Survivors

Watching BBC One’s shiny new drama Survivors is a strange experience. Having grown up watching the usual glut of zombie movies, I expect to see them jump out at the characters at every turn. You see, the show – which sees a group of people survive a worldwide pandemic that wipes out most of the earth’s population – has all the elements you’d expect of a zombie movie … just no zombies.

It’s weird.

Take last night’s episode for instance. It had a classic zombie movie set-up:

A young boy goes into an empty sweetshop and starts filling his boots with the array of goodies he finds inside. So distracted is he by his good fortune, he doesn’t see the danger lurking in the shadows.

Now, in a zombie movie, the kid would be attacked by a wailing goon and would either be killed, bitten and infected or fight off the zombie using Sherbet Dips and Flying Saucers. The scene would end with the undead monstrosity crashing back into the display cabinets with a packet of Refreshers buried in his head. Job done – move on.

But in Survivors, this is not what happens. Where you’d expect a relentless cadaver raised from the dead, you actually get an old man with a baseball bat. Where you expect lots of screaming and bone crunching and blood ‘n’ guts, you get the old fella pushed into a display stand and then dying. And that’s it.

How shit is that?

Maybe it’s just me? Maybe I should get it out of my head that the armies of the undead are just around the corner? Maybe I should see this show for what it is – a survival story that’s a mildly distracting way to pass the time before the news comes on?

BUT I CAN’T!

Every time I see the characters get out of their cars on an empty motorway, my zombie movie watcher head shouts,

“NO! Get back in the car! The zombies are coming!”

Every time I see the plucky band of survivors go foraging for supplies, the part of me that sees shuffling corpses round every corner bellows,

“WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING IN THERE? DON’T YOU REALISE WHAT’S IN THERE? ZOMBIES, THAT’S WHAT!”

And then sod all happens. It’s really odd.

So, to sum up, if you’ve ever seen a zombie film, or a futuristic mutant film or one of those films where a nuclear war has turned most of the world’s population into flesh-eating, cyberpunk shitbags, then Survivors is a disappointingly anticlimactic experience. If you haven’t seen those sort of films, you’ll probably get on with it. To me, there’s something missing at the show’s heart – something that can only be stopped with a blow to the head.

Or a packet of Refreshers.

Dead Set

Contains very mild spoilers

I enjoyed Dead Set far more than I thought I would. Being something of an obsessive gimp when it comes to all things undead, I saw the trailer and my first thought was…

…zombie’s shouldn’t be fast!

How many times do we have to tell you?!

Zombies are slow, idiotic, lurching beasts. Not hyper-aware, sprinting gut-munchers! For gawd’s sake, film-makers – you’ve tried it, now let’s get back to the shambolic, staggering undead twats we know and love. It worked in 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake, to a point. But LET’S MOVE ON.

However, I now feast upon my own, over-critical words because it worked here.

The crucial difference between your fast and your slow zombie is margin for error. With a super-zombie, its ability to run at full pelt allows it to kill you within seconds. The virus will spread literally like wild-fire and your only hope, really, is to keep yourself at a massive distance from trouble and holed up securely.

The opportunities for fun multiply when you’re dealing with the traditional, slow zombie as they’re only really a formidable opponent when they come at you in numbers. The virus takes days to set in giving you time to find security. When they do eventually get to you, if you’re stuck in a room with three and have even the lightest of weapons, if you don’t freak out you’ve got a chance. You can outpace them if you choose to run or, if you time your hits right, you can kill them.

The classic zombie allegory, the one film-makers constantly strive to include in their work is based around the fact that zombies are essentially us. When coming at protagonists in hords, they represent the mob. Public opinion. The notion of habitual behaviour. Slow zombies, in this instance, represent the fact that people are catatonic in the face of outside pressures and only respond on the most basic of levels.

So what can we take from the faster, modern zombie? That we’re more clued up? Demand instant satisfaction? Are more aggressive?

It certainly adds up when you consider Charlie Brooker’s Dead Set and it’s none-too-subtle mockery of Big Brother viewers. From the cynical media-savvy watcher to the baying crowds who attend live evictions, thankfully nobody was spared. And, with kudos to Mr Brooker, beyond the premise, the execution of his central conceit was underplayed very well.

