Monsters, viruses, and a zombie parliament: Taiwan’s trilogy of national calamity in the New Cold War

This article examines three Taiwanese splatter and horror films—Mon Mon Mon Monsters (2017), The Sadness (2021), and Get the Hell Out (2020)—as a cinematic trilogy of national calamity emerging under the geopolitical conditions of the New Cold War. Drawing on psychoanalysis, phenomenology, monster theory, and political anthropology, it proposes the concept of calamity–aberration, an analytical framework rooted in Sinographic traditions of omen-reading and aligned with contemporary theories of democratic crisis and collective anxiety.Rather than treating disaster as a purely accidental or physical event, calamity–aberration designates a symbolic configuration in which ethical collapse, institutional dysfunction, and political deformation become legible through monsters, viral contagion, and zombies. The article argues that these films function as allegories of Taiwan’s internal crises while occupying a frontline position in U.S.–China confrontation.Specifically, Mon Mon Mon Monsters figures the abused monster as an internalized national Other, exposing unresolved historical betrayal and moral disintegration. The Sadness constructs a viral allegory in which democracy appears as a pathological experiment that unleashes violence and abjection. Get the Hell Out satirizes parliamentary zombification to reveal institutional paralysis and internal erosion. Together, these films diagnose Taiwan’s contemporary condition while prefiguring future democratic crises.