Being a fan of Brooker and not being a fan of reality TV, I eagerly anticipated a great big gory blast of cathartic carnage in the Big Brother house and was not in the least bit disappointed. It would take something outstandingly sinister and subversive to make me switch on empty airtime filler like Big Brother, and there’d have to be the promise that the unbearable, attention-seeking participants would do more than just bitch and moan about each other and act like inane egomaniacs. Adding a few zombies to the action and unleashing a global pandemic is the perfect way to make the show actually stimulating and perhaps – in the absence of race row – boost up viewer ratings again. Such is the vacuous nature of this kind of reality TV; it wouldn’t surprise me if the programme makers totally missed the underlying satire and considered constructing the next edition of the atrocious show as a life-or-death survival scenario. Hold that thought. Thinking about not just Dead Set, but all other zombie texts across TV and film, whatever becomes of the souls of the undead? They’re undoubtedly there in body, definitely a bit challenged in terms of mind, but what about spirit? As far as I’m aware, no zombie flick, book, comic or TV series has ever addressed spiritual issues of soul. It’s a completely secular scenario every time it comes to re-animated corpses, but yet it’s a different matter for other horror monsters. Ghosts spring forth from the ether or some great beyond and are usually grappling with occult or afterlife issues. The same is true for mummies and malevolent demons moved to terrorise the world of the living; probably because some bungling human unfurled an ancient curse cast down for the ages in line with archaic religion and mythology. Films like The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen invoke the Devil, and werewolves and vampires are always warded off with crucifixes, holy water and other iconographic Christian paraphernalia. Despite this, when it comes to zombies – the straight-up reanimated corpses without fanged-dentures – there’s a total absence of spiritual concern. The cause of outbreak is never supernatural but always a rationalist reason such as sinister scientific experimentation or radiation from outer space. There isn’t even any outstanding religious imagery or heavy-handed allegorising to hammer home a moral message. Maybe there’s a whole realm of pop culture that’s devoted to the issue of zombie spirituality that I’m blissfully unaware of or ignoring. If so, let me know. It disturbs me that no one cares about afterlife fate of the living dead and that, as a result, they will never find any sense of righteous fulfilment or harmony. If Boris Karloff’s monster is allowed that liberty in Bride of Frankenstein through the blind old hermit who offers good Christian instruction and companionship, I’d say that it’s only fair that re-animated cadavers receive the same opportunity. I worry that no one is praying for the souls of the shuffling corpses. Is anyone out there concerned about their salvation? Richard Dawkins and hardcore atheists may disagree, but in the interests of accurate representation, right of consciousness and creative diversity, I feel there needs to be some supernatural, spiritual focus in zombie texts. You never know: if just once an ordained minister was available and on-hand at the moment someone gets savaged by a flesh-eating terror, the last rites may just stave off that sickening descent into living dead status. A bash on the head kills them you say? Nay! Gather the grotesques around for some transcendental meditation or make them take communion. Hallelujah! Global endemic averted… Check out our Dead Set reviews, starting here.Interview with Charlie Brooker. creator of Dead Set
