Original subtitles

♪♪

-♪ Hey, everybody, have you heard the news? ♪

♪ Joe Bob is back in town ♪

♪ He's over at the drive-in hanging around ♪

♪ Watching crazy movies, so come on down ♪

♪ To Joe Bob's "Last Drive-in" show ♪

♪ Blood, beasties, boobies, and more ♪

♪ Joe Bob's "Last Drive-In" show ♪

♪ It's a spooky good time with monsters and ghosts ♪

♪ Crazy kooky fun with the world's greatest host ♪

♪ Yeah, Joe Bob's "Last Drive-In" show ♪

♪ It's gonna be legendary ♪

♪ Joe Bob's "Last Drive-In" show ♪

♪ It's gonna be very scary ♪

♪ Joe Bob's "Last Drive-In" show ♪

♪ Let's go ♪

♪♪

-Whoo!

If I'd known there was gonna be an apocalypse,

I would've brought more beer.

[Horse whinnies]

[Horse hooves clopping]

[Dramatic music plays]

♪♪

[Static]

♪♪

-Hey, I'm Joe Bob Briggs,

and this is gonna be interesting tonight.

This is a special AMC+ edition of "The Last Drive-In",

which normally appears Friday nights on Shudder,

but we begged em to let us have "The Walking Dead" on our show,

which is now about 8 episodes into its final season,

and so we moved over here to the big-boy chairs

for one night only, and we're kinda having

double Halloween this year, right, Darcy?

-Oh, yeah. You can never have enough Halloween.

-And apparently you can't have enough "Walking Dead",

'cause I think they're currently shooting the 917th episode

in that little Georgia town that's sort of become

a "Walking Dead" theme park.

What's the name of that town in Georgia?

-Senoia?

-Senoia, Georgia.

Better known as Woodbury.

Better known as Terminus in seasons 4 and 5.

Better known as Alexandria, Virginia,

in seasons 5 through 10.

You can go there and get a zombie burger

and visit famous locations where beloved characters have died.

[Laughs] Right?

Because one thing we know about "The Walking Dead"

is if you're an actor, eventually

the assistant director is gonna tug on

your sleeve and say, "Uh, would you mind stopping

by the production office this morning for a meeting

with the director and the entire special makeup effects crew?"

'Cause it's a heartache show! It's a show about heartache!

-So... -With some of the best kills ever.

And we have the creators of those kills with us tonight.

But I should introduce you, for people coming to the show

for the first time --

Darcy the Mail Girl, ladies and gentlemen!

But because of the nature of this show, we have no mail!

-So. -I have mail.

Even though we've never done this before?

Where'd -- Where'd you get mail?

-I got mail.

-OK, well, we have other plans for you tonight, anyway,

so once I introduce our two special guests you'll see.

-Should I be scared?

-You should be very scared, yes.

But since we're celebrating the last season

of "The Walking Dead", I wanted to give

a little background about how these zombies --

the million and a half zombies that have actually appeared

on the show, "The Walking Dead" --

how and where these zombies originated.

So, Austin,

do you have my Zombie Timeline and World Atlas

readily available?

-It's never too far away.

-Alright. OK.

The first time in history that we hear about zombies

is in the 1600s in Angola,

the country on the west coast of Africa that was overrun

by the Portuguese.

And the word "zombie" just means somebody who had their soul

captured by somebody else.

Like when you say, "I can't hardly talk to Willie Mae

anymore 'cause since she got with Jimbo Withers,

'cause he done captured her soul."

So this was a fear of the native population of Angola,

that because all these Portuguese colonists

that had disrupted the society there,

the neighboring tribe witch doctor would come over

and capture their souls.

But, "zombie" is actually a French word,

and that's because the first time it was written down

was in 1697 on the island of Martinique,

which is a big ol' island in the Caribbean

that's owned by France, and in 1697,

some French degenerate playwright wrote a sex farce

and -- where the people in the play talked about zombies.

Now, this was obviously brought over from Africa because,

you know, slavery in the Caribbean

was just everywhere,

but once again, they talked about it

like it was something that got done to you by another person.

And we know this because Lafcadio Hearn --

[Laughter]

this will be the second time this year

that I've talked about Lafcadio Hearn,

mainly because I just like saying the name

Lafcadio Hearn. So, Lafcadio Hearn,

the Greek-Irish journalist -- he was actually from

some little, uh, strange island in Greece.

He had myopia, even though he was a journalist, but he --

and he worked in New Orleans most of his career

even though he started in Cincinnati, um,

before becoming -- he became a Japanese citizen, actually,

eventually.

Would you like me to say that again?

No, I will not. Anyway, Lafcadio Hearn

spent two years in Martinique in the 1880s --

we're back in the Caribbean --

so, Martinique -- and much of that time,

he was studying zombie folklore.

And this is the first time the world ever heard

about dead people walking, because Lafcadio Hearn wrote

in English, like God intended.

All the previous stuff was written in other languages.

So. But we all know where the zombies end up, right?

We know this from Wes Craven, right?

It's those voodoo Creoles in Haiti.

Now, how do we know this?

We know this because of William Seabrook,

who was son of a preacher.

This is Haiti. It's, like, up the road from Martinique.

William Seabrook, who was son of a preacher

and an Atlanta journalist, got gassed in World War I,

and he was never quite the same after he got gassed.

So he started billing himself as The White Adventurer,

and he wrote books about living with the Bedouin in Iraq,

and he wrote books about Jordan, and he hung out

with all the leading luminaries of the day

like Hemingway and Sinclair Lewis.

And he wrote a book called "The Magic Island" in 1928

that is all about Haiti.

And in that book he goes into voodoo ritual,

and he has a chapter called

"Dead Men Working in Cane Fields",

and he describes these three zombies that he met.

They had dead eyes, they were staring and unfocused,

and they never talked,

and they were used for slave labor.

And so William Seabrook goes around and investigates

and he decides that what's going on is that the voodoo priests

in Haiti are giving a secret drug to people

to put them into suspended animation.

So they're not alive and they're not dead,

they're just existing.

So "The Magic Island" book is what caused

all this intense interest in zombies.

But zombies were always in pulp fiction, though.

They weren't in regular newspapers.

They were in stories in magazines

like Weird Tales and Thrilling Mysteries.

And eventually, "The Magic Island" inspired

the movie "White Zombie" in 1932,

Which was a cheapie that they filmed in 11 days

in what was then known as Poverty Row.

Now, has anybody seen "White Zombie"?

You know, it's the first zombie movie.

Seems like it would be on everybody's list.

Darcy? Have you seen "White Zombie"?

-Yeah, it's -- it's a little slow.

-It is kinda slow.

It had Bela Lugosi in it.

Lugosi is the zombie master, and his victim is Madge Bellamy.

Do you know who that is?

-I don't think so.

-Madge Bellamy had been a pretty big silent star.

She starred in a colossal hit, "Lorna Doone",

but she was a diva, and so when sound came in,

nobody really wanted to work with her anymore,

so here she was making this cheapie that was shot

using rented sets from famous movies.

They mostly shot it on the Universal lot.

And, in fact, the whole cast is faded silent film actors.

The most famous one was Joseph Cawthorn

as the missionary who saves Madge Bellamy from Bela Lugosi.

So anyway, "White Zombie" got horrible reviews,

but it made back 20 times its budget

for the Halperin brothers, Victor and Edward Halperin,

two producers nobody had ever heard of.

And really, if you look at the whole history of zombies

in the movies, they're always B movies,

from the beginning right through to now.

So here's my point.

"White Zombie" is the first time

most people have heard of zombies.

The word "zombie" wasn't even in the dictionary until 1935,

and the idea is that every zombie has to have

a zombie master who puts them into the zombie state

to begin with, and zombies are created by

these evil witch doctors.

Or by Don the Beachcomber.

Do you know who Don the Beachcomber is?

He invented the cocktail called the Zombie

right after "White Zombie" came out.

And Don the Beachcomber's recipe for the Zombie was different

than what they use later--

-Uh, I don't think we need the recipe for a Zombie.

-Oh, yeah, I forgot, we're on AMC now,

and we gotta keep this relevant.

-Little too late for that.

-Darcy, this is history, have a little respect.

So "White Zombie" comes out and the producers make

a lot of money, and they get sued by a guy named Kenneth Webb

who had written a play called "Zombie"

that came out before "White Zombie."

It ran for 21 performances at the Biltmore Theater on Broadway

in February of 1932.

