Why can't the zombies get into the house?

Bryan Callen, Tania Raymonde, Texas Battle, Charlie Sanders, and Caity Lotz in Death Valley (2011)

Glenn Close, Paddy Considine, Gemma Arterton, and Sennia Nanua in The Girl with All the Gifts (2016)

Liz May Brice and Riz Ahmed in Dead Set (2008)

Andy Nyman, Kathleen McDermott, Jaime Winstone, and Riz Ahmed in Dead Set (2008)

Paul &apos;Bubble&apos; Ferguson

Jaime Winstone

Andy Nyman

During a fictional series of Big Brother, a zombie outbreak occurs, but the house-mates are unaware of the impending doom outside of the Big Brother House.

Dead Set

One of the decade&apos;s best zombie flicks

Maybe it&apos;s impossible these days to make a zombie movie which doesn&apos;t feel reminiscent of others; in the case of the Charlie Brooker-scripted TV movie Dead Set, too much of the zombie carnage feels lifted from 28 Days/Weeks Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake. But to focus on that would be to overlook the brilliant angle Brooker brings to the genre, not least its premise: that some of the few survivors of the zombie holocaust are the house-mates in Big Brother. Other horror films have been had reality TV settings, but this Endemol-produced flick has the advantage of featuring actual BB stars: Davina McCall and a host of former house-mates. Of the actors, Andy Nyman stands out as the BB director whose character is clearly Brooker&apos;s stand-in for himself, and whose comedy scenes are sensibly kept separate from the horror until the final scenes. And it&apos;s so well-written that you&apos;ll actually be rooting for everyone to survive.

If you love (a) zombie movies, or (b) Big Brother, Dead Set is *unmissably* good.

However, I would recommend waiting for the 138-minute DVD on 3rd November, as I can&apos;t imagine it having half the impact when it&apos;s chopped up into five episodes, complete with ad breaks, as it will be on E4 next week.

Hopefully Dead Set won&apos;t be quickly forgotten as a quirky little TV series on a minor channel, and will be recognised internationally as one of the decade&apos;s best zombie flicks.

Maybe it's impossible these days to make a zombie movie which doesn't feel reminiscent of others; in the case of the Charlie Brooker-scripted TV movie Dead Set, too much of the zombie carnage feels lifted from 28 Days/Weeks Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake. But to focus on that would be to overlook the brilliant angle Brooker brings to the genre, not least its premise: that some of the few survivors of the zombie holocaust are the house-mates in Big Brother. Other horror films have been had reality TV settings, but this Endemol-produced flick has the advantage of featuring actual BB stars: Davina McCall and a host of former house-mates. Of the actors, Andy Nyman stands out as the BB director whose character is clearly Brooker's stand-in for himself, and whose comedy scenes are sensibly kept separate from the horror until the final scenes. And it's so well-written that you'll actually be rooting for everyone to survive.

If you love (a) zombie movies, or (b) Big Brother, Dead Set is *unmissably* good.

However, I would recommend waiting for the 138-minute DVD on 3rd November, as I can't imagine it having half the impact when it's chopped up into five episodes, complete with ad breaks, as it will be on E4 next week.

Hopefully Dead Set won't be quickly forgotten as a quirky little TV series on a minor channel, and will be recognised internationally as one of the decade's best zombie flicks.

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