I don't often watch horror movies. I saw "Night of the Living Dead" when I was young and it scared me so much I still had nightmares well into my adulthood about zombies attacking me. But when I heard about "Dead Set" I was intrigued.
Every year since "Big Brother" started in the UK I would say I wasn't going to waste another summer watching it, and then I would get hooked mid series and spend hours on the Digital Spy Big Brother Forums arguing about the chances and the personalities of the housemates. "Big Brother" began as a curiosity, and an experiment. The first series was fascinating as a study of aspects of British society: how people from different backgrounds interacted in a confined environment. The second series was not as revealing as the audience and the contestants knew what to expect, but it was still interesting to watch. But by Big Brother 5 the tone of the show changed from participation to conflict: that series was notorious for a fight that broke out between the housemates that was so violent the live TV feed was temporarily taken off the air. By the end of the 7th series I felt the housemates entered the programme solely to obtain magazine deals and promotional contracts and they would do whatever they felt necessary to raise their value as celebrities, including having sex on camera or abusing other housemates. I was sickened by scenes of housemates being bullied and lingering shots of upset contestants crying. I didn't watch the last two series of the show.
"Dead Set" is frightening. The gore didn't scare me: I was actually impressed by the prosthetics. The premise is apt: "Big Brother" eviction nights have become known for baying crowds. It's rare now when a housemate doesn't get booed, and the security has obviously been increased to keep housemates from being attacked by the crowd. I can see the crowd becoming bestial and tearing the contestants apart, as they do in "Dead Set". The portraits of the contestants are accurate: people were discussing on the Digital Spy BB forum which former housemates the "Dead Set" housemates reminded them of. It's telling that when one encounters Kelly he ignores her distress and her being covered with blood and immediately asks how he's perceived by the outside, and how another picks up a Heat magazine in a garage forecourt shop and comments on how the magazine's coverage of him is rubbish.
It's also apt that the only TV signal still operating emits from a camera in the Big Brother house. The survivors of the apocalyptic world are left watching at first the housemates fight off the zombies, with the help of Kelly from the production staff. Later, all that is left is the zombie Kelly staring into the camera, being watched by the undead stumbling through shopping malls. The show is still society watching itself: only now the public has turned into savage flesh-eating monsters watching savage flesh-eating monsters.
The casting of former BB housemates and BB presenter Davina McCall is the icing on the cake. Davina's prolonged attack on the producer and the evicted housemate is metaphoric: it's revealing that she is the only zombie who threatens them. I only wish "Dead Set" suggested a little more about how "Big Brother" and the viewers are reduced to mob behaviour and animalistic violence. It would have benefited from more comments about the events of the eviction night and the aftermath by a character who is a seasoned viewer (perhaps one of the fans who attended the eviction night could have survived and joined the housemates, Kelly, and Kelly's boyfriend) or more scenes of people watching the show before and after the outbreak. The satire would have been sharpened from some more inclusion of one of the key elements of "Big Brother", the telephone vote. But as it stands the ending is truly chilling, especially Kelly's pronouncing the housemate in the control room the winner of Big Brother. "Dead Set" raises many questions about what winning Big Brother truly entails; I just wish it raised more questions about what "Big Brother" reflects.
Every year since "Big Brother" started in the UK I would say I wasn't going to waste another summer watching it, and then I would get hooked mid series and spend hours on the Digital Spy Big Brother Forums arguing about the chances and the personalities of the housemates. "Big Brother" began as a curiosity, and an experiment. The first series was fascinating as a study of aspects of British society: how people from different backgrounds interacted in a confined environment. The second series was not as revealing as the audience and the contestants knew what to expect, but it was still interesting to watch. But by Big Brother 5 the tone of the show changed from participation to conflict: that series was notorious for a fight that broke out between the housemates that was so violent the live TV feed was temporarily taken off the air. By the end of the 7th series I felt the housemates entered the programme solely to obtain magazine deals and promotional contracts and they would do whatever they felt necessary to raise their value as celebrities, including having sex on camera or abusing other housemates. I was sickened by scenes of housemates being bullied and lingering shots of upset contestants crying. I didn't watch the last two series of the show.
"Dead Set" is frightening. The gore didn't scare me: I was actually impressed by the prosthetics. The premise is apt: "Big Brother" eviction nights have become known for baying crowds. It's rare now when a housemate doesn't get booed, and the security has obviously been increased to keep housemates from being attacked by the crowd. I can see the crowd becoming bestial and tearing the contestants apart, as they do in "Dead Set". The portraits of the contestants are accurate: people were discussing on the Digital Spy BB forum which former housemates the "Dead Set" housemates reminded them of. It's telling that when one encounters Kelly he ignores her distress and her being covered with blood and immediately asks how he's perceived by the outside, and how another picks up a Heat magazine in a garage forecourt shop and comments on how the magazine's coverage of him is rubbish.
It's also apt that the only TV signal still operating emits from a camera in the Big Brother house. The survivors of the apocalyptic world are left watching at first the housemates fight off the zombies, with the help of Kelly from the production staff. Later, all that is left is the zombie Kelly staring into the camera, being watched by the undead stumbling through shopping malls. The show is still society watching itself: only now the public has turned into savage flesh-eating monsters watching savage flesh-eating monsters.
The casting of former BB housemates and BB presenter Davina McCall is the icing on the cake. Davina's prolonged attack on the producer and the evicted housemate is metaphoric: it's revealing that she is the only zombie who threatens them. I only wish "Dead Set" suggested a little more about how "Big Brother" and the viewers are reduced to mob behaviour and animalistic violence. It would have benefited from more comments about the events of the eviction night and the aftermath by a character who is a seasoned viewer (perhaps one of the fans who attended the eviction night could have survived and joined the housemates, Kelly, and Kelly's boyfriend) or more scenes of people watching the show before and after the outbreak. The satire would have been sharpened from some more inclusion of one of the key elements of "Big Brother", the telephone vote. But as it stands the ending is truly chilling, especially Kelly's pronouncing the housemate in the control room the winner of Big Brother. "Dead Set" raises many questions about what winning Big Brother truly entails; I just wish it raised more questions about what "Big Brother" reflects.