But really, everybody was getting their zombie ideas

from the same place, and that place was "The Magic Island"

by William Seabrook, and he was not available to consult

on these projects because he was a raging alcoholic

who was traveling all over the world

trying to get somebody to cook human flesh for him.

He was an aspiring cannibal.

-Oh, my God, you're making that up.

-No. The guy who popularized zombies went to Africa,

and found somebody who said they were willing to serve him

human flesh, and then got furious because he found out

it was not human flesh at all --

it was plain old gorilla flesh.

-Oh, my God, this is awful.

-And, yeah -- I mean -- very -- Well, very disturbing to vegans

like yourself, Darcy, but I'm sure.

So Seabrook goes to a hospital in Paris,

and he bribes somebody --

Paris is here.

He bribes somebody into giving him some flesh

from the morgue -- recently deceased flesh.

And he takes it to a friend's house, and he asks the friend

to use the kitchen, and he tells him --

he tells him it's goat meat.

And so his friend was a chef, and he agreed to cook the meat

for him, and he agreed to cook it three ways --

as a roast, broiled, and in a ragout.

And what is a ragout?

-Something awful.

-Yeah, well, actually, no, I think that's the one

you would choose, Darcy, because it has vegetables

mixed in. It's like a stew.

So, he puts the meat in with-- -Oh, yeah,

that definitely makes it OK.

-OK. So Seabrook eats everything, and he takes notes

on what he's eating, and he says it tastes like --

you wanna guess what he said it tastes like?

-Chicken?

-Yeah, that woulda been my guess, too,

because that's what everyone says, you know,

when they eat anything disgusting.

But no, he said it tasted like, quote,

"good fully-developed veal."

Why are we talking about this?

Well, we're talking about this because the guy

who originally introduced zombies to the world

was apparently interested in eating human flesh,

which may explain why the narrative

gets a little weird at this point.

So, at any rate, because of the various legal difficulties

and lawsuits, the Halperin brothers needed

4 years before they could put out the sequel

to "White Zombie", called "Revolt of the Zombies",

and this time, they get sued, again,

by their original investors, who claim they own

the word "zombie."

And a judge agrees with them, and so they have to pay damages.

And so that ends the whole zombie cycle for the '30s.

So for the next 30 years, every cheap zombie movie

has some kind of mad scientist or voodoo doctor

who puts people into zombie trances

for his nefarious ends, you know,

often so that he can enslave a beautiful woman.

"The Ghost Breakers", "King of the Zombies",

"Zombies on Broadway" with Bela Lugosi.

"Voodoo Man", with Bela Lugosi as a witch doctor.

"Revenge of the Zombies" with John Carradine

as the mad, zombie-creating scientist.

"Zombies of Mora Tau."

"Teenage Zombies" -- you know, that one actually combined

zombies and sci-fi.

The only good one during this period

was "I Walked with a Zombie" in 1943,

directed by Jacques Tourneur,

one of those films that's always called "atmospheric", you know.

When it kinda drags in the middle

but has a lot of misty vistas and stuff, they call it

"atmospheric".

But it was still all about voodoo spells

in the Caribbean.

OK, did you follow this so far, Darcy?

-Yeah, on it. -Alright.

Then, on one day, October the 1st, 1968,

everything changes with a single movie

that never uses the word "zombie" at all.

I speak, of course,

of "Night of the Living Dead."

For the first time, we have what the world today calls a zombie.

There's no longer any voodoo priest.

There's no longer any pharmaceuticals involved.

The zombies rise up out of their graves,

and they're hungry, and they're aggressive.

So, George Romero changed all the rules,

and those rules still apply today, to wit, as follows.

Numero Uno -- the zombies are human bodies that have come back

from death as unthinking animals.

Numero Two-o -- they need living human flesh

to continue to move around.

Numero Three-o -- they're aggressive and violent.

Numero Four-o -- you have to destroy their brains to kill em.

And Numero Five-o -- nobody knows what reanimated them

or where they came from or how many of them there are.

Now, that last rule may be the most important principle of all,

because all later zombie writers directors were able to make up

origin stories for their undead.

So, every zombie movie since

has been some version of the George Romero zombie.

Probably the best of those were the "Evil Dead" trilogy

of Sam Raimi, Dan O'Bannon's "Return of the Living Dead",

written by Romero's collaborator John Russo,

"28 Days Later" which introduced the fast-moving, angry zombie,

and then "Train to Busan" which perfected

the fast-moving angry zombie.

The only zombie movie after 1968

that went back to the voodoo origins

was Wes Craven's "The Serpent and the Rainbow,"

based on the book by a Harvard anthropologist named Wade Davis,

who really did spend two years in Haiti studying zombie-ism

but did not get his scrotum nailed to a chair --

that scene was a special effect dreamed up by Wes Craven

that -- that still has me squirming.

So, anyway, Wade Davis actually found out the recipes

for the plants and animal parts that were used

by the voodoo doctors to create zombies, and he identified

the main neurotoxin that creates the zombie state,

and it's in the same family as the Japanese delicacy, fugu.

Fugucan be made from a pufferfish or a porcupine fish

and what you do is you

take the pufferfish ingredients, and you put them together --

-I don't think we need the recipe for fugu.

Are you done over here?

-OK, I guess not, but anyway, Wade Davis came up with

the same conclusions in the '80s that William Seabrook

came up with in 1928 -- that zombie-ism

is a death-like state caused by certain poisonous drugs

that have to be administered through the skin,

usually with an open wound.

But Wes Craven tried to film "The Serpent and the Rainbow"

in Haiti and he finished about two-thirds of it

and he had to flee the country in the dead of night

because the locals were getting violent with his crews.

So, there's not a lot of film production in Haiti,

as a result. -Are you done for real now?

-No because that brings us --

that brings us to "The Walking Dead".

-That only took about 3 1/2 hours.

And what is this, by the way?

-That -- This is a -- This is familiar to what --

-It looks like a three-year-old did it with crayons.

Just saying. Just saying. -It's made for 3-year-olds.

It's the way we teach zombie-ism in the elementary schools.

So, Darcy, have some respect for history.

And all of this, you know -- all of this leads to Georgia.

-Did I miss something?

-All of this leads to the magical night

of October 31st, 2010, Halloween night,

when 6.5 million people tuned in to the premiere episode

of "The Walking Dead", produced by Robert Kirkman,

who did the extremely popular comic books

called The Walking Dead, plus Gale Anne Hurd,

who was a Roger Corman protegee who produced "The Terminator"

and "Aliens", "Tremors". -Yeah.

-Directed by Frank Darabont of "Shawshank Redemption"

and "The Green Mile" fame, with special effects

by Greg Nicotero, who had apprenticed -- he --

Greg apprenticed before on "Day of the Dead",

the George Romero film, and represents our direct link

to the George Romero zombie of 1968.

So "The Walking Dead" was the pinnacle, 42 years later,

of the modern zombie.

-Did we really need all that?

-Yes, we need all that, 'cause you have to explain

what a zombie is if you're gonna show the most intense,

expansive, world-encompassing zombie project of all time.

-I really just think people know a zombie when they see one.

-Well, yes, they do, but that's because of the previous 82 years

of American zombification lore, as presented through cinema.

And as I outlined -- -I'll take your word for it.

-Alright. OK, well, you don't have to take my word for it

because in just a few minutes, we'll be welcoming Greg Nicotero

to the set... -Yeah!

-And he has probably touched or influenced or shaped

more zombies in his lifetime than we could ever dream of.

He knows his zombies from "Z" to "Z."

So, we'll ask him if my historical survey

was correct.

-Let's -- Let's not do that.

Let's ask him about how he makes zombies.

-I actually wanna ask him if a zombie master in Haiti today

would nail somebody's scrotum to a chair in real life,

and whether he's ever reproduced having a scrotum nailed

to a chair in any movie. OK, I digress.

-Naw. -And now, let's watch

the sensitive story of what happens

when a mild-mannered deputy sheriff from a small town

in Georgia wakes up in a hospital room,

still recovering from a gunshot wound,

only to discover that the entire world

has been overrun by zombie hordes.

While searching for his wife and son, Deputy Rick

soon finds out that it might take 11 seasons

just to clean up Georgia, much less the other 49 states,

the District of Columbia, Guam and American Samoa.

