Since “zombie” is my favorite sub-genre of horror, there was no way I was going to miss the premiere of The Walking Dead, AMC’s new series adaptation of a comic book about the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse in America.
And now that I’ve seen the pilot, I’m in.
To be specific, there are four reas0ns I’ll be watching this show, and they can be summed up by bastardizing a poem about pretty brides on their pretty wedding day.
(Mild spoilers ahead)
(1) Something Old
There are some tropes of zombie lore that just cannot be avoided, and The Walking Dead doesn’t even try. But these tropes are tropes because they’re awesome, so why avoid them?
For instance, the pilot (written and directed by Frank “Shawshank” Darabont) features the mandatory scene of our hero—Georgia deputy Rick Grimes—stumbling around his ravaged town, which is full of crashed helicopters, burning cars, and spray-painted warnings that there are dangers afoot. I love that shit. It’s always so spooky!
And then when our hero inevitably meets a single zombie on the road (or in this case, in a field), it’s as amazing always. In that moment, we viewers are allowed to imagine the horror that our hero has yet to understand.
Frankly, this is always my favorite part of a zombie story—the eerie moment before everything is revealed. I kind of wish there could be an entire zombie story where we only see, like, one zombie, and then we just have to extrapolate what the rest of the barren world looks like. It’s that classic thing, I guess, where the monster in our minds is ten times worse than the monster we can see.
But speaking of those creatures: In this show, they follow the millennial tradition of being able to run really, really fast (as opposed to the 60s, when zombies mostly lumbered along like gory sleepwalkers). And a running zombie is always good for a scare.
Another great “old” thing in this series: The pilot essentially recreates the opening of 28 Days Later…, which finds our hero Jim (Cillian Murphy) waking up in a hospital room, completely starved and unattended, wondering what the hell is going on. In that story (which arrived in 2002, one year before the first Walking Dead comic), our hero gets hospitalized because of a bike messenger accident. In this one, he gets laid up because he’s a deputy, dammit, and he got shot by a criminal. Either way, we meet a character who has a believable reason to be utterly ignorant of what’s been happening outside.
Also, we get an extra level of terror, because really… how awful would it be to wake up in an abandoned hospital?
(2) Something New
For all its familiarity, though, The Walking Dead has already added fresh ingredients to the formula. For one thing, the zombies seem to retain a dim sense of their former lives: We see a recently-zombified woman try to open the door where her family was just hiding out. We see a girl zombie pick up a soiled stuffed animal, like she wants to play with it. And just before Deputy Rick shoots her in the head, we see a zombie that’s missing the lower half of her body reach up to protect her face. Creepy! It’s so much worse to kill zombies if you think they might, just might be a little bit human. (I Am Legend played with this idea, too, but not as overtly.)
Also, The Walking Dead is shaped as a continuing series, which means lots of interesting subplots are developed. We’ve got a father and son who are trying to maintain the semblance of a family life, even though the wife/mother is that door-rattling zombie I mentioned above. We’ve got Rick’s wife and son, who successfully fled the initial attack, but who now seem to be adopting Rick’s old deputy buddy as a new husband/father. That’ll cause some trouble when Rick finds them again!
Stuff like this could be rewarding over the long haul. I’m wondering, too, what will happen in later episodes, when the series has gone long past the length of a film. Where will the story go? (And I know I could just go read the comic, but that’s not gonna happen.)
(3) Something Shirtless
Take a look at Andrew Lincoln, who plays Deputy Rick . Now imagine him without a shirt on. Or just watch the series, and then you won’t have to imagine at all. If the pilot is any indication, he’ll be topless 40% of the time. I can just imagine Frank Darabont saying, “That’s great, Andrew. But don’t you think that uniform’s awfully scratchy?”
And while I (tragically) can’t find a screencap of Lincoln’s shirtlessness online, let me assure you that he is foyne. I appreciate the show for not marring his hotness by requiring him to get all bony and gross for his first scene in the hospital. You know, when he finally wakes up after days without food or water. He’s grown a full beard, sure, but his chest and abs are still diesel. Cillian Murphy’s emaciated state in 28 Days Later… may have been more authentic, but given the choice between authenticity and beefcake, who would actually choose Skinnybones?
Frankly, I never imagined that a single series could so successfully fuse my interests in zombies and shirtless hunks. I tip my hat to everyone involved.
(4) Something “Ew”
Zombie stories don’t need inventively repulsive gore to be successful, but when that have it, I give them bonus points. And brothers and sisters, The Walking Dead be nasty. That zombie with no lower body that I mentioned before? So gross! And that little zombie girl with the stuffed animal? She’s missing half of her face, so that we can see straight down to her jawbone! EWWWWWW!
8 responses so far ↓
1 SharonE // Nov 3, 2010 at 5:06 pm
“We’ve got Rick’s wife and son, who successfully fled the initial attack, but who now seem to be adopting Frank’s old deputy buddy as a new husband/father”
What I thought I saw at the beginning was ‘old deputy buddy’ pumping the husband he was already cuckolding, with all those sly, slightly creepy questions he was asking about his relationship. Could be I’m wrong, could be I’m sadly jaded…sigh. Or it could be the old what’s a good zombie tale without a tortured triangle or two or even three, if the guy who couldn’t shoot his wife hooks up again and the new honey looks up one day and realizes the old honey still wants in that door. Oooh shivery shades of trauma and drama to come. Gotta love it.
2 Gonzalo // Nov 3, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Was wondering if you were going to cover this, and I’m so glad to see that you did and enjoyed it! I wouldn’t consider myself a zombie fan, but I actually read the original “Walking Dead” comics, though I fell off a couple of year ago. They really are quite fantastic (though I understand you not being interested, and I think the series stands well on its own).
