Before reading:

1. Contains several plot spoilers. But you can probably guess what happens at the end anyway.

2. Assumes a basic knowledge of the Big Brother TV show and format.

3. Parts of Dead Set are pretty gruesome, so if you’re of a nervous disposition you may not even want to read the rest of this review, never mind follow any of the links at the end.

Not Ideal Boyfriend Material

How’s this for a nightmare scenario? You’re a lowly female member of the production team on Big Brother. No no, that’s not it. There’s more. Not long ago you were engaged in a passionate clinch with Danny, your new almost-boyfriend, for whom you’re in the process of trading in your long-standing but boring current model. Danny has now left the room on an errand for your mutual tyrant of a boss and while he’s gone a female colleague comes in. She fancies him too so you engage in some girly bitching, but are interrupted when the man in question returns. Apart from any social awkwardness he brings with him some other, unpredictable problems. Not only is he covered in blood but he’s also walking towards you in a rather unfriendly manner. This is a particularly impressive feat as he’s also dead. What’s more, he’s keen to eat you and your colleague at the earliest opportunity.

Fortunately for you, but unfortunately for her, your friend is closest so Mr Dreamboat goes for her first, leaving you the chance to barricade yourself in another room. Not content with just the one victim he then starts trying to get in. So not only does he have an attitude and, well, death problem but he’s greedy too. I don’t think your Mum would like him. More pressingly, neither the desk phone nor your mobile are working and no-one hears your cries for help. Eventually he stops trying to open the door and you fall into an exhausted sleep on the floor. When you wake the next morning the phones still don’t work and you’re too high up the building to escape through the window, although the scene outside is less than inviting anyway. The only way out of the room is through the door, where there’s a good chance that your former beau is lying in wait for his dessert…

Background

The above scene appears early in Dead Set, a zombie thriller by Charlie Brooker, who writes a humorous column in The Guardian and also writes and presents TV programmes including Screenwipe. The original idea for the story came, surprisingly, from watching an episode of “24”, the American thriller series starring Kiefer Sutherland. In one of his Guardian columns Brooker wrote:

"The idea for my TV show Dead Set (in which zombies attack the Big Brother house) came about one night in 2004 while I was watching 24. Jack Bauer was performing a tracheotomy on a terrorist with a splintered peg or something, and another terrorist came running through the door. "I'm enjoying this," I thought, "but these terrorists are just ridiculous. They're like waves of Space Invaders. They might as well be zombies." "

Who’d have thought that Jack Bauer and a splintered peg could inspire a 5-part zombie thriller? There’s no end to that man’s talents.

Later Brooker adds:

"I was watching Big Brother when another thought struck me. All zombie movies eventually boil down to a siege situation. What better place to hide than a fortified house thronged with cameras? Every person in the country must've fantasised at some point about what would happen if some terrible apocalypse occurred during a run of Big Brother leaving the contestants oblivious. So that would be the starting point."

Dead Set was made for the digital channel E4 by Zeppotron, a production company owned by Endemol, the organisation behind the Big Brother TV show (which, in a flash of acronym-based inspiration, I'll now refer to as BB). Despite that connection Brooker was surprised at just how co-operative everyone at BB was, to the extent that they even broadcast a “real” eviction with a half-hour time delay. The Dead Set team then shot their own eviction scene using the genuine BB crowd to make it look authentic. The crowd themselves had no idea who the actors or their characters were, but from their typically hysterial reaction you wouldn’t know that. I've read that during the eviction scene you can clearly see the BB logo from the real series that was in progress at the time, which is different to the one used in the rest of Dead Set, but I must admit I didn’t notice. I suppose that any particularly anal BB fans may see this is a problem, but it really isn’t.

The zombies themselves take their characteristics from the latest films in the genre, such as the recent remake of Dawn Of The Dead. Therefore they no longer just shuffle around as in older films but positively sprint about looking for their next meal. The only sure way to kill them is to destroy their brain, but from the survivors’ point of view their main saving grace is that they’re not just dead but thick too, struggling with anything more demanding than running and eating. For example, one of them falls into a Jacuzzi, floats into the middle then can’t understand how to get out and just flounders about screaming. Climbing up and over things is beyond them as well. The other rule Dead Set follows is that once someone is bitten then basically they’ve had it, death and zombiedom beckoning in fairly short order.

