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A Great Horror Series is a drug-like combination of powerful thrill for all horror junkies. For these enthusiasts, there is nothing more satisfying than the sudden rush of adrenaline and the sweet relief of surviving any threat. This is what The Walking Dead (TWD) fans feel every time a new episode airs.
Via the AMC website
A huge success on cable television, The Walking Dead series is a spawn of the equally beloved graphic novel that revolves around a deputy sheriff named Rick Grimes who, upon awakening from a long coma, discovers that the world is in a zombie apocalypse. . The story is about Grimes’ survival and endurance, along with the characters he meets along the way. Together they try to survive the apocalypse and fight other people who threaten their own existence, showing us how ordinary people can survive in extraordinary circumstances.
After a decade, there is news that TWD will officially end after its 11th season in 2022. The final season will be oversized and special, offering the 24-episode ‘farewell tour’ and will begin during the fall of next year, spanning until early 2023. However, the series will continue with spin-offs such as Tales of the walking dead anthology that will show different characters in each episode, exploring other realms that TWD left undiscovered.
Via the AMC website
TWD is a groundbreaking achievement for a cable show, and while I’m not personally a fan of any horror or thriller movies, I honestly admit that the series has unmistakably revolutionized zombie television series. Since its first broadcast in 2010, a decade has passed since TWD began its inexorable shift into the mainstream of popular culture.
The zombie genre is not dead
With the record ratings of TWD and other zombie movies winning big at the box office, the love for zombies is endless. Just when you think the undead monster genre is headed for the grave, everyone’s favorite decaying bone-eaters and man-eating demons rise up again and crawl onto anyone.
“The Walking Dead is one of those television shows that hooks you because the producers really invested in building the character. They are not the usual shows where people just run away from zombies. You fall in love with these characters, you encourage them to achieve it, and you break your heart when they don’t. TWD is about how a community of people come together to fight not only the dead but also the humans who should be dead. It’s about surviving, ”said Joy Fuentes Andrada, a Melbourne-based Filipina and an avowed TWD fan.
Survival of the fittest in tough times is what TWD stands for, and their variety of characters are so varied in demographics, making them individual images of diversity in ethnicity, gender, belief, and more. Any viewer can relate to any or all of the characters. But perhaps what draws audiences and fans in is how TWD’s zombies also exemplify the stages of our human fears, much like our whispered anxiety over human annihilation or a plague-like disease, whenever the dead lay. They get up to look for other human flesh. to consume them and turn them into the monsters that they are.
Zombies are not new figures in the pop culture of humanity, but unlike Dracula or monsters like Frankenstein, they do not come from a Victorian literature. The myth of the zombies came to Western consciousness in the 20th century mainly due to the American occupation of Haiti in 1915-1934. Today’s zombie existed only since George Romero’s groundbreaking film Night of the Living Dead in 1968. Before that, zombies in the movies were more like their Haitian background.
A scene from the movie “Night of the Living Dead”
With the debut of Romero’s hit movie, the zombie series continually became a sub-genre of horror that people can easily identify with because it’s always a normal human being who turns into a monster. With stories that are as relevant as consumerism, racism, and conformism, it makes it more common. Some zombie stories like the TWD story involve a more contemporary view of government ineptitude, social disunity, bioengineering, technological development, and, of course, mortality. What makes its fantasy setting enjoyable is the fact that it is filmed in a modern city, with smoke and fireball effects under cloudy skies and grimy, gloomy backgrounds, to present it in a more personal and intimate context.
Some say it’s that simple, but it’s actually simpler than it’s presented because zombies as heinous characters only do one thing: seek out the living and turn them into zombies. They do not even think, nor do they have complicated objectives, only that. They eradicate the core of social problems by stripping progress and civilization, if they grow in hordes, the global noises of the commercial hierarchy, political networks and conflicts collapse, until we are left with what is essential to survive. They represent anything that terrifies the status quo until we are left with a singular question; exactly the same as the TWD comic series asks at the end of each volume: what would I do if it were me?
Andrada also finds herself asking the same questions at times. “What should I do? I’m prepared. Sometimes I find myself planning escape routes in the city and looking at buildings that can be easily fortified. Funny and strange but true,” he mused. Perhaps this is how we prepare our psyche for imminent danger, our own. fight or flight reaction.This makes TWD relevant because it fuels our dying desire to look our fears in the eye, fight them, and ultimately survive.
Zombies in our psyche
Representation of zombies in the current era. Via Cottonbro at Pexels
With the premise that the TWD zombies illustrate our turmoil, some of us identify with the survivors, having to go through and fight for our daily subsistence. But there is also a large part of us who are unknowingly part of the zombies, the way we attack people without deliberate thought or otherwise. Sometimes we lack emotions, we constantly seek joy, and we have that relentless urge to consume. But what the survivors don’t remember is that the zombies are also them: to be bitten by a zombie is to become one. In TWD, survivors understand that everyone is grieving and will inevitably turn back when they die, whether bitten or not. Ultimately, the zombie deserves our attention because it raises many issues about the nature of the monster itself and about our response to it. This is important because what we’re really looking at is ourselves, hence our appetite for zombie movies.
Life Lessons From The Walking Dead
In an internet age where traditional and self-righteous values are challenged, TWD’s story filters out the static, adding to its enormous appeal. The program has never failed to teach us valuable lessons about life. Explain the importance of family and friends and that life is best enjoyed when it is spent with others. Recycling is important because anything, when used correctly, can be a weapon and used to protect you.
TWD also shows us that it’s okay to be scared, but we just need to be stronger than all that. Things are not always what they seem; This can go for both good and bad, we just have to deal with it all with eyes wide open. The show also reminds us that we need to be mindful of others because, in the long run, they can help us survive and that to honor the dead, we must get on with our lives. Keep in mind that no matter how difficult the circumstance is, the strength of the wolf is in the pack. So when people come together hand in hand, anything is possible and achievable. Lastly, as Enid bluntly puts it on TWD: “JSS: it just survives somehow.”
In fact, each generation gets the monster it deserves. Each person has their fears. It will always be hope against despair that will teach us the true art of survival.
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