Dead Set (2008)

Admissions made freely: I have never seen the Big Brother reality TV show (let alone the UK version) nor have I explored the zombie genre extensively. But I know how they work and this short British five-part miniseries, which clocks in under two and a half hours in total, has a lot of fun with both. I believe 2008 is still a little early for streaming, if not entirely for peak TV. Dead Set was broadcast on five consecutive nights in late October 2008. It almost feels chopped apart with an axe, with little in the way of credits before or after each commercial sitcom-sized episode (at least as they're available on Netflix) and only the most basic jagged stop and start points. It's made to binge even if it wasn't possible then. And these days does less than three hours even count as binging? As a zombie exercise, Dead Set aligns itself formally more with the 28 franchise style of fast zombies, and there's lots that we know here: the breakdowns of social norms, all human weakness related to the seven deadly sins vividly at work, the heartbreak and shock of seeing loved ones die and then turn, and don't forget you have to get these things in the head. As usual, it's not the coronavirus zombies, it's the humans who can't handle reality. And what better place to look for people who can't handle reality than on the set of a reality TV show? That's the genius of this one, along with its impossibly fast-cut tumbling stomping zombie attacks, a minute or two at a time. There's a reflexive love story for the usual sake of raising the stakes or whatever but mostly these characters are reality TV show types—starved for celebrity, seeing all things worthwhile in fame and attention, drawn like moths even in a pandemic zombie apocalypse. Dead Set is an early and workmanlike effort by Black Mirror writer Charlie Brooker. It fits well with the aesthetics of 2000s zombies, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, and Shaun of the Dead. It's harrowing, often gross, and funny in a kind of brutal way. Jaime Winstone's Kelly is the heroine, and a number of these reality TV contestants are memorable (notably Kathleen McDermott's Pippa, something of a straight man, a cheesecake in a slinky gown who can only helplessly squeak "I don't like it" as events unfold). The actual hero is porn-mustachioed Andy Nyman as the TV show producer and one of entertainment's great pigs—in a Brooker story, in a zombie picture, in cinema at large. He gleefully steals this show and takes it over the top like Krusty the Clown with bubonic plague. He's the worst monster here and you hate him until he becomes iconic in his death. You've heard of chewing the scenery? You've seen nothing. Definitely worth a look.