So, the subtitle for "The Walking Dead" could be

"The Education of Rick," because, just to give you

one indication of how naive he is,

in the first season, he goes to the Centers For Disease Control

to get a solution.

So, fortunately for us, the survivors

in this post-modern western never run out of ammo,

and AMC never runs out of zombies.

And the result is the saga that took the term

"long-form television" a little too literally

and eventually made Leo Tolstoy

look like a guy who writes short stories.

So, it was "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre"

that first asked the question, "Who will survive,

and what will be left of them?"

"The Walking Dead" combines that idea with the themes

from "Death Wish", "Fort Apache",

"The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly", "Apollo 13",

and "Faces of Death" to create a new conundrum --

"Who will survive, what will be left of them,

and who will eat what's left of them?"

So, let's look at those drive-in totals

for the premiere episode and get started here.

We have...

Drive-In Academy Award nominations for

Andrew Lincoln, as Deputy Rick,

for riding into downtown Atlanta on a horse to save the day,

then watching as the horse gets devoured.

Lennie James as Morgan, the family man

who can't pull the trigger on his zombie wife.

Frank Darabont, the director,

Greg Nicotero, the zombie design master,

and Robert Kirkman, the creator

of the original comic and the screenwriter,

for doing things the "Drive-In" way.

Four stars. Joe Bob says...

check it out.

You know, I'm concerned that people who don't see us

every week, who are just watching this thing on AMC,

they're gonna think we're longwinded.

-Wow, I wonder where they'd get that idea. [Laughs]

-I actually wanted to talk more about Madge Bellamy.

But, you know, you were... -Who?

-...Telling me to keep it short.

You know, the star of "White Zombie", Madge Bellamy.

-Oh, my God, that was, like, days ago.

Nobody remembered that now.

-Well, people should remember her.

You know, because she has a star on the Walk of Fame.

You know where Bela Lugosi's star is?

-Absolutely. Corner of Ivar and Hollywood Boulevard.

-Alright, if you can geek out about Bela Lugosi,

I can geek out about his co-star, Madge Bellamy.

-OK, Boss.

-You know where the Hollywood Rock

ice cream shop is? -No.

-It's your neighborhood! Don't you know where that is?

-I don't know where it is. [Laughs]

-Madge Bellamy's star is right in front

of the Hollywood Rock ice cream shop.

You should know that.

-No I shouldn't. -OK.

It just seems like you would occasionally want

some frozen yogurt or something and you would notice

the Madge Bellamy star in front of Hollywood Rock.

Someday, you will.

-Next time I see it, I will pay my respects.

-And the Don the Beachcomber recipe for the Zombie...

-Stop. -..Is --

I'll stop. -Thank you.

♪♪

[Static]

[Brakes squeal]

[Engine shuts off]

[Trunk clicks]

[Keys jingle]

[Bird cawing]

[Door closes]

[Keys jingle]

[Bird chirping]

[Flies buzzing]

[Scraping]

[Shuffling]

[Shuffling continues]

-Little girl?

I'm a policeman.

Little girl.

Don't be afraid, OK?

Little girl.

[Panting]

-[Growling]

-Oh, my God.

[Gun cocks]

[Flies buzzing]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

-What's the difference between men and women?

-Shane: This a joke?

-No, I'm serious.

-Never met a woman who knew how to turn off a light.

They're born thinking the switch only goes one way...

-...on. -[Mutters]

-They're struck blind the second they leave a room.

I mean, every woman I ever let have a key, I swear to God.

It's like... come home, house all lit up.

[Scoffs] And my job, you see, apparently because --

because my chromosomes happen to be different,

is I then gotta walk through that house,

turn off every single light this chick left on.

-Is that right? -Yeah, baby. Mmm.

Oh, Reverend Shane's a-preachin' to you now, boy.

[Laughter]

And then, the same chick, mind you,

she'll bitch about, uh, global warming, see?

You see, this is -- this is when Reverend Shane

wants to quote from the Guy Gospel and say,

"Um, darling, maybe you and every other pair of boobs

on this planet could just figure out that

the light switch, you see, goes both ways,

maybe we wouldn't have so much global warming."

You know? -You say that?

-Mmm. Yeah, well, the, uh, polite version.

[Laughs] Still, man, that... that earns me this --

this look of loathing you would not believe.

And that's when the "Exorcist" voice pops out.

"You sound just like my damn father.

Always -- always yelling about the power bill,

telling me to turn off the damn lights."

-And what do you say to that?

-You know what I wanna say?

I wanna say, "Bitch, you mean to tell me you've been hearing this

your entire life and you are still too damn stupid to learn

how to turn off a switch?"

[Laughter]

You know, I won't actually say that, though.

-That would be bad. -Right? Right?

Yeah, I got with the, uh -- I go with the polite version

there, too, so. -Very wise.

-Yes, sir. [Laughs] -Mm-hmmm.

-Well.

So how's it with Lori, man?

-She's good. She's good at turning off lights.

Really good. And I'm the one who sometimes forgets.

-Not what I meant.

-We didn't have a great night.

-Hey, look, man, I may have, uh, failed to amuse with my sermon,

but I did try.

The least you could do is speak.

-That's -- that's what she always says -- "Speak."

"Speak".

You'd think I was the most closed-mouth son of a bitch

if you ever hear her tell it.

-Do you express your thoughts?

Do you share your feelings and that kind of stuff?

-The thing is...

lately, whenever I try,

everything I say makes her impatient,

like she didn't want to hear it after all.

-Mm.

-It's like she's... pissed at me all the time,

and I don't know why.

-Look, man. It's just shit couples go through.

You know, it's a phase.

-The last thing she said this morning --

"Sometimes I wonder if you even care about us at all."

She said that in front of our kid.

Imagine going to school with that in your head.

The difference between men and women?

I would never say something that cruel to her.

And certainly not in front of Carl.

[Radio beeps, static crackles]

-Dispatcher: All available units,

high-speed pursuit in progress.

Lindon County units request local assistance.

Highway 18 eastbound. GTA, ADW-217-243.

Advise extreme caution. [Static crackles]

[Engine starts]

[Siren chirping]

[Tires screech]

[Siren wails]

[Crow caws]

[Sirens wailing]

-Dispatcher: Suspects are two male Caucasians.

Be advised they have fired upon police officers.

One Lindon County officer is wounded.

[Birds squawk]

♪♪

[Tires screech]

-Dispatcher: Unit 1, unit 3, to eastbound Route 18,

two miles west of Interstate 85.

We'll patch in Lindon County Sheriff radio.

-Man: Roger that. We're five minutes south

of the Route 18 intersection.

-Man #2 over radio: Dispatch, unit 1 and unit 3,

we are 10-97 and code 100,

Highway 18, E.B. of interstate, please advise.

Man on radio: 10-9, we just got word from Lindon County

that they're off 18, southbound...

[Tires screech]

Old French Road is closed down there

so they're gonna head back onto 18.

[Guns cock]

-Sounds like they chasing those idiots up and down

every back road we've got.

-Maybe we'll get on one of them video shows, you know?

Like "World's Craziest Police Chases." What do you think?

-What I think, Leon, is you need to stay focused,

make sure you've got a round in the chamber

and your safety off.

[Sirens wail in distance]

-Would be kinda cool, getting on one of them shows.

[Engine revving, sirens blaring]

[Crashes, tires screech]

[Tires pop]

[Glass shatters]

-Holy shit.

-Gun, gun, gun! -Put it down!

-Put the gun down!

[Gunfire]

[Bullets ricocheting]

-Ah!

-[Yelps]

[Gunfire continues]

[Gunfire stops]

[Gun cocks, gunfire resumes]

[Glass shattering, bullet ricocheting]

-[Grunts, wheezes]

-[Yelps]

[Gunfire stops]

-Shane: Rick!

-I'm all right! [Wheezing]

-I saw you get tagged, man. Scared the hell out of me.

-[Panting] Me too.

That son of a bitch shot me. You believe that?

-What, it catch you in your vest?

-Yeah.

Shane, you do not tell Lori that happened... ever.

You understand? [Gunshot]

[Shouts] [Gun cocks]

-Move in, move in! -No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

-You see where he come from? -Shh, shh, shh, shh.

-[Wheezing] -No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

He's hit!

Leon! You get that ambulance down here

and you tell them there's an officer down

and you do it now! Okay, shh, shh, shh, shh.

I'm here. Hey, you look at me. You stay with me.

You hear me? Shh shh shh. Okay.