When it was first broadcast in October 2008 Dead Set gave E4 easily its highest ratings to date. It’s since been repeated several times in its original format of five 30 minute episodes but also as three hour-long episodes (that version was also shown on Channel 4) and as one long, single episode. The last of these was repeated again on E4 on Halloween night, although that’s a slightly tenuous connection as there isn't a witch or a pumpkin to be seen.

The Story

The opening scenes are set in the BB production office shortly before an eviction. Belligerent producer Patrick is becoming increasingly stressed and spending most of his time being rude to people. His mood is not improved by the growing prominence of a news story about strange riots going on around the country that may lead to BB being taken off the air in favour of a special bulletin.

We’re also introduced to the housemates, initially via scenes of them indulging in the usual childish bickering over trivialities. The characters themselves include clever pastiches of most of the usual BB suspects. Amongst them are Pippa, a pretty but very thick girl with the catchphrase "I don't like it" who cries a lot and is evicted from the BB house on that fateful evening. Other characters are Marky, a musclebound thick bloke, Veronica, a stroppy slapper, Grayson, a cross dressing charge nurse and Joplin, who thinks he’s an intellectual rebel who’s going to “break down the system from the inside”, but is actually a creepy, pompous, cowardly prat who the rest of the housemates hate. He isn’t even good at killing zombies wrapped in duvets (although that comes later). There’s also a slightly more intelligent bloke known as Space. He seems to be based on Spencer, who was in the “real” BB show the same year as Jade Goody. In fact it was Spencer who had the near-legendary conversation with Jade where she referred to that well known English county “East Angular.”

But back to the plot. Before long a car arrives at the BB compound containing three people who have been bitten, so already are or shortly will be zombies. Soon afterwards they’re mingling with and snacking on the eviction night crowd. One of their victims comes close to stealing the whole show, despite only having a progressively smaller role in each of the first four episodes. Yes indeed, no less a luminary than Davina McCall, real-life BB presenter and promoter of fine hair care products, appears as herself (initially at least).

Most of Davina's role was improvised, including a post-eviction interview with Pippa during which she becomes aware via her earpiece that something strange is going on in the production gallery. What she doesn’t realise at the time is that it’s being overrun by zombies and lots of people are being killed to death. A nightmarish sequence then gets under way (made even more nightmarish by the use of "Grace Kelly" by Mika on the soundtrack), culminating in the freshly-deceased Davina slumping against a water cooler, her throat torn out by a zombie who was clearly no respecter of her fame or her fabulous hair.

But we haven’t seen the last of Davina. She’s soon reanimated into full thick and hungry zombie mode. Her hair’s lost a bit of its sheen too. To my surprise she makes a superb zombie, which I suspect is a harder acting task than it sounds. That part of her role consists mainly of beating murderously on the locked door of a hospitality room, where thick evictee Pippa and obnoxious producer Patrick are trapped, at least until Patrick makes ingenious use of a lamp stand (or part of a "light machine", as Pippa calls it).

Dead Set’s lead character is Kelly, the production assistant who was nearly eaten by her prospective boyfriend. She avoids that fate and eventually makes her way into the BB house, by which time even the inmates have noticed that something is wrong as the cameras have stopped moving and BB hasn’t told off one of them for forgetting to put on her microphone. Initially they think this must be some kind of surprise task, so when the blood-stained Kelly appears in the house they think she’s part of it. It takes the entrance of one of the zombies to convince them that she’s telling the truth about the situation outside, and for good measure Kelly also demonstrates the way to kill them by smashing its head to bits with a fire extinguisher. However, before its inelegant demise the zombie manages to bite one of the other characters, so zombie-ness has now entered the BB house…

There is a secondary story running through part of Dead Set featuring Riq, Kelly’s outgoing boyfriend with whom she’s seen having an awkward phone conversation early on when her mobile phone still works. He’s boring, wet and pretty thick (there’s a lot of it about) so you can understand why Kelly would want to upgrade him, especially as she’s been stuck with him for nearly 5 years.

Riq was driving his van when he was flagged down by a family who proceeded to steal it at knifepoint. He finds a railway station, but even he realises that something must be wrong when no trains have arrived by the following morning. Leaving the station to look for help, he's soon spotted and chased by one of the zombies.

