The Walking Dead - Nerdgasm time.

Ok, I think from the title of this blog update, you can be safely assured that I really like AMCs The Walking Dead. I'll be honest, it's the one US show I've really been looking forward to seeing this year.....



Oh YEAH!....but y'know what, the trailer really doesn't do it justice. You may look at the bit where Andrew Lincoln wakes up in hospital and say (adopts whiney, sneering know-it-all voice) "Yeah, but Danny Boyle did that in 28 Days Later years ago..." (*discuss: see my note at the bottom of this post)

Yeah yeah yeah....let's face it, there aren't that many ways to start a zombie story on-screen. By the way, let me digress for the moment, and show you my favourite opener - from Zombieland...



Back to business, and (spoiler alert) The Walking Dead only resembles 28 Days Later in its subject matter and the situation the lead character Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln from Teachers and this Life) initially finds himself in. The show resembles the more serious offspring of a union between 28 Days Later and the BBCs Survivors, though somehow it comes across as more realistic than either of them - which I admit is strange, given the subject matter.

Remember when Cillian Murphy woke up in 28 Days Later? It was used as a sequence of pure spectacle,  with him wandering around a deserted London, empty apart from sprinting zombies. Well, this is slightly different. Rick Grimes wakes, can barely stand, and is faced with a deserted hospital with some rooms barracaded shut, with the undead trying to get out - not to mention the piles of bodies outside. You get a real sense of just how bad things have got in the time he's been unconscious.

He is found by an uninfected father and son who think he's a threat because he's wounded (they initially think he's been bitten by a zombie) and after he gets tooled-up, he heads off to Atlanta to try to find his missing wife and son (so far, so Survivors).

But where this differs from previous efforts is that the characters have time to consider their actions. The father and son are trapped: physically by a house surrounded by the undead every night, and emotionally, by the fact that one of the besieging zombies is the father's beloved wife, and the mother of his child.

Another scene stood out for me - on the way home in his hospital nightgown, Grimes encounters his first zombie face-to-face. It's the pitful remains of a young woman, a hissing, snarling torso with arms and a head, only able to move by dragging herself along. He returns a few days later, and spends some time searching for what's left of her, before telling her "I'm sorry this happened to you" and blowing her brains out.

Mercy, conscience, and loss:  in essence, some of the emotional attachments within society that are normally absent from your average zombie flick. Mainstream critics may argue that these scenes in The Walking Dead are handled in a slightly heavy-handed way, but as a horror fan, I was pleasantly surprised that they were there at all. After all, you'd have to be a bona-fide psychopath to pick up a baseball bat, or cricket bat and bash your zombie neighbour's head in without feeling anything.

I remember that when I first heard about The Walking Dead , I was sure one of the main channels over here would have been mad not to pick it up - but on reflection, I can see why it was bought by FX.

At the moment, Channel 4 is showing the pretty gruesome True Blood, and FX has just finished showing the 4th series of the bloodbath (literally) that is Dexter, which undoubtedly will be shown soon on ITV2. But The Walking Dead  takes this to another level competely. It's an uncompromising horror series - if you're not used to zombie flicks you may be a bit shocked at some of the things that happen in the first episode alone -
I mean, Grimes shoots a little zombie girl in the head in the first two minutes of the show - brains and blood fly everywhere....But, if like me, you're a zombie movie fan - you'll love it.

Mind you, my GLW hates horror films because she's a big girl's blouse, but she thought The Walking Dead was brilliant.

And there is one moment in the very first episode, that doesn't make you jump, nor does it make you squeal, but it literally takes your breath away, and makes you go "Oh.My.God...."

I think I had my first nerdgasm.

The Walking Dead starts on FX this Friday at 10pm - they've even got a nice little interview with the writer of the original comic, Robert Kirkman here  

* Factoid: by the way, Robert Kirkman who wrote The Walking Dead came up with the "waking up from a coma into zombie apocalypse" idea first...before 28 Days Later, so there.