Although the zombie genre is consistently pretty predictable, it’s also predictably awesome.
I pretty much decided I would be watching AMC’s upcoming miniseries The Walking Dead as soon as I learned it near-existed. Innovation is not something we look for in the zombie/apocalypse genre. It’s kind of like grown-up bedtime stories where you know the whole book back to front but you read it a thousand times anyway.
So, two things struck me upon watching the trailer from Comic-Con for The Walking Dead. One is that it looks very well made and movie like, and two, even in the trailer, it’s like you can’t not be distracted by tropes from previous zombie/apocalypse fare. In the first minute, there was “man wakes up to end times ravaged hospital” ( 28 Days Later ) and “pilgrimage to Atlanta” ( The Stand ) for starters. We have the inevitable impetus for the character to learn first hand to avoid cities, and likely the defining moment of having to shoot some formerly adorable child point blank in the face. And cops, a general zombie genre theme.
Below, the brief and very compelling trailer. Are you planning to watch The Walking Dead ? Have you tired of zombies, or do they deserve some of the pop-culture space currently occupied by vampires?