So, at the centre of the drama we have the fact that BB viewers are not only zombified – they’re also filled with a kind of aggressive, televisual blood-lust. But beyond that any didactic element was expertly hidden. Despite the fact that characterisation was limited in terms of backstory, we learned enough from their actions to grasp the point the writer was making.

Joplin, I feel, was key here. As a weary, supposedly uninterested contestant approaching middle age, he most represented the BB viewer I tend to know, and I suspect he was the closest Brooker came to scripting himself into the story. Through Kevin Eldon’s lines we got the distinct impression that Brooker feels the cynical observer is just as culpable as the less-informed viewer. And Joplin’s being responsible for literally opening the floodgates in the hectic conclusion was a blatant metaphor for where he feels the blame lies. Essentially, we allow this to happen.

The other characters, sadly, didn’t have quite the depth of Joplin. Jaime Winstone portrayed the standard overlooked herione and the rest of the Big Brother contestants weren’t given a chance to shine. Winstone’s boyfriend had some fantastically emotional scenes but, after five episodes I can’t remember his name, which means he can’t have made much of an impact beyond looking moody on a boat.

The producer character obviously had the best lines – despite being overwritten at some points. With one too many Brookerisms – referring to a PDA as a robot’s bollock, for example – he was in danger of reaching uber-stereotype proportions. But this was remedied by the amusing sight of him literally gutting former housemates with demented glee. And not much needs to be said of the symbolism of his shitting into a bucket in a confined space. It explains itself.

Inevitably, we had the zombie Davina – an idea I was hoping the makers would resist. But, to her credit, Davina makes a far better zombie than TV presenter and it was actually quite gratifying to see her whacking her head against a door – putting those twitching mannerisms to excellent use.

The real problem for anyone approaching zombie film-making in a world where even Romero himself is treading water is what novel amendments can be made to the format without polluting the genre. Fast zombies kind of worked, but have had their day. The first person perspective worked brilliantly in The Zombie Diaries and at the end of the Dawn remake – but faltered somewhat in Diary of the Dead. So one option is to change nothing but the location where the survivors hole up. The location itself becomes the source of tension. Romero was the first to twig this and located his first three movies at, sequentially:

• The home – looking at how family, friendly and neighbourly relations were compromised.
• The shopping mall – questioning our consumerist habits. 
• The nuclear base – playing on fears of nuclear war and military aggression.

Placing the action in the BB compound replicates this structure. Also replicated were several scenes from other zombie movies. Picking zombies off whilst standing on the roof, a la Dawn of the Dead. The producer ripped to shreddies, guts hanging out and all, like the army boss in Day of the Dead. A winking nod to the brilliantly weird Living Dead at Manchester Morgue in the script here, a dash to the van sourced from Night of the Living dead over there… you have to question when homage becomes a tiresome tribute.

It’s this reliance on the genre archetypes that makes Brooker’s outing a worthy addition to what’s becoming a vast pantheon of quality zombie output rather than an outright, genre-busting classic. I’d imagine, to his mind, that’s probably the job wholly done.

Can we get back to the good old days of the stumbling, bumble-fuck undead now? Before it’s too late?

NewsGush – Dead Set

An update on that Charlie Brooker thing can be found below…

Click

Personally, I’d say an appearance from Davina McCall and former Big Brother contestants automatically devalues it, but time will tell. No doubt Aisleyne will get plenty of airtime in Brooker’s bewildering, ongoing campaign to get her work…

Resident Evil: Extinction

The really rather lovely Milla Jovovitch returns again to the insufferable Resident Evil universe in this, the third in the shitty zombie computer game movie series.

This time around the rotten old Umbrella virus has infected the entire planet, turning the earth into a dying desert world. Milla, dressed like Lara Croft, rides around this wasteland on a motorbike looking for survivors. She has to visit petrol stations …

“Hold up!” I roared, upending an enormous bag of nuts into my lap, “This is Mad fucking Max! And it’s not even good Mad Max … it’s Mad Max 3 – Beyond Thunderdome! The robbing fucking …”

… because fuel’s low on the ground nowadays. She also listens out for radio messages. One message she responds to sees her captured by evil redneck future people who throw her to a pack of those skinless Dobermans Resident Evil’s so fond of.