I'm right here, Rick. You stay with me, you hear me?

Shh, shh. That's it. Do you hear me?

Shh, shh, shh. Okay.

I'm right here with you. Stay with me.

Shh shh. That's it. I'm right here.

[Sirens wailing in distance]

[Police radio chatter]

[Static]

♪♪

OK, so, uh, not the best police procedure in the world,

but we are talking about rural Georgia.

Everybody relaxes their guard and holsters their weapons

prior to clearing that overturned vehicle,

which, as we know, from every bodycam cop reality show

ever filmed, is something cops never do. [Laughs]

Resulting in a stomach wound, though, for Deputy Rick,

which, by the way, is one of the most likely wounds

to kill you from bleeding out.

So I guess what they're doing here is they're establishing

that this scene takes place in the Old World

where people were still a little lax with their weapons --

unlike the foreshadowing scene before the titles

where Rick has to gun down the little girl

holding a teddy bear and wearing bunny slippers.

You know, for a certain generation that scene

has gotta bring up all those memories

of the Viet Cong civilians who killed American soldiers

by pretending to be harmless but then blowing themselves up

or revealing a hidden grenade at the last moment.

You know, women, children, the elderly --

you could never tell who was lethal in Vietnam.

And, of course, as we'll find out here directly,

everyone is potentially lethal in a "Walking Dead" episode.

Of course that's Andrew Lincoln, the British actor

previously best known for starring in

the Christmas-themed romantic comedy "Love Actually" --

[Laughs] one of your favorites, right, Darcy?

-Oh, not really.

-You were late to one of our watchalongs

because you were watching "Love Actually."

You know, you have a thing for Andrew Lincoln.

His real name was Andrew Clutterbuck,

but he changed his acting name the way they used to do it

at the old Hollywood studios.

-Man, I do love Rick in the show,

and I even have a Rick Grimes cosplay that I wear.

But "Love Actually", not so much.

-Alright, well, I'm glad you mentioned cosplay

because we're about to do some major cosplay.

And actually, I'm actually demeaning it

by calling it cosplay.

We're about to do some major special effects

visual tricks on your face and torso,

applied by the top zombie makeup guys in the business.

Alrighty, now, are you gonna be up for that?

-Are you kidding? I live for stuff like this.

-OK, then you're in luck because our first guest

for tonight's episode of "The Last Drive-In" --

come on over here, Greg --

is Greg Nicotero. [Cheers and applause]

Have a seat, Greg. -How are you?

-Greg is not only a special effects makeup legend,

but is an executive producer on "The Walking Dead,"

has directed a lot of the episodes over the years,

and you even have your own "Walking Dead" restaurant

in Senoia, Georgia. We were talking about Senoia

in the intro.

That you co-own with Norman Reedus.

-Yeah.

-One of the most beloved "Walking Dead" actors.

So -- So, Greg, if I go to Nick and Norm's restaurant

in Senoia, Georgia, can I order a zombie burger?

-We don't have a zombie burger on the menu,

but we have a Norman burger, we have a Greg burger.

There are zombie drinks -- zombie-themed...

-Oh, OK. -...Alcoholic beverages.

I would recommend those.

-Do you follow the original Don the Beachcomber

Zombie recipe?

-We do not. [Laughter]

And I heard a little bit of it. You almost spilled the beans

on it a minute ago. -You know, well,

there was -- there was a debate between the Don the Beachcomber

Zombie recipe and the Trader Vic's Zombie recipe,

and so I was gonna explain that, but of course,

we didn't have time for that. So --

-Trader Vic's is pretty good, though.

-[Laughs] Alright.

I assume your menu is all about meat, though, right?

-No, it's actually -- it's a gourmet burger joint.

Just happens to be set in Senoia on the main street.

I actually got killed by Laurie Holden as a zombie

in season 3 about 15 feet out the front door.

-Oh, OK. Is there a monument there or a plaque?

-No. There's just -- -[Laughs]

-There's just pain and memory from when she hit me in the head

with her gun during one of the takes.

-Alright, well, I -- I was going to say,

we should alert the local health authorities

to your meat recipes, but great to have you here.

Where were you on Halloween night, 2010?

-[Sighs] I was actually in my house in Los Angeles,

just dying for the show to come on, you know.

I feel like because I grew up in Pittsburgh,

it's in my blood, you know. Like, the zombie --

It took this long for everyone else to kind of catch up

on how great the zombie genre was, and because of

Kirkman's comic books and then, you know, the advent of

the video game. I think when video games came out,

and you were able to have -- like, first person shooter,

you can actually shoot zombies that were trying to chase you

and kill you -- that -- that sort of reinvigorated

the genre. -But on that night,

which is kind of a famous night in television lore...

-Yeah. -...Did the people involved

with "The Walking Dead" have a sense that you had

a blockbuster hit on your hands, or were you still wondering

whether it would work or not, or what was your feeling about it?

-Well, you know, it was challenging

because, you know, Zack Snyder's "Dawn of the Dead"

had come out, "Shaun of the Dead"

had come out, we had made "Land of the Dead" --

there was a lot of zombie stuff that was there.

But what I think "Walking Dead" ended up doing

was it opened it to a broader audience,

because of the characters and humanization.

Like, you felt sympathy when you see the half-zombie in the park.

-Right, right. -So I knew we had something

special, and I knew that we had something groundbreaking,

and I remember being on the set with George

on "Land of the Dead", and there were still concerns

about censorship because in -- you know,

when "Dawn of the Dead" came out in '77 or '78 --

-You couldn't put that stuff on TV.

-You couldn't put it on TV, so we were doing things

on television that nobody had been doing even in the movies

10 years earlier, so there was a lot sort of riding on this,

but, you know, I gotta give the network a lot of credit

for really letting Frank do what he wanted to do.

-Yeah, well there were 6.5 million people

watching that premiere episode, and those are great numbers

for TV in any season, any year,

but it would eventually go up to 17 million per episode,

which are unheard of numbers in this age

of multiple channels, multiple devices,

multiple ways to spend your time.

So I wanna ask you one question before we bring out

your esteemed colleague and we start zombifying Darcy.

What was it, in your opinion, about the world in the year 2010

that made us all ripe for zombie apocalypse shows?

I mean, I-I -- I mean, I-- Horror fans had been following

stories like this for years --

since the original "Night of the Living Dead"

in 1968, but this was a crossover phenomenon,

as you pointed out. I mean, millions of people

that had never thought about zombies before

were fascinated by "The Walking Dead".

Now, don't say it was just great writing

and great direction, 'cause we know that.

-It was, yes. -It had to be more than that.

It was a certain time in America.

-Well, you know, I think, for me, the most important part

is it's an evolving story.

It' not a story that you can tie up in two hours,

where you can set it up, introduce the characters,

and resolve the situation or the conflict.

So the fact that we have had 170 or so hours

to really get into who these characters were and understand

what they're willing to do to survive and what --

what this sort of global, epic thing would do

to each, individual person.

So, it didn't have to get wrapped up in two hours,

and I think that that really has a tremendous amount

to do with it. -But the -- the richest,

most privileged country in the world wanted to watch

a story that's just the bleakest... [Laughs]

the bleakest post-apocalyptic -- I don't know, it's, like,

nihilistic. I would say it's nihilistic.

-Yeah. -You know, it's like,

there's no hope.

And that's what we wanted to watch in 2010.

It's still a little mysterious to me as to why we wanted to

watch that. -Well, you know, you have --

you have Rick, who -- who won't give up looking for his wife

and his son, and he holds onto that hope,

no matter what's happening around him,

and there's always, in the world, stuff happening

around you that you don't want to look at, you don't want to --

you don't want to accept as really happening.

You have to find the strength and what is that one thing

that will keep you going? And with Rick,

that one thing is he's gotta find -- he's gotta find his son,

and he's gotta find his wife.

-So he's sort of the symbol of civilization.

But he starts to fall apart, too.

So, [laughs] alright, you have graciously agreed

to do some zombie schooling for us here tonight,

and to help you with that, I want to introduce

one of your most esteemed colleagues

in the world of special effects makeup.

He's a supervisor at your special effects company,

KNB, Carey Jones. So, come on out, Carey.

[Cheers and applause]

Glad to have you here. -Hey, buddy.

-Yeah, Carey, you have created almost as many zombies

as Greg, right? -[Laughs]

Almost. Yeah, almost.

