Eight seasons ago, when sheriff’s deputy Rick Grimes awoke from a coma only to discover the world had been overrun by zombies, no-one could have predicted the dawn of a mega-popular franchise.
Yes, the omens were good – The Walking Dead was based on the bestselling comic book series, was developed by director Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) and starred the lovestruck guy who held up the signs for Keira Knightley in Love Actually. But it soon became a cultural phenomenon.
With season nine premiering on Showcase on October 7 and season eight arriving on DVD, we explore why.
The Walking Dead characters Michonne, Carol, Rick, Daryl, Rosita and Gareth.
Over the past 10 years or so, zombies have been on the rise.
At the movies, director Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later sequel 28 Weeks Later (2007) and Ruben Fleischer’s Zombieland (2009) brought the carnivorous cadavers back into the mainstream, while the godfather of the undead, late filmmaker George A Romero, returned with Survival Of The Dead (2009).
On television, Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker wrote Dead Set (2008), a what-if scenario where zombies attacked the set of Big Brother. Riding this bloody wave, The Walking Dead arrived at exactly the right time.
Police officer Rick Grimes (Brit Andrew Lincoln sporting a perfect American accent) gathers a rag-tag group from the remaining humans. Part heroic, part backstabbing, all are desperate to survive. But then they die, one by one.
Like that moment when Sean Bean’s Ned Stark loses his head in Game Of Thrones, the makers of The Walking Dead are never afraid to kill off cast members, and not always at the hands of the undead. It’s why the show has lasted so long – we never really know who the real monsters are. Unless it’s Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) brandishing a barbed baseball bat.
Bait-wielding villain Negan doesn’t like to play ball.
The walking dead are the stars of the show. Brilliantly created by Quentin Tarantino’s special effects house of choice, the KNB EFX Group, the company’s co-founders, Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger, met on the set of Romero’s Day Of The Dead in 1985.
Zombie blood runs through their veins and the “walkers” are terrifying to behold. Emaciated, bloodless, skeletal flesh-eaters, these zombies are often missing limbs or body parts. But whatever their state, they’re hungry for human flesh. And when they attack, it gets very bloody.
Epic in scope as the core survivors travel across the US trying to find sanctuary, The Walking Dead takes its post-apocalyptic canvas, goes for the jugular and never loses its grip.
Whether it’s those desolate scenes of a lone man wandering the deserted streets of Atlanta or the last fragments of society battling for their lives against the undead and themselves, The Walking Dead has pushed the boundaries of TV, both in terms of gut-wrenching violence and storylines.
It’s traumatic, disturbing and utterly compelling. Bring on the ninth season!
