Okay, lets get something out of the way before I review this show. I am a huge zombie-anything fan, be it a video game, a film, a comic, standing at a mall on Black Friday. Anything that used to be released involving flesh eating, shambling corpses, I had a grade-school hard-on for. In recent years though, the "zombie" genre is getting stale and I recognize that, so please, see where I'm coming from.
Recently, due to some very slick connections, and the anticipation to see this show, I was able to view the pilot episode for The Walking Dead, a television adaptation of a successful comic series written by Robert Kirkman and inked by Tony Moore. I have read up to 3 volumes of this series (going onto 13 now), so I was not only elated to see and adaptation in the works, I was anticipating this like a Star Wars geek for the Phantom Menace release. In short all I can say is, WOW, AMC has titanium balls.
For those who are virgins of the source material, it is basically 28 Days Later, but done with real zombies, not pissy, rage induced people. The show does not follow the novel in terms of chronological progression, but it does not compromise anything that makes the books good. Deputy Rick Grimes (played by Love Actually's Andrew Lincoln) is shot on duty during a standoff, rushed to the hospital, and when he wakes a matter of days later, is introduced into a world that is alien to him. As Grimes wanders through the chaotic and destroyed suburbs of Georgia, he is rescued by a man and his son and informed of the catastrophe that has befallen society. Desperately searching for his own family, he returns to his police station to load up and go his separate ways with his rescuer, and that is where the true story begins. I am not going to elaborate on the plot as this show is premiering at 10 P.M. Halloween night, and if it piques your interest, then watch it, but I will tell you what makes it worth watching. Every character reacts to their given situation realistically, at one point Grimes tries to rationalize with himself that he is still asleep in the hospital, and even raises a question, would you be able to destroy someone you love before they were to turn into a zombie (at one point this question was being put to the test with one of the characters, and I was at tears watching it). The show is handled with cinematic quality, with an amazing score by Bear McCreary who is a relatively inexperienced. What makes everything work is that in what is a story about a zombie apocalypse, we are presented with little nuances in each character's persona while builds an emotional bond between the viewer and the actors on screen, which this show has successfully pulled off without feeling popcorn or hammy.
Much of the credit has to go to producer Gale Anne Hurd, who definitely knows cinematic aesthetics with a history in films such as The Terminator & Aliens. But who I have to give the most credit to is series developer Frank Darabont. Darabont, who has directed hits such as The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile truly knows the fragility of human condition, but what helps is that he also directed Stephen King's The Mist and wrote the screenplay to the 1988 remake of the horror classic The Blob, this director also knows horror, he has his connections (series effects supervisor and consultant Greg Nicotero from KNB effects). Darabont clearly knows how to film a heart to heart in one sequence and segue to gut wrenching moment of graphic horror. But what blows me away is the fact that this channel is taking the relatively taboo route in TV production, and they are not shying away from the gore, a rarity in most television.
AMC really has put faith into this series, and according to early high profile reviewers are praising it. Nancy deWolf Smith from The Wall Street Journal said that the "pilot episode [is] so good that it has hooked even a zombie hater like me.", and I truly feel anyone can watch this show and be hooked.
In the forward to the first volume of The Walking Dead, writer Robert Kirkman stated "Growing up, I loved watching zombie films, and was almost sad at times to see them end.....With the Walking Dead, I wanted to make a zombie movie that will never end....". Well Kirkman, I hope it honors you to know you essentially laid the blueprints out for a series that may be the answer to you wish, and possibly one of the best shows that is on contemporary television. For the rest of you people reading this, get your asses to AMC at 10 P.M. Halloween night, and watch this, you may be shocked with the grotesque imagery, but look beyond those elements, and you will find a character drama that will get under your skin, and resonate with you long after the credits roll.
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