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- Netflix
- Apr 11, 2019
- Netflix
- Apr 11, 2019
Summary Rose (Jaime King) searches for her daughter just as the zombie virus epidemic begins in this prequel series to Syfy's Z Nation.
Created By: John Hyams
- Netflix
- Apr 11, 2019
- Netflix
- Apr 11, 2019
Black Summer
Season 1
Season Premiere: Apr 11, 2019
Metascore
Available after 4 critic reviews
5.0
Where to Watch
Summary Rose (Jaime King) searches for her daughter just as the zombie virus epidemic begins in this prequel series to Syfy's Z Nation.
Created By: John Hyams
Where to Watch
Season Episodes
View All Seasons
Top Cast
In a sense, Black Summer is The Walking Dead without all the bloated melodrama, kooky villains, and pretentious blabbering.
Nothing is less terrifying than over-familiarity, and that’s only one of the many problems with Netflix’s Black Summer (premiering on April 11), a bleak, dull affair that mistakes camera movement for narrative energy and has about as much life as the walking dead.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 46 User Ratings
5.0
39% Positive
18 Ratings
18 Ratings
17% Mixed
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
43% Negative
20 Ratings
20 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 46 User Ratings
5.0
39% Positive
18 Ratings
18 Ratings
17% Mixed
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
43% Negative
20 Ratings
20 Ratings
Serie excelente! muita tensão, personagens 'reais' num cenário apocalíptico tentando sobreviver.. vale a pena, até por fugir à regra das séries do gênero
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SEASON 1
"Black Summer" begins with an overhead camera shot of people running. It's appropriate because that's what happens over eight episodes. People run, people fight, people die. And that's what I'm here for. I dont need long, draw out dramas where we might see a zombie a week (if we're lucky). I'm looking at you "The Walking Dead". We'll get enough character development along the way. I watch zombie shows to see people fight for their lives.
I really hope "Black Summer" gets a season 2. Even Stephen King tweeted an endorsement this week saying "No long, fraught discussions. No endless flashbacks, because there's no back story. No grouchy teens. Dialogue is spare. Much shot with a single handheld camera, very fluid. Showrunners could learn a lot from this."You cant get much better than that.
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SEASON 1
Hold on to your bats folks, for is this yet another zombie flick that hits the screen? Will it swing wide or will it hit home? Let's have a look, shall we?
Black Summer is a zombie flick that picks up just after the outbreak of the epidemic. Interestingly enough, we won't see much of the relentless dead for some time, which is arguably a good thing. The unseen is scarier than the seen(and it saves on the makeup). The first two episodes introduces us to the potential cast. Potential, because some won't make it past those first episodes, which is another good thing I suppose. A zombie flick worth its grain should have a profound sense of vulnerability. Nobody is safe.. not even the leading cast members.
Two hits and it starts to looks good. And here is another good thing: some of the cast are actually interesting. Take Spears for instance. He is a close runner up for being my favorite. We don't know much about him, but he is introduced to us as a detainee of the military. But are these soldiers actually good? We never quite know what is the truth. Spears tells Rose lateron that they are just heavily armed looters, forcing her to make a tough choice with little to go on. He remains ambiguous, saving Rose from a zombie while he could have left her to die, but prepared to leave other people behind.. or so he says. And at some point he even gave me a yes reaction.
Would you shoot a kid?, asks Rose.
Yes, Spears replies, aiming his gun at one.
Do it, I thought. Let me see you do it!
Of course he doesn't. Kids in are invulnerable. Like dogs. Which makes you wonder why they put them in, except perhaps for the trailer. It feels that cheap. Oh right, a bunch of kids turn out to be nasty, but you'll know they won't get hurt, no matter what. I bet a nuking them from orbit won't kill them.
And here is that thing: Black Summer is seriously hamstrung. It develops ideas(or actually: steals them from others) and then completely undoes them.
Possibly the best moment is where five desperate people are chased by two zombies into a diner. At odds with eachother and without any proper weapons they have to work together. Killing two zombies with five people must be easy, right? Yes, I know: you will do it, cause you played the game. But in reality trying to kill someone with a cooking pan is hard, let alone a screaming bloody corpse that flails at you.
And even though the conversations are at times awkward this episode it actually okay.
But these moments are rare as everything is marred by ham-fisted writing. Dialogs suffer especially. You see the actors try to do their best and the guy in the diner trying to persuade the others to throw the Korean lady to the zombies gives arguably the best delivery. And at some point there is even an attempt at a Tarentino like conversation. But that is what it is: an attempt.
