Ben Wheatley comes back to the small screen with Channel 4 zombie series Generation Z, here’s the trailer.
Though Ben Wheatley’s first film Down Terrace is a terrific slice of micro budget British cinema, it’s 2011’s Kill List that really put him in the big leagues, a genuinely unsettling film that has become a modern horror classic.
He followed it up with Sightseers, with Steve Oram and Alice Lowe’s script intertwining huge laughs with Wheatley’s directorial style.
Timestalker, Lowe’s most recent film as writer and director, is in UK cinemas now, you can read our review here.
Over time, Wheatley has refused to be pigeonholed, going from the historical horror of A Field In England to the 1970s aesthetic of High-Rise and the psychological terror of In The Earth.
On the small screen, he has directed several episodes of Graham Duff’s sitcom Ideal – the show is coming to BBC iPlayer imminently – and Doctor Who episodes Deep Breath and Into The Dalek.
Which brings us to now. He returns to television with Generation Z, which Wheatley has written and directed for Channel 4.
According to the British Comedy Guide, The synopsis reads as follows:
The future looks bleak for today’s youth – seemingly-endless austerity, astronomical house prices, insurmountable student debt, a political system which appears intent on destroying itself… And to add insult to injury, their hard-earned taxes are being eaten up by the old – smug, self-satisfied, small-minded, ‘Little Englander’ pensioners whose remaining sole purpose in life is to make it a misery for everyone else.
In a small British town, tensions come to a head when a mysterious military convoy crashes outside the Sunnywise Retirement Home. The vehicles were carrying a toxic substance, which, as a result of the crash, leaks into the local environment and infects the residents of the retirement community. The symptoms of this infection quickly manifest: an overwhelming appetite for raw flesh. They’re old, they’re angry and they’re on the rampage. As the military scrambles to control the outbreak and keep everything out of the media spotlight, a group of regular teenagers find themselves in the thick of the battle against these flesh-eating baby boomers.
Generation Z follows a group of wide-eyed teenagers caught up in a future far more grotesque and terrifying than anything they could have expected. They wanted to make a difference, this is their chance! But it’s going to take more than a pithy meme on social media… this is a bloody and messy battle royale! Tapping directly into the myriad fears which define the experience of today’s youth and bringing viscerally to life the increasingly stark divisions between generations, Ben Wheatley’s Generation Z is a compelling, macabre, timely, outrageous, and scabrous satire presenting a modern Britain at war with itself.
The cast includes Sue Johnston, Paul Bentall, Jay Lycurgo, Buket Komur, Lewis Gribben, Viola Prettejohn, Anita Dobson and Robert Lindsay.
Generation Z is coming soon to Channel 4.
Watch the trailer below:
