Saturday, November 01, 2008

Dead Set - the name a play on words... with one being the literal situation of the show and the other, meaning motivated toward an objective - is a zombie show that falls somewhere between Sean of the Dead and 28 Days Later. Comparisons to both are inevitable as the show has some humour in it and of course, the increasingly popular track and field zombies.

In five instalments, the show catalogued your average track and field zombie outbreak - the twist being that the protagonists are all in some way involved with the infamous reality TV show Big Brother... because the writer is a well known loather of these shows, there was an expectation of satire... but beyond a few references and zombies dully staring at screens of the show, there isn't much... there is certainly some humour but for the most part, this is played as a fairly straight horror film.

Things kick off on eviction night... as one might expect, someone does ol' stupid act. It's really 28 days later because the infection is nigh on INSTANT. Cue track and field zombies. Including Davina McCall having her throat ripped out...

This sets into motion the dynamic of the things... the witless non-entities of Big Brother (and some of the production staff) stuck in a zombie apocalypse. There are some jokes but mostly straight horror.

The real problem with running zombies is... they kill tension. You have a bunch of people lumbering toward you? That's slow and intense. Running, it's a bit - oh, it's all over! Especially when they're magical zombies. The regular kind, they can run forever. No real need to eat, sleep, drink...

As it goes, the show is pretty good. It's fair to say, while it's not even tipping the scales at 90 minutes, at times - it feels like it's stretching the material a little thin but that's only at the low points... When the show is on form - it's firing on all cylinders and it DOES build momentum. The times it feels weak are toward the start.... overall, it's a fun zombie film.

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