write about it, especially now that Indonesian cinema has announced its place on the global landscape. It won’t be long before The Elixir, considering the kind of numbers it’s doing, has an impressive RT score that’ll only attract more crowds. You can check the movie out on Netflix, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.