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.
Editorials
Before ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘Alien Autopsy’ Showed How Real Found Footage Could Feel
The line separating artist from con man is a lot thinner than you might initially believe. While I think we can all agree that lying for the sake of profit is actively malicious behavior, isn’t it also true that the faux documentary aspect of The Blair Witch Project is half the reason why that film became such a cultural phenomenon? After all, if there’s one thing filmmakers have in common with stage magicians, it’s that misleading and misdirecting audiences is simply part of the job.
That’s why I’ve developed a habit of mostly ignoring the moral quandaries behind many of film and television’s biggest “hoaxes” in favor of appreciating the narrative elements that drive productions like Mermaids: The Body Found and even Animal Planet’s highly underrated The Cannibal in the Jungle. However, if there’s a definitive case of a highly publicized broadcast fooling the world into taking it seriously, it has to be Fox’s infamous 1995 TV special Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction.
It’s been over three decades since that eerie footage first haunted television screens right at the peak of the ’90s ufology craze, and in that time, the video has taken on a life of its own. From countless parodies and references in everything from The X-Files to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (as well as John Dower’s recently released tell-all documentary The Alien Autopsy Scandal, which I’d highly recommend to genre fans everywhere), there’s no denying the legacy of the Alien Autopsy video. However, I rarely see the tape discussed as what it truly is: a highly convincing found footage film directed by a passionate stage magician and brought to life by masterful practical effects work.
That’s why I’d like to invite readers to join me on a deep dive into one of the most infamous broadcasts of all time in an attempt to reevaluate the footage as a fascinating narrative experience rather than a complete hoax.
The TV Special That Convinced Millions It Was Real
Ray Santilli next to Extraterrestrial replica in ‘The Alien Autopsy Scandal’
For starters, regardless of whether or not you believe that there was in fact an extraterrestrial crash in Roswell during the summer of 1947 and that some form of autopsy was performed on the victims, the producers behind the black & white recordings, Ray Santilli and Gary Shoefield, insist that their video was a “restoration.” Though I’d argue that the proper word is “remake”of genuine footage that was too damaged to air on television. That’s why the duo went on to recruit filmmaker and eccentric magician Spyros Melaris and sculptor/monster designer John Humphreys to bring their version of the autopsy to life and sell it to the highest bidder.
This is where the story of the Alien Autopsy as a narrative experience really begins. Melaris claims that his approach to the faux recording consisted of striving for extreme period accuracy in both shooting equipment and setting while also planting subtle details that would initially seem like mistakes but could later be revealed to actually fit the time period. That being said, the filmmaker was under the impression that the short would be released for free as a PR stunt, with the team later producing and selling an informative documentary chronicling exactly how the footage was faked and commenting on how easy it is to manipulate public perception with a good old-fashioned magic trick.
This obviously isn’t how things went down, and that’s likely the reason why Melaris has since distanced himself from everyone else involved with the project. Yet, no amount of behind-the-scenes drama can undermine the genuine effort that went into making the short as impressive as it is. From the sourcing of real animal organs from a local butcher to make the organic part of the creature more lifelike to the highly detailed sculpt that made use of a hollowed-out underlayer that could be filled with fake blood and assorted viscera, there’s a reason why so many Hollywood specialists are still impressed with the artistry on display here.
Of course, the believability is only half the story, as I think that the best part of the autopsy is how Melaris builds on the existing tension by obscuring certain details and often embracing the chaos of what a real examination of extraterrestrial life could feel like. The camera often goes out of focus at just the right time to make certain effects hit even harder, and we can only speculate as to what the hazmat-suited doctors are gesticulating about during the operation. There’s a real air of mystery to the whole thing that almost makes it feel like a cosmically terrifying, cursed film containing forbidden knowledge that civilians were never meant to see.
So when Fox’s Fact or Fiction brings in the specialists to comment on the film and its otherworldly subject, it’s no surprise that we end up with one of the most memorable mockumentaries of all time – albeit one where the participants are unaware that the footage they’re commenting on is basically a large-scale practical joke. A joke that the network was obviously in on, as many participants claim that the TV special cut out significant portions where guests point out that they believe the footage to be an elaborate hoax.
The Lasting Impact of the Hoax Turned Cultural Event
Regardless, I remember going to bed terrified after watching reruns of the special and thinking about the respected pathologist who claimed that the body was almost certainly inhuman, with even effects maestro Stan Winston commenting on how difficult it would be to recreate some of these visuals through practical puppetry. That’s not even mentioning Jonathan Frakes’ dramatic hyping up of the disturbing imagery as if he was talking about the tape from The Ring, with his spooky demeanor here likely being responsible for his later role as the host of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction a few years later.
Personally, I’d argue that the Alien Autopsy phenomenon had just as much of an impact on me as a horror fan as The Blair Witch Project, a film that was almost certainly influenced by the success of this immensely popular hoax (to the point where they even produced their own TV special commenting on Heather’s found footage). Even if Fox didn’t intend to produce a narrative feature about the aftermath of the Roswell crash, the end product still holds up remarkably well as a highly entertaining mockumentary exploring the idea that we may not be alone in the universe.
While neither Santilli nor the rest of the production team has ever commented on this, I also think it’s very likely that the idea of a faux Alien Autopsy could have been influenced by Dean Alioto’s The McPherson Tape/UFO Abduction. I’ve already written about how this granddaddy of found footage was co-opted by rogue ufologists who began selling bootlegs of the tape at conventions as if it were real evidence of a close encounter, so it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine that Santilli and company could have heard about this phenomenon and been inspired to come up with their own highly profitable hoax.
At the end of the day, it’s unlikely that the Alien Autopsy film is recreating any real footage from Roswell, but I can still appreciate the short and the accompanying television event as a standalone horror story that still influences the way we see found footage to this very day.
After all, the possibility that something could be real is often much scarier than finding out for sure – and that’s why I think Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction is still worth revisiting three decades down the line.
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