The Walking Dead

As I mentioned in my post regarding Night of the Living Dead, zombies are hot. Maybe not as hot as vampires, but pretty hot, considering their place in horror literature is relatively recent. The Walking Dead, an AMC series that debuted on Halloween two years ago, is perhaps the height of zombie media.

Created by Frank Darabont, the series is based on a series of graphic novels, but Darabont freely confesses he was inspired by George Romero's films. Interestingly though, as with Night of the Living Dead, the word zombie is never mentioned. These are not the zombies of Haitian myth, but those who have suffered from a plague.

The first season, which I just finished watching, is set in Georgia. State trooper Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) is wounded in a shootout. When he awakens from a coma, all has gone to hell. He learns that "walkers" are those who suffer from an intense fever, die, and then come back to life, with minimal brain activity. Their only instinct is to feed on flesh. They can be taken out with a shot or severe blow to the head.

Lincoln, in a coincidence that is so whopping that it must be overlooked, is able to find his wife and son, who are camped out by a quarry with other survivors. His friend and co-worker, Shane (Jon Bernthal), thinking that Lincoln was dead, has begun an affair with Lincoln's wife (Sarah Wayne Callies). There is an assortment of others in the group, with the kind diversity of World War II platoon--a few blacks, an Asian, a family of Latinos, a redneck.

Meanwhile, society has completely broken down. The government has ceased to exist. When Lincoln goes to Atlanta to find help, he sees that it is over run by the dead.

Like most horror film staples, zombies can be metaphors for something else. They have been used to comment on consumerism, war, the over reach of science, etc. The Walking Dead goes beyond that. I think this series, at least the first season, is a contemplation of what it must be like to face the extinction of mankind. In the last episode, they go to the CDC (Center for Disease Control) and find the one scientist left who is working on a cure (Noah Emmerich). He tells them that there is no hope, and suggests suicide. But most of the group, unable to override the instinct of survival and hope, decide to carry on. Of course, this must be in order to have a second season.

Zombies have no special powers. They move slowly and have no intelligence. One zombie, even two or three, no problem. Their strength, and therefore their terror, is in their numbers. In The Walking Dead it becomes a matter of math--the "walkers" have no outnumbered the living, and once bitten, the living change sides. It's a frightening scenario.

This show is very bloody. Every episode has at least a few zombies are shot in the head, or beheaded, or have a pick-axe shoved into their brain pans. As with Romero's film, the direction of this show makes the sight of one zombie, shuffling down a street at broad daylight, oddly unnerving. It's also a windfall for Hollywood makeup artists, as the zombies are all at severe levels of decomposition.

I'll definitely be checking out the subsequent seasons of The Walking Dead.