The Walking Dead

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by Michael Nixon

Horror on television is already rare enough, but to find horror that actually works on television is probably a holy grail. Ladies and gentlemen, The Walking Dead is the holy grail.

So yes, let’s get it out of the way immediately: I loved The Walking Dead.

I’ve never read a single issue of the comic series by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard that this show is based on, but the collections were added to my Christmas list as soon as the pilot went to credits. It’s one of those rare projects built on the framework of a graphic novel that actually makes someone want to buy that original work, if only to see if it’s as good as the series or film that resulted.

I’m not a horror fan by any means. I hate jumpy, shock horror and apparently The Walking Dead was too busy reading my mind on that to plan any of those schlocky, jump out of the dark moments. What you get with Walking Dead are slow, creeping moments of terror, moving towards the characters you care about, until you’re tensed up and yelling at the screen for Rick Grimes to turn around because that damn zombie (or “walker,” in the parlance of the pilot) is coming for him.

That slow, gradual terror gives the audience a lot of time with the characters too, reflecting on the real-life implications of a zombie outbreak, no longer just confined to a two-hour-movie-length of running and hiding in shambled houses, malls, and the like. The Walking Dead is about preparing, making plans, and scraping by in the face of endless swarms of the undead.

At the New York Comic Con, a packed theater full of fans was shown eight minutes of exclusive footage from the second episode of the season.  You can view the trailer shown at NYCC here.