The Walking Dead Premiere - Some Things Are Worth The Wait

"Anticipation...it's makin' me wait!" - Old Heinz ketchup commercial

I've been disappointed by hype before, or at best, just a little let down. Way in the back of my mind, I feared the same would happen with AMC's new original series, The Walking Dead. It finally - after months of waiting - premiered appropriately on October 31 to the well-oiled hype machine that is AMC. That station, I tell you, is riding a serious wave of successful original series like Mad Men and Breaking Bad. They, like HBO, seem to set the bar very high in terms of quality, so I knew the series was in good hands. But that nagging fear remained in the back of my head: "What if it's just so-so...or worse, what if it sucks?"

I'm happy to say that not only did the premiere live up to my expectations, it exceeded them.

Now, I may or may not review each episode. I haven't decided yet. More likely, I'll bookend the season with reviews starting with this one. Needless to say, if was borrowing a page from Roger Ebert's book, I'd be giving this a huge thumbs-up.

I love infection horror, and that's evident in my blog. Hell, I prefaced watching this premiere with my annual Halloween viewing of 1978's Dawn of the Dead. More than that, I'm a huge fan of the comic book from Image Comics, created and written by Robert Kirkman, who also co-produced the series (Kirkman also writes a superhero series called Invincible that I hope makes it to the screen as well). Knowing he had a huge say in what went down, and knowing director/screenwriter extraordinaire Frank Darabont was in charge, put me more and more at ease.

Many of you have already seen it, and I'm not going to spoil things for the rest of you. Basically, the plot follows the book for the most part: Deputy Rick Grimes wakes up after a gunshot puts him in a coma to find that the world has really changed. There aren't any living people that he sees right away, but there are plenty of dead bodies...and some of them move. Rick leaves the hospital and returns home to find his wife and son gone. He meets Morgan and Duane, a father and son living in a house once occupied by Rick's neighbors, and they get him up to speed about the disease that has reanimated the dead. In a brilliant but tragic addition to the mythos, Morgan and Duane agonize over the sight of Morgan's wife, Duane's mother, returning day after day as a zombie. Rick intends to move on to Atlanta to find his family, hoping Morgan and Duane will join him later. He finds a horse and rides into the city, but finds nothing but hungry ex-people. Trapped in a tank, Rick hears someone calling him "dumbass" on the radio (if you read the book, you know who it is) as the episode comes to a close.

I skimmed over quite a bit of it, but really, if you're able to watch it, you need to see and hear the experience. The flies buzzing? Nice touch. There are scenes that are perfectly silent, and the confusion and disorientation is enough to drive you crazy because you have no music cues to warn you, or tell you how to feel. The disease spares no one. Yes, a little girl zombie falls in the first few minutes. I know the "politically correct" will be up in arms: "what kind of image is that to show our precious children?" Please. It's horror. What would you do, give it Twizzlers and positively reinforce it not to bite you? Same with the horse. That's in the comic as well. It's hard to see, but it portrays how a zombified world would be. The living dead don't care about cuteness. They're just hungry forces of nature. Another gory, but great, touch was the completely masticated woman lying in the hospital hallway. Darabont told so much story in Rick's post-awakening scene with hardly a word. The half-woman bicycle zombie is straight from the book, but Darabont adds so much pathos and emotion to each scene, it's like an enhanced version of an already-great work. I really hope the rest of the season holds up to this fantastic premiere.

I can't enough good things about it. I've seen overwhelmingly positive reviews, and mine stands as my own. I'm sure there are some who didn't like it, but that's life. Or undead life. So many puns, so little time.

Until later, my friends, try to be awake when the zombie apocalypse comes. And be sure to catch The Walking Dead on AMC, Sundays at 10 p.m.

Spaced Season 1, Episode 3 "Art": The Inspiration For Shaun Of The Dead

I love Shaun Of The Dead. That's no secret. It's the perfect love letter to the Romero Living Dead film. The energy, the snappy yet unpretentious dialogue, the subtle (and not-so-subtle) references to other zombie movies -- all that provided an intoxicating mix for me. The main crew of actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, and director Edgar Wright shot up the charts in my eyes.

I also love the British sitcom or "Britcom," if you will. I grew up on a steady diet of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" in high school, "The Young Ones" in college, and "Red Dwarf" and "Coupling" in recent years. When I heard the buzz around the connection of Shaun Of The Dead and a two-season cult classic called "Spaced," I had to check it out.

Thank you, Netflix. Then thank you, Amazon, for providing me with the most-viewed DVD set in my collection.



"Spaced" is the creation of Pegg, Wright, and Jessica Stevenson (née Hynes). You might remember Stevenson as Shaun's friend he occasionally runs into during the zombie apocalypse ("Good luck!"). The show itself is about two people who meet and pretend to be a couple in order to rent a sweet apartment, and the friendships they form with the other tenants and landlord. The episodes are fast-paced, snappy, and chock full of pop culture references that would test the trivia knowledge of the most hardened expert. There's a shot-for-shot nod to Pulp Fiction and the scene where Vincent Vega meets his end. The hilarious reference to The Sixth Sense even includes Olivia Williams, who played Bruce Willis' wife. So many references, you can actually choose as subtitles the "Homage-O-Meter," which literally tells you each reference on-screen. Beautiful.

Just as stated on the DVD commentary of Shaun of the Dead, the inspiration for the movie came from the third episode of the first season. The episode, "Art," begins with Tim Bisley (Pegg) dispatching classic slow-moving zombies while making Bruce Campbell-esque quips like "Come get some" or "Heads up." It is, of course, a wonderfully bloody mess. When he turns his gun on the final zombie, the truth is revealed: he's actually been playing "Resident Evil 2" all night because of some speed he got from some aggressively friendly Scots he'd been playing pool with at the pub.

The seed had been planted. A few years later, Shaun of the Dead would be born.

You can watch the clip on YouTube (sorry, can't embed it here).

The zombie references don't end there. During the course of the episode, fellow tenant and artist Brian Topp (Mark Heap) is invited to a performance by his former collaborator Vulva (a non-gender-specific straight male performance artist played deliciously by "Little Britain" co-star David Walliams). For fun, Daisy (Stevenson) pulls the still-wired Tim along for the viewing, despite Brian's protests. He's still reeling from Vulva's rejection and intends on standing up to him...her...er...you know.

After the marathon performance, Brian confronts Vulva with little success as Tim enjoys the free drinks and Twiglets. The speed, the lack of sleep, the booze, and the fact that Twiglets "make [him] violent" causes Tim to hallucinate there are zombies everywhere. He sees Vulva moving in on Brian and thinks it's a zombie ready to bite his friend, so he punches out the arrogant artist before gathering his friends, nervously reciting some lines from "Resident Evil 2," and scurrying out of the place.



It's very clear that everyone involved with "Spaced" is a fan of horror films. Not only are there references spiced all throughout the two seasons, but the camera work often employs techniques one finds in a horror or suspense film. The soundtrack is full of clips and themes recognizable to the horror fan. The episode I've written about here includes cues from "Resident Evil 2." The penultimate episode features an homage to The Omen, complete with music.

Maybe the show itself can't be classified as horror. It's comedy, pure and simple. But there are so many influences derived from horror, I see it as a shame not to include it in my exploration of the genre.



If you have Netflix, check it out right away. Such an enjoyable series full of fanboy/fangirl moments, and it's such a well-written, well-acted, and well-directed set of episodes. Seriously, get your hands on this series, sit back, and try to pick out all the references while you laugh your arse off.

Until next time, fellow shelter citizens, remember that the undead seem to have fully functioning ears. Refrain from shouting if possible.