Rent The Walking Dead: Series 1 (2010)

The Walking Dead: Series 1 review by Alyse Garner - Cinema Paradiso

Just as any typically predictable cop story begins, a sheriff and his deputy face a shoot out and in the throws of battle one of them is hit. Surely from now the story should be very obvious? Wrong.

The Walking Dead is an American show developed for television by Shawshank Redemption’s Frank Darabont. Set in the months following an apocalyptic zombie holocaust a man awakes in an abandoned hospital to find the town he was once sheriff of all but empty. He attempts to reunite himself with his family and travels to the nearest big city where he hopes to find succour from the deadly virus. However he finds that the plague has spread and also taken Atlanta. The policeman, along with a small band of others he encounters must all now attempt to survive in this post apocalyptic world.

The show flashes back and forth in time, slowly putting the pieces of the story together and funnelling it all into the uncompromised fear of this somewhat bizarre collection of hopefuls.

Starring Brit Andrew Lincoln – of BBC’s Teachers and Love Actually (2003) fame – the show has been renewed for a second season, which in itself shows its popularity. The show takes horror back to its visceral and fear driven roots; there is a sense of realism in the show’s use of horror, the tension being relentless without being overwhelming. What overpowers you the most is the character’s human desire to survive. Each episode has you hanging off the edge of your seat as it closes, in shock or fear or just plain curiosity.

Visually the show is almost cinematic, the effects used to create the zombies gives them a painfully accurate appearance, which in itself adds to the show’s realism. Whilst the acting is flawless, all complementing Darabont’s rewriting of the graphic novel impeccably.

Somehow the show manages to maintain a sense of sex and style throughout the series, in spite of the desolate conditions of the human survivors, whilst managing to be reminiscent of typical Westerns and all out classic zombie gore. The show succeeds in being both epic and honest at the same time; achieving this with the effortlessly fluid and multi-layered story, which brings nightmare-ish fantasy and complete shame-faced humanity into sync. It is enough to bring any and all Romero lovers and haters in front of the same screen.