The New Zombie Apocalypse

Happy Halloween, one and all!

One of the ways I celebrated this year was to watch the premiere of the new AMC series, The Walking Dead. And I loved it. I've watched all the other AMC series before. Mad Men and Breaking Bad, though I love both now, were very much "slow burns" for me in the beginning. I wasn't really pulled in for maybe three or four episodes. Rubicon never really pulled me in at all.

But this. This was great. This first episode was written by Frank Darabont, best known for his great Stephen King adaptations, and he definitely showed here that his brilliant movie The Mist was no fluke.

The first hour immediately set-up some interesting characters. Even the first (post opening credits) scene of the main character Rick sitting in his squad car having a conversation with his partner (pre-apocalypse) really laid it out there -- this show is going to be about real people, even with the trappings of zombies all around. The best moment of the episode came in watching Morgan have to stare down the sight of a rifle at his zombified wife, struggling to work up the will to do what needed to be done.

The show seemed to nail the horror just as well as the heart, though. Lots of creepy, half decaying zombies. Vivid visuals of a yard full of corpses, or a freeway jammed with cars. Lots of very well-thought out moments, like the dark hospital staircase barely lit by a succession of matches, opening the hour with the jarring image of shooting a little (zombie) girl in the head, or the deafening sound of a gun being fired inside a tank.

I'm hooked. I hope there's a story here they're able to keep rolling for many more episodes. And I hope plenty of people tune in to see it.