Kill List, Free Fire, and High-Rise director Ben Wheatley announced plans for the Brexit zombie drama “Generation Z” for UK’s Channel 4 back in 2019. Our friends at Fangoria report that Wheatley teased upcoming plans for “Generation Z” at a recent screening of his latest feature, Meg 2: The Trench.
“Generation Z” was initially set to go into production in 2020, but we all know how that year went. The series will be Executive Produced by Wheatley, Mark Pybus, and George Faber. It is written and directed by Ben Wheatley.
“What I’m doing next is six hours for Channel 4, [a] TV series, a horror-based thing […] In the same way I did In The Earth after Rebecca, I’ll do something that’s back to [the] Kill List-y, Sightseers-y world,” Wheatley told the attendees at the Empire VIP screening of Meg 2: The Trench.
The plot for the six-part series: “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.”
In other words, expect “rapacious” baby boomers and “disaffected” teenagers at each other’s throats.
The series is expected to feature “pitch-black humour and biting satire to tell how Brexit has divided the country, and in this case, led to brain munching.”
For those worried that Wheatley was leaving behind his grittier, indie horror roots behind with Meg 2: The Trench, fret not. Fangoria also quoted the Wheatley’s assurance, “once I’ve got that [horror series] out of my system, then I’ll be looking to do another larger film.”
It’ll be interesting to see what Wheatley does with the zombie subgenre, and if “Generation Z” will evolve in any way since its 2019 announcement. Stay tuned for additional details on the project as they arrive.
