TV review: ‘Santa Clarita Diet’

I grew up in the suburb of Santa Clarita, California. It’s a quiet town that’s a safe place to raise a family. The only things to do for fun are to hang out at the mall or go to Six Flags Magic Mountain for the billionth time.

When my friends and I heard Netflix was creating a new show based on our hometown, we wondered what could possibly be interesting enough to make a show about. Our theme park? The clothing-optional weirdness that goes on at the California Institute of Arts? Our heroin problem?

Nope. It’s a show about a zombie realtor.

“Santa Clarita Diet,” which premiered Friday, is a new Netflix horror-comedy TV series about Santa Clarita realtor couple Sheila (Drew Barrymore) and Joel Hammond (Timothy Olyphant) and their daughter Abby (Liv Hewson). When Sheila mysteriously becomes a zombie, her family must find a way to maintain the appearance of normalcy while also satisfying her appetite for human flesh.

While placing the story in the sleepy suburb of Santa Clarita tries to create a fresh take on the zombie genre, its depiction of zombies gets repetitive and its humor feels like an inside joke only those intimately familiar with the setting can fully appreciate. Its use of real and recognizable locations is a treat for residents to see and adds an element of realness; however, the acting is stiff and unconvincing.

The undead of “Santa Clarita Diet” shirk the traditional depiction of zombies. They are not the decrepit, mindless creatures that have shambled across post-apocalyptic wastelands as in countless other zombie stories. Instead, the undead have all their normal brainpower and appear as alive as anyone.

But the novelty ends there. The show depends on gross humor to convey Sheila’s undead status, from her ludicrous amounts of thick, green vomit to her munching on fingers or hairy patches of flesh. Where other zombie programs are notable for their inventively gory or satirical content, like “The Walking Dead” or “Shaun of the Dead,” respectively, Sheila can only drink so many people-smoothies before the schtick gets stale.

Dialogue is another large source of “Santa Clarita Diet’s” humor. Unfortunately, it mostly comes off as crude, unintelligent and poorly written. Most of the episodes rely on “yes-no-yes-no” banter and other childish interaction between Joel and Sheila recycled throughout each episode.

While there are some instances of original humor – like when Joel asks “What won’t we do?” and Sheila responds “I won’t wear fur and I won’t eat people’s (anuses).” – the rest of the comedy consists of Sheila making snide comments about her vagina.

A major component of the show is its setting in the Santa Clarita Valley. The show does accurately capture some elements of suburban Santa Clarita Valley life, like suburban boredom, high school pot dealers and the large number of police that call it home. Familiarity breeds enjoyment, so I and all the other people who know the real Santa Clarita probably get more of a kick out of the show than we should.

But jokes about Santa Clarita culture won’t make as much sense to anyone who hasn’t lived there. If anything, by making the show’s location so specific, it detracts from its potential for wider audience appreciation. While viewers can get a taste of Santa Clarita, its fictionalized depiction is so narrow that people may think it really is all about fancy houses, love affairs and new cars.

I appreciated seeing the real-life locations like Brave New World Comics, Cinema Drive and the Saugus Drugs & Hallmark. Although the show is a loving testament to Santa Clarita and its endless supply of power-walking moms, it’s hard to appreciate the setting unless you’ve lived there.

The show’s big stars don’t do much to save it either. Barrymore is bland as the undead Sheila and delivers each line with the same tone. She has one or two touching moments with her family, like when she wants to spend more time with Abby before she turns feral, but the performance feels as lifeless as her character.

Olyphant is only slightly better as her husband, who is struggling to keep his family together. His face is perpetually locked in either a confused grin or a shocked “o” face that, along with his consistently pained delivery, seems out of sync with the emotions of a man who helps his wife murder and eat people.

The show offers one enjoyable performance through Hewson’s Abby. Hewson plays the role with a smugly can-do teenage attitude that feels genuine and interesting to watch. Abby is the only character in the show who conveys how real people behave.

“Santa Clarita Diet” is mediocre foray into the horror-comedy genre. The show is too much like an inside joke intended as an alternative reality for the real residents of Santa Clarita.

It fails to create a narrative that has any life to it.