Thursday, June 15, 2017

Review: The Santa Clarita Diet (2017)

Netflix does it again with this quirky ten part series starring Drew Barrymore. Barrymore plays Sheila Hammond, an every-Mom housewife living in Santa Clarita, California. She’s married to Joel (Timothy Olyphant) and they have a somewhat dysfunctional daughter Abby (Liv Hewson). One day, Sheila undergoes a transformation – involving projectile vomiting a copious amount of yellow goo ... and a strange red organ-like object – into a flesh-eating zombie.  The series basically follows how her husband and daughter cope with this, and how she herself manages to survive the rigours of modern life while needing to chow down on corpses each day.

It’s a comedy, and so not to be taken too seriously, and it’s also supremely entertaining. The gore effects are strong indeed, and occasionally you could be forgiven for thinking you’ve strayed into the gorehouses of Jigsaw or Leatherface, but that adds to the impact. All the leads are brilliant, and play their parts to the max. Oliphant is especially good as the husband who has to come to terms with the fact that his wife now eats the living, and wonders whether he will become the next meal!

Thematically it’s similar to I Zombie, with its zombie teenager, and it has the same likable feel to it as that show.

Really enjoyable, some great moments, and a good setting make The Santa Clarita Diet another winner from Netflix.

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