The Cutprice Guignol

In The Flesh might be the most underrated zombie show ever made.

Which, alright, might sound like a decidedly niche comment to make. We’re not exactly being bowled over by hordes of the undead of TV – outside The Walking Dead and a few aborted attempts at an expanded universe, zombie shows have often been short-lived and relatively narrow in their approach. There are certainly some bangers out there – The Returned and Dead Set being a couple of my personal favourites – but, as far as I’m concerned, none deserve quite the accolades the 2013’s In The Flesh.

Though calling it a zombie show might be a bit of a misnomer, since this is a post-zombie show. In The Flesh, created and mostly written by Dominic Mitchell, follows the aftermath of a zombie outbreak in the UK – several years after the dead rose, the world is beginning to right itself since the discovery of a medication that treats the infected and allows them to live somewhat normal lives once more. However, the reintergration is not exactly running smoothly, and we follow Kieran (Luke Newberry), a one-time zombie returning to his old life and plagued with flashbacks from his rabid days, not to mention discrimination from a suspicious populace who’ve, for so long, seen his kind as the enemy.

In many ways, In The Flesh is more an epilogue than a traditional zombie show in its own right – the real action is what would have taken place in the actual outbreak, how people survived, how they didn’t, how they coped with their losses and the irrevocable shift that came with all of that. But, instead, it picks up where most stories would leave off – with the beginning of a world starting to rebuild itself, the survivors and re-humanized navigating an uneasy truce. I’m a sucker for these kinds of stories, that take the aftermath of an event that would generally make up the main narrative in its own right and treat it with the same seriousness; recently, I think the 28 Years Later duology has proved just how much there is to mine from this premise, especially in terms of a zombie apocalypse specifically.

And In The Flesh takes that focus and narrows it down to a small community in Lancashire, as the community attempts to rebuild after the outbreak and to re-integrate the once-rabid zombies. The Human Volunteer Force, informal militia that formed around the country in an attempt to keep the undead at bay, serve as a major part of this new community, and Mitchell does an excellent job, particularly in that first season, of capturing the way that violence and control can form a nexus around which people can arrange themselves (Steve Evets, of my beloved Brassic, absoloutely shines as one of the senior members, probably my favourite performance in the whole show). There’s a suffocating feel to this place,

The metaphor of the traditional horror monster as a metaphor for some kind of social outsider is not a new one – perhaps handled most famously in True Blood, with all that deeply questionable “coming out of the coffin” patter – but In The Flesh makes great use of it here as a stand-in for the alienation for Kieran feels as a young gay man trying to find his place in this small community. Even before Kieran returned post-zombiefication, he was an outsider in his own right, a man who did not fit into the traditional standards of masculinity or heterosexuality put forth by the people around him. When he returns, it’s not just his zombiefication that he’s managing, but his ability to fit in to the community that would have rejected him even before his turning. Other post-cure zombies serve as variations on this metaphor – Rick, Kieran’s one-time romantic interest and veteran who was reanimated after his death in combat, is welcomed back with greater enthusiasm than other cured zombies, having otherwise satisfied the demands placed on him as a man in this world. Amy (Emily Bevan) stands in for those proud of their identities, after losing her life at twenty-one to cancer and finding herself reanimated and offered a new chance; for her, their situation is freedom, opportunity, not the suffocating force that Kieran feels it as. The metaphor is well played out over the course of the show, and it’s by far my favourite aspect of it; a delicate, effective, and melancholy metaphor that captures the unique isolation of growing up queer in a small town that wants you to be anything but.

In The Flesh is a little masterpiece of zombie television, particularly its first season – the whole thing is only nine episodes long, and it’s well worth checking out if you fancy a good, fleshy chunk of British horror to get your teeth into (pun mostly intended). I’d love to hear your take on it, especially that second season, which I’ve heard mixed things about – let me know in the comments below!

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