A laugh out loud funny, perfectly bizarre Netflix series.

Santa Clarita Diet follows Sheila Hammond (Drew Barrymore) as she discovers she has died and returned as an undead ‘zombie’ who desires human flesh… And it’s hilarious.

Sheila and her husband Joel (Timothy Olyphant) try to adapt to their new lives along with their daughter Abby (Liv Hewson), and neighbour Eric Bemis (Skylar Gisondo), and all of the strange and comical situations they find themselves in throughout the process of trying to satisfy Sheila’s hunger and try to cure her.

Bar a few problems, the series is excellent. The cast are all very strong and each of them have their very funny moments, even the more minor characters, but Skylar Gisondo steals the show with some perfect comic timing and awkward comedy. His character Eric is an awkward, nerdy and very intelligent kid but he’s unsure of himself and hindered by a teasing and bullying step-dad. This is where a lot of his comedy comes from, his awkwardness, shyness and saying the wrong things or not knowing what to say create bizarre situations.

Needless to say (due to the horror themes), this is a dark comedy and it very much embraces this. There’s a lot of comedy that comes from violence and gore which is used very well and never feels like there’s too much. However, if you’re not good with gore be warned, this show doesn’t hold back.

This is what the series bases itself on. Bizarre and imperfect situations. Whenever one of the characters is in a tough or bizarre situation it is always made more difficult or more bizarre, to the series’ strength. For one spoiler free example, Sheila desires to eat human flesh so they decide to kill someone, but they live between two police officers. This obviously makes their lives just that little bit harder.

The issues with the series mainly revolve around its finale. It feels lack lustre and feels very sudden. The journey to the end however is so enjoyable and hilarious it is worth a watch, but don’t expect everything to be resolved and tied up neatly (which is not always a bad thing).

Highlight: As previously mentioned, Skylar Gisondo’s performance is exceptionally funny. He steals the show from when he’s first introduced as his awkwardness, strange decision making and reactions grow as he becomes more relevant to the plot.

A brilliantly creative, laugh out loud dark comedy series which is yet another to add to the long list of strong Netflix original series’.

7.7/10