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The Walking Dead: Let’s Talk Walkers! (Part 2)

By Susie Graham

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The walkers are the unsung heroes of The Walking Dead. The show wouldn’t be the same if the walkers weren’t as amazing as they are. They are as varied as the names they have on the show. Yes, they are zombies and not people, but they have their own distinct walker un-people, undead personalities: a paradox that makes it more interesting for us as the audience, but still allows us the ability to kill them, their personalities not interfering with their undead, unforgiving, murderous nature. These personalities are not Milton’s hope of a glimpse or trace of who they were, but rather their own new walker personality for us.

In Part 1, I addressed some basic knowledge we have about The Walking Dead walkers and a few questions people have posed about walkers. In part 2, I’d like to talk about the walker movements and a question I have about walker bites. I think Part 3 will be about walker kills!

According to Greg Nicotero in a radio interview with John Horn from The Frame, captured here by Vulture, he looks for personality and movement at his Zombie School.

"Well, you know, every season we hold auditions for future walkers, and we have affectionately termed it Zombie School. So they will come to Zombie School and they will audition for me. I usually do 20 or 30 people per class and I spend an entire day auditioning people, putting them through some exercises in terms of how fast they walk, what their character is, what their personality is, explain to them that in many instances, their performance can make or break a scene. If you have somebody that’s in a scene that does not look like they’re authentically performing, it could take the audience out of the scene."

Obviously,  the make up, costumes and special effects have a huge impact on the overall walker experience in an episode,  but Mr, Nicotero is absolutely right, a not-quite-right lumber or reach or lean could take us right out of the emotional impact of a scene. The actors do an amazing job with their facial expressions, their fingers, their shuffles and my favorite thing of all, what I call the walker-lean. And my very favorite: the walker-lean-and-turn. Not being funny here, but aside from his love of horror movies, I can see why Michael Jackson did a zombie video with dance moves. The walkers have a dance-like quality and beauty to their movements: another paradox of boneless, smooth, fluidity, juxtaposed with stiff, jerky, unforgiving moves. The lean-and-turn toward noise without moving the neck, moving the whole torso, is choreography I love whenever it happens; it’s poetry in walker-land.

My other walker wondering is about bites and the weakness of walkers, but the strength of their biting and eating. I’m perfectly willing to accept it as either a suspension of disbelief thing or perhaps their feeding instinct is so strong. Who knows? Let me know what you think. The biters are so weak in so many ways yet when they bite a human, it’s deep and tears the flesh and gets to deep layers quickly. Even when they just start tearing at a human’s flesh with their hands, deep levels are exposed so quickly. If I tried to bite someone or rip someone’s flesh, I don’t think I would get to walker levels and I’m stronger than a walker, or so I think. Do the walkers have super strong jaws and teeth and fingers?

I love talking about the walkers. I love all their simple, elegant names. I’m not a gore lover, but I find beauty in the walkers and I even enjoy some, yes, some of the walker kills. We’ll look at those next.  What do you like about The Walking Dead’s walkers? Do you have any favorites? Do you have any other questions about them? Let’s talk walkers!

Part 1

Part 3

Next: Walking Dead 50 most shocking moments and deaths

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