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New Netflix series: Black Summer

Started by Pinckle Wicker, April 15, 2019, 07:27:24 PM

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Just binged this on Sat night. Will need to do a rewatch as was slightly inebriated but it was darn riveting and much better than TWD in all ways. Much more in line with 28 Days Later as in being chased by fast zombies equals more scares and tension. Anyway will need to get back to the last two eps as a bit hazy really and vague to the ending. Anyway it's damn good and would watch it for all the apocalypse fans.

BlodwynPig

More zombie shite. Have to say the trailer looked cliched to fuck

Quote from: BlodwynPig on April 15, 2019, 07:32:29 PM
More zombie shite. Have to say the trailer looked cliched to fuck

Never saw the trailer man! Just went in blind when it came up on Netflix. Guess if you already think it's shite then mibbe no for you, eh?

St_Eddie

Quote from: BlodwynPig on April 15, 2019, 07:32:29 PM
More zombie shite. Have to say the trailer looked cliched to fuck

Exactly.  Yawn...

Romero's original trilogy.

Savini's remake.

O'Bannon's comedy take.

Boyle's modern spin.

That's all I ever need in terms of zombies.  The genre's beyond overplayed at this point.  Every time that I see yet another announcement of a new zombie movie, game, graphic novel, Fucko Pap! or whatever, I roll my eyes with disinterest and contempt.  I love the classics but for the love of creation, come up with something original!

BlodwynPig

Quote from: Pinckle Wicker on April 15, 2019, 07:47:17 PM
Never saw the trailer man! Just went in blind when it came up on Netflix. Guess if you already think it's shite then mibbe no for you, eh?

It is probably decent for zombie afficianados but the trailer offered nothing new, just apocalypse wank fantasy again and again.

I gut big guns, me survive! Hoooorahhhh

Small Man Big Horse

Mrs SMBH binged it as we both used to like Z Nation but she said she didn't see the point of it as it was lacking in the humour and silliness that Z Nation did so well. That said she claims it's a lot better than The Walking Dead and she doesn't regret watching it.

Sin Agog

Netflix also has a surprisingly good Korean period-zombie series called Kingdom.  But yeah, people were groaning when The Last Of Us came out that the zombie element was played-out, and it's now several years later.  Heh, someone I know recently had their zombies VS people with disabilties draft rejected for the same reason.  I warned her when she told me the idea.  Maybe she should have tried pitching it as a Netflix series instead?

Dr Syntax Head

The only proper decent zombie thing I've seen since 28 days is a film called The Battery. There's little action and the zombies are not the focus. It's bloody brilliant.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2272350/

BlodwynPig

The best zombie film would be a film without zombies. Just the dread

phantom_power

Saying you are are bored of zombie films seems a bit like saying you are bored of musicals or westerns. A good zombie film will use their presence as a catalyst for something else, be it Pontypool or One Cut of the Dead or something like Juan of the Dead giving you a window into a different world.  It's the same with TV. It could be a brooding pretentious musing on humanity like TWD or gonzo fun with no restrictions like Z-Nation. It is all about the living characters, not the undead ones

St_Eddie

Quote from: phantom_power on April 16, 2019, 03:24:45 PM
Saying you are are bored of zombie films seems a bit like saying you are bored of musicals or westerns.

Nah, it's like saying that you're bored of musicals with zombies or westerns with zombies, if every other musical or western was about zombies.  A musical is a genre.  A western is a genre.  Zombies are a sub-genre.  I'm a big fan of the horror genre and it's beyond tedious to keep seeing yet another zombie movie or game announcement.  It's completely overplayed and irritatingly pervasive.

Quote from: phantom_power on April 16, 2019, 03:24:45 PM
A good zombie film will use their presence as a catalyst for something else, be it Pontypool or One Cut of the Dead or something like Juan of the Dead giving you a window into a different world.  It's the same with TV. It could be a brooding pretentious musing on humanity like TWD or gonzo fun with no restrictions like Z-Nation. It is all about the living characters, not the undead ones

You're preaching to the choir.  I completely agree that a good zombie flick uses the creatures as a means to showing how the survivors react under extreme conditions.  That doesn't change the fact that I'm inclined to roll my eyes whenever a new zombie thing gets announced.  Let's be honest here; 95% of zombie fiction is generic, derivative and wholly unoriginal.  Life's too short for me to wade through a sea of tripe, in the hopes of coming across something which transcends convention.

