In the Netflix series “Dead Set,” ordinary people are tragically transformed into flesh-eating zombies faster than the camera can follow. These zombies, which are quick on their feet and unrelenting in their search for a human meal, have bright blue eyes and emit unearthly, snarling and screeching noises as they chase and attack their prey.
While some may say that the noises emitted by these zombies add to the terror which they elicit, I argue that it would be much scarier if the zombies did not make these unearthly sounds and instead maintained their human characteristics. In the reading for today’s class, the author speaks about how simple, almost negligible changes to the “enemy” are used to justify the violent killing which takes place in many horror films or video games (Kocurek, 87). These changes can take the form of different colored blood, alien-like behaviors, or in the case of Deadset, the eyes and noises which characterize the zombies. This change makes the killing more palatable, and creates a distance between the human protagonists and the monstrous enemy. In this way, the horror of the of the zombies stems from the fear of being eaten, and a certain degree of relief is felt by brutally killing them with a head wound.
I argue that while the concept of being eaten by a zombie is indeed horrifying, the snarling dehumanizes the zombies to a point where it actually detracts from the horror. If the zombies were to lose the unearthly sounds, but rather maintain their recognizable human qualities, there would be an added, and more psychological layer of horror to the plot. In the episode, “Her Name Was Claire,” the main protagonist watches someone she knew ravenously munch on a corpse below. This past-tense implies a termination of identity– that this zombie is not longer the human Claire, but rather is a monstrous other who must be killed. But what if Claire maintained the characteristics of Claire, just with the added zombie characteristics of mania and an appetite for human flesh? This would make the hapless killing of zombie enemies much more psychologically complex, with fear stemming from not only the threat of being eaten, but also of having to smash in the head of someone who you actively know. This idea takes the concept of “dead kindred” to an extreme, such that the antagonists of the story are not some distinct, dehumanized other, but rather are still included as part of the human community. The psychological horror which stems from the thought of killing someone you know tends to strike a deeper part of the conscious, and maybe even subconscious, than the gore and violence of conventional horror (unless you are a psychopath). Further, the maintenance of human characteristics without the additive growling and animal like-behavior adds a more realistic feel to the story-line.
The reading for Wednesday’s class discusses the use of zombie gothic genre to both appease and target the real anxieties of society. In Deadset, this is achieved by having a zombie monster which is not quite human, but just human enough to make us think. However, if this is taken a step further, edging on more targeting of real anxiety than appeasing it, the series would be much more effective in instilling fear in the audience. That being said, I am not sure this degree of horror would appeal much to the public, and would probably never actually be enacted in film, as the main point of movies and shows is to appeal to and be consumed by the masses.