-OK, I get letters and e-mails every day

from young people saying "What's the best way

to break into special effects makeup?"

You know, so I can imagine what you guys must get.

And the questions you must get and the number of kids

that wanna know, "How can I do what you do?"

-Yeah, that question comes up a lot.

I mean, I'm lucky enough, I grew up in Pittsburgh, you know,

like Greg, and at the time, there was a lot of stuff

being shot there, so I just so happened to grow up

when they were still shooting a lot of stuff in Pittsburgh.

So that's kind of how I was privy to that, you know.

-Yeah. You're from Pittsburgh and Greg,

you are from Pittsburgh, and one thing I know

from the history of zombie movies is,

if you wanna do anything in this world of zombies,

be from Pittsburgh, right? -Yeah.

-You know, that's the -- -Or make it into --

Or make it through Pittsburgh. -Make a pilgrimage there

at some point. -But what's interesting, too,

is for us, the last time that there was -- there was such

a resounding interest in special effects makeup

was after "Dawn of the Dead". Between that period of, like,

'77-'81, '82, where you had Rick Baker,

you had Tom Savini, of course.

You had Rob Bottin. The makeup effects were kind of

the stars of all those movies -- "Friday the 13th".

-Right. -You know, Stan Winston,

all those guys, all of a sudden,

people were going to the theater to see makeup effects

and creature effects and prosthetics.

So that -- -And Fangoria Magazine.

-Fangoria Magazinecame out, "Dawn of the Dead"

was in the first issue. So that was what got

people in sort of my age bracket and Carey's age bracket

interested in makeup effects. So what "Walking Dead"

has been able to do is, I feel like I'm paying it forward

because now I have young kids that are responding to

"The Walking Dead" the way that I responded to

"Dawn of the Dead", you know, "American Werewolf in London",

"The Thing", all of those movies.

So, it really -- it really -- the legacy that I feel

that we're leaving by with "Walking Dead" is the ability

to cultivate new talent and have these young people coming to me

and saying, "I want to do what you do", because I was that kid.

When I met Tom Savini for the first time, I was that kid.

-Well, after you learned all the practical effects, though,

didn't you have to, like, start a new education and learn

all the CGI that goes with your practical effects?

-Well, you know, the way that we sort of perceive it

is every -- every department is a tool that you contribute to...

-A handshake between different departments.

-...This painting, you know. Like, a director comes in

and says, "This is what the painting that I want."

And you're like, "OK, stunts does that,

makeup effects does that, visual effects does that.

It's when everything sings in concert is really when it works.

And that's kind of what we do. You know, in the first episode

of "The Walking Dead" that we're looking at now,

I would say 70% of the head-hits were practical.

We had little -- we had little funnels that we would attach

to the back of the performers, and with a tube

that went off to a little bellows stomper rig

that Carey and I built. So you'd see this zombie

come around the corner and look, and then when his head

would explode, there'd be a guy off-camera stepping on

a bellows, which would force all the blood out.

-Wow. -So, we -- We're trying to do

as much practical -- -That's how you did those shots

where you're in the cross hairs?

-That's rights right. When Morgan shoots, yeah.

-And that was a lot of the fun with the first season.

It's, like, all this stuff, we were just coming up

with new ideas on how to create that, and that's, for me,

what made it fun, you know, as problem-solvers,

coming up with ideas on how to make this stuff practically

was -- was -- you know, a lot of people that were on --

-Well, I would think that even today,

you do more practical effects

than almost any big-budget movie.

-Yeah, I mean, the only other thing that would be comparable

would have been "Game of Thrones",

which a lot of those White Walkers were digital

because the design was different.

But, you know, we have a makeup team,

and we're 11 years into doing

dozens and dozens of zombies per episode.

-OK. -And after that long,

there's definitely a shorthand on how we come up with stuff.

-Right. -You have to make it efficient

to kinda crank out that many makeups.

-TV schedule. I mean, it's not a movie schedule.

It's a TV schedule. -Right.

-How many days per episode?

-Right now, we're about 9.

-9 days for the whole episode? -So, we're shooting

basically a zombie movie in 9 days.

-Wow, OK.

Carey, you have graciously agreed to zombify Darcy.

And I guess -- and normally, I know if you were gonna

do that, you would start with probably a life cast,

if this was gonna be a major zombie in the show.

But we obviously don't have time to stick her in wet cement

for half a day, so you're gonna do this on the fly.

This is gonna be like speed chess.

But we appreciate you doing this for us.

-No, it's fun. That's what we do.

-OK. Well, take her away.

She's agreed to let you destroy her in any way necessary

to create the perfect zombie.

-That's not exactly what I said.

-Alright, well, I'm just letting Carey know

that he doesn't have to hold back.

-Thanks for that. -Alright.

-OK, so you guys head for the makeup room,

and we will check with you --

we'll check with you sometime during the second episode.

OK, Greg, we have lots to talk about while they're doing that,

but let's get back to the premiere episode

of "The Walking Dead".

Roll the film.

And, oh, Greg! How is "Creepshow" going?

-Oh. -We're in the third season.

It just started. -We're in the third season.

Interestingly enough, for me, the first movie set

that I ever visited was "Creepshow" in Pittsburgh.

-Yeah? -When George was shooting

the movie, I had met him when I was younger, and he had said,

"Oh, you should come visit the set."

So, I had spent my first time on a real movie set

on the original "Creepshow". -Alright.

-So, to be able to continue the tradition

and pay respect to the world that George and Stephen King

created, we've produced about 21 episodes.

-Yeah? -And it's been a blast.

I mean, it's like my whole heart and soul,

every story I wanted to tell, every film-maker

that I've wanted to emulate. -OK.

-I get a chance to do it. -Well, we need to mention

"Creepshow" at every break

because that's Shudder's marquee show.

[Laughter]

And you're the boss of that show.

You -- But didn't you actually turn down a job?

Didn't George Romero offer you a job and you turned it down?

-Well, I was 17 or 18 years old and I was getting ready to

go away to college to be a doctor.

-Yeah. -That was what I was --

that was the career path I was on, and they had offered me

and opportunity to be a production assistant,

and I said, "Well, you know, I kind of am getting ready

to go away to school, and I probably --

I probably would have to respectfully decline."

And then George said, "Well, just come visit

anytime you want." That's where I met Tom Savini,

and I would visit the set of "Creepshow" a lot.

So when "Day of the Dead" came along in 1984,

George said, "Hey, we're doing 'Day of the Dead'.

Do you want a job?" And I'm like...

[Growls] I said, I already went through this once,

and so I said, "Yes, I want a job."

I can't turn down working on the sequel to

"Night of the Living Dead" and "Dawn of the Dead".

So, I took the job. -See, when you said

that George Romero offered you a job and you said,

"No, I'm too busy. I've got other things to do,"

half of our fans had heart attacks.

[Laughter]

-Well... -So, Greg, the irony.

The irony. -Trust me, and the fact that

it came back around -- -Yeah, and then you --

And then you get another chance, you know.

-I got another chance. Well, you know, the zombie gods

were smiling on me, I guess. -[Laughs] Obviously.

Yeah.

♪♪

[Static]

[Ventilator hissing, heart monitor beeping]

[Labored breathing]

-[Distorted] Hey, buddy.

We're still here.

We're still hanging in.

I'm sorry, man.

I know I say the same crap every time I come in here.

[Sighs]

Everybody pitched in on these.

They... they wanted me to bring 'em down.

They send their love, and they just...

They hope you come back real soon.

[Chuckles] Linda and Diane from dispatch,

they picked these out.

Probably could tell, huh?

I'm just gonna set these on your side table, okay?

♪♪

-That vase... That's something special.

'Fess up. You steal that for me at Grandma Jean's house?

[Chuckles weakly]

I hope you left her that spoon collection. [Laughs]

[Coughing and wheezing]

Shane?

[Raspy] Shane, you in the john?

[Crackling]

[Breathing heavily]

[Grunts]

[Sighs]

[Coughs]

[Grunting]

Nurse, help.

[Hyperventilating]

Nurse, help.

