Night of The Walking Dead

Hi there. I’m JB Love and this is my first review for POP CULTURE BEAST. So its going to be a little awkward. If things go according to precedent, I’m probably going to talk about myself too much, spill a condiment on my shirt, and, when I try to kiss you on the cheek before its over, I may accidentally nose-poke you in the ear hole.

Consider that fair warning, Sexy.

Last night I was lucky enough to attend the LA Premiere of THE WALKING DEAD pilot. Now, before I get to my review, it seems necessary to take a moment to describe the event itself. This way, once you understand how Gonzo-weird things got, you can feel free to toss aside my opinions as delusions brought on by surreality.

First off, I wasn’t on the list. I’d entered a contest at AMC.com only to discover my name was on neither of the lists the officious and overstressed young lady at the check-in table possessed. Luckily, she took my word for it, and me and my guest were wrist-banded and shuffled off to a loose line of fellow nerds, hipsters, and other...um...sub-VIPs. Then, after a tense half hour or so of wondering if we were really getting in or we’d just been moved to the line for AMC.com-contest-winner-impersonators, we were finally ushered to another line. Happily, this was in the thick of the VIP area, so we were able to play Spot-The-Celebrity while we continued to wait.

(Sidebar: David Zayas, who plays ‘Lt. Batista’ on Showtime’s DEXTER, is awesome. Just sayin’.)

The waiting, which took what seemed like at least an hour, was luckily made tolerable by our unique pre-show attendants, Zombies. Yes, a group of lucky actors had been transformed with professional-level gore makeup into shambling, bedraggled, less-than-morning-fresh corpses. They shuffled up and down the line, mimicking in that dazed, zombie/junkie way the actions of the ‘living’ around them -- and occasionally sneaking up on an unsuspecting victim and hissing loudly in their ear. (This happened most often to attractive women. Definitely LA zombies.)

Finally, the last of the VIPs arrived, the Zombies were herded away, and we entered the theater. Unfortunately, my Guest and I were not given adjacent seat assignments, but a very nice guy switched with us so were were able to sit together. As we started to sit down, I looked around me and realized that there had been no separation of the VIPs from the rest of us. There was Carlton Cuse, the co-creator of LOST, a few rows back. And Norman Reedus, who will be joining the TWD cast later this season. And a few other faces I recognized but couldn’t name. Lots of nice suits and professionally aligned postures. We sat down. Right next to SNL’s Cheri Oteri. She smiled. I checked my pulse and ate some popcorn.

Momentarily, the show started, and, with some effort, I extricated my brain from the fog of this very particular brand of LA Surreality and focused. I was going to write a review of this thing. I needed to turn on my critic’s eye. I sat my complimentary popcorn on the floor and settled in.

Then I knocked over my popcorn.

Mild Spoilers Ahead! Click the Rawr for the full review!




THE WALKING DEAD opens with Sheriff’s Deputy Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln, ‘LOVE ACTUALLY’) in the thick of it. The Zombie ‘Event’ has happened, he knows about it, and he’s looking for gas to fuel his police car. He comes upon a zombie. He shoots it. It’s unnerving. (More will be said about this particular zombie in other reviews, and it may raise some controversy, but I’m choosing to leave it alone because on balance I think its unimportant.) That’s our cold open. Writer/Director Frank Darabont (‘THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION’) drops us into the world, shows us it isn’t pretty, and we cut to black.

But its then that things get really interesting. Backtracking in time to before the Zombie Event, over the opening credits we meet Rick and his pal and fellow officer Shane Walsh (John Bernthal, ‘WORLD TRADE CENTER’), in their patrol car, bonding over man-talk and some particularly fleshy-looking burgers. It’s at this point that my first criticism comes in. I am from the South, from Georgia actually (where TWD is set), and I am a harsh evaluator when it comes to actors reproducing Southern accents. While Andrew Lincoln (who is English), who is fairly tacit in this scene, does a mild, geographically neutral ‘Southern’, Bernthal’s choice of pretty over-the-top ‘Good Ol’ Boy’ was distracting. But this is a pretty small thing, right? Well, I suppose it depends on who you ask.

