Smallscreen Features
Robert Kirkman talks “The Walking Dead,” AMC delivers another monster hit series
By April MacIntyre Oct 30, 2010, 21:59 GMT
“The Walking Dead,” AMC’s latest in a long line of high quality superbly crafted series (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Rubicon) will flat out blow your socks off on October 31.
“The Walking Dead,” AMC’s latest in a long line of high quality superbly crafted series (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Rubicon) will flat out blow your socks off on October 31.
For a TV show, this has the feel and the look of a feature film.
Thanks to Greg Nicotero, part of KNB Effects (with Howard Berger and Robert Kurtzman), an award winning prosthetic makeup and creature design house, the makeup for this graphic novel-turned smallscreen series is outstanding, as we witness all stages of human decomposition in the forms of voracious zombies terrorizing our injured law man Rick Grimes, who (similar to Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later") awakens from a coma to a world destroyed by a mysterious fever.
The pacing is pitch-perfect, the human emotions feel real, not forced. This is horror with intelligence, heart and a real story to sink your teeth into this Halloween.
“The Walking Dead” was guided by the acclaimed eponymous graphic novel by Robert Kirkman, as one man tries to find his family, and makes new alliances with other Georgia residents he happens upon who also survived the illness that begat the zombie epidemic.
Kirkman's story, told on AMC this Sunday, introduces us to Sheriff's Deputy Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), a man who in the opening laments that his wife has lost any connection to him to his earthy, alpha male partner Shane (Jon Bernthal) who appears to be his closest confidant.
Grimes is felled by a bullet shot by a frantic, hysterical man who emerges guns a-blazin' after a high-speed chase and subsequent wreck. Grimes weaves in and out of consciousness, only to be jarred awake by acute dehydration and finds himself alone, in a vacated hospital.
But he isn't completely alone.
All infrastructure has folded, gone, and the smell of death is all around as he realizes painfully his world has been replaced by a new danger.
The series is so monumentally good I refuse to divulge any other details other than the premiere was directed by Frank Darabont (”The Shawshank Redemption,” “The Green Mile”), and it is exceptional television.
"The Walking Dead" is true towering achievement of the below the line crafts, including production design, costuming, outstanding makeup, editing, cinematography and sound.
The season has six episodes for you to sink your teeth into.
Monsters and Critics recently crossed paths with Robert Kirkman and had a few questions regarding "The Walking Dead":
Monsters and Critics: How do you like how AMC and the below the line crew (David Tattersall- DP, Greg melton's Production Design and KNB effects makeup) they worked out, are you pleased with the visual interpretation of your work?
Robert Kirkman: Absolutely. Beyond the shadow of a doubt. Tattersall's work is very hard for me to recognize because I'm not a film buff, but I look at it and it looks great, of course, but I can't speak to the technical aspects.
Greg Melton... I was able to be on set and see how he works, and it was fun for me to know that when I'm on set and we're shooting something, the scenes for the next day are being set up a few blocks away, with these car explosions and everything -- I think any time you're moving around whole cars, that's a big deal.
Nicotero and KNB gave us the best zombies that have ever been done, and it's for a TV show. It's a remarkable thing to watch these guys work their magic, and everything's turned out absolutely fantastic.
M&C The thing that struck me about your vision of a world of the dead and undead was the more realistic emotional breakdowns the survivors have, the guilt, which is usually glossed over or ignored or patronized in Zombie films. What is your take on this?
Robert Kirkman: I'm just trying to keep things as realistic as possible -- I'm not thinking about other zombie films, I'm trying to think of how real people would react in these situations. It's fun for me, thinking about the sort of things people would be doing if forced to survive in this hypothetical world, and dealing with the things that would be happening to them. Again, basically just trying to keep things real.
M&C: Merle Dixon (Michael Rooker) was added, I believe, as a post-script character to your novel. Rooker just wrecked me as Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer - What do you make of him?
Robert Kirkman: Michael Rooker is definitely a really good actor in that he's not psychotic and not a murderer, but is actually a really nice, cool, friendly guy -- you really wouldn't know that to see some of his roles.
Even his role of Merle Dixon in The Walking Dead is just a bad guy, he's not a good person who kind of revels in the bad-guy roles, and I think it's fiun that he gets to be another Michael Rooker badadass in this series, and I'm pretty excited to have him.