Situations often feel awkward. There is a whole episode where one mysterious car chases a group in their car to the point of finally destroying both. The point? Stealing fuel is suggested, but how is that going to work if your car is destroyed? It is like someone thought: let's take this one from Duel. Why? Cause it is Matheson, man. Who? Matheson, the guy who invented zombies! He wrote the script for that movie.
The whole school episode is Children of the Corn redone! Redone poorly. Someone must have gone through the works of King, Matheson and others and turned them into a poor dervatives.
It is hubris.
I liked the few moments, but to be honest, I barely hung on. The creators of these series should take stock of their strenghts and weaknesses. Writing isn't their strong suit, so don't try to pull of a Tarentino. Don't steal from others. Don't make people nasty unless there is a reason to. Movies like Saw and the Purge are nonsense, but can offer a twist. Don't make people do stupid things, like banging on a drum when noise attracts zombies. Be aware that if you give a group of people weapons, that not everyone knows how to handle them. Play on that. Make people worried about their car running out of gas. It is a simple thing, really. And if you grab a car, what car will it be? The big guzzler that can take six, half a ton and go cross-country, or the nimble economical two seater with a suitcase sized booth that can get you far?
That sort of thing.
Seems easy enough. It probably isn't. But then you want to make another zombie flick in a world saturated with zombie flicks.
Merit
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SEASON 1
[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]
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SEASON 1
TLDR: "Random undefined characters doing random things in a seemingly randomly strung together plot that never goes anywhere."
Contains minor spoilers:
I have to say that I am in awe of this show. Unfortunately it is because of how much wasted potential there is. There are some genuinely scary and interesting set-pieces, scenes and premises (school and diner). Unfortunately the show never goes anywhere with them, and they are just kinda there.
The show also does a remarkably bad job at establishing its characters. This is probably best exemplified by the episode "Alone", where we spend the better part of it following around someone who did not have a single line of relevant dialogue up to this point. Alright so you would expect that they are going to use this episode to flesh out his character, however the only thing we learn is that he is somewhat incompetent. That would be bad enough however the show tries to convey this extremely tense atmosphere throughout, while my only question was why in the world I should care about this generic dude man guy, who does not have a single character trait, which created a quite a bit of unintentional comedy. They could have simply cut out this entire part and nothing would have changed. Overall the show seems to be viewing its characters as plot devices rather than relatable individuals. Which is also exemplified by the other character's irrationality and incompetence.
Weirdly enough the show keeps killing off characters in supposedly tense situations, however because we never really get any time to develop a bond with the characters this never has the desired impact and always feels random and once again unintentionally funny. I actually had to look up if this show wasn't a dark comedy.
To its credit the show occasionally shows characters having to make morally ambiguous and difficult decisions, and you'd think that they would use that to create some depth, however we never get to see any kind of impact/payoff of those decisions, as the show once again takes next to no time to develop its characters. We sometimes get to see a shocked expression or a throw away comment, and then the characters simply go on as though nothing happened.
Just as frustrating is that the characters are implied to have a backstory, however they are never really explored. An example would be one of the characters backstories creating potential for intrigue within the group of survivors, however this is discussed briefly and then never mentioned again.
Also the show has some very weird pacing issues. The showrunners apparently though if "Show don't Tell" is better than "Show and Tell" then "Don't Show and Don't Tell" must be the best option. There is almost never any explanation of why the characters are doing what they are doing. It almost feels like the episodes were originally intended to be at least 1 hour long and then they decided to cut out all the relevant plot information and most of the dialogue to get them to 40 min. It also doesn't help that the show often leaves out the part of the characters moving from one location to another, so it more often than not it simply feels like the characters randomly appear in a location do some random things to then randomly appear in another location.
Now for the overarching plot and story:
I can honestly say that I was extremely surprised by this, however not because of some clever twist, but because of the lack thereof. We simply learn the about the main character's goal in the first episode and then we see her achieving it in the final episode. And we don't even see any kind of payoff for that, it just kinda happens and then they decided to roll credits. In the process they also manage to include just about every single zombie cliché there is, however they never play with them in an interesting manner and simply include for the sake of having them.
A show like this baffles me, especially since it seems that all of its issues could have been solved by hiring a decent screenwriter. As it is it feels like they didn't have screenwriter at all and simply made things up as they went along. At times this felt like a really overbudgeted student project, except that the writing was even worse.
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SEASON 1
Black summer feels like it was written by someone who took notes on every cliche zombie trope and then combined them into one series. Avoid unless you really need your zombie fix.
Edit: was originally a 4/10 and i have brought it down to a 3/10. The show gets worse as it goes on and the last episode is actually dreadful.
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SEASON 1