The other issue with zombies being so prevalent within the horror genre is that their ubiquity has removed the fascination in the fantastical, which is so often key to emotional investment in a horror story.  A big part of why I fell in love with Romero's trilogy was because I was fascinated by the creatures themselves; how much humanity remains within?  Do they feel pain?  What's the process like for someone who gets bitten?  That intrigue mixed with fear was a big part of the appeal.  Now I see a zombie in fiction and I yawn.  It's no longer fantastical, it's mundane.  Familiarity breeds contempt.

BlodwynPig

Well said.

Good title for an incest horror / familiarity breeds contempt

phantom_power

Quote from: St_Eddie on April 16, 2019, 06:50:36 PM
Let's be honest here; 95% of fiction is generic, derivative and wholly unoriginal.

FTFY

Quote from: St_Eddie on April 16, 2019, 06:50:36 PM
The other issue with zombies being so prevalent within the horror genre is that their ubiquity has removed the fascination in the fantastical, which is so often key to emotional investment in a horror story.  A big part of why I fell in love with Romero's trilogy was because I was fascinated by the creatures themselves; how much humanity remains within?  Do they feel pain?  What's the process like for someone who gets bitten?  That intrigue mixed with fear was a big part of the appeal.  Now I see a zombie in fiction and I yawn.  It's no longer fantastical, it's mundane.  Familiarity breeds contempt.

Again, I think it depends on how well done the particular film is. Investment in the characters means you care more about their fates. There are too many bad zombie films but then there are too many bad films in general

mothman

Quote from: BlodwynPig on April 16, 2019, 03:18:30 PM
The best zombie film would be a film without zombies. Just the dread

God, yes. I remember years ago having a dream where I was sat in the front room of a house at night. I was on the sofa and I was terrified to move in case something outside spotted it - the curtains were open, there were no lights inside but there were still yellow sodium streetlamps outside provding some ollumination, including of parts of the room I was in. I knew in the dream that there was something outside, zombies or vampires or whatever. And then I woke up. Never felt more scared in a dream.

Quote from: St_Eddie on April 16, 2019, 06:50:36 PM
Let's be honest here; 95% of zombie fiction is generic, derivative and wholly unoriginal.

Funnily enough, I also had another dream the other night, where a very slow zombie apocalypse was happening. People knew the dead were rising, it was so slow and low key it wasn't felt to be much of an immediate threat. People knew the signs and what to look for and how to deal with it, but there was still this fear that it was going to go out of control eventually, and so people were preparing, and wondering who to trust...

I don't dream about zombies usually, I must point out.

Sin Agog

Quote from: BlodwynPig on April 16, 2019, 03:18:30 PM
The best zombie film would be a film without zombies. Just the dread

The zombie zeitgeist is definitely related to a growing sense of apocalypse in the air.  That feeling has arguably heated up even more since zombie fever pitch five, six years ago.  The problem is the zombies themselves.  Don't care anymore.  Bring back triffids or something instead.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Sin Agog on April 16, 2019, 09:00:02 PM
The zombie zeitgeist is definitely related to a growing sense of apocalypse in the air.  That feeling has arguably heated up even more since zombie fever pitch five, six years ago.  The problem is the zombies themselves.  Don't care anymore.  Bring back triffids or something instead.

Exactly this.  Why does it need to be zombies?  The only reason that it's always zombies is because creatively bankrupt filmmakers are jumping on a bandwagon.  Such behaviour does not invite my interest, much less warrant it.  You can explore the exact same themes of 'us and them' and 'what it means to be human' with a different kind of creature; Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a good example of this.  I'm just sick of bloody zombies (both figuratively and literally).

BlodwynPig

Zombies are the lazy narcissists way of playing hero. Slow enough to give them a chance of survival. "YEH, I GOT ALL THE SKILLZ, WITH MY AUTOMATED WEAPON AND TINS OF BEANS, I'LL BE ALRIGHT IN AN APOCALYPSE....IT'LL BE WELL COOL...AND I'LL FUCK THE GIRL TOO"

In reality, these guys will be the first dead in a true crisis. Shitting their pants as they tumble into the void.

Moribunderast

Quote from: BlodwynPig on April 16, 2019, 03:18:30 PM
The best zombie film would be a film without zombies. Just the dread

What about a movie where a video proclaiming to film a zombie coming out of the earth goes viral, leading to mass panic where people start looting, rioting and killing each other but then it turns out the video was a hoax but we've brought on the apocalypse ourselves as everyone is either dead or a murderer or quite upset and the REAL danger is proven to be social media and our own propensity for fear and violence when faced with the unknown AAAAAAH

I will call it 28 Tweets Later.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Moribunderast on April 17, 2019, 06:05:19 AM
What about a movie where a video proclaiming to film a zombie coming out of the earth goes viral, leading to mass panic where people start looting, rioting and killing each other but then it turns out the video was a hoax but we've brought on the apocalypse ourselves as everyone is either dead or a murderer or quite upset and the REAL danger is proven to be social media and our own propensity for fear and violence when faced with the unknown AAAAAAH

I will call it 28 Tweets Later.

