Dawn of the Lead

Now, the zombie genre experienced a massive growth in popularity in the early 2000s. While it has been on the decline – or rather become a staple of pop culture – every now and then something really interesting pops up. As you may or may not know, this blog used to focus a lot more on zombies when I started out in 2009, but the focus has shifted almost exclusively to miniatures. I’m a big zombie fan, but I must admit even my interest has wavered with the over-saturation of the zombie market. This means my interest is nowadays not easily piqued when it comes to zombies.

This goes double for The Walking Dead. I used to love the comics, but they got boring. I used to love the series, but haven’t watched it much since season 3. The adventure game I love, but in general the franchise has gotten pretty boring. Then I saw this:

It’s the trailer for the new Fear the Walking Dead series. It’s a prequel and a “sister story” to the main series. Apparently it details what is to me the most exciting piece of any zombie story: the rise of the epidemic and the collapse of society. Interestingly, and probably because of budget constraints as well, few movies ever show this.

Night of the Living Dead stops before it happens. In Day of the Dead, 28 Days Later and many others it has already happened.

In Shaun of the Dead it’s flirted with hilariously throughout the film, but never happens:

Dawn of the Dead shows little snippets of it at the start of the film…

while its remake condenses it into one of the best sequences ever in zombie cinema:

At the very first post of this blog, I wrote the following:

I’ve always been fascinated (in a very sane, rational and normal sense) by catastrophes, what-if fantasies, tales of desperate struggle and the end of the world. The sinking of Titanic, alternative history, Helm’s deep, Alamo, Chernobyl,  The Book of Revelation, global epidemics, thermonuclear war…you name it. The zombie genre combines all of this. Simple as that.

This is exactly what Fear the Walking Dead appears to showcase. No wonder I’m pretty hyped.

Fear the Walking Dead launches August 23 on AMC with a 1½ hour special episode.