26th October 2008

A very warm welcome to this month’s slice of HD magic. Not a film or films this time round, but my review of Dead Set, one of the biggest TV horror events of 2008. Starting on E4 on Monday the 27th of October at 10 p.m. and runs until the 31st of October.

Synopsis:- Britain has a big problem. The dead are returning to life and attacking the living. The people they kill get up and kill – and it’s spreading like wildfire. Curiously, there are a few people left in Britain who aren’t worried about any of this – that’s because they’re the remaining contestants in Big Brother. Cocooned in the safety of the Big Brother house, they’re blissfully unaware of the horrific events unfolding outside. Until an eviction night when all hell breaks loose. Kelly, the production runner working on Big Brother finds herself caught in the impossible position of trying to fend off the walking dead alongside the remaining house mates, Davina herself, a host of former Big Brother house mates, her producer boss Patrick and boyfriend Riq. Over the ensuing days, in a cruel reflection of the game show they thought they were entering, the contestants fall victim, one by one, to the hungry masses outside. Staying alive requires teamwork – which is tricky when you’re a group specifically selected by TV producers to wind each other up.

Review:- Prepare yourself for the TV horror event of the year. DEAD SET is the latest project from Charlie Brooker the creator of the hilarious website TV Go Home which accurately foresaw the state of our nations TV years ahead of time and the co -creator of the under-rated and poorly promoted NATHAN BARLEY which also pre-empted the rise of the Hoxton based idiot elite. Let's hope that his latest work DEAD SET does not prove to be as prophetic.

Ballsy, brutal and brilliant this is exactly the kind of show that E4 should be commissioning in these times of endless reality based programs that seem to have spread like an un-godly plague across our screens.

The first episode arrives as a trojan horse with its darkly comic tone but as the series progresses it steadily reveals its pitch black underside.

Brooker's razor sharp wit cuts with scalpel precision to the heart of our celebrity obsessed culture by expertly mixing a zombie outbreak with a candid view of the inner workings of a fictional version of Big Brother. Andy Nyman (SEVERANCE) gets all the best lines and gives a wonderful performance as Patrick the producer of the show, but it is Jaime Winston (DONKEY PUNCH) as Kelly the runner who is the series revelation in her role. Her work here is easily the best this young actress has done to date.

The muted pallete - as drained of colour as any living corpse - produces a near monochrome effect which seems to echo George A Romero's 1968 classic NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. In fact this is the kind of topical and satirical horror of which Romero would be proud.

Never are the zombies in DEAD SET shown as either a joke or a punch-line, which is exactly as it should be and therefore the outcome is an un-missable masterwork that sets the benchmark for televisual terror so high that others will fear to tread.

Keep watching.

Paul.