I Survived a Zombie Apocalypse is a reality show with real bite
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Version 0 of 1. Can anything stop the zombie zeitgeist? Perhaps at some point we’ll all get properly fed up with walkers, rotters, biters and anything else that shuffles off this mortal coil, only to keep on shuffling. Right now, though, we’re stuck with them. So it’s surprising it’s taken so long for a zombie-themed reality show to appear, especially when Channel 4’s gory satire Dead Set essentially provided proof-of-concept back in 2008. Thankfully BBC3 – a channel currently contemplating its own kind of compromised afterlife – has come up with the goods. I Survived A Zombie Apocalypse goes out on Sunday nights and is set among dramatic rolling hills but that’s where the similarities to Countryfile abruptly end. A news montage of escalating chaos played at the beginning of each episode sets the scene: we’re six months into a UK zombie outbreak sparked by new 5G network coverage. Into this environment are dropped 10 would-be reality stars, who are holed up in a convincingly bleak-looking shopping village which is surrounded by rasping, staggering zombies. If the plucky contestants can survive for a week, the army will airlift them to a safety zone, explains host Greg James, who delivers his links from a wrecked but apparently zombie-free location nearby, never directly interacting with the contestants. It is Big Brother plus zombies, with the participants essentially role-playing The Walking Dead and undertaking tasks that may result in a (staged) bloody death. The grubby housemates gamely get into the spirit of the apocalyptic narrative like it’s the world’s longest and most nightmarish murder mystery party, while also dealing with the slightly more mundane annoyances of sleeping and eating together in close proximity. Instead of the Diary Room, there’s a comms station where a straight-talking military liaison officer periodically summons a survivor and explains their next task: gathering bedding for the group, making a supply run to a ruined supermarket, topping up their fresh water supply. And it’s when the survivors step outside their improvised sanctuary that the show really kicks in. Filling some jerry cans from an outside tap doesn’t sound very exciting. But when there are startingly made-up zombies making unearthly noises and dragging themselves toward you, the effect is evidently very unsettling. Watching the nervous reactions of the players, you can almost see the thought processes ripple across their faces: this is just a game, that’s not a real zombie, that person must have signed a contract that says they can’t actually bite me. But instinct consistently seems to take over, turning the contestants into suggestible, jittery, self-sabotaging victims shrieking and running for dear life. The producers have cleverly absorbed and redeployed zombie-related gimmicks from the mountain of undead media. Anyone who has played Resident Evil would have the advantage of knowing that when, on the way to retrieve vital supplies, you creep through an eerily quiet room full of bodybags, it’s extremely likely the undead will suddenly burst out of them on the way back. (Judging by the reaction of the players, not many of them are zombie game-players.) The dingy mall, the unexciting food and cramped living conditions make for an oppressive atmosphere for the participants, but the gloominess is undercut for the viewer by jolly interstitial safety clips from the Preventative Agency for Neurological Transformations and Zombifications (PANTZ). It’s just one of the ways the material has been consciously shaped, with an eye on dramatic staging and pacing. There’s an implied sense that everyone is in peril but it feels like the producers might stack the deck to ensure at least one person survives for the entire run of eight episodes. There have already been a few casualties. When a contestant is cornered or caught by a zombie, the implication is that they’ve been bitten and infected so are out of the game. The real masterstroke is that the unlucky player then willingly participates in a grisly staging of their death, being torn apart and guzzled by zombies. The harrowing footage is then spliced seamlessly after the moment they get caught. It’s just some TV sleight-of-hand, but it makes those moments seem surprisingly real. You have to admire their guts, especially the third survivor who got tagged. Their guts were everywhere. |