Over the past few years, zombie-centric TV shows and movies have been quite popular and Netflix has taken note.
Earlier this month, the streaming service debuted "Black Summer," a new, must-watch original series that features zombies. The new horror show has quite a few layers and it's certainly about a lot more than survival.
Here's everything you need to know before you watch the Netflix original series "Black Summer."
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The eight-episode series is set during the dark, early days of a zombie apocalypse
Per the Netflix trailer for season one of the show, "Black Summer" follows the story of a group of strangers. The group includes a mother, played by Jaime King, who is looking for her daughter who she's been separated from.
The show stars Jaime King, Justin Chu Cary, Christine Lee, Sal Velez, Jr., and Kelsey Flower
Jaime King, who plays the leading character Rose, has appeared in a variety of films and TV series including "Ocean's Eight," "White Chicks," and "Hart of Dixie."
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Justin Chu Cary, who plays Spears, has had a few appearances on TV shows like "We Are Fathers" and "Days of Our Lives."
Sal Velez Jr ., who plays William Velez, has had minor roles on TV shows like " Ray Donovan" and "Ten Days in the Valley."
Prior to playing Kyungsun, Christine Lee had minor roles in a few miniseries and shorts. Kelsey Flower , who plays Lance, also had a few small roles in TV movies and miniseries prior to his role on "Black Summer."
Black Summer may seem like just another zombie series but Jaime King said there are deeper themes to be found within
"It's really a refugee story. It's a story of a country and a sickness, and the sickness really has all this symbolism in it. This sickness that people are getting is symbolic of the hatred and the division in our country," King told ScreenRant earlier this year.
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"What I loved about the script is that immediately when I read it, I couldn't breathe. It felt like I was reading something that would happen on the news in real life," King said in an interview with ComicBook.com.
"When I read the scene when I get ripped away from my child, I was like, 'Oh my God.' And it was happening right when kids were getting separated from their parents at the border ," she continued. "There are all of these very strong and clear symbolic tie-ins in our script, in all of them, that were deeply personal to what's going on in the world right now."
Famed horror author Stephen King is a fan of the series
No, although they share a surname, he's not a relative of the show's lead Jaime King which makes modern horror master Stephen King's tweeting about the series even more significant.
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"Just when you think there's no more scare left in zombies, THIS comes along. Existential hell in the suburbs, stripped to the bone," the author tweeted.
"No long, fraught discussions. No endless flashbacks, because there's no back story. No grouchy teens. Dialogue is spare. Much shot with a single handheld camera, very fluid. Showrunners could learn a lot from this," he wrote in another tweet.
Jaime King re-posted his tweets on her Instagram, writing, "That's all, folks. This is what heaven feels like."
Leading actress Jaime King got busted the f--- up while shooting the finale of the show
She described one of the show's scenes as "pretty intense" to Entertainment Weekly in an interview .
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"When I got injured, we had rehearsed this scene, it's a finale scene, and I have to do something that I've never done before ... ," she told the publication. "I was so shaken by it that I like ran three steps back. They had put a body behind me that they didn't put in rehearsal."
"The next thing I know, I'm knocked out, and seriously, seriously injured. But of course I get back up and I'm like, 'Just roll cameras, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. We've gotta shoot, we've gotta shoot,'" she continued.
According to an Instagram that King posted in September, she ended up in the hospital for a few days and was unable to use her hands. In the post, she thanked her medical team as well as the entire cast and crew of "Black Summer."
Many people who worked on the zombie show Z Nation are involved with Black Summer, but the shows are not related
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For example, "Black Summer" co-creator John Hyams directed several episodes of "Z Nation" and both shows are from the production company The Asylum which also brought the world "Sharknado."
But this new series isn't a prequel to "Z Nation" and the shows are not connected, as some cast members of "Black Summer" have made clear.
Theres no word on a second season yet, but the first one just dropped
Netflix just began streaming the entirety of season one on April 11 so it's no surprise that there have not yet been talks about a second season.
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