Dead Set

This was second a comedy and first a tense and bloody horror. It works very well watched back-to-back in the "feature-length edition". Great use is made of British light though continuity slipped on one occasion from deep night to grey evening. Characters are caricatured but played completely straight. Most of the acting was completely believable, and the herione's reaction to an invasion of zombies seemed pretty realistic to me. This is work that does not try to be anything else; that stands up on its own terms.The comedy was in the dark and savage observation of human folly. It left you with a wry question mark over whether zombies are so distinguishable from the British TV-watching public...

Day One in the Dead Set house and it's off to a cracking start. Ok, so some of the acting is a little ropey. The majority of the 'Big Brother' housemates seem to have taken lessons from the Keanu Reeves school of acting. The Big Brother behind-the-scenes production crew were uber cheesy, hitting almost every possible tv crew stereotype there is. Still, you'd expect no less from such a tongue-in-cheek zombie romp.

I found the pace was set well from the very start, diving straight into some flesh ripping zombie action within the first 20 minutes or so. The characters were established quite quickly, with their individual characteristics and hints towards sub plots already forming, without losing sight of the zombie action enfolding around them.

A nice and subtle little homage for all the zombie fans out there with 'she's got a face like a Manchester morgue' thrown in a heads up to Jorge Grau's 'The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue.'

Davina's death was superb, with a nicely atmospheric and well orchestrated torturous death. Re-animated Davina was nothing short of pure zombie class. And they've taken to the new style (28 Days Later) running and general more able zombies, as apposed to the better known slow and lumbering zombie of the Romero years.

The wheelchair zombie was a personal highlight for me. Is a disabled zombie a first? I can't seem to recall there ever being a wheelchair ridden zombie before. Nice to see some originality still hitting the now ever popular genre.

And what an ending! Some strong gore was shown for a tv mini-series with the head battering using a fire extinguisher scene. Nice!

All in all, I'd say this first episode set the scenario nicely and will definitely have me on the sofa each night this week.

Bring on tonight's episode!