Needless to say Milla, who fans of the series will remember is a superhuman genetic experiment kinda gal, kills most of the dogs and escapes. The redneck future people aren’t so lucky. Because they all get killed. By the dogs. In the future. Etc…

“Or that Don Johnson movie where he has a talking dog! What was the name of that? He had a talking dog? He ate dog food out of the tin? It was in the future? Don Johnson? Dog? Talking dog? Yes? Yes?”

Meanwhile, in a bunker under a fenced complex surrounded by faaaaahsands o’ zombies (see: Day of the Dead) …

“They’ve just fucking nicked that straight out of Day of the fucking Dead!”

… a team of boffins are working on an antivirus to ‘tame’ the zombies. They have a zombie in a room chained up, just like in …

“Day of the fucking Dead! This is an outrage!”

… well you get the point. The boffins, led by an evil mad British scientist, are getting the antivirus from the blood of clones of Milla Jovovitch’s character which they grow in a big laboratory. Instead of growing the clones then killing ‘em for the blood, they allow each one to wake up in a fake version of the house/complex from the first movie, and then see how long she lasts before being killed by one of the various booby-traps she encounters as she wanders around (room full o’ lasers, surprise zombie attack, nasty thing that comes out o’ the floor, etc.). They then nick her blood and throw the body in a big pit full of other versions of Mila’s character. I mean, what a ridiculously convoluted way to go about getting blood from a girl … didn’t they just think to ask?

Anyway, in the outside world Milla has occasion to rescue a Desperate Band Of Survivors © who are being attacked by a legion of zombie crows. The survivors are led by what’s-her-face out of Heroes, her out of Final Destination, you know, not the cheerleader, the other one …

“Hello hello hello,” says I, desperately hunting down the Kleenex, “Now that’s more like it. Surely this is the sort of cheap horror entertainment that’ll stoop low enough to flood the screen with tits ‘n’ ass to get bums on seats? Surely her out of Heroes is in this for one reason and one reason alone – to get it all out? Huzzah!”

NOTE TO THOSE EXPECTING HER OUT OF HEROES TO DISROBE AND SHOW OFF THAT EXTRAORDINARY ASS OF HERS: She doesn’t.

The shitbags.

Anyway, Milla, her out of Heroes, the inevitable guy who’s been bitten by a zombie but isn’t telling anyone he has been (see: just about every zombie movie ever made), the spunky teenage girl, a bloke from Resident Evil: Apocalypse, and the other survivors head off to Las Vegas to get fuel …

“It’s always bloody fuel in these future movies! If I’d written Mad Max I’d be suing the living shit out of these robbing bastards!”

… and are attacked by a crate-load of zombies in boiler suits. The zombies have been put there by the evil mad British scientist to kill everyone and capture Milla. The reason that most of the survivors need to be killed is that the writer of this drivel, having the mental age of an excitable eight year old boy, can’t cope with so many different characters. Can’t write ‘em? Kill ‘em, kill ‘em all.

So, just about everyone’s dead, Milla’s really really annoyed and the mad British scientist has been bitten by a zombie. He returns to his evil underground lair and injects himself with loads of the rubbish antivirus. This turns him into a lumpy slimy thing made from balls and elbows and he kills everyone underground …

“I’m sure the same sort of thing happened in the second film didn’t it? Didn’t it? Eh?”

… then broods, and waits.

With crushing inevitability Milla and her out of Heroes and the soldier and the spunky teenager break into the zombie-surrounded complex using a big explosion. All but Milla escape in a helicopter to the supposedly virus-free last bit of Earth that isn’t buggered. Here it’s called ‘Alaska’ … in Waterworld it was called ‘Dry Land’.

And so, underground, Milla and the balls/elbow man have a fight. Like in the finale of Doom, both characters are pumped-up super beings fighting in an underground lair. Lots of things get smashed up.

Then, when all seems lost, one of the Milla clones comes to the original Milla’s rescue and turns on the machine that makes all those lasers turn into a grid pattern thing. This kills the balls/elbow fella …

“Well they’ve done that before …”

… and the scene has become the Resident Evil series’ equivalent of the throwing the alien out of the airlock bit so beloved of the Alien movies. If in doubt, repeat.

