Dead Set Research

While vampires and werewolves battle to be our favorite scary monsters, a new contender lurches into view. Zombies, already a movie and video-game staple, are infecting television this Halloween season with the arrival of AMC’s new series, “The Walking Dead,” on Sunday (Halloween night) and the unspooling this week of the British mini-series “Dead Set” on IFC.

As disturbing bulletins begin to pop up on the news about strange behavior and uncontrollable crowds, the reality show’s cast, locked inside its “house,” remains oblivious.

The satirical possibilities are abundant, and “Dead Set,” which was nominated for a Bafta (British Academy) award for best drama serial, deftly makes the connections between reality television and zombification. The screaming crowds that gather for the show’s “eviction” episode, waiting to taunt whichever cast member is voted out, become the zombies desperate to eat the housemates’ flesh. The show’s hateful producer (Andy Nyman) uses “Big Brother” psychology to manipulate a cast member into joining his escape plan. (“Do you know what they call you when you’re out of the room? Gollum.”)

That might make “Dead Set” sound like a comedy, but on balance it plays like a well-made and increasingly grim horror picture, with a crispness of execution and a graphic level of intestine-pulling, throat-ripping violence that are both beyond the American norm. The satire is underplayed and unforced, with the exception of Mr. Nyman’s profanity-spewing, over-the-top performance (which is, in its own right, quite funny). The zombies are not the traditional shufflers (as they are on “The Walking Dead”); they’re sprinters in the modern, more terrifying “28 Days Later” mode.
Some of the laughs — perhaps most of them — may be lost in translation, and not just because of the constant British slang. “Big Brother” has been a bigger deal in Britain than in the United States, and its rituals (the eviction show, the diary room) carried more cultural weight. (The show ended its 11-season run last month.)

Actual “Big Brother” cast members make cameo appearances in “Dead Set,” and one of the show’s hosts, Davina McCall, plays herself. She does so quite convincingly, as both a sharp-tongued television presenter and a blood-caked angry zombie trying to take a bite out of her producer. You can imagine how much fun that must have been for British viewers. We can only hope that someday Fox will let us see Ryan Seacrest beating down a door to get his teeth on Nigel Lythgoe. Now that would be entertainment.

The New York Times -

http://tv.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/arts/television/25dead.html