Dead Begin Walking on the CW

The Walking Dead premiered appropriately enough on Halloween on the CW; now I have something to keep me occupied while Mad Men is between seasons.
I liked it a lot and thought it would be interesting to see how it differs from other zombie films, as well as how it handles all the cliches rife in most of the entries in this horror sub genre.
I am a fan of horror films and literature and am especially familiar with the zombie genre. I have seen and own on DVD all the classics, and some not-so-classic offerings. I of course love the Romero films, though the last one, Survival of the Dead, was ... ok. I don't think it holds up well against the rest of the series. And I enjoyed the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake a lot. But I think Lucio Fulci's Zombie (or Zombi 2 in some markets, a shameless attempt to cash in on the success of the original Dawn of the Dead, though Fulci's film was more than good enough to stand on its own two feet) really scared the crap out of me. The zombies were more evil looking, there was no satire to break up the unrelenting horror, and when they chomped on people I had to squeeze me eyes shut. (I was probably 13 when I first saw it, a VHS rental from the corner videostore. This was in the days before Blockbuster wiped all those kinds of stores out.) According to the IMDB.com, "The make-up effects were done by renowned Italian Giannetto De Rossi. The make-up for the zombies was 'caked' on in several stages and Lucio Fulci, the director, constantly referred to the extras as 'walking flower pots.'"
It so happened that the BBC America channel aired The Dead Set, a British zombie film from 2008, broken up into five easy pieces, during the week leading up to the Walking Dead. It is interesting to compare the two films, as they have such different takes on the genre.




First off, as in the Dawn remake and 28 Days Later ..., the zombies in Dead Set can run. Now that speeds things up, mind the pun. Running zombies are more deadly, it is that simple. Humans have less chance to survive -- all they can hope for is to barricade themselves nice and cozy and try to all get along with one another while outside growing masses of the undead expand their realm, taking over the world one chomp at a time. Running zombies are a great construct for the genre, but I say it works better in films than in television.
On TV slow-moving zombies make more sense. Humans have a better chance. They have a greater "zone" of life in which to, well, live, as opposed to being lunch or dinner. And therein is where the writers can add the drama that TV shows require: the drama that turns characters into friends (at least some of them), whom we grow to care about and tune in each week to see how they are doing. Now, if our fellow peeps can outrun the things as in Walking Dead, there is more room and time to grow a television series. If these ghouls could run, there probably wouldn't be enough space for the creation of dramatic material. Apparently, in Walking Dead, the walkers are so slow and dim-witted they stay huddled in the cities, like cattle, at least so far, enabling the humans to even live outdoors among the trees with the warm sunshine on their faces (though I'd stay in an RV with the largest automatic weapon I can hold in my hands).
Shuffling zombies makes more sense to me in another way. They're dead -- wouldn't their muscles and bones deteriorate? Maybe not overnight, but definitely over time. Their spines and legs would fracture and break from all that sprinting. I see the running zombie as becoming extinct, forcing itself into oblivion. But first, they'd become paralyzed corpses rotting on the ground.
And their jaws would be the last body part to stop working ... I'd bet on it.