‘The Walking Dead’ Walkers Get A Digital Makeover, And Greg Nicotero Confirms They Use Recurring Zombies

With every season of AMC’s The Walking Dead that passes, fans get to see the evolution of the undead walkers. In season 1, Rick did meet a very decayed walker but, on the whole, they looked more like humans who had died than the wizened walkers expected to be on display in the upcoming season 6.

According to a recent interview Greg Nicotero did on the AMC blog, expect the walkers in The Walking Dead to enter the digital age in season 6. Or at least to have parts of their decaying bodies removed with the assistance of digital augmentation. Expect to see walkers in season 6 to have their noses digitally removed and rib cages exposed using this technology. Don’t expect walking skeletons anytime soon, though, as Nicotero informed the Hollywood Reporter.

“[Showrunner] Scott [M. Gimple] has one very specific thing that he is conscious of, which is that it can’t be a Ray Harryhausen. It can’t be a walking skeleton. It always has to be muscles. It always has to be something that is motivating the movement.”

As well as digital augmentation, expect to see a character use a weapon embedded in a walker to kill it all over again in season 6 of The Walking Dead. “We loved the idea of seeing a walker with an implement embedded and then one of our heroes pulls the weapon out and actually uses it,” Nicotero explains before confirming this would happen at some stage in season 6. Greg Nicotero also confirmed the fact that recurring zombies do appear in The Walking Dead.

“There are a couple of performers that we’ve been using since Season 1, like an extra named Bethany. She’s the walker whose fingers came out during the “Don’t Open. Dead Inside” scene and now she’s been a walker as recently as the Season 5 finale. Rick kills her inside Alexandria before the big meeting. She’s a great performer and she’s a delight to put makeup on.”

Digital augmentation means AMC can bring to the Walking Dead audience something that has never been done before the digital age. But for some fans, like Scarlett Cayford from Beamly, it just may be the undoing of The Walking Dead, although she did leave it up to her audience to decide if The Walking Dead would be better with digital manipulation or not.

Although to be fair, AMC has already digitally enhanced our viewing pleasure of The Walking Dead. It is a well-known fact that a lot of the blood splatter that result from gunshots (particularly head shots) is a result of CGI, as well as many scenes being enhanced by adding more walkers using CGI and body parts being altered as they are decapitated. So, will this new level of digital enhancement even make a difference?

The Walking Dead returns to AMC for season 6 on Sunday, October 11, 2015.

What do you think of digitally enhanced walkers? And which recurring zombie is your favorite Walking Dead walker? Let us know by commenting below!

[Image credit: AMC / Gene Page]