Luckily, however, the accents don’t last long as the first act shifts into gear, and Rick and Shane screech away to aid the Georgia Highway Patrol in stopping some fugitives. After a tense stand-off with a few well-done surprises, Rick is shot. We fade out, and when we fade back in, Rick is awakening in an abandoned hospital a la 28 DAYS LATER. This was a concern for me, as I’m sure it was for everyone else who’d read first issue of the comic. Who wants to watch a scene in a show that you’ve already seen in a movie? And yet its necessary and logical. Thankfully, Frank Darabont cuts what we expect and grounds us in details that give this whole scene an immediacy and an unnerving familiarity -- and not a familiarity from other movies, but from life.

Its also in this scene where the filmmakers throw down the gauntlet. “We are not shying away from violence just because this is television.” A lingering shot of a mutilated corpse says all that and does a good job of preparing us for that which is to come.

So now we’ve seen zombies, action, and gore. What next?

Brilliantly, perfectly, comes the introduction of Morgan Jones (Lennie James, ‘JERICHO’) and his son Duane (newcomer Adrian Kali Turner), the first survivors Rick meets after he realizes the Dead are Walking. Morgan and Duane serve as the (always dreaded) story expositors -- and yet Darabont’s script does this so lithely that we almost don’t realize its happening. But their real feat, this broken duo of Father and Son, is they manage to take a to-this-point pretty badass piece of genre pop and elevate it into a moving, serious, human drama. This is what TWD has been promising since its inception. Its what the comic book has delivered for years, on a beautifully consistent basis. Lennie James, in particular, gives a staggeringly effective performance in this scene, and should be remembered around Emmy time. Its during his confession, holding his weeping son in his arms, that everything comes together. These fine actors and Darabont’s script, direction, and achingly effective (and yet subtle) visuals all coalesce, and suddenly everything that AMC’S THE WALKING DEAD can be...happens.

It’s this scene I wanted to get to in this review, to get across the incredibly impressive feat that has been attempted and performed here. Genre fiction, by its nature, alienates many people. “Well, that would never happen, so I can’t relate to what those people are feeling.” And so when a piece of ‘fantastic’ drama, through the deft skills of its creators, rises to transcend that built-in and ages-old limitation, well, it deserves a special measure of respect. And The Walking Dead, at its outset, has mine.

Plot-wise, from here, we reach familiar ground, and yet each time a scene or a set-up feels expected, a limber balancing act of humanity and suspense draws us in. In particular, in a couple of these surprisingly emotional scenes, we’re reminded that the zombies aren’t just monsters. They’re not limited to their staid B-movie role as depthless villains. They are, or at least were, we’re reminded, human beings. “I’m sorry this happened to you,” says Rick, to an immobile zombie, before he raises his gun and puts it out of its misery, and we believe it and agree. Its this totally effective manipulation of our emotions that allows us to be truly shocked when Rick enters the city of Atlanta and suddenly (a genuine surprise, via a cool cinematographic trick by Darabont) encounters a literal horde of ‘Walkers’. And I mean hundreds. It’s a testimony to how well everything is balanced that we’re surprised that our sympathy might have made us forget, just for a moment, that they want to eat us.

The final scene leading up to the cliffhanger ending (oh come on, you knew that was going to happen) is an addition to the first issue story from the comics, and an exercise in mounting suspense. Darabont, as he has shown us time and time again, in ‘Shawshank’, in ‘The Green Mile’, in ‘The Mist’, is a master at this, and to try to describe it would be futile. We can talk about the humanity. The horror? It needs to be seen, heard, and felt. And when the camera rises up in the last few seconds, taking us away from Rick as he’s trapped, overwhelmed, in a sea of flesh-eating horror...and continues to rise up over the skyline of Atlanta, the full scope of the world we’ve entered is revealed...

And it’s not pretty.

But its a damn good ride.

I’ve been reading THE WALKING DEAD, the comic, by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard for a few years now, and while I -- like most of my fellow fans -- desperately wanted to see a filmic version of this “continuing story of survival horror”, I was pessimistic enough to doubt it would ever happen. Thankfully, Kirkman stuck to his guns and knew when to say no to previous offers because it just wasn’t right. And even more thankfully, he knew when to say yes. I can’t imagine another filmmaker than Darabont adapting this and the result being this impressive. AMC’s THE WALKING DEAD is brave, beautiful, smart, and intense. I loved it. I think you will, too.

Oh - and I’ll get over the accents. ;)

Best wishes,

JB Love