Inside Ben Wheatley’s elderly apocalypse
EMPIRE GOES ON SET OF HIS NEW OLD VS. YOUNG HORROR SERIES, GENERATION Z
WORDS SOPHIE BUTCHER
THE FOOD COURT in Newport Market is buzzing on the seemingly ordinary November day that Empire is in town. Beneath ground level, however, is another story. Down a flight of steps lies a low-ceilinged, concrete-clad, formerly-a-slaughterhouse basement serving as a laboratory. Amid the operating tables, surgical tools and lots and lots of fake weed, we are informed that we’ve just missed a staged splenectomy, before being shown footage of an elderly zombie devouring a (fake) dog. It’s surreal. It’s violent. It’s the set of Ben Wheatley’s upcoming horror-comedy series Generation Z. The six-part Channel 4 scarefest sees a return to the smaller-budget, darkly comic roots of the writer-director. Set in the fictional small town of Dambury, the OAP outbreak is triggered by a chemical leak outside a care home, resulting in a hunger for raw flesh and attacks on the local teenage population. “It’s a satire on the pandemic, Brexit, and generational problems,” Robert Lindsay, who plays lab owner Morgan, tells Empire.