Quick aside here: according to Robert Kirkman, the writer of the comics (heavily involved in the series, which is great), he came up with the coma/hospital premise on his own, before 28 Days Later came out in the US (that film came out in June 2003 here, the first issue of the comic came out in October, but had already been written by that point). Regardless, it works so well as a zombie scenario, because (as you mentioned) you see how utterly destroyed and changed the world has become before you even see a single zombie. Stuff has already happened, but you can still imagine how horrible it was by looking at those hand-written signs, the pile of dead bodies, etc. And, like you said, kudos to the show for skirting reality when it’s warranted: hot shirtless men.
“In this show, they follow the millennial tradition of being able to run really, really fast…”
I may have to re-watch, but is this really the case? To me it seemed like they were relatively easy to out-run (not ultra-slow, but seemed like they could only run at a semi-brisk pace). The scary part about zombies (at least for me) usually comes because of their sheer number. Which is why I loved those last 10 minutes after the slow build-up. After the quiet desolation of Rick riding into Atlanta, the intensity is palpable.
I rarely notice the role of directors in TV, but I often did during the pilot. It used weird camera angles every now and again to reinforce the creepy moments throughout, without being obscure or obtrusive.
And it was great that were almost no jump-out-of-your-seat zombie-is-right-behind-you moments. Every zombie revelation is obvious and telegraphed, but still oh-so-creepy (often slow wide shots, instead of up-close and quick cuts). It just intensified the dread I was feeling, without being cheap shock tactics. (sorry, I’m having trouble explaining myself in this last paragraph, but hopefully my point comes across).
3 Mark Blankenship // Nov 3, 2010 at 6:46 pm
HI Sharon… You know, you may be right about the pre-existing affair. (And by quoting the section you did, you helped me discover a typo where I referred to Rick as “Frank.” So… thanks for that!) Anyway, it’s possible that I’m too trusting, not that you’re too cynical… that the pair of them WERE already hooking up, and that’s why he was asking RIck all those questions about his family. Either way… it’s totally shivery drama and trauma, like you said!
Hello Gonzalo! I fully agree with you about Darabont’s direction. Really good stuff from him. Have you seen his adaptation of Stephen King’s short story “The Mist?” It’s terrifying and artful in a very similar way.
As for the “who was in the hospital first” question… I’m sure both of them could have developed the idea independently, but even if one did crib from the other, I don’t really mind. Both stories are good. But I do appreciate knowing more about where the scene in the comic came from. Thanks for that.
And I could have sworn the zombies were fast. Not all the time… just once they heard a noise. But maybe I’m remembering that wrong? I mean, I know the zombie in front of Rick’s house was pretty slow, but wasn’t the zombie mob in Atlanta booking it at a high speed? Sigh. I’m getting old, I s’pose.
4 Gonzalo // Nov 3, 2010 at 7:54 pm
I did watch “The Mist”, I’m pretty sure I did so after digging through past stuff and seeing your entry on it. And you’re absolutely right, his direction and pacing is fantastic there too (and perhaps more exceptional in this horror-ish genre than in stuff like Shawshank or Green Mile, where it’s still good but a bit more common? Just a thought that popped into my head, so not sure I can sustain it without watching those two again).
I’ll definitely re-watch the last scene when I get home from work. But there’s some recent movie where zombies were human-running-at-full-speed fast (perhaps I’m thinking of 28 Days Later again?), and they didn’t seem as fast here.
I forgot to mention the opening: A little girl zombie. Shot in the head. In graphic detail. During the very first scene. That seemed super-ballsy for basic cable, no? I’m glad they’re not shying away from the big “ewww” that’s such a big part of the zombie genre.
5 BeRightBack // Nov 3, 2010 at 8:39 pm
Re: the “waking up in a hospital and the world is horribly different” thing, I think in both cases the actual allusion might be to Day of the Triffids–the novel begins with a man waking up in the hospital and finding everyone blind and everything going to hell.
6 ferretrick // Nov 4, 2010 at 6:53 am
I don’t think it really matters where the waking up in a hospital thing came from-its not the most original idea in the first place, nor is it unique to zombie stories. The archetype of a sleeping person waking up in a completely new world could be traced as far back as Rip Van Winkle, probably further.
7 SharonE // Nov 4, 2010 at 7:44 am
You have to admit a writer can cover a lot of conceptual ground by placing the beginning of any apocalyptic plot in the one place people ‘go for help’. The psychological impact of even the ‘caregivers’ having deserted the place, and the sight of the one chewed up corpse left behind, barely a chunk of meat still on her, set a pretty horrific stage that said right away this was no virus or disease that wasted people away, but rather something with teeth that was seriously, ravenously hungry for human flesh. I noted that many of the sheet-covered bodies in the hospital courtyard had wounds in the appropriate place–the head–but it kept me (the Resident Evil savvy viewer) on my toes searching for one that did not.
8 Lynne // Nov 4, 2010 at 9:02 am
I still think the scariest zombies are the ones who lumber slowly toward you. You’re frozen in fear and before you can even plan to start running, there they are, right in front of you…ready to take the first bite. The opening scene in ‘Night of the Living Dead’ with the brother and sister in the cemetery, with him totally unaware of the approaching undead – eww…creepy. I agree though that volume (dozens, not thousands) also increases the fear factor.
I was about thirty years old before I was 100 percent positive that zombies were not populating my backyard on foggy evenings after watching one of those thrillers.
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