[Faucet handle squeaks]

[Lights buzzing]

[Buttons click, handset clatters]

[Electrical humming]

[Ominous music plays]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

[Shuffling]

[Chain clinking]

[Clattering]

♪♪

[Metal squeaking]

♪♪

[Door rattling]

♪♪

[Banging and scraping]

[Chain creaking]

-[Moaning]

[Wheezing and groaning]

-[Hyperventilating]

[Buttons clicking]

[Door slams]

[Clack]

[Liquid dripping]

[Exhales sharply]

[Coughs]

[Coughs]

[Match strikes]

[Breathing shakily]

[Match strikes]

[Liquid dripping]

[Door squeaks, clangs]

[Insects buzzing]

[Flies buzzing]

♪♪

♪♪

[Shudders]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

[Birds chirping]

[Insects buzzing]

-[Rasping]

-Ah. Ah. Oh...

[Hyperventilating]

-[Growling]

-Uh...

-[Snarling]

-[Panting]

Lori.

[Door hinges squeal]

Lori!

Carl.

Carl!

♪♪

Oh, shoot.

[Wheezes] Lori! Carl!

♪♪

[Sobbing]

♪♪

Lori! Carl.

[Sniffling]

♪♪

[Sobbing, hyperventilating]

[Gibbers]

♪♪

Is this real?

Am I here?

[Sniffles]

♪♪

[Crying] Wake -- Wake up.

[Sniffles]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

[Twig snaps]

[Clang]

[Thud]

-Daddy! Daddy! -Carl...

Carl. I found you.

Daddy, I got the sumbitch! I'm-a smack him dead!

[Gunshot]

-He say something?

I thought I heard him say something.

-He called me Carl. -Son, you know they don't talk.

Hey, mister, what's that bandage for?

-W-- W-What?

-What kind of wound?

You answer me, damn you.

What's your wound?

You tell me...

or I will kill you.

♪♪

[Static]

♪♪

-OK, Greg, we wanted you to feel at home,

so we got some barbecue.

-I hope this zombie's from Texas.

-I don't know, this might be -- You know, I used to work

in Atlanta all the time, and there was a place called

Abdullah the Butcher that had great barbecue,

but I mean -- I'm sure it wasn't --

I'm sure it wasn't on the level of

Greg and Norm's restaurant in Senoia.

But, you know, while we're watching here,

you know, Rick is still not quite aware

of what's going on, but we are, as an audience.

So this is an example of the audience being way ahead

of the characters in the movie.

And the reason for that -- the reason you don't need

an extensive backstory for "Walking Dead" --

is that, the backstory is in "Night of the Living Dead",

"Dawn of the Dead", "Day of the Dead",

"Land of the Dead", and a half dozen other movies.

We already know what zombies are and what they do

and we accept their existence.

So, would you agree with that, Greg?

-I would agree with that, but in our universe,

the word "zombie" -- like, the Romero canon doesn't exist

in our universe. -That's true.

Well, I don't think -- -In the "Walking Dead" universe.

-George never used the word "zombie", did he?

-He used it -- He used it once in -- "Dawn of the Dead"

was the first time that he used it, when he -- when Ken Foree,

when they're on the balcony and he's saying,

"My grandfather was voodoo," and he says,

"When there's no more room in Hell,

the dead will walk the Earth."

And there's a line at the end of "Dawn of the Dead"

where he says, "There's going to be a thousand zombies

in this place." -OK.

-So George did use it in "Dawn of the Dead",

and then it's kind of -- -But everything goes back

to Romero, right? -Yes, always.

-I mean, a man you worked for.

And you also apprenticed with a good friend

of "The Last Drive-In", Tom Savini...

-Mm-hmm. -...Who was really --

he was really unknown before he made "Dawn of the Dead"

with George Romero.

So how many zombies would you say you have designed

in your lifetime? Ballpark.

-Wow. Um...

I would say just less than 10,000.

[Laughter] -10,000?!

Wow, I expected -- I expected -- well,

that is more than I -- [Laughs] Alright.

-It's a -- I mean, you know, it's 11 years,

plus all the other zombie movies that I've done.

Even "Dark Castle", "House on Haunted Hill" remake

that Bill Malone directed, we had zombies in that.

We've done other movies that have had zombies in it,

so, you know -- -You ever find new things

to put on a zombie?

-Yeah. -Yeah?

-Yeah. -Even after 10,000?

Seems like you would repeat yourself.

-Well, you know, you can't help but repeat yourself,

but you know, I have a great makeup effects team,

and, you know, I always sort of liked the idea

that each performer that comes in, it's a new canvas.

-OK. -And then we provide them with

the prosthetic pieces and the tools to create

this beautiful painting.

-That's a creepy idea, Greg. -It is.

-I mean, you're at the airport and you're thinking,

"There's a canvas. There's a canvas."

-Oh, yeah. Trust me... -[Laughs]

-...We've been at dinner, where a waitress will come over

and she'll put our food down, and we'll be like,

"She's be a great zombie."

She would be awesome. [Laughter]

And a lot of people that are on the show consequently have been

people that we would meet out at a bar someplace and be like,

"Hey, you'd be a really good zombie."

Cut to two weeks later, they're in the makeup chair.

-They wanna be that zombie. -Making them up as zombies.

-Alright, well, we've already seen

three or four of your iconic images.

I would imagine you guys were planning these first few zombies

for the premiere episode very carefully.

-Yeah. -So you have

the little girl zombie. -Yup.

-You have the snarling old lady half-zombie.

-Mm-hmm. -Do you give your zombies names?

-Yes. Well, she -- I named her Bicycle Girl,

only because in the comic book --

and that's right out of the comic book.

That's one of the key moments that really sort of

defined the design of the zombies.

The -- You know, the initial comic book that was drawn

by Tony Moore, and then Charlie Adlard took over,

I remember buying that comic book in Austin,

at a comic book shop. I was working with

Robert Rodriguez, and I bought two of them.

-Yeah? -Then I came back and I said,

"You gotta see these zombie drawings. These are amazing."

Because the lips had pulled away from the teeth,

it looked like -- like what I always thought a zombie

would look like. So when you look at

the first issue of "The Walking Dead",

it's absolutely everything that I always wanted to do.

So, when we started designing that, I realized what I wanted

to do to translate the zombies from the comic book

into the movie. -So you're mostly --

mostly doing those images that you originally saw in the comic.

-In the particular instance of Bicycle Girl...

-Yeah. -...We took what that concept

was in the comic book. -Yeah.

-So we designed the teeth and the contact lenses

and everything. That was our inspiration.

-Right. You also have the zombie carcass

on the floor of the hospital. -Mm-hmmm.

-I don't know if that's a zombie or just a dead person.

-Well, you know, it's funny because...

-Is there a difference between a zombie and a dead person

in your mind? -Yes, because a zombie

will get up and move around.

If it's a dead person, it has to have a head wound.

-Oh, OK. -So then it won't get up

and move around. -OK.

-So if you really look at that shot of her,

her whole body's been chewed away.

It's, like, basically gristle.

It's kind of, you know -- -Kind of like what we're eating

here, yeah? -She probably tasted

like this tastes. -[Laughs]

-But the face -- you know, the face is relatively untouched.

So I had even talked to Frank at one point about, like,

"We should do a zombie that looks like her,

like, after Rick leaves that hallway,

she gets up and starts walking around,

but, like, her muscles have been chewed on and stuff.

Those are the conversations we have.

-OK, and then you have the zombie walking down the street,

who's shot in the head by Morgan...

-Yeah. -...Played by Lennie James.

And then -- does that one have a name?

-He does not. -OK.

And then, of course, you have that great crane shot

of all the dead bodies swaddled in white --

might be zombies, I guess, might not be zombies.

Probably just dead people. -They're dead people,

Because otherwise, they'd be thrashing around in their...

-And I guess that didn't require that much makeup.

But, I mean, you said makeup on --

-Those were dummies.

-OK. -So we had been --

You know, my company, KNB Effects, we've been in business

since the late '80s, so we have done 800 movies,

and we have life casts of, like, countless number of actors.

-Right. -So, when "The Walking Dead",

when we shot that, we were sort of, like,

"Well, we need 60 dummies to just wrap in sheets

and put at the bottom of the steps."

So we grabbed any dummies that we had on the shelves.

So one of them is Bruce Willis. -Oh, really?

-One of them's Brad Pitt. -[Laughs]

-One of them was Johnny Depp. Like, the people --

the crew people were walking through, and at one point,

Frank went, "Hey, is that Bruce Willis?"

And I'm like, "Yeah." "Is that Brad Pitt?"

So it became sort of a game on set to see what celebrity

dummy was being used -- because we never saw the faces

they just grabbed them. -Yeah, that's great.

