The Dead Will Walk to see This!

The Walking Dead – Frank Darabont

The big Halloween weekend has come and gone and with the latest releases in the cinema, it seems as though one of the biggest things to have been on show was the new zombie drama from the States, The Walking Dead. Adapted from a popular graphic novel series, The Walking Dead sees the world savaged by zombies and a man in a small Texas town awakening to find himself in the middle of it. This does sound very similar to movies involving zombies like 28 Days Later and such but here it’s told in more heartfelt way and it should be interesting in the direction of how the character goes from being on his own to finding other survivors. Using influences from good zombie films like Dawn of the Dead, this could be one of the most entertaining shows in recent memory and hitting the screens at a great time where shows seem to become dull, well UK television that is, with Friday Night Lights, Boardwalk Empire and other massive shows in the US, you can see why we desperately need The Walking Dead broadcast soon. Hopefully it will be picked up by the BBC or FX which most of the time good programs from the US are picked up by. And by having a great legendary director and write Darabont take the reins for the beginning of the show makes sure it has a great foundation to build on, the guy made The Shawshank Redemption for god sake, and he deserves massive amounts of applause.

So let’s get down to the nitty gritty, The Walking Dead is about the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse and so far only a handful of characters have been introduced including the lead Rick Grimes, played by the brilliant British actor Andrew Lincoln who you may recognise from Love, Actually but more importantly, from the wonderful TV series Teachers. In the first episode, Grimes awakens to find that the world he lived in before has changed. He soon finds out that zombies now rule and luckily he runs into a father and his boy who are trying to survive and they tell him what’s happening. Grimes have a wife and child and after searching his home cannot find them. Later in the episode it is revealed that they are still alive and with a band of survivors who is lead by Grimes former work buddy, (as they were sheriffs before). Grimes after finding a deserted horse rides into the nearest big city to find thousands of the undead waiting to eat him. The suspense of the episode is great and you never quite know where it will lead to next. The ending is great too and leaves open some questions for the next episode.

A wonderful start for the series hopefully will pick up with more action, and considering it’s very violent, it will be a good thing. More decapitation and gore would really push this into fame.

7/10

Simon Childs