I love a big budget. AMC/FX’s The Walking Dead has seen a lot of publicity, not least because Simon Pegg has been tweeting his little heart out about it. Has it been worth the characters spent though?
This new zombie/Horror series is based on the black and white comic of the same name by writer Robert Kirkman. To sum: it’s the zombie apocalypse and deputy sheriff Rick James (Andrew Lincoln – more pointy and more American than I remember) has awoken from a gunshot-induced coma to discover that the world has been overrun by zombies. So far so an American 28 Days Later. It’s like the horror version of Sandra Bullock’s While You Were Sleeping only with less hilarious misunderstandings and more gunshot wounds to the head. After the shock of this new world (dis)order sinks in, Rick begins the trek to the standard utopia that exists wherever the people are not, as cleverly mocked in Zombieland, in order to find his wife and young son, picking up other survivors along the way.
The 90-minute opener, 'Days Gone Bye' (see what they did there?), aired over the weekend on FX in the UK and it was good. The SFX are amazing and the creators have got the fast-zombie vs slow-zombie issue sorted. They’re slow when they’re just meandering about, feeling a bit peckish and mooching for live flesh to munch on. But the moment they hear a loud noise – a gunshot for example – or they spot their elevenses - you - they’re loping towards you faster than you can crawl beneath a vehicle to await your inevitable demise.
I’m looking forward to 'Guts' next weekend – it sounds quite promising in the gore department (not that seeing a horse get eaten alive didn’t satisfy my bloodlust – although who knew they are much roomier on the inside than the out? Those zombies got the loaves and fishes of a gut-medley).
I think I'm the only person alive (LOL!!!) that doesn't rate this show. Maybe I was in a bad mood or something when I watched the first episode, but honestly I found slow and kind of boring.
ReplyDeleteIt pains me to say it, being a lover of all things zombie, but I just don't feel like it was bringing anything new to the zombie feast.
It might be something to do with me not giving a shit about any of the characters. It was big mistake to have a 'good-cop' as the hero. Boring. Surely zombie apocalypses are all about the anti-heroes? Give me some stubble-infested guy with a drink-problem and an ex-wife any day (um - Bruce Willis in Die-Hard??).
Also, riding a *horse*, that's right a horse - a live animal with lots of prime meat for flesh-eating zombies, into a city in the middle of what has clearly just been established, as the zombie apocalypse? I don't think so.
Annoyed.
Sorry, rant over...
Actually I agree. I didn't find it boring, but I didn't find that it offered anything new either (yet at least). Who wouldn't consider that there might be more zombies in a city than anywhere else? Who would shoot themselves in the head without considering any other option (like looking up)?
ReplyDelete