He makes it to a petrol station, locks the door and is cowering behind a freezer while the zombie pounds on the door when its head suddenly explodes, thanks to a bullet fired by a stroppy woman called Alex. She and Riq team up and after a fraught journey find themselves in a deserted farmhouse, with a group of zombies rattling the gates outside just to stop things getting dull. Alex rightly suggests that it would be a good place to stay until they’re rescued or the zombies go away, but Riq then sees Kelly on the TV, where the only remaining broadcast is still being transmitted automatically from the BB house. From then on he’s determined to get there, presumably so he can bore her to death if the zombies haven’t eaten her first.

Although it’s quite good in isolation, the Alex and Riq storyline doesn’t really add anything to the main plot, which would probably have been more effective if it had stayed within the claustrophobic confines of the BB compound throughout. In fact the whole thread felt like an exercise in padding the story out to the required length, but perhaps I’m doing Brooker a disservice.

Will Riq reach the BB house? Will the housemates escape? Is there anywhere safe to escape to? Will the housemates kill obnoxious Patrick before the zombies do? Will Pippa ever understand what’s going on? All this and more is revealed as the story marches relentlessly towards its heart-stopping conclusion. The end is quite predictable, but is done sufficiently well that it didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the show.

Other Things About Dead Set

One of Brooker’s aims was to “strongarm a bit of proper horror back on to TV” and he succeeds in spades. Dead Set really is very gory and not for the fainthearted. The make up effects are particularly good, although apparently most of the budget was spent on the expensive zombie-look contact lenses. Brooker himself wanted to make an appearance as a “featured” zombie, but the make up team couldn’t persuade the contact lenses to stay in his eyes so he had to settle for a fleeting appearance in a nighttime scene. I didn’t spot him, but apparently he had a very nice neck wound.

The acting is good, particularly by Jaime (daughter of Ray) Winstone as Kelly and Andy Nyman as Patrick, the shouty producer. Another standout character was Joplin, the would-be philosopher and part-time pervert played by Kevin Eldon. Patrick eventually persuades him into a chain of events that ends in disaster and at first I thought that part was a bit unconvincing, but then I suppose that if the world has been turned upside down and you’ve realised that everybody hates you anyway then you perhaps wouldn’t be thinking at your best.

No conclusive reason is given as to why people have started turning into zombies, but Joplin speculates that it must be because of a government experiment of some kind. I don’t really think we even need that much explanation, as it’s more scary to think that zombies might just happen. Something else that seemed a bit strange is that even though the zombies pounce on any new victims and start devouring them immediately, with a few honourable exceptions most of them are still intact when you see them again later.

Another of Dead Sets' plus points was the black humour throughout the story. Possibly the best known line, as it appeared in most of the trailers, comes from where the housemates are standing on the roof and surveying the carnage all around them. After a moment Veronica (the stroppy slapper) pipes up “Does this mean we’re not on telly any more?”

I suspect I missed a lot of the in-jokes, which according to Brooker appear liberally throughout the story, not least because some of them are around former housemates who have cameos at the beginning. Having only watched the first couple of series of BB I didn’t know who most of them were, which would probably have helped.

Verdict

I really enjoyed Dead Set, in the buttock clenching way that anyone enjoys a good horror film. I liked the fast paced, tense story and vein of humour running through it, plus it’s unusual in these PC days to see a TV show that isn’t afraid to wallow in guts and gore. The acting was good too with Davina McCall in particular being a pleasant surprise, not least for agreeing to take the role in the first place.

My only quibbles were that the script felt a little padded out in places and in parts some budget restrictions were fairly obvious, particularly where large groups of zombies are shown pushing again the fences around the BB compound. It looks as though they will give way at any moment so the zombie actors are actually having to hold them up rather than push against them. Nonetheless, I’ve now watched Dead Set three times, despite obviously knowing on two of those occasions how it ends, and enjoyed it just as much each time.

Overall I’d highly recommend it to any fan of the horror genre, but it’s definitely not for anyone of a nervous disposition or who doesn’t like to see liberal amounts of guts and gore.

Links

Official Dead Set web site (nb contains graphic images, including Davina on a seriously bad hair day):

http://www.e4.com/deadset

Channel 4 On Demand:

At the time of writing Dead Set was available to be watched via this site, which is Channel 4’s equivalent to the BBC iPlayer and doesn't charge. The show can be watched in any of the different formats in which it was broadcast:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dead-set/4od#2918274