Director's UnCut

When Hell Is Full

The Walking Dead Review

by Marc Furmie

Police Officer Rick Grimes is having a hell of a day. Or is it week, month or year? The lawman is severely wounded during a shootout with some redneck criminals, only to awaken in hospital an undisclosed amount of time later. He soon learns that the world has changed dramatically since he slipped into a coma. In fact, it's been overrun with zombies.

And so begins The Walking Dead, AMC and writer/director Frank Darabont's bleak and faithful adaptation of the popular graphic novel series. Coming not too far behind Darabont's brave and highly underrated re-imagining of 'The Mist', The Walking Dead seems to be the auteurs opportunity to delve deeply into the dualistic themes, ideas and provocative imagery much too difficult to bring to the contemporary cinematic marketplace. But television has been a staging point for bold explorations for the past ten years now and this leap from the director who brought us one of the most unforgettable films of all time (The Shawshank Redemption) can only be seen as natural.

The first episode hits you with a proverbial shovel from the get-go, setting up strong characters without too much exposition, and then pitting them immediately against a horde of carnivorous corpses.

Thankfully, it reserves what could easily be bucket-loads of sentimentality, instead dishing out the hard truth; that survival is tough, and even tougher when you're in search of hope. But its not without its humanity. In fact, a lack of humanity in horror films can sometimes be considered a buffer between the amusingly horrific and the emotionally harrowing. The Walking Dead plays in the field of the latter. There is plenty of hope for our protagonist, but we share irrevocable tragedies of those he encounters along the way. Grimes' initial trek through the post-apocalyptic south has him spending the night with a grieved man and his son, faced with the moral predicament of whether or not to shoot their zombie-fied wife/mother.

The pilot was shot by cinematographer David Tattersall (The Green Mile, Revenge of the Sith) who paints a darkly epic portrait of desolate small-town southern locations, never tempted to indulge in over-stylized imagery. This is still very much our own world, and it's filled with people we once knew and loved, people who just so happen to want to eat us.

Darabont's talent for suspense doesn't rely on trickery or cheap Wes-Craven-like techniques. The scares are real and the characters are deeper than anything we'd find in a Scream sequel. His respect for characterization and ability to draw subtle, yet compelling performances from his cast maintain a strong sense of emotion in the story - something that will ultimately set it apart from the dozens of zombie films we have seen flooding our cinema screens in the past decade. But what ultimately makes The Walking Dead so intriguing, is that we know we're in this for the long haul.

Andrew Lincoln is a unique choice for a lead. He isn't typically attractive, in fact, there's something uniquely dark about him, and he's not intent on being a hero, even though as a lawman, you would expect him to. He has a brooding charisma that is genuine because it's laced with vulnerability. It will be interesting to see what kind of arc Darabont has prepared for him.

Episode 1 ends with a nail-biting cliff hanger and the equally impressive second-episode begins immediately afterwards. The anticipation between episodes is so overwhelming that I recommend saving the whole thing for when it's released on DVD. But who the hell can wait?