Revival Review: Netflix Zombie Drama Earns Its Heart
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- Revival is a 10-part Netflix adaptation of the comic books by Tim Seeley and Mike Norton, set in pre-smartphone-era Wausau, Wisconsin, where everyone who died in the previous fortnight rises from the dead on a random day dubbed "Revival Day."
- Melanie Scrofano (Wynonna Earp) stars as police officer Dana Cypress, who investigates crimes involving the "Revivers" — and notes the roster may be incomplete, because anyone who died alone in their sleep and woke up "apparently normally" would not know he or she was dead.
- Some Revivers have developed self-healing and predatory tendencies, pushing the show toward Walking Dead-level gore: Dana's investigation begins with a mutilated horse in the woods and a handful of torn-out human teeth beside it.
- Dana's storyline intertwines with her troubled sister Em (Romy Weltman), whose drug addiction followed a car accident that killed their mother — a sibling bond the reviewer calls "lumpy and real" and likens to a metaphor for the collapse of the American dream.
- The review singles out a Reviver girl asking her schoolfriend why, if people are always so sad when someone dies, they aren't happy that she is alive, as the moment that keeps the show's racism and anti-immigrant metaphor "supple" rather than heavy-handed.
- The reviewer awards 3.5 stars and rounds up to four, citing Scrofano's "offbeat and idiosyncratic energy" as the reason she deserves it — and viewers deserve more of her.
Why it matters: The reviewer rounds up a 3.5-star rating to four on the strength of Scrofano's lead performance, framing Revival as a zombie drama that earns its emotional beats rather than coasting on gore. Its Reviver-girl question — why aren't people happy she's alive if they're always sad when someone dies — anchors the show's anti-immigrant metaphor without becoming heavy-handed.
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