Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Fast vs Slow

Simon Pegg- of Shaun of the Dead fame- comments on the recent British TV zombie show "Dead Set". I haven't seen it yet myself but he takes exception to the choice of fast zombies for the programme.

The concept was clever in its simplicity: a full-scale zombie outbreak coincides with a Big Brother eviction night, leaving the Big Brother house as the last refuge for the survivors. Scripted by Charlie Brooker, a writer whose scalpel-sharp incisiveness I have long been a fan of, and featuring talented actors such as Jaime Winstone and the outstanding Kevin Eldon, the show heralded the arrival of genuine homegrown horror, scratching at the fringes of network television. My expectations were high, and I sat down to watch a show that proved smart, inventive and enjoyable, but for one key detail: ZOMBIES DON'T RUN!

Worth a look at. Personally, I don't mind the fast zombie concept and I disagree that having a zombie run is like giving a werewolf wings. Zombies weren't animated by radiation or a virus originally- that was a new spin on the old myth of voodoo magic. The fast breed is simply another manifestation of that.

I'd actually like to see a film tackle the notion that, after a zombie outbreak, the undead are pretty fast to begin with but, as their bodies begin to rot, they slow down and turn into the mass-congregating shamblers we are all familiar with.

UPDATE - Thanks to commenter jansch, here's the link to Charlie Brooks' response to Pegg's article.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The recent remake of Dawn Of The Dead featured running zombies. They did that on purpose to make the danger seem more imminent.

I thought it worked well. Enjoyed the movie enough to buy it.

Anonymous said...

"I'd actually like to see a film tackle the notion that, after a zombie outbreak, the undead are pretty fast to begin with but, as their bodies begin to rot, they slow down and turn into the mass-congregating shamblers we are all familiar with."

This was Charlie Brooker's intention with the last episode of "Dead Set". He says - "The original plan was to set the final episode six months in the future, by which time the zombies were badly decayed and could only shuffle (although "freshies" would still run), but budget and time constraints ruled this out."
You can check out his full retort to Pegg here -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/10/barack-obama-zombies-running


although I don't think he'll win you over with the first half of his column..

Jay.Mac said...

Thanks for the link.