Why don’t people realise that the sky is evil? The Day of the Triffids has a meteor shower that blinds anyone who sees it, thereby allowing man-eating plants to herald in the end of civilisation; Where have all the people gone? has solar flares that reduces nearly all humanity to white powder, while The Night of the Comet similarly has the world wiped out by a passing comet (only this time the dust is red not white).
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Smoke 'em if you've got 'em
The 80s obsession with World War III produced a number of excellent movies that illustrated the horrors of living in a post-nuclear world. From the UK came When the Wind Blows (1986) and the BBC’s Threads (1985), while two US television stations (PBS and ABC) respectively produced Testament (1983) and The Day After (1983). Common to all four of these productions was the grim telling of how ordinary people would fare after a nuclear attack. All are dominated by dark skies, scarcity and radioactive fallout.
Smoke ‘Em if You’ve Got ‘Em is Australia’s take on the post-apocalypse and aptly turns the aforementioned films upside down. Instead of survivors clinging desperately to life in squalid conditions and radiation sickness, it is a black comedy that offers an alternative way of dealing with nuclear holocaust.
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A Texas road sign displays warnings about zombies in January 2009
Zombies are everywhere at the moment: a book mashing up the living dead with Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) is a best-seller, numerous zombie films and games have been recently released or will come out later this year and even Woody Harrelson justified hitting a photographer recently because he thought they were a member of the living dead: “I was startled by a paparazzo,” Harrelson said, “who I quite understandably mistook for a zombie.” So why is there a cultural zombie invasion at the moment? What is it about the living dead that means they are popping up at on every corner?
Contemporary Anxieties
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Left 4 Dead
My game of choice over the last few months has been Valve’s zombie first-person shooter, Left 4 Dead. Set during a zombie apocalypse, Left 4 Dead captures the immediate aftermath of the end of the world perfectly: the four human survivors have to negotiate thousands of zombies against a backdrop of empty offices, burnt out buildings and broken-down trains, planes and automobiles. However, Left 4 Dead is more than just a brilliant game, its emphasis on co-operative gameplay is highly significant as it echoes a broader movement towards global co-operation on a political, social and economic level.
Co-operation
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Dawn of the Dead 1978 Poster
For my birthday last year my wife gave me a special box-set edition of one of my favourite films: George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978). I let the black box sit on the shelf, waiting for the perfect occasion to watch and enjoy it like a good wine. Recently, I decided the time was right to watch it again, so I ripped open the plastic cover, selected one of the three versions of the film and settled down for a night of zombie apocalypse.
And it wasn’t that good.
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Survivors
The post-apocalypse is going through something of a renaissance on British TV at the moment. A remake of ‘Day of the Triffids’ has been announced; Halloween saw the zombie-Big Brother mini-series ‘Dead Set’ while the weeks running up to Christmas saw a remake of ‘Survivors’ – the classic 70s post-apocalyptic series set in a world where nearly everyone has perished to a highly infectious disease. While it had its moments, ultimately the remake was an unsatisfying affair, with a succession of nagging gripes that overshadowed a pretty slick production.
70’s Survivors: Modernity Rebooted
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Dead Set
Where would you like to be when the zombie apocalypse hits? Would you want to be hanging out in an abandoned farm-house? A suburban shopping mall? Or an underground military facility? Probably the last place I would want to be at the best of times is the Big Brother house, forced to live with a variety of wannabe-celebs while each of my words and actions were monitored by the world at large.
Imprisoned with these unappealing people while outside is being eaten by hungry zombies is even less appealing. However, this is the premise of ‘Dead Set’; an E4 mini-series for Halloween that mashes-up the zombie genre with reality tv.
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