There was a sustained moment throughout the aughts where you couldn’t move for zombies. Perhaps it started with 2002’s 28 Days Later – little Cillian Murphy wandering dazed around a desolate Westminster! – but there were other takes on the shambling undead every couple of years: 2004’s Shaun of the Dead, 2008’s Dead Set, the novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in 2009, Left 4 Dead 2. Zombies quietened down a bit with the advent of 2010’s The Walking Dead – a franchise that, ironically, refuses to die and keeps shuffling forward while making a low rustling sound – and we got into other things instead: Westworld’s robots with souls, The Last of Us’s mushroom monsters, every goth thing Game of Thrones could throw at us. The point is: sometimes zombies are popular, sometimes zombies go away.
Zombies are popular, again. There have been rumbles for a while – Danny Boyle’s 2025 sequel, 28 Years Later, looms; indie sleaze is back; and there are a load of new Walking Dead spin-offs creaking onwards for people who collect Funko Pops to watch – but the real proof that zombies are back is that Channel 4 are making an interesting and writer-led take on the beasts. The take is Generation Z (Sunday 27 October, 9pm), the writer is Ben Wheatley, and I am delighted to say that Sue Johnston is one of the primary zombies. That rustling sound is me rubbing my hands together with glee.
