The Walking Dead User Reviews

Zombies are over saturating the market. Between day of the dead, left 4 dead, dead rising, dead space, 28 days later, and so many other movies and games, it seems we're in the middle of a zombie overload. It'd be an issue if it weren't for the fact that zombies are such dynamic creatures. Whether slow and durable or fast and fragile, zombies are terrifying, they actively seek people out to devour them and can overrun the most prepared survivors in minutes, if not less. That being said, there is a severe lack of originality when it comes to zombie movies now. It's usually about finding a cure or getting to the military evac.

Luckily the Walking Dead fixes this issue with the TV format. Instead of needing some sort of over arcing story that leads to a climactic finale, the walking dead is able to take the concept of simply surviving in the apocalypse and applying in to an episode by episode basis. Does it do it well? Let's find out.

Well starting off I should say there actually is a over arching story in the Walking Dead. Rick Grimes wakes up from a coma caused by a gunshot to the back (I don't get it either) only to find out the world's gone to hell and zombies rule the land. Now Rick is trying to find his wife and son amidst the rotting corpses and gunpowder.

Along the way Rick comes across several other survivors as he gets his legs in the apocalypse. The first duo he finds are a father and son who fill him in on the current state of things. Y'know the drill by now, zombies are walking around don't get bit, and general rules of zombies.

The first thing I noticed about the walking dead was the pacing. The show moves at a snail's pace from start to finish, in fact what happens in the first hour of the show could probably be compressed into half an hour. But to some degree the slow pacing adds to the drama. There's one point where for around 4 minutes Rick looks for a zombie in the park by following it's slime trail. 4 minutes of him walking through a park to find a zombie. Yeah it's a lot less interesting then it sounds, but to some degree it adds to the emotion of the scene. Maybe that has something to do with the scene that plays along with that being very emotional as well, but the slow pace definitely adds to the atmosphere.

However, the last half hour is a total change of pace. The episode up to this point is very slow burn, there's only a few zombies here and there and overall there isn't much threat. However, in the last half hour Rick finds himself surrounded. Nearly out of nowhere a swarm of zombies covers him. Maybe the slow pace adds tot his, as just a dramatic shift in pace would normally be jarring, but seeing a swarm of these things come out of nowhere despite always expecting them is awesome.

So there you go. The first episode of the Walking Dead is great, a little slow at first but the pay off is well worth it in the end. Word to the weak of the stomach though, there is some considerable gore in this series. That poor poor horse...