Editorials
Netflix’s “Black Summer” Does These Two Things Better Than “The Walking Dead”
The truth is, I’m not a big fan of comparing one piece of entertainment to another piece of unrelated entertainment, which is often done to boost up the one thing while taking a crap on the other. And I suppose that’s precisely what I’ve done with the above headline, but those who read my weekly recaps of “The Walking Dead” know that I’ve always been a big time supporter and fan of AMC’s series, even when it hasn’t been so hot. Mind you, the recent ninth season fired on cylinders the series hadn’t in a couple years, but I digress.
My point is, I love “The Walking Dead,” which will go down in history not simply as one of the best but also one of the most important horror television shows of all time. And while the stellar first season of “The Walking Dead” was no doubt far superior to the debut season of Netflix’s brand new “Black Summer,” the latter zombie series has impressed me by excelling in a couple areas that the AMC series has been having trouble with of late.
And now that I’ve got your attention, I’ll explain what the hell I’m talking about.
1) THE ZOMBIES ARE ACTUALLY SCARY
Whether you love “The Walking Dead” or you hate it, one thing you cannot deny is that the zombies the series has brought to the small screen are some of the downright coolest in the sub-genre’s history. Makeup master Greg Nicotero and his team are constantly upping their game to create truly memorable walkers, from the half-corpse zombie seen in the pilot episode to “Winslow” the scrap metal zombie from Season 7. Many of the show’s zombies have been iconic enough that they were turned into action figures by McFarlane Toys, and many of them even pay direct tribute to zombies from classic horror movies.
Point being, the zombies on “The Walking Dead” are incredibly cool looking, but they’re very rarely… scary. Especially at this point in the show’s run, nine seasons deep, the characters have become so adept at dispatching zombies that the gut-munchers have become an afterthought. Even when several of them are approaching our heroes, a few quick slices from Michonne’s katana separates their heads from their bodies with ease. Often, it’s as if the zombies are made of a gelatinous goo, which makes for some gruesome bits of mayhem but also ensures that the zombies on “The Walking Dead” never feel like much of a threat.
In “Black Summer,” however, each and every zombie is presented as a vicious killing machine who’s almost impossible to escape from, even if you’ve only got *one* on your tail. No, they don’t look even half as cool as the zombies on “The Walking Dead” – they’re newly infected humans rather than full-on monsters, bleeding from the eyes and mouth but otherwise looking quite human – but they pose a credible threat that brings genuine suspense and terror to “Black Summer.” And at its best, the Netflix series is nothing if not TENSE.
From the immediately mad opening sequence to the equally insane final moments, the first season of “Black Summer” frequently delivers intense, immersive chaos that’s sustained across entire episodes, and that’s primarily because the *running* zombies are actually fearsome foes; it doesn’t hurt that the show begins at the start of the zombie apocalypse, ensuring that the characters aren’t very well equipped at dispatching the flesh-eaters. All of these elements particularly allow the series to shine in its fourth episode, titled “Alone.”
“Alone” primarily sees one character being chased around town by one zombie, beginning at a school and making pit stops at a grocery store, a garage and eventually, a bookstore. Remember how I said that “The Walking Dead” frequently sees its characters easily killing off entire hordes of walkers like it’s going out of style? Well in “Alone,” we truly get to see how much havoc a single zombie can wreak. The extended, multi-location chase sequence is unbearably tense the whole way through, with one particularly effective portion putting our ill-equipped survivor on top of a school bus… with the hungry zombie trying to get up there with him. Another episode has a different group of characters holed up in a diner, and only two zombies outside are enough to ensure they won’t all make it out alive.
Most zombie purists tends to prefer the slow-moving rotters found in George Romero’s films and on “The Walking Dead,” but there’s something to be said for the fast-moving types that you really can’t escape from. And “Black Summer” makes a good case, like the Dawn of the Dead remake before it, for the effectiveness of “fast zombies.”
Speaking of which, that brings us to the second point I want to touch upon.
2) NOBODY IS EVER TRULY SAFE
Now I realize it’s hardly fair to compare a brand new series in its first season with a ratings juggernaut that’s now up to its tenth, the former allowed to take chances while the latter is naturally beholden to keeping certain characters alive for the sake of ratings and storyline continuation, but the debut season of “Black Summer” has nevertheless excelled in the “nobody’s safe” department. Due to the anthology-like nature of the series, which splits up two primary groups of characters but never really establishes any one character as the “main” character, “Black Summer” allows itself to really do whatever the hell it wants.
And it often wants to kill off characters.
One could argue that Jamie King’s Rose, a mother looking for her young daughter, is perhaps the main character of “Group A,” while Sal Velez Jr.’s William is arguably the main character of “Group B,” but even those distinctions are shattered to pieces when, in one of the final moments of the season – SPOILERS INCOMING – William is not only killed off, but he’s killed off by Rose. And it’s not even just that William dies unexpectedly, it’s that he’s written out of the show so unceremoniously. Whereas “The Walking Dead” has become known for telegraphing its character deaths, often giving characters extended, emotional sendoffs, “Black Summer” makes the decision to end William’s life with an almost shocking level of disregard. William, a character we’d gotten to know and care for across the previous seven episodes, is suddenly shot in the head by Rose the second a leg injury leads him to hold her back from getting to where she needs to be. No long, drawn out ethical debate. No buildup to it. No moment to process it afterwards. It just… happens. The blink-and-miss-it moment is even shot from behind, ensuring you don’t even get the comfort of seeing William one last time.
The shocking decision no doubt angered some viewers, but I for one can’t help but applaud the filmmakers for hammering home just how dangerous and vicious their world truly is. And even with Rose now firmly in the “main character” position in the wake of that bullet being fired off, the show has made it pretty clear that nobody is truly the Rick Grimes of this particular television series. “Black Summer,” in that regard, is high stakes in a way “The Walking Dead” cannot realistically be, and that should continue to make it an exciting watch.
The second characters become “death proof,” well, it’s much harder to be invested.
If we’re being honest here, I could also sit here and write up an article listing off the ways that “The Walking Dead” is far superior to “Black Summer” – and that list would be a bit longer than this one – but the point I’m trying to make here is that “Black Summer” is a fast-paced, vicious slice of small screen zombie chaos that has thus far proven itself to be a nice little alternate option for anyone who’s maybe bored with “The Walking Dead” at this point in time. In contrast to the slow-paced nature of the AMC series, Netflix’s zombie series crams an entire season into less than 5 hours, upping the intensity and bringing some real bite back to the undead horrors of the small screen. If nothing more, it’s a series worth checking out.
Yes, even if you’re sick of zombies entirely. A true classic never goes out of style.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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