The movie ends with Milla and Milla looking at faaaaahsands of other Milas, all ready to be woken up and used as a cheap plot device in the next movie in the series.

“Well that was a pile of crap,” I grumbled, hoping the producers of these appalling movies meet a grisly end that involves knives ‘n’ axes ‘n’ shit.

Warning: This article contains spoilers.

Hills Have Eyes 2 / 28 Weeks Later

 

If you’re going to make a genre movie, or a sequel to a remake of a genre movie whilst going out of your way to avoid cliches, you’ve got an uphill struggle ahead of you. If you’re Wes Craven, you don’t need to avoid cliches, as you invented the cliches in the first place. If you’re a little-heard-of Director tasked with following up a zombie movie which itself avoided a few of the usual trappings then what do you do to make your new movie relevant? That’s it, you try and comment (with bloody heavy hands) on today’s political climate.

All the critics seem to disagree with me when it comes to horror films, so balls to them in their Islington and nouveau-Hackney homes, pumping out a word an hour of drivel. With these movies a viewer needs to automatically lower their expectations to the level of their stinking feet, otherwise disappointment will generally smack them headlong in the face.

The fun of a horror film is that it’s the opposite of high art. Very few horror movies can be said to be masterpieces. Maybe The Shining. Maybe Night of the Living Dead. American Werewolf In London, but in that instance we’re veering towards horror/comedy, which is a different kettle of fish. Beyond that, it’s pretty much semi-wooden acting, jumps and  gore, and thank crikey for that, says I.

So the critics savaged Hills Have Eyes 2. Hackneyed scripts they said. Expected shocks. And these things, they reckoned, combined to render it worthless. Only one or two stars. 11% on rottentomatoes.com. 

Well, bollocks. It’s a no-nonsense stomp through a script that’s only even present to transfer us to the next set piece. And those set pieces include a pair of mutant testicles getting flattened by a sledgehammer, a brain being finger-tweaked and an eyeball being thumbed out – which is all fantastic stuff. This is the point of the genre.  Admittedly the rape element is a bit much, but we forgave the EvilDead for that, so we can forgive this.

If an auteur (like Romero used to be) manages to squeeze in a clever analogy to a horror film, then so much the better – I take my hat off. But when the central premise is the analogy, a la Land of the Dead, the whole things fall apart and we’re left discussing how there were too few zombie maimings.

Speaking of a dearth of zombie maimings, the only memorable zombie death in 28 Weeks Later was the helicopter scene, ruined by the use of rapid editing and CGI.

Add to that the fact that the film was a complete mess, featuring an American army as aggressive as the zombies (apart from the good guys who end up the saviours of the Brits, obviously) and the presence of a ‘lead’ zombie, and you have yourself a disappointing wreck.

If I rent a horror film or spend my hard earned down the local multiplex, I expect rubbish. Please deliver.

Big Brother 8, 10.7.07

 

It’s already getting boring. Too many people in the house for the stage we’re at, too much time invested in a fabricated relationship. And as for the ‘fake’ sub-plot for the week, it’s day one and we’ve already over-milked the bloody thing. The arrival of Pauline (or ‘Pooh’ as the housemates are expected to believe her nickname to be) was a vaguely interesting prospect at first until the BB producers, as ever, fucked the whole thing up.

On Friday the housemates were shown the video (as were viewers) of an Aussie housemate about to go in. She was fanciable too, which upped the ante. But only briefly, when it was revealed that she’s an actress working for Big Brother. But then we learned that she’s an actress from Swindon who can barely manage an Aussie accent, let alone fake a background spent in the antipodes.

By the time her entrance came halfway through last night’s show we laready knew that Carol was on to her, with chinny scarecrow Tracey following her lead. Even earlier than that, the supposed simpleton Charley (who is actually clearly a criminal mastermind) had twigged the possibility that this might all be a sham.

In the past, natural paranoia has ensured that contestants have accused other housemates of being moles. When Makosi was taking direction from Big Brother, the cry of MOLE went up so quickly that the house divided into two camps overnight. The point being, if this was to be successful, it might’ve been prudent to use and ACTUAL FUCKING AUSSIE in the lead role of Australian? Otherwise the game might be up on the first day when the actress was asked where in Australia she was from. Without any knowledge of the continent she replied ‘Wallah Wallah’. If you can call it a reply, it’s more just a moronic, four-syllable outburst thrown in the direction of Australasia. Throw in a real Aussie, I say, in the mole role and let her interfere properly with the housemate’s affairs without her having to muck about with alien intonations.

