Who doesn’t want to watch Sue Johnston biting someone’s face off?

It’s been a while since we’ve had a half-decent zombie show – apologies to The Walking Dead’s many, many unnecessary spin-offs. But Kill List director Ben Wheatley‘s new Channel 4 series Generation Z is finally a satirical horror-comedy worth chewing on.

For the sixth-form teens in the fictional town of Dambury, life is boring. That is, until there’s an outbreak of a lab-born virus that threatens to wipe out the entire population. No prizes for guessing Wheatley’s inspiration – but Generation Z doesn’t reflect on the Covid years.

This disease has an entirely different – and more literal – bite as it targets the elderly population and turns them into ravenous, near-indestructible, zombie-like versions of themselves. And when it comes to their tastes, the younger, the better.

Buket Komar as Kelly (Photo: James Pardon/Channel 4)
As the outbreak takes hold in a nursing home and Dambury gets locked down, it’s up to four central teens and their quasi-mentor Morgan to figure out what’s going on and save their families before shady government and military ops step in with radical moves to contain it.

The six episodes are chock full of famous British faces, from EastEnders’ Anita Dobson to My Family’s Robert Lindsay. At one point Sue Johnston (The Royle Family) bites the face of a biker clean off.

But despite the interesting premise and familiar cast, Generation Z gets off to a clunky start – especially when it comes to the stilted dialogue and its precarious comedy/horror balance. Some of the acting, especially from the older cast, comes off ironically stiff: multiple scenes in which Johnston’s Cecily leads the horde of hungry oldies with a repeated chant of “them” is in danger of pushing the concept too far into ridiculousness.

Nevertheless, it’s easy to get swept away by Generation Z, especially thanks to its young up-and-coming cast who manage to run rings around their more established co-stars.

A personal favourite is Lewis Gribbens’s Stef, a character so unsure of himself, he relies on the affirmations of an Andrew Tate-esque online figure called Clarence to try and find some sense of self.

Hidden in the shadows of popular best mate Charlie (Jay Lycurgo), and hopelessly lusting after Charlie’s ex-girlfriend Kelly, Stef is so blinded by his own low self-esteem that he’s oblivious to the fact there’s someone who actually fancies him in Finn – the group outcast who is far too smart for her own good sometimes.

The older cast, especially Dobson as Kelly’s grandmother Janine, look like they’re having a blast as these pseudo-zombies. And Robert Lindsay gives a stand-out performance as the trusted and reliable Morgan – an armchair conspiracy theorist who has taken the parentless Finn under his wing.
Anita Dobson as Janine (Photo: James Pardon/Channel 4)
What’s really interesting is Wheatley’s new slant on the age old zombie tropes. Walkers are often shown as monotonal, striding relics with no real vocabulary beyond the word “brainnnns”, but here they have full, foul-mouthed autonomy. They can plot, unite and plan, with their empathy and humanity turning down in volume the longer they stay half-alive.

There are some plots though that are just left dangling like innards in the breeze. T’Nia Miller is woefully underused as Charlie’s mother (who doesn’t even get a name), providing little more than a consistently dazed look and mumbles despite her character having a prominent domestic abuse storyline.

But ultimately, it’s the humanity of the story that proves Generation Z as a show worth sticking with. The layers and lines around what is right and just blur just as much within the humans of Dambury as the zombies and Wheatley captures the uncertainty of a teenage life on the cusp of adulthood in a way that feels authentic, nuanced and painfully accurate.

Generation Z has its flaws, but stick with it and you’ll have a bloody good time.

‘Generation Z’ continues tomorrow at 9pm on Channel 4. All episodes are streaming on Channel 4