When I first saw the title of this new zombie series “The Annoying Dead” I was unsure of what to expect. Maybe I should have known, but a lack of coffee means no coherent thoughts. Furthermore, calling the undead “annoying” is somewhere in the neighborhood of hooking your tender bits up to a car battery and claiming that it tingles, but in the end it all made sense.
The first installment clocks in around seven minutes. The first few minutes where the premise of the zombie outbreak is introduced is very well done and entertaining. The premise for the outbreak isn’t exactly new, but it’s handled well. The middle consists mainly of some guy walking down the street, a street that strangely resembles some scenes from Shawn of the Dead.
I should have expected a zombie parody from the title, but these days the zombie genre has become that proverbial box of chocolates, where you never know what you’re gonna get. Characters in the world where the series takes place seem to have grown accustomed to zombies, finding them to be little more than household pests, which my caffeine deprived brain cells finally connected to the title. *Cue coffee powered light bulb*
If you’re a fan of Shawn of the Dead, like myself, I’m sure that you will note a handful of similarities, perhaps done in a bit of homage to the movie. The Annoying Dead is shot and edited quite well, much better than a lot of the online zombie serials. Combine all of that with a well placed toilet/plunger joke and The Annoying Dead is worth a watch. I’ll be watching the second episode.
