Mythology: The Walking Dead
By Martin Felipe
October 27, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com

Thriller, y'all!!
If vampires have staged a popularity comeback in recent years, the early part of the 2000s were all about zombies. Even as Buffy battled her bloodsucking adversaries for her loyal cult audience, the living dead were hot again due to revisionists like Zack Snyder and Danny Boyle with their fast zombies, and affectionate satirist Edgar Wright with his Shaun Of The Dead. Now the hip cable network that brings us Mad Men and Breaking Bad is finally jumping on the zombie bandwagon about five years too late with the Halloween debut of their new series The Walking Dead.

I kid a bit. The Walking Dead is a return to the traditional zombie mythology as established by George Romero back in the '60s with Night Of The Living Dead. As frightening as Snyder’s innovations are, there’s nothing like good old lumbering flesh eaters, risen from the grave to terrorize rag-tag bands of zom-pocalypse survivors.

The series from Frank Darabont is based on the comic books of the same name by Robert Kirkman. Kirkman claims that the concept behind the comic is not to rewrite the mythology Snyder-style, but to really examine life in a post-zombie America. Zombie movies take place either in the immediate aftermath of the rising dead advent, or in later years, as survivors have struggled to reestablish some semblance of order.

This is all well and good, not to mention fascinating; who doesn’t love a good post-apocalypse story? The thing is that each of these stories tells the tale of a group of said rag-tag survivors, with all survivor archetypes represented. The Walking Dead tells an ongoing tale of one such group. The story doesn’t end with the group falling apart, or them making a break for some sanctuary, it goes on and on.


The fact is, I’m a little surprised that, in the wake of the rise in long-form televised storytelling, it took them a couple of decades to make a zombie series. The comic is pretty much just a soap opera with zombie trappings, and this is just ideal for serialized television. Whether zombie or otherwise, the stories of post-apocalyptic life are incredibly fascinating. Everyone imagines themselves as a survivor in such a world. There is a heroic romance to the idea of being one of the good guys, stripped of contemporary trappings, forced to find ways of going on, protecting the maiden, keeping hope alive in a harsh skeleton of the world we once inhabited. And with zombies!

It’s the survivor aspect of the story that is so compelling. I’m not disavowing all of the subtext that Romero and his pals have instilled into the mythology of cannibalistic undead, but that’s fodder for the intellectuals. The heart of the appeal of zombie stories is the harsh fantasy world built out of the shattered remains of the one in which we are familiar.

This is why returning to the traditional zombies is a good move. I love the idea of fast zombies, just as much as I cringe at the idea of brain-eating zombies, but alterations such as these are good for a movie or two. To tell a continuing saga, twists and alterations to the mythology are just a distraction from the main event, watching these characters struggle with their new hostile environment.

My guess is that The Walking Dead will follow in the steps of both its mythology brethren and its AMC counterparts, with great reviews, a passionate fan base, and a small audience. It will struggle to survive a harsh ratings landscape, just as its characters struggle with the zombies. I could be wrong; it could be a big hit. AMC has certainly put a lot of effort into making it one. In any case, I have my Halloween plans in place. I’ll watch a good guy serial killer then check out the zombies taking over the world. So much more awesome than sparkling vampires.