I never watched zombie flicks growing up, but in my more mature adult years, I’ve grown to love the undead.
I know there are debates over the old-school shuffle zombies so prevalent in George Romero’s pioneering films and the super-speed mutants of more recent gorefests like 28 Days Later. Some even claim the latter aren’t truly zombies, but I’m just not going to get into that debate here.
So imagine my surprise and joy when I read an article in Variety that said none other than AMC — AMC! The network that brought us Mad Men! — is about to sign a deal for a series based on “The Walking Dead” graphic novel series by Robert Kirkman.
I’ll admit right up front that I haven’t read these books. But I love the concept, in which the traditional zombies eating brainnnnnnnnzzzzzzzz is turned on its head and instead the zombie survivors are seeking out a safe place to live.
Here’s the description from the graphic novel’s website:
An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe, causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months, society has crumbled: There is no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV.
Rick Grimes finds himself one of the few survivors in this terrifying future. A couple months ago he was a small town cop who had never fired a shot and only ever saw one dead body. Separated from his family, he must now sort through all the death and confusion to try and find his wife and son. In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally begin living.
No cable TV?!?!
I kid, I kid.
But it looks really interesting, and AMC is definitely known for quality television. It seems like every season, I watch more and more shows on “basic cable,” and less and less on the traditional broadcast channels.
Sure, some of the cablers are owned by the old networks (NBC/Universal, for example, owns SyFy and USA, among others), but they take risks on these outlying networks that they’d never take on the traditional networks.
So long as there’s cable TV, though, I guess that’s OK.