Boy, these latter day Black Mirror episodes are getting worse by the second.

Puce Moment

I have to say that I enjoyed the pilot episode rather a lot, although I assume it's episodic, character focused structure will be jettisoned immediately.

The way they weaved the characters together was quite uninspired I thought, and I don't like that they borrowed the 'you die you become a zombie' biology of The Walking Dead. I always thought zombie narratives stuck with being bitten as they main way that people become zombies - am I just forgetting examples of where it is the natural result of just dying?

TWD has become speeches and epic background music like each scene is the third act resolution - I prefer something more glib and nasty, so I am hoping this will be it.

The violence was pretty graphic - that cop murder scene was squeamish.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Puce Moment on April 17, 2019, 12:17:40 PM
I always thought zombie narratives stuck with being bitten as they main way that people become zombies - am I just forgetting examples of where it is the natural result of just dying?

You're forgetting the originator of the modern zombie - George A. Romero.  He always made a point of saying, in interviews and commentaries and such, that it's not the bite that directly turns you into a zombie, it's the bite that kills you and then it's through death that you become a zombie.  Indeed, anyone who dies in his films will become a zombie, regardless of whether they were bitten or not.

BlodwynPig


kidsick5000

It's a decent binge.
Not something I'd go through twice but a decent take on the genre.
I really liked the urban quiet of it. And the suburban area it is filmed in has a maze-like feel. Everything is single storey, everything looks the same. So trying to escape it could easily feel impossible.
It doesn't make a secret of what it is riffing on. There's a Lord of the Flies vibe in the school episode. The Diner is Lifeboat.
I really liked the episode focussed on William (?) too. Just a guy in a panic, which was refreshing to see if a tad infuriating (It's a supermaket, it will have kitchen equipment of some form).
Characters in zombie films are pretty much heroes or weasels, so a bloke stumbling through mistakes was a good change.
At least they didn't do the zombie/aftermath trope of the blissful oasis... WHERE THEY EAT PEOPLE!

What I really want to know is whether the head of Netflix is a Doomsday-prepper.
So much of the original content is either Apocalyptic or post-apocalypse.

St_Eddie

Quote from: kidsick5000 on April 18, 2019, 01:50:44 AM
What I really want to know is whether the head of Netflix is a Doomsday-prepper.
So much of the original content is either Apocalyptic or post-apocalypse.

It's just a sign of the times I think.  Art reflects the period of society in which it was created.

Dex Sawash


Keep reading this as Black Skimmer, littorally

Puce Moment

Quote from: St_Eddie on April 17, 2019, 12:39:00 PMYou're forgetting the originator of the modern zombie - George A. Romero.  He always made a point of saying, in interviews and commentaries and such, that it's not the bite that directly turns you into a zombie, it's the bite that kills you and then it's through death that you become a zombie.  Indeed, anyone who dies in his films will become a zombie, regardless of whether they were bitten or not.

For some reason I have always found the zombie genre quite boring, so my knowledge of this sort of thing is a bit sketchy. Thanks for clarifying, that makes sense now.

I am on episode 5 and loving this quite a lot. The building of tension and the sense that anything could happen at any moment is pretty gratifying.

Dr Syntax Head

The whole military evacuation thing is brilliant. It gets left out of a lot of zombie type stuff but it would be what happens. The Crazies, that incredible film covers it really well.

Dr Syntax Head

Loving this so far. At this point it's what I wanted from walking dead

St_Eddie

Quote from: Dr Syntax Head on April 19, 2019, 03:54:27 PM
The whole military evacuation thing is brilliant. It gets left out of a lot of zombie type stuff but it would be what happens. The Crazies, that incredible film covers it really well.

My goodness, I pray that you're referring to the original and not the remake.

Bennett Brauer

Very good first episode, second not so compulsive, and the gradual realisation that I don't like any of the characters. The third
Spoiler alert
Zombie-free
[close]
ep set in the school was so boring for the most part and then when stuff did start to happen it was beyond silly.

Put in the Netflix-I-give-up bin alongside Stranger Things, Sense8 and that resurrection thing set in Australia whose name I forget.