It reminds me of the time, a few series back, when a housemate in with the inspired idea of pretending to be Italian. Her accent was so shit she lasted 5 minutes in character and everyone else, bar none, thought she was a weirdo and voted her out at the next opportunity.

I feel for the girl, who in reality is one Thaila Zucchi. She’s had previous work on Balls of Steel, the living excretia on the sole of TV comedy and now she’s having to live through the agony of being the centrepiece of another cringeworthy Big Brother non-event. My prediction is that this will all be over by day three. Her accent keeps slipping at the end of a sentence like a kraft cheese slice flopping down a shop window.

I suppose we should thank heavens for small mercies, however, as the first half of yesterday’s show saw the phoney Chiggy and Zanelle romance grind to a halt. After watching their break up, any sympathy for either party has shrivelled to a brittle husk. You get together for pathetic reasons – he: thinking it’d bolster his chances of winning, she: wanting to be a sub level posh and becks on leaving – and then you’re suprised that you’re sick of each other within a fortnight?

From what I’ve heard, the Zacharia character is largely getting the blame for all this (apparently he put his willy in her – I didn’t see that episode so if anyone’s got a youtube link…). If he did bone her – more fool her (what did she expect from an ex-boyband wannabe surfer slimehat?). If he didn’t, then she’s a complete psycho, employing every tactic in the book to syphon sympathy from the ever-ready endless supply the other housemates keep tanked up. Either way, they’re both idiots.

Rather than taking sides, we’d probably be better off not encouraging this shit. But the addiction rolls on and on, and I’m at the point where I’m running out of veins, patience and sanity.

Goldenballs

 

It’s hard to hate ITV these days. For decades the ‘opposition’ channel was a major player in the world of British entertainment, but in recent years it has become dwarfed by the twin suns of BBC and Channel 4 and seen its audience share obliterated by the arrival of satellite and cable TV.

A few years ago, maybe, I would have been frothing at the very mention of the substandard broadcasting taking place across their airwaves, but these days it feels a little like kicking a dying dog when he’s down. You have to feel sorry for ITV – they’re trapped in a funding black hole with little or no creativity at the top, the public and critics alike largely deride their programmes and they’ve been forced to dedicate over a quarter of their daily output to extortion thinly disguised as a quiz show in a desperate attempt to replace the falling advertising revenue.

Rather than cultivate talent, they lure away established stars with big money offers and then place them in wafer thin vehicles. The offer of a solo vehicle on ITV now spells the death knell of a career, but with a big paycheque first. Those few who do survive, the Ant and Dec’s of the world, are then kept in repetitive positions, churning out the same style of entertainment lest the fragile audience balk at something fresh.

What is most telling, though, about ITV’s lost chance to be a major network competitor is their ability to poach, steal and imitate successful formats, and the subsequent failures of these attempts. Rather than lead the pack, they follow humbly snapping up the crumbs in a hope of tasting some success. If this was a cold, calculated business plan then there would real cause for concern, but it’s not. ITV are near dead in the water, hanging on a with a combination of soaps and gambling shows and their imitation of other channels formats is more a desperate attempt to survive than anything more machiavellian.

Which brings us nicely to Goldenballs, ITV’s new afternoon game show. The inclusion of the word ‘balls’ is both deliberate and appropriate, no doubt intending to be risqué and tongue in cheek but ending up as an admission of inherent crapness. The show should have been called ‘Greenballs’ such is the amount of jealousy on display over the success of a certain Channel 4 game show that uses boxes, and the format is a very badly disguised rewrite of said show.

First off, Goldenballs begins immediately after Deal or No Deal so as to pick up viewers still hungry for shape related games, and features a former has-been presenter given the comeback job of a lifetime. In place of comfort-beard Edmonds we have the hawk-nosed Jasper Carrott, still peddling 20-year-old lines and visibly struggling with the sole direction of “try and make it tense.” Goldenballs also attempts to give us some investment in the personalities of the contestants, but where Deal skilfully let’s their characters be stage-managed by Edmonds, ITV simply relies on the natural showbiz flare of their entrants. Put simply, showbiz flare is not something typically contained within people who apply to be on a Jasper Carrott fronted game show and there are often moments of cringe-inducing silence.

