It’s that time of year again! Time to celebrate the Resurrection with a weeklong plunge into all things zombie! Here’s the history: In 2008, Dr. Girlfriend and I decided to spend a week or so each year marathoning through zombie films that we’d never seen before and I would blog short reviews. And simple as that, the Easter Zombie Movie Marathon was born.
For the curious, here are links to 2008, 2009 (a bad year), 2010, 2011, 2012 (when we left the blog behind), 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017.

Ten years ago, Dr. Girlfriend and I kicked off the Easter Zombie Movie Marathon (because, you know, the resurrection!) and for the tenth anniversary marathon, we’ve decided to go back and rewatch some of the best films from (nearly) every year. We had to make a few cuts here and there to have time to end the week with a tribute to the late, great George A. Romero on the 50th anniversary of the release of Night of the Living Dead.

The year was 2008. The Walking Dead was still two years away and writer Charlie Brooker was mainly known for writing the “Paedophilia” episode of UK comedy series Brass Eye, co-writing the subversive television series Nathan Barley with Chris Morris, and his own Screenwipe series, critiquing other television shows. It would be another three years before Black Mirror debuted.

Settling firmly between his mockery of television and his dark Twilight Zone impulses came Dead Set. In October 2008 E4 premiered Brooker’s five-part zombie series which told the satirical tale of how a zombie outbreak affects the lives of the cast of Big Brother. It can almost be seen as a proto-Black Mirror, as it takes a grim look at pop culture, how society worships celebrity, and just how shitty people can be. There is some good in people, too. It just rarely wins out over the shit.

Dead Set begins as not quite a satire of Big Brother, so much as a darkly believable but somewhat extreme version of what goes on behind-the-scenes of the reality show, featuring actual former Big Brother contestants mingling backstage on the latest eviction night. For those not in the know, this was a huge pop culture event in the UK. A huge, shallow, mind-numbing, soul-deadening pop culture event. I wonder sometimes if these “celebrities” really understood what they were taking part in when they signed on for Dead Set or if they were just glad to have cameras pointed at them again.

Big Brother host Davina McCall seemed to be in on the joke and gives everything she’s got to her performance.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say Dead Set is one of the most inspired tributes to Dawn of the Dead ever put on film. The critique of mass consumerism of Romero’s film is here updated to a critique of the modern cult of celebrity, compete with its own horde of zombies drawn to their place of “worship” after death.

Brooker doesn’t hammer the point home, though, after a brief mention that is met with eye rolls. The parallels are obvious enough that his scripts allow for an easing back of the satire and an embrace of zombie cinema right down to name dropping Manchester Morgue and serving up a deliciously graphic disembowelment that makes Dawn of the Dead look a little quaint.

In fact, the level of graphic violence and gore in this television show was startling at the time. The Walking Dead has since eclipsed it, but Dead Set was there first and didn’t shy away from getting its splatter on.

While the graphic violence and strong language weren’t sticking points for most viewers, one in particular had something to say about the use of fast zombies. Simon Pegg wrote an op-ed for The Guardian praising everything about Dead Set except for the use of sprinting zombies, prompting Brooker to respond with a light-hearted op-ed of his own. While I understand the traditionalism of Pegg’s argument, both 28 Days Later (2002) and the remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004) had already introduced the phenomenon and Brooker’s justifications are sound.

But as good as the script, themes, and gore are, the performances are even better.

Jaime Winstone plays Kelly, an assistant to the show’s Super-Prick producer, Patrick (Andy Nyman), who happens to be one of the few survivors when the zombies overrun Eviction Night. Patrick is trapped with newly-evicted contestant, Pippa (Kathleen McDermott), while Kelly barely survives making her way to the Big Brother House. At the same time, Kelly’s boyfriend, Riq (Riz Ahmed, who was fantastic in Chris Morris’ brilliant Four Lions, and recently made a splash starring in HBO’s The Night Of and appearing in Rogue One) is stranded at a train station after his car is stolen. If it weren’t for the help of Alex (Liz May Brice), he might never see Kelly again. Which is tragic news for the, frankly, amazing Alex.

The performances by the fictional Big Brother cast, quickly move beyond the clichés that they begin with. It’s a nice bit of commentary about how those people carry themselves and interact when they think they’re being watched by the entire country, compared to how they react once the shit really goes down.

For example, Grayson (Raj Ghatak) is an over-the-top, campy gay stereotype as the show begins, ignoring the fact that his character is a nurse outside of Big Brother. But once castmate, Angel (Chizzy Akudolu) is bitten, he really steps up and shows what he can do. Unfortunately, he also demonstrates, quite graphically, that the most dangerous thing in a zombie film isn’t the zombies themselves, but sentimentality. One of the strongest performances overall is by Adam Deacon as Space. He’s perhaps the only housemate who is likeable from the start and he ends up being central to the story.

Marky (Warren Brown, who would go on to co-star in Luther, Good Cop, Homefront, and Strike Back) goes from being a douchebag, muscly pretty boy to someone who’s handy with a rifle and willing to risk his own life for the sake of the others. Even if part of that motivation is guilt over getting Angel bitten, it works to make his character more than what he started with. He’s paired with sexpot Veronica (Beth Cordingly), who makes a similar transformation when push comes to shove.

My favorite of the house-mates, is, predictably, Joplin, played by the amazing comedian Kevin Eldon. Eldon is a veteran of some of my favorite British comedies, Jam, Brass Eye, Big Train, Nighty Night, as well as playing some of my favorite guest-spots in series like Black Books, Spaced, IT Crowd, Nathan Barley, Green Wing, and the films Hot Fuzz and Four Lions.

Joplin is older than the rest of the house-mates, thinks he’s smarter, and is generally unpleasant to be around. He’s condescending, a bit perverted, and ultimately causes everyone’s death after some psychological manipulation by Patrick. It doesn’t help that the other house-mates call him Gollum behind his back and really don’t like him very much. He’s a walking tragedy and you can just see him crumble inside when he realizes that the others really do hate him.

It’s a fantastic performance.

The format of the series (a 45-minute opening episode, followed by four 25-minute episodes) provides a very nice way for Brooker to focus the action and concentrate on revealing character in tightly plotted, frenetically shot chunks.

Those first 45 minutes set everyone up, establish the situation, and ends with things looking pretty bleak. Each of the following episodes concentrates on upping the tension, introducing simple, but effective, tasks that have to be accomplished (in a sly wink to the format of Big Brother, perhaps?) to ensure their survival. Although, none of the things they accomplish really help them in the end, it makes them feel like they’re doing something to survive, and maybe that’s also part of the point.

They move from being characters who passively exist for the entertainment of others, to characters who actively engage with the world outside the Big Brother House. I think it’s a brilliant concept from start to finish, playing on the conceits of the zombie holocaust genre while also establishing itself as a fun bit of social criticism – at least as fun as Romero’s Dawn of the Dead and without any pie fights.

(Visited 238 times, 1 visits today)