
Santa Clarita Diet is an American comedy-horror television series created by Victor Fresco for Netflix. The show is based in Santa Clarita, California, and stars Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant as married realtors, Sheila and Joel Hammond, who live a quiet life and raise their teenage daughter, Abby Hammond, in the suburban town. Their mundane lives take a dark turn when Sheila dies and turns into a zombie, craving human flesh.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Setting | Santa Clarita, California |
| Inspiration | San Fernando Valley |
| Chosen for | Middle-class residents |
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Santa Clarita, California
The city has a rich history, with Spanish colonists arriving in the 18th century and founding mission settlements. The Mission San Fernando, founded in 1797, is located just 9.5 miles (15.3 km) south of downtown Newhall. Santa Clarita is also known for its movie ranches, with Hart and Carey making their homes in the valley. Today, their former estates are operated as county parks.
Santa Clarita is home to several institutions of higher education, including California Institute of the Arts, a private art university, The Master's University, a Christian liberal arts university, and College of the Canyons, a community college. The city is also a base for many companies, including Princess Cruises, Sunkist, Remo, and the Newhall Land and Farming Company.
The city gained notoriety in popular culture due to the Netflix series Santa Clarita Diet, starring Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant. The show is about a married couple, Sheila and Joel, who are real estate agents living in Santa Clarita. When Sheila dies and becomes a zombie, their lives take a dark turn as they navigate her new cravings for human flesh.
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Suburban setting
The Netflix original series Santa Clarita Diet is set in the suburban town of Santa Clarita, California. The show's creator, Victor Fresco, chose this location because of its middle-class residents. The series centres on the Hammonds, an ordinary suburban family and husband-and-wife realtor team, whose lives take a dark turn when Sheila Hammond dies and becomes a zombie.
The show explores the family's attempts to navigate Sheila's new undead state and her cravings for human flesh, while also dealing with their neighbours and cultural norms in the suburbs. As realtors, Joel and Sheila Hammond have the opportunity to get "out into the world" and interact with a variety of people, which adds a layer of complexity to their already challenging situation.
The choice to set the show in the suburbs adds a level of contrast to the bizarre and gruesome events that unfold. The quiet and mundane setting of Santa Clarita highlights the absurdity of the Hammonds' situation, creating a darkly comedic tone. The suburban environment also serves as a backdrop for the show's social commentary, exploring themes of consumerism, narcissism, and the consequences of unchecked desires.
The suburban setting of Santa Clarita Diet is integral to the show's narrative and thematic elements, providing a familiar and relatable context for the extraordinary events that unfold, while also offering a lens through which to examine broader societal issues.
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Real estate agents
The Netflix original series Santa Clarita Diet is based in Santa Clarita, California. The show's creator, Victor Fresco, chose this location because of its middle-class residents. The show's central characters, Joel and Sheila Hammond, are real estate agents working in the area.
The choice of the Hammonds' profession as realtors was a deliberate one. As Victor Fresco explains, it "gets them out into the world" and also captures the "forced friendliness" inherent to the profession. This is especially evident in the show as the couple tries to navigate their new reality as Sheila becomes undead and starts craving human flesh.
The show's setting in Santa Clarita is also significant in capturing the mundane, suburban nature of the Hammonds' lives before the dramatic events of the show unfold. As ordinary, suburban real estate agents, Joel and Sheila's lives are turned upside down when Sheila undergoes a transformation that leads her down a road of death and destruction.
The show's exploration of the couple's profession and their interactions with neighbours and cultural norms within their community adds a layer of depth to the story. It provides a contrast between the ordinary and the extraordinary, highlighting the surreal nature of Sheila's condition and the family's efforts to cope with it.
The choice of setting and the characters' profession as real estate agents in Santa Clarita, California, thus become integral to the show's narrative and thematic elements, blending the ordinary and the fantastical in a compelling and humorous way.
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Zombie wife
The Netflix original series Santa Clarita Diet is based in Santa Clarita, California. The show is a comedy-horror that centres on the Hammonds, a suburban, middle-class family. Sheila and Joel Hammond are realtors and the parents of Abby Hammond. The show begins with Sheila Hammond becoming a zombie, craving human flesh, and exhibiting a more primal and impulsive personality. Sheila's husband, Joel, and the rest of the family try to help her through her metamorphosis, dealing with neighbours and cultural norms, and searching for a cure for her condition.
Sheila's symptoms are discovered to mirror an ancient Serbian plague. The grandmother of Abby's principal, Mrs Bakavić, translates two images Joel finds in a bookstore. The first means "Man eat man to live", and the second, showing a person vomiting, means "Without cure, man will die". Mrs Bakavić tells Joel that the images are representative of a story from her childhood about a Serbian village that turned into monsters.
Sheila's condition worsens as she starts exhibiting signs of becoming feral. Dr Wolf, a scientist focused on the undead, tells Sheila she may be entering a "new, more feral stage" of the virus. Dr Wolf offers hope when she starts preparing a remedy from a copy of a Serbian cure found in a book from hundreds of years ago.
The show also explores the concept of narcissism through the lens of the undead, with creator Victor Fresco commenting that "the undead are the ultimate narcissists".
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Dark comedy
The Netflix original horror-comedy series Santa Clarita Diet is based in Santa Clarita, California. The show's creator, Victor Fresco, drew from his experience growing up in San Fernando Valley and chose Santa Clarita as the setting because of its middle-class residents.
The show centres on married real estate agents Joel and Sheila Hammond, who live a quiet life and raise their teenage daughter, Abby, in the suburban town. Their mundane lives take a dark turn when Sheila dies and becomes a zombie, craving human flesh and exhibiting a more primal and impulsive personality. As the bewildered family seeks a cure for her condition, they must navigate their normal lives, dealing with neighbours and cultural norms while also trying to get to the bottom of a potentially mythological mystery.
The show explores themes of empowerment and narcissism, with Fresco commenting on how people can become consumed with their desires, mirroring the consumption of the undead. The series also incorporates dark humour, with some viewers finding the gore and plot twists hilarious. The human remains that Barrymore's character eats throughout the series were made from various items, including gummy bears, dehydrated apples, beet paste, pasta, and moistened cake.
Santa Clarita Diet received generally positive reviews from critics, with particular praise for its cast, frequent laughs, and engaging premise. However, some viewers found the level of gore off-putting. The series premiered on February 3, 2017, and was cancelled after three seasons on April 26, 2019.
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Frequently asked questions
The Netflix original horror-comedy series Santa Clarita Diet is based in Santa Clarita, California.
Creator Victor Fresco chose Santa Clarita because of its middle-class residents.
Santa Clarita Diet centres on husband-and-wife realtors Joel and Sheila Hammond. Their mundane lives are turned upside down when Sheila becomes a zombie and starts craving human flesh.







