The rules of the game are inexplicable, and the show has definitely spawned from the title downwards. Having already had a failure that played before Deal using Nicky Campbell and some rods, some quick-thinking commissioner concluded that they had chosen the wrong shape and shifted it to balls, rather than boxes and rods, and the game was created from there. It involves a pair of legs issuing balls of money to four people, who then lie to each other about how much is contained within them and then voting each other off because of the lies. Then some more balls appear, the audience turn off and one of the contestants fails to get more than a couple of hundred quid…

Everything about the programme is wrong; it lacks any amount of tension, understandable rules or personable contestants. It has no flow and is demonstratably contrived, both in conception and production and the editing in particular robs the show of any drama or charm. Jasper Carrott is a great choice on paper, but his recycled material and lack of gravitas just makes his performance a little pitiful.

I would be far more withering towards this show if I felt it deserved it, but it’s simply another insignificant glitch in the slow downfall of a nationwide broadcaster. To tear this programme apart more savagely would to give it a status beyond what it deserves – in a matter of weeks it will slip quietly away and ITV will debut a new show featuring cash ovals hosted by Shane Richie. Goldenballs is indicative of the piss-poor programming and, if you’ll forgive the pun, total lack of balls that exists at ITV these days.

It’s not even so-bad-it’s-good. It’s just bad.

Big Brother 8, 21.6.07

 

Shameful though it is, I’m really enjoying BB this year. So many little, niggling interpersonal relationships have been born out of the staggered entrances, which was something of a masterstroke by the cynical producers. Thanks to the late entries we have Ziggy engulfed in total paranoia and Billi reverting to infantilism over Z’s relationship with Chanelle. We also have the charmless Jonathan lusting over control-freak Nicky, Tracey stuck entirely on the sidelines (similar to the way Pete was on the periphery at this stage last year), Liam, Brian and  the twins being amiably dull and Carol going slowly more insane. Charley is going from strength to strength in terms of her self-destruction. I’m thoroughly enjoying watching her. Car crashes have never been so glamorous.

If I’ve left anyone out, it’s because they’re either dull or likeable.

So last night we were given one of BB’s little twists. Usually a complete disappointment – think of Stuart’s surprise eviction or Eugene winning half the money – this time round BB, I think, may have got it right.

In the event, the plot twist was as follows. A hundred grand, the supposed prize money, was to be given away. The three nominated contestants would choose among themselves who to give the cash to, and then BB would not tell them what was actually happening at the end of the series. In actual fact, there’s still £100,000 to be handed to the victor, but the contestants won’t know that.

Ideally, and I’m really hoping this is the case, the housemates will believe the only remaining benefit of staying inside will be the ‘journey’. Some will fake their way to the end believing in this pseudo-spiritual voyage, ulitmately losing the plot and revealing themselves to be fame-hungry maniacs, while others will show their true colours very early on and just fuck off.

Others, ie the twins, won’t understand what’s going on and stand stock-still and dribble for a fortnight. As for Seany, he’ll hopefully implode in on himself in a cloud of dusty irrelevance.

They gave the cash to Liam, by the way – the tree surgeon with the personality of a tree. Presumably they felt sorry for him.

The Ziggy / Chanelle ‘love’ thing that’s going on is actually quite fascinating. Last night we had a classic moment of male / female interaction. Ziggy, hoping to reveal a little vulnerability and have his paranoia washed away with some kind words, was speaking to Chanelle as they lay in their bed.

‘What if things don’t work out for us? They might not’ he said. The response any man might require from this little insecure outburst would be as follows:

‘Of course they’ll work out. I really like you’.

Not too difficult to grit your teeth and say that, eh ladies?

Obviously, being female, Chanelle had to seize the upper hand, thus prolonging the argument whilst victoriously spinning her beau’s world into utter confusion.

‘I don’t know why the hell you’d even ask me that?’ she exclaimed, before exiting the bed in labia clutching panties to go and muck about with the other housemates, leaving Ziggy in horrible limbo as she flirted with professional empty-head, Billi.

Chicks eh?

*prepares for claims of sexism*