No, that's an amazing shot, though, that tells us

kind of what kind of nightmare world

that we've entered now.

And -- Now, when you make a dead body for the show,

and the show is done with the dead body,

do you take it home and use it for Halloween?

Or what do you do with it? -Oh, yeah.

-Yeah? -As a matter of fact, last year

for Halloween, I put 12 spikes in my front yard

and stuck zombie heads on the spikes.

-Oh, I'm sure that amused the neighbors.

-And the funniest thing is there was a guy

driving by, and he slows down, he goes,

"'Walking Dead' fan!"

And I'm like, "Yeah." And he just kept going.

[Laughter] He just assumed that I was a fan

of the show because I was putting zombie heads

in my front yard. -[Laughs] OK.

-It's kinda funny. -How many dead bodies

are actually in your house?

-Um...

Right now, there's probably about -- there's 6.

There's one that we use from "Creepshow" --

So when people walk into my house, they just assume

that -- you know, there's a replica of Mother

from "Psycho" sitting in my office.

-Oh, wow. -There's a bunch of skeletons

upstairs that we used in a "Creepshow" episode.

There's a lot of stuff all over my house.

-Alright. Deputy Sheriff Rick is confused and weak

and wounded, and he's now in the custody

of a very suspicious man whose son just planted a shovel

in his face, thinking he was a zombie.

So let's get back to the legendary premiere episode

of "The Walking Dead."

How many episodes of "The Walking Dead"

have you actually directed?

-I wanna say 37.

-Wow.

-37 hours. -Wow. A lot of shows

don't even last 37 episodes. -Yeah.

And most of them, like, I'm the grim reaper.

Like, I would -- I kill -- I've killed more people

on the show than the zombies.

-They bring you in for the kill?

-They bring me in for the big -- you know, like, the premieres,

the finales. -So you are the person

who tugs on the sleeve of the actor and says...

-That's... Yeah. -"Hey, you know, we need you --

we need to have a meeting for what we're going to do

with you next week." -That's me.

-[Laughs] -And by the way, you know,

you don't think when the actors, when I call them,

they see my name, they're like, "Decline."

'Cause they don't want me to be the guy who's gonna call them.

I would call Melissa McBride, like, during -- just to say hi

'cause we worked together on "The Mist".

That's where I met Melissa,

and that's where Frank cast her, in "The Mist".

So that's where he got to know her.

And every -- for a while there, every time I would call her,

she'd be like, "Am I dying?

What do you want?"

Like, "No, I was just calling to say hi."

And she's like, "Uh-huh, uh-huh."

There was always a little bit of that, like, "Hmm."

-You know it's gonna happen. I mean --

I mean, if you're on the show, you know it's gonna happen.

It's sort of, like -- It's sort of like being

Seinfeld's girlfriend. You know?

You know you're not going to be called back.

[Laughter]

-Well, but however, on our show, they'll do a flashback...

-Oh, OK. -...And then all of a sudden,

you know, Abraham will show up again or, you know,

Sonequa Martin-Green will show up again.

Like, the actors do end up coming back, you know.

Rick's last episode that I directed

where he was whisked off, we had Scott Wilson back.

-OK. -And, you know...

-Now, in addition to your "Walking Dead" episodes,

how many "Creepshow" episodes have you directed?

-Oh... [Buzzes lips]

I think 6. 6 or 8 of the 21.

-OK. See, I tricked you into talking about "Creepshow".

-That was good. Hey, you know, "Creepshow" airs

on Shudder. -I know, it's on Shudder.

-Did you know that? And AMC+.

-Season 3, yeah. -Like, you and I are, like,

you know, Shudder is right here.

If something bad were to happen, then Shudder might be

a little in trouble.

[Laughter]

So let's make sure -- Oh, no! It's the ribs!

No. [Laughs]

[Laughter]

♪♪

[Static]

♪♪

[footsteps]

[Rubber gloves snap]

-Got that bandage changed now.

It was pretty rank.

What was the wound?

-Gunshot. -Gunshot?

What else? Anything?

-Gunshot ain't enough?

-Look, I ask and you answer.

That's common courtesy, right?

[Emphatically] Did you get bit?

-"Bit?" -Bit, chewed, maybe scratched...

Anything like that?

-No, I got shot.

Just shot, as far as I know.

-Hey. Just let me.

Feels cool enough.

Fever would've killed you by now.

-I don't think I have one.

-Be hard to miss.

Take a moment, look how sharp it is.

You try anything,

I will kill you with it, and don't you think I won't.

[Rope snaps] -[Sighs]

[Rope snaps]

[Rope snaps]

[Knife clicks]

-Come on out when you're able.

Come on.

[Ladle scrapes]

[Dishes clatter]

-This place...

Fred and Cindy Drake's?

-Never met 'em.

-I've been here. This is their place.

-It was empty when we got here.

Don't do that.

They'll see the light.

There's more of them out there than usual.

I never should've fired that gun today.

Sound draws them. Now they're all over the street.

Stupid...using a gun.

But it all happened so fast,

I didn't think.

-You shot that man today.

-Man? -It weren't no man.

-What the hell was that out your mouth just now?

-It wasn't a man.

-You shot him in the street out front -- a man.

-Friend, you need glasses. It was a walker.

Come on.

Sit down before you fall down.

Here.

-Daddy.

Blessing.

-Yeah.

-Father, we thank thee for this food,

thy blessings,

and we ask you to watch over us in these crazy days.

Amen. -Amen.

-Hey, mister, you even know what's going on?

-I woke up today in the hospital.

Came home and that's all I know.

-But you know about the dead people, right?

-Yeah, I saw a lot of that...

Out on the loading dock, piled into trucks.

-No, not the ones they put down, the ones they didn't --

the walkers,

like the one I shot today.

'Cause he'd have ripped into you,

tried to eat you, taken some flesh at least.

Well, I guess if this is the first you're hearing it,

I know how it must sound.

-They're out there now? In the street?

-Yeah.

They get more active after dark sometimes.

Maybe it's the cool air or,

hell, maybe it's just me firing that gun today.

But we'll be fine, long as we stay quiet.

Probably wander off by morning.

But listen,

one thing I do know --

don't you get bit.

I saw your bandage and that's what

we were afraid of.

Bites kill you.

The fever burns you out.

But then after a while...

you come back.

-Seen it happen.

-Come on.

-Carl -- he your son?

Well, you -- you said his name today.

-He's a little younger than your boy.

-And he's with his mother?

[Sighs]

I hope so.

-Dad.

-Hey.

-Did you ask him?

-[Chuckles]

Your gunshot -- we got a little bet going.

My boy says you're a bank robber.

[Chuckles]

-Yeah, that's me, Deadliest Dillinger. Kapow.

-[Chuckles]

-Sheriff's deputy.

-Uh-huh.

[Car alarm blaring]

Hey, it's okay. Daddy's here.

It's nothing.

One of them must've bumped a car.

-Are you sure? -It happened once before.

It went on for a few minutes.

Get the light, Duane.

[Alarm continues]

It's the blue one on the street,

the same one as last time.

I think we're okay.

-That noise, won't it bring more of them?

-Nothing we can do about it now.

Just have to wait 'em out till morning.

-[Gasps] She's here.

-Don't look. Get away from the windows.

♪♪

I said go. Come on.

♪♪

-[Sobbing]

-Duane. Duane, quiet now.

Come on. Quiet now. -[Muffled wailing]

-Shh, shh. -[Muffled sobbing continues]

♪♪

♪♪

-It's okay. Here.

Cry into the pillow. You remember?

Shh. Shh.

[Footsteps]

[Doorknob rattling]

♪♪

♪♪

-[Sniffling quietly]

-She, um...

She died in that other room on that bed in there.

There was nothing I cou-- that I could do about it.

That fever, man.

Her skin gave off a heat like a furnace.

[Crying]

I should've... [Sighs]

I should've put her down, man. I should've put her down.

I know that, but I --

You know what? I just didn't have it in me.

She's the mother of my child.

[Rattling continues]

♪♪

♪♪

[Static]

♪♪

-Great sequence

where Rick starts to understand where he is,

thanks to Morgan and Duane

and their nightly visitation

by the thing that used to be a wife and mother.

And so we start to see that this show

is gonna go places that most zombie movies avoid.

But, Greg, I wanna ask you.

When they look out the window

and they see those walkers shambling around on the street

and you see that for the first time,

that just summons up everything we're already familiar with

from the Romero movies, you know?

