How do you like your zombies? Running furiously at you, like a frenzied ghouls? Or slowly and steadily approaching, like a gathering storm, impossible to avoid?
Last night’s season two premiere of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” proved that, at least when it comes to zombies, slow and steady wins the race to major scares.
Here’s what the critics are saying:
While horror stories are often defined by motion and noise – lots of people running and screaming – here was one all about silence and stillness, where any kind of big fight against the walkers would have ended in everybody dying. Just expertly assembled, and the slow, quiet nature of it gave us an even better opportunity than usual to admire Greg Nicotero’s makeup work.
Zach Handlen, The Onion A.V. Club:
“Walking Dead” is basically just a lot of one step forward, two steps back. I’ll be honest, last season that got on my nerves … the work of writers stalling for time because they had no real idea of where they were going. So much of the drama of the first season felt half-assed and semi-random, people throwing ideas at the wall and not looking to see if they stuck. While I’m not going to say that all of that first season’s problems are gone in the light of this new episode (they really, really aren’t), I am starting to wonder if the constant “Almost there! Oh, crap” style is more conscious than I realized. It still doesn’t completely work. … But at least it makes thematic sense: The zombies don’t win because they’re faster or smarter than us. They win because it’s impossible to score a perfect game every day, every moment of your life.
From Nate Rawlings, TIME:
Like last year’s pilot episode, the season two premiere is a slow burn, but when the walkers finally do show up, the situation doesn’t just escalate quickly, it practically erupts. Sort of. The parade of zombies that stroll up the highway, surprising our band of survivors, results in the execution of only two walkers as the group members hide under cars. The scene, as tense as anything we’ve seen in the series, is indicative of the new tempo that we may see this season—slightly fewer incidents of frenetic carnage, but much more drama
What did you think?
