Just when you thought there was nothing new to say about zombies, someone has come up with a new take on the genre.
Television.
That's right, the zombies have gone to the small screen, and what better place to give them their due than AMC, which is quickly overtaking FX as the "Can you believe they can show that on television" network.
Kudos to the little cable channel that could even if it is pulling an MTV (which has long given up actual music) by slowly turning away from airing movies like Cocktail seven times a month (TMC always had them beat at their own game) and is now pursuing drama that makes some of the stuff on HBO look tame.
Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Rubicon, and now the latest addition to the AMC family:
Zombies.
And boy, did AMC roll out the welcome mat.
They premiered the show on Halloween and gave it an hour and a half to hit the ground running with limited commercial breaks.
So did it?
Well, I guess it depends on your taste.
If you're a fan of zombie culture, as I am, then you probably weren't all that enthralled with the first episode. It wasn't that it was disappointing, moreso that it was...formulaic.
The protagonist is shot and wakes up in a hospital finding that the world is now made up of the undead. (28 Days Later, anyone?) He then meets a man and his young son (there always has to be a young son, and in this series, there are two) who explain to him how to survive in Zombieland (Zombieland, anyone?) and later we find out that the protagonist's wife and child are alive and living with a group of survivors on the outskirts of Atlanta.
Meanwhile, our hero, who happens to be a policeman, runs out of gas at a farm, borrows a horse, and goes into the city not realizing that it's overrun by the undead (I Am Legend, anyone?). They swarm upon him and the horse, and (in the one truly shocking moment of the premiere) eat the horse while the hero escapes into an army tank. Once inside the tank, the radio comes alive and we hear a voice asking the man if he's cozy trapped inside the tank.
At that moment, a quirky little song starts to play and we see the zombies outside the tank feasting on the horse's insides while the camera goes up, up, and away.
And I found myself wondering...What happens next?
Because that's the beautiful thing about the show. The first episode may have been predictable, but it is well done. This isn't all that surprising since its director is the Oscar-nominated Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption).
Not only is it well done, but my question of whether or not zombies could work on television was answered.
This show works because it's television.
Zombie movies are great, but even the Dawn of the Dead series couldn't fully realize the promise of such a rich idea.
How would you go about living in a world full of zombies?
It's fantastic to think that this idea could be explored in a longer form. At the end of the first episode, when Rick Grimes, the policeman, is nearly eaten by the zombie mob, I found myself at the edge of my seat. I was genuinely concerned for this character that I'd only known for a little over an hour.
Someone once said about the original Dawn of the Dead that it was a brilliant movie because you actually cared about the characters, as opposed to a stock horror flick, where you get off on watching dumb sorority girls get chased by a knife-wielding maniac.
So imagine the potential of mixing television, where you watch in order to invest in characters, with the horror genre, where every character is vulnerable at all times.
Plus, there's actual drama and emotion. The series has the opportunity to inject elements into the genre that a movie couldn't because there aren't any time constraints or concerns that having a character be faced with shooting his own wife might dissuade people from digging into their popcorn.
Halloween may be over, but now that the foundation for The Walking Dead is in place, I can't wait to see what happens next.
Television.
That's right, the zombies have gone to the small screen, and what better place to give them their due than AMC, which is quickly overtaking FX as the "Can you believe they can show that on television" network.
Kudos to the little cable channel that could even if it is pulling an MTV (which has long given up actual music) by slowly turning away from airing movies like Cocktail seven times a month (TMC always had them beat at their own game) and is now pursuing drama that makes some of the stuff on HBO look tame.
Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Rubicon, and now the latest addition to the AMC family:
Zombies.
And boy, did AMC roll out the welcome mat.
They premiered the show on Halloween and gave it an hour and a half to hit the ground running with limited commercial breaks.
So did it?
Well, I guess it depends on your taste.
If you're a fan of zombie culture, as I am, then you probably weren't all that enthralled with the first episode. It wasn't that it was disappointing, moreso that it was...formulaic.
The protagonist is shot and wakes up in a hospital finding that the world is now made up of the undead. (28 Days Later, anyone?) He then meets a man and his young son (there always has to be a young son, and in this series, there are two) who explain to him how to survive in Zombieland (Zombieland, anyone?) and later we find out that the protagonist's wife and child are alive and living with a group of survivors on the outskirts of Atlanta.
Meanwhile, our hero, who happens to be a policeman, runs out of gas at a farm, borrows a horse, and goes into the city not realizing that it's overrun by the undead (I Am Legend, anyone?). They swarm upon him and the horse, and (in the one truly shocking moment of the premiere) eat the horse while the hero escapes into an army tank. Once inside the tank, the radio comes alive and we hear a voice asking the man if he's cozy trapped inside the tank.
At that moment, a quirky little song starts to play and we see the zombies outside the tank feasting on the horse's insides while the camera goes up, up, and away.
And I found myself wondering...What happens next?
Because that's the beautiful thing about the show. The first episode may have been predictable, but it is well done. This isn't all that surprising since its director is the Oscar-nominated Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption).
Not only is it well done, but my question of whether or not zombies could work on television was answered.
This show works because it's television.
Zombie movies are great, but even the Dawn of the Dead series couldn't fully realize the promise of such a rich idea.
How would you go about living in a world full of zombies?
It's fantastic to think that this idea could be explored in a longer form. At the end of the first episode, when Rick Grimes, the policeman, is nearly eaten by the zombie mob, I found myself at the edge of my seat. I was genuinely concerned for this character that I'd only known for a little over an hour.
Someone once said about the original Dawn of the Dead that it was a brilliant movie because you actually cared about the characters, as opposed to a stock horror flick, where you get off on watching dumb sorority girls get chased by a knife-wielding maniac.
So imagine the potential of mixing television, where you watch in order to invest in characters, with the horror genre, where every character is vulnerable at all times.
Plus, there's actual drama and emotion. The series has the opportunity to inject elements into the genre that a movie couldn't because there aren't any time constraints or concerns that having a character be faced with shooting his own wife might dissuade people from digging into their popcorn.
Halloween may be over, but now that the foundation for The Walking Dead is in place, I can't wait to see what happens next.
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