Halloween Countdown Day 3: Walking Dead/Dead Set

It’s Halloween, and Geoff is getting into the spirit by snuggling up on the couch and watching a scary movie every day until the trick-or-treaters arrive.

If you haven’t seen these movies, you should. You really, REALLY should. 

Miss any of the countdown? 

Day 1: My Bloody Valentine (1981)     Day 2: In the Mouth of Madness (1995)

Day 6: Let's Talk Television

As much as Halloween is about trick-or-treaters and candy, to me it has always been about movies.

I can still remember watching the final scene from Alien with my dad one Halloween night, and the peeking out from behind a blanket while the alien is stalks Dallas in the airlock. That film is still as terrifying to me now as it was when I was 9.

But there has never been, in my opinion, a great long-form horror series on television. Shows like The X-Files were good in a pinch, but I always wanted something more than that “monster of the week” format. I wanted something lasting. I wanted a show that could stand on its own against the likes of Jaws and Nightmare on Elm Street.

It took years, but finally, I can say that a show exists. Two shows, in fact, and they are both about zombies:

Let’s start with the one you’re probably most familiar with:

The Walking Dead (2010)

The solution is in the title: A brisk jog is all you need to escape from most zombie attacks.

The Plot in 140 characters: You know in 28 Days Later when that guy is like "Hey guys, I was just in a coma, how's it all go---HOLY CRAP, ZOMBIES!!" It's basically that.

The Actual Plot: The story revolves around Rick, a Kentucky sheriff who is shot and wakes up in the hospital to find that (spoilers) zombies have taken over. Rick has to find his family and a safe place to escape from the undead.

Note to self: This place? Probably not safe.

Why you should watch it: The Walking Dead premiered on Halloween 2010 to absolutely fantastic ratings. For anyone who hasn’t seen the 6-episode first season I suggest you give it a try, although I have to admit that despite my initial excitement for the series, Walking Dead's first season was (at best) a bit anti-climactic for me.

As of this writing we are only two episodes into the second season, and it is already much better.

There is a lot to like about the series. Just the fact that AMC was willing to give the film the production value needed to make the story believable is wonderful.

But aside from the "I've never seen stuff like this on TV before" factor, I don't know that The Walking Dead has done much for the genre.  Truth be told, the series' first season falls for many of the same cliches that zombie films have always fallen for, but it gets a pass for the most part because it is doing it on American television for the first time.

It also stars one of the most angular faces of all time.

My biggest problem with Walking Dead's first season, though, is its inconsistency. In a 6 episode season there's no room for filler. Every minute needs to advance the plot, and tragically half of The Walking Dead's episodes are pointless. If you do watch the first season you can pretty much skip episodes 3, 4 and the season finale. And that's a shame.

Thankfully, season two is much more promising, and so far its worst episode is better than half of the last season.

My problems with the flow of the series aside, there is no denying that the first episode "Days Gone By" might be one of the finest 90 minutes of television produced.

This scene, particularly, was enough to make this entire episode a winner for me

Episode one is exactly what the whole season should have been. There’s little dialogue, there’s little music, it’s just Rick trying to survive after waking up in the hospital. And it is a great way to start off a series.

That along with the accompanying episode 2, "Guts" would make the perfect Halloween evening. The rest of the season doesn’t hold a candle to those two episodes.

But what I really want to talk about is a show that you have probably not heard of as much. The British zombie tour de force that is...

Dead Set (2008)

The Plot in 140 characters: The undead are attacking! Good news: We've found a perfect place to hide. Bad news: It's on the set of Big Brother. And it's eviction night.

The Actual Plot: The reality television series Big Brother is all the rage in the UK, and it is during a live broadcast of the show that a bunch of angry zombies decide to get their bite on. Soon the only people left alive are the people inside the reality show, and they will have to leave the safety of the set if they want to survive the outbreak.

Why you should watch it: Dead Set isn’t a show that got much traction here in America, which is a huge shame. It was broadcast over five nights leading up to Halloween 2008 on England’s Channel 4. The show was a critical success there, winning tons of awards for  being awesome (awards it greatly deserved).

The series is as close to a perfect zombie film as I can find. Yes, the zombies in Dead Set are the fast kind, which I normally can't stand, but the show makes it work, and if there were ever a movie that were to sway me from slow zombies to fast ones, it would be this one.

Toby's reign as pudding eating champion of West Sussex lasted 
for a full fortnight before being overtaken.

What I like best about the series is how different it is. It takes chances (even in its basic premise: an entire zombie film contained within the confines of a movie studio) and pulls the rug out form under you with just how real the series feels. 

Walking Dead does a good job of making the zombies look realistic for the most part (anyone who remembers the bicycle woman from the first episode can attest to that) but that series is nothing to the gore that is Dead Set. The blood in Walking Dead is often times digitally added later (or at least it looks that way) but here it seems organic, giving the whole thing an unsettlingly realistic feel.

That true-to-life feel comes from more than the blood and gore, but also from the sets. The crew used actual Big Brother sets and actors (including host Davina McCall) to give the show the perfect sense of credibility.

You are about to be eaten by Davina live on Channel 4. Please do not swear.

Where The Walking Dead characters often go on these often bloated speeches (“I’m just a man looking for his wife and son. Anyone who gets in the way is going to lose” as Rick says in one of the first episodes) the characters here seem more plausible. Their dialogue is realistic and frankly many of the characters in Dead Set are genuinely unlikeable, even the main protagonist.

And like the best of the zombie genre, Dead Set is, at its core, a metaphor. Like Dawn of the Dead before it, the film nudges at ideas of popular culture and society without letting it get in the way of the action and the gore.

SYMBOLISM!

 That’s all there if you want it, but if you don’t there still a darn fine horror film in there.

And that’s what Dead Set is, in the end, a horror film. It’s not made to entertain, it is made to frighten, and I would be lying if I said I walked away from this one unscathed.

Dead Set’s five episodes back to back make for a nice 140 minutes of carnage, and there is not a single moment in the series feels like a cheap television program. It might well be one of the best zombie films since Dawn was released 30 years earlier.

Boyakasha.

Unfortunately, Dead Set has never been released in America, so finding it on Netflix or Blockbuster is probably out of the question, but never fear, it's easily found online (in fact, you can watch all of them by clicking on this link right here (if the link fails let me know).

TOMORROW: What do you get when you cross a solid gold slasher flick with a totally awesome documentary about a serial murderer? A little film called  Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon.