When a comic book reaches nearly 80 issues and produces a loyal following of fans, Hollywood and television stations take notice. AMC is the latest to have picked up this trend with its new series The Walking Dead, which is based on the Robert Kirkman comic book of the same name.
Although action and zombie-killing are an inevitable part of the genre, The Walking Dead, which premiered Halloween night, takes a much different approach to the zombie apocalypse. Enter Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), a police officer in Kentucky who gets caught in a gunfight with criminals on the run. After being hospitalized, Grimes wakes up in good condition only to find that the rest of the city has been radically transformed, victims of a zombie apocalypse.
Grimes has a wife and son, and these are the first people he seeks after escaping the hospital. He reaches his house, only to find that his wife and son are no longer there. The scenes that follow, which show the emotional toll this takes on Grimes, are poignant and engrossing.
Other survivors include Morgan (Lennie James) and his son Duane (Adrian Kali Turner), who have their own emotional story to deal with. The scenes involving these characters are ripe with sadness and anguish, and one would expect no less from director and writer Frank Darabont, creator of The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption. Darabont shapes the series so we really care about the characters, and given that the series is solely focused on the characters' relationships and survival, it helps make them relatable. During one scene, three survivors come upon working showers with hot water, demonstrating their emotional anguish and the toll the apocalypse has taken.
Much like the zombies' sluggish gait, the pacing of the pilot was slow. But that's to be expected in a pilot, which dwells more on introducing the characters and their world than on taking them through the plot. Darabont also uses long periods of silence, minimizing the amount of music and sound effects, which heightens the isolation the characters feel.
Visually, the show also excels, and Darabont and AMC have no inhibitions in displaying just how horrifying a zombie apocalypse might be. The action is not the focus, but there certainly is some, especially toward the end of the episode. The zombies are ghastly and disgusting, and because the only way to kill them for good is to shoot their brains, you can bet there is a lot of blood to be spilled. There is an especially horrific scene involving a horse, but let's just leave it at that.
The Walking Dead proves that not all zombie apocalypses are full of head shooting and brain eating - and even though some might consider that the most appealing part of all zombie shows and movies, The Walking Dead demonstrates that there's still room for innovation in this classic genre.
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