BLACK SUMMER REVIEW: A GREAT FIRST BITE OF A SHOW…

The best part of any zombie story — film, television, book, etc. — is always the early days of a breakout. When the world is caught in that chaotic space between normalcy and its eventual end. It’s often terrifying in its familiarity and the ease with which it demonstrates the apparent fragility of human existence.

If you’re going to bring another zombie show into the world, it had better damn well feel like something new, otherwise, get it out of here!

Anyone who’s a fan of Z Nation knows about the “black summer,” the first weeks of that show’s zombie apocalypse. It was deadly and bloody, and the show dives into the beginning of the world’s greatest, deadly outbreak with a bitchin’ bite.

Did Culturedemandsgeeks enjoy it?

Yeah. We happily and brainlessly watched all seven episodes — the first season is eight episodes — provided early by Netflix.

Black Summer is supposedly a prequel to Z Nation, Syfy’s zany answer to The Walking Dead that was canceled recently after five seasons, but that’s only technically correct. In fact, the only reason it’s being called a prequel has to be to draw in the cultish fans of Z Nation, because the two shows share no genetics. Black Summer is set at the onset of the zombie apocalypse; Z Nation took place three years into the apocalypse.

Black Summer takes itself very seriously and gets off on tension, horror, and danger; where Z Nation offered us the wildly, outlandish themes of Stripper Zombies and Alien Zombies, and everything in between Zombies and Zona!

But both shows do not use slow shambling, limping, zombies, though; they run, and they’re speedy. Since no one knows quite how to deal with these bloodthirsty undead creatures, all hell is breaking loose.

With such relentlessness and mayhem, though the episodic structure and pacing of the series helps it to stand out — especially when compared to the likes The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead.

The opening Shots of a very quiet suburban neighborhood. Then we realize, as we see flat tires on cars, and a siren going off, that the neighborhood is abandoned. A family escaping a perfect suburban home with their neighbors in-tow.

Rose (Jaime King), her husband Patrick (Ty Olsson) and daughter Anna (Zoe Marlett) leave the house they were occupying and sprint to a transport point that will take people to a local stadium. The “military” officers are on edge, threatening to shoot anyone who pushes back. One officer notices something wrong with Patrick and doesn’t let him on the transport, and the two of them get separated from Anna, who is on the truck. As they hole up in another house, we find out why they won’t let him on: He’s been bitten. And he tells her to go find Anna without him. We soon find out that Rose should have left right there and then.

Yes, it is a show of a mother trying to locate her missing daughter, and is done perfectly well with inter-cutting scenes that draws other (main and non-main) characters into her story-arc.

We also see Ryan (Mustafa Alabssi), who is hearing impaired, run through the town with a woman who doesn’t speak English. He also sees a girl get hit by a car and her friend abandon her. Then there’s Barbara (Gwynyth Walsh), driving towards the stadium in one of the few cars that work, skeptically taking on a passenger who ends up doing what she thinks he’ll do, despite all his promises. Lance (Kelsey Flower) is with his girlfriend at a rendezvous point, and sees her get hit by a car. He abandons her, but we stick with the girl and see what happens when someone transforms.

Then there’s “Spears” (Justin Chu Cary) who is under arrest for something, though he claims he’s innocent. As he’s being held in a house, he manages to escape, kill the soldier that’s watching him, and don his uniform. He also helps Rose escape from a zombie, and the two of them go to a checkpoint — that just closed because the area is under attack.

BEST CHARACTER:

Kyungson is also introduced in the debut episode of the Netflix series. Christine Lee plays Kyungson or ‘Son’ after previously appearing in Colossal, My Christmas Dream and Travelers. She’s loyal, badass, now’s how to handle herself in the face of death, and downright a trusty ally to have by your side.

POSITIVES:

To counteract the familiarity of that survival-of-the-fittest scenario, the series attempts to up the ante, so to speak. That leads to the inevitable run-in with gun-toting survivalists drunk on their own power preying on the weak, or at least the less well equipped.

In one scene, a few people trapped in a diner debate on whether or not one of them should be zombie bait and die while the rest escape. It gets dark.

Don’t expect a high value to be placed on friendships like The Walking Dead often does. This is not a show about finding your community after the world has ended.

It’s about how we, as a society, would horribly deal with the apocalypse if it happened right now. 

Almost an entire episode of Black Summer, Netflix’s new slow-burn zombie thriller, is about a single character on the run from a single zombie. The entire half hour is brimming with terrifying anxiety.  It’s an unusual format but the doggedness of this drama will make it stand out from the horde of TV shows about the undead.

NIGGLING DILEMMA:

Why oh why does everyone not shoot the damn undead in the heads?

Truly, we are asking ourselves the same question every time our group comes face-to-face with Zs. (Shoot for the head!), not the legs, nor the body, the goddamn head!

The concept that everyone in the show is oblivious to the concept of the ‘Walking Dead’ and ‘how to kill them’ is downright annoying, considering the number of films, comic books and so forth is readily available to the masses.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

With some remarkable assets like fantastic camerawork, emphasis on isolating characters as a scare tactic, and a fairly decent cast, Black Summer isn’t ‘instant classic’ material, BUT IT WORKS.

It’s great if all you’re looking for some mildly riveting jump scares and the tension we’ve come to expect from the zombie genre, but if storytelling you want, this doesn’t make the cut. If you’re looking for scares and decent pacing, then delve straight in and enjoy the show.

Black Summer Season 1 is now streaming on Netflix.

4/5 STARS