Zombie Love

SOMETHING ABOUT ME: I love zombie movies.

Not all zombie movies.  Some are gory for the sake of gore, which I don't like.  Some are (obviously) stupid.  And I'm not a hardcore fan who watches really old "classic" zombie movies, or B horror films (ok sometimes I do, but not usually).  But the ones I love, I really and truly LOVE.

My favorites:

Shaun of the Dead

Seriously hilarious.  

Zombieland

SO FUNNY.

28 Days Later

Really moving and interesting and emotional and, eventually, SO HAPPY and even uplifting.  Honestly, it's about people, not zombies.

And now, there are new zombies in my life: The Walking Dead.

It's a new show on AMC which I already blogged a bit about, but now I've finally seen an episode.  And for some reason, it is a far bigger deal than it should be.  Not only am I BLOGGING about it, but I'm also talking to people about it AND thinking about it way too much.  Like, it does not warrant this much excitement and interest, but for some reason, to me it does.  

First of all, it's a zombie SHOW.  Has that ever happened before?  It means that it has to be very different from zombie movies, which is going to take some getting used to.  The pacing is different, characters are going to need more growth and development and complexity, and the plot isn't going to just be "oh no let's run away from these zombies."  I expect a lot of character-driven issues and relationship conflicts and all that--which you don't really get in zombie movies.  The fact that they have a whole season to fill means that they can go into a lot more detail.  For example: the show starts almost the exact same as 28 Days Later.  The main character wakes up in a deserted hospital, totally alone, after being in a coma.  He has no idea what's going on and has to wander around alone until he comes upon his first zombie, and is then found by other survivors who explain things to him.  But it was really different to me in The Walking Dead because they had so much more time and could do some really cool things.  I appreciated that.  Kyle appreciated that this guy wakes up  less naked than Cillian Murphy in 28 Days Later.

Anyways, I'm getting embarrassed about geeking out about this zombie tv show.  I hope it makes it--it could definitely be tricky to keep a zombie show going.  I trust AMC to do it well though--their other shows do pretty well, right?  And Andrew Lincoln is SO GREAT.  Katy and I had a long and adoring discussion about the intricacies of his acting talent.  I think he is awesome.

Sometimes I can't tell if something sucks or not.  So this might suck, even though I am really enthusiastic about loving it.  It might totally fail after two episodes, everyone else in the world may hate it, but I am really looking forward to Sunday nights now.

(To read an incredibly awesome contest-winning essay about zombies, read Katy's post here.)