b1gfatho

So I have now watched the first episode of Frank Darabont's The Walking Dead twice, and fuck do I love it. It's interesting cause it creates an effect for me very similar to the first time I watched Unforgiven.

I'm a massive Western fan, so when I saw Unforgiven for the first time it was really quite amazing, because it challenged the ideas of Western tropes. Whereas most of them glorified the insanity and violence of the wild west, here was a film that took a very real and literal approach to everything. Most Westerns, we can watch 50 people get murdered and we wouldn't think twice about it, but in this film, we see ONE person shot, and it Fucking Matters!

Well that's the case here. Whereas in most Zombie flicks, we have reached the point where the zombies are really just a plot device and something to be killed, here, they actually develop. We often forget that the idea of zombies should be a tragic one, someone, who was just a normal person trying to make ends meet ends up with this unholy and fucked up curse. This show illustrates that. There's a scene, when we see a half zombie crawling, she has no legs, and you know what? It's fucking tragic. Beneath all that makeup, you can feel the fucking pain in her eyes. Which makes it all the more powerful when the main character says, "I'm sorry this happened to you," before putting her out of her misery.

Of course that's not to say that there aren't some fucking bad ass crazy as shit zombies too, cause there are. I just can't remember a time when something zombie related actually brought with it a strong emotional response. I dig it.