Those are definitely Romero zombies.

Now, were you guys ever tempted to change your zombie behavior

just to be -- just to get away

from the original, you know, template that he created?

-You know, Frank and I talked about that at the beginning.

And honestly, we ended up having zombie school.

-I know! You founded Zombie Boot Camp, right?

-I founded zombie school.

And when we did season one, we didn't have a lot of

opportunities to show clips from "The Walking Dead"

because we hadn't shot the episodes yet,

so we had clips from "Night of the Living Dead,"

and we showed the scene of Bill Heinzman in the cemetery

chasing Barbra when she gets into the car.

So we had always looked at "Night of the Living Dead"

as sort of like gospel.

And so the intention was to, without a doubt,

lean into that mythology, especially because --

You gotta figure "Walking Dead" came out after "28 Days Later,"

after Zack Snyder's "Dawn of the Dead,"

where zombies had been energized.

"28 Days Later" technically isn't a zombie movie.

It's Infected.

But the truth of the matter was

a lot of filmmakers had adrenalized zombies,

and we really wanted to go back to the classic.

-Pull it back to the classic zombie.

Well, as the guy who did found the Zombie Boot Camp

there in Georgia to provide the need for millions

of trained zombie actors that you use,

what do you tell aspiring zombies

when they show up to join the show?

-Well, there are several rules, you know?

And I think the first thing I said --

And George and I used to talk about this.

If someone can nickname your zombie walk,

then you're doing it too consistently.

Like, if you walk like this, you're doing Frankenstein.

You don't drag the leg, 'cause you're the mummy.

You know, we used to have people that would just stomp around,

and we would call them the

"get the hell out of my yard" zombie.

We would give people names. -Yeah.

-The analogy that I always used to use, ironically, would be --

I would say it's like a marionette.

Like, you don't have control of your limbs.

If you see somebody walking out of a bar at 2:00 in the morning,

they think they're walking straight,

but they don't have control,

so they kind of weave in and out a little bit.

So it's always that really sort of lack --

-Walk like you're drunk? -Yeah. Walk like you're drunk.

-That lack of ability

to, like, raise your arms or move.

So there's kind of a slackness

to the shoulders and the jaw and the head.

-Well, also, since you're the guy

who has probably spent more time thinking about zombie physiology

than anybody on the planet,

do you -- do you invent a back story for the zombie

before you do his skin and his wounds and his clothing?

I mean, actually, you don't have many naked zombies.

They tend to keep their clothes on, right?

-Yeah, we've done a few. We've done a few naked zombies.

I think the S&P is always a little nervous

about -- more about nudity than about the violence.

-Yeah. But do you have back stories?

-Yeah. Sometimes.

You know, what's interesting -- and you can really see it

all over this first episode of "Walking Dead" --

is that the set dressing and the blood and everything,

it does tell a story.

When Rick's going through the hospital

the first time, you see the bullet holes in the wall,

you see the smears of blood everywhere.

It tells a story.

So when we were doing the zombie makeups in season one,

the one thing that was important to me

always was that you can't apply blood with a brush

or, like, a little squeeze bottle.

There has to be some violence inherent in the way

the blood would spray up onto the face.

So you'd see spatters of blood.

So your audience, by seeing that, imagines,

oh, if somebody got bit here, the blood sprayed.

So we did a lot in the early onset of this show

to tell a story with just how you put the blood

on the individual makeup.

We've done gags where there was somebody

that had been stabbed and died

and then turned into a walker and starts walking around.

And then in one episode,

Rick grabs the knife out of the zombie

and stabs it in the head.

It's like a portable weapon.

-Yeah. Okay. Well, let's look at --

let's look at the evolution of the movie zombie.

We have examples. All zombies are not alike.

And the first one we have here is where it all started,

the classic "Night of the Living Dead" style.

What kind of zombie was that?

-Well, we're gonna go through.

This is the Romero original-trilogy look.

So, a guy named Christian Hanson sculpted this bust,

and if you watch the original "Night of the Living Dead,"

basically it was pale makeup

with, like, dark circles around their eyes, you know?

If I'm not mistaken, like... -Wasn't much gore.

-No, There wasn't much gore, you know?

Marilyn Eastman and Karl Hardman,

who were two of the investors in George's company

and actors in the movie,

they were the ones doing the makeup.

They were, like, paling people out.

So there wasn't a lot of gore in the original movie.

I mean, there was maybe a couple little trickles of blood

here and there, but not a lot of gore.

-So it was more in the performance than in the look.

-Yes. -And then we have the --

what's called the blue-faced "Dawn of the Dead" style

from 10 years later, 1978.

-So, this is -- Tom Savini designed this particular makeup.

This zombie was actually one that you see on the poster.

The poster of "Dawn of the Dead"

came from this particular zombie,

which they call the airport zombie.

But now you get into a lot of three-dimensional wounds.

And, you know, the thing about Tom Savini was --

He was a big --

You know, loved Lon Chaney. Big fan of Dick Smith.

You know, Tom was the guy in Pittsburgh

and still -- you know, to this day, still lives there.

So he was able to sort of

lead the forefront of the wave,

the new wave of makeup effects with "Dawn of the Dead."

-Okay. -So he and George

really sort of just got together

and came up with these crazy gags.

And a lot of the interest about it was that Tom

was like a magician.

So they would use misdirection.

They'd get a screwdriver, and you see

the guy getting stabbed in the ear with a screwdriver.

And then they'd cut, and they'd take a half screwdriver

and put a silver straw on there,

and they'd pump blood through it.

So there was a lot of misdirection.

George gave Tom a lot of freedom.

So, in "Dawn of the Dead," they kind of went with

that sort of blue/gray makeup, but there was a lot more gore.

There was a lot more blood and wounds and things like that.

-And then zombies became higher-fidelity

in 1985 with "Day of the Dead."

Now, is this Bub the Zombie? The famous Bub the Zombie?

-This is Bub.

This was sculpted by a guy named John Vulich,

played by Howard Sherman.

The first thing that we did -- I was one of the first people

hired by Tom Savini on the crew.

And we started making generic dentures for everybody.

So every -- almost every single hero zombie in that movie

has dentures because we wanted to --

-You wouldn't have had dentures in 1978?

-No dentures, no contact lenses. -Okay.

-Nothing. This was just makeup. -Okay.

-But then when we got into "Day of the Dead,"

we started using dentures

and we made them generically, and they -

Like, the teeth were kind of all crooked and yellow,

and the gums were all gross.

And in a lot of instances,

because we had made them generically,

if you put them into people, it would push their lips out

and make them look kind of strange.

But that was -- Every single zombie had,

in a lot of instances,

full facial prosthetics that were covered.

It wasn't just like this one

where there's particular little wounds here and there

and you see mostly the actor's skin.

In "Day of the Dead,"

we really wanted to push the envelope.

-So you're -- you're making the zombies scarier

by making them more human.

-Well, we're making them look more rotted

and more desiccated.

One of the things that's always frightening is just,

you know, seeing that -- that things are decomposing.

It's just like -- It just looks kind of nasty and gross.

-'Cause you're really -- 'Cause subconsciously

you're thinking, "someday, that'll be me."

-Yeah, yeah. That's a very, very true statement

that George used to talk about all the time,

was that that's what we all become.

-Yeah. So, can -- can you sum up

what's going on in the history of zombie anatomy?

Is there -- Is there an overriding philosophy

of how it should be done?

-Well, you know, the overriding philosophy

is the more horrific you want it to look,

you can add more blood, because blood always has

an inherent shock value when you see it.

But as these progress technically,

they're visually more interesting-looking

because you can see the wrinkled skin

and you can see the sunken-in eyes

and the cheekbones and stuff.

So there is definitely an evolution.

Then once we hit "Walking Dead," it was dentures, contact lenses,

and we've sort of continued to even,

you know, refine the process even more.

-Right. Do you guys sit around and go,

"Hey! You know what would be really, really gross?"...

-Yeah.

-...and then try to achieve that?

-Yeah, and, by the way, the greatest

is when you're at a restaurant

and there's a table next to you that doesn't know,

you know, what you're talking about.

I worked on a movie once,

and I was sitting with the director,

and there was a scene where they -- a person gets killed

and they chop the body up into pieces

and put it in the trunk of a car.

And I'm sitting there at The Daily Grill

in Los Angeles with the director.

I'm like, "Okay. So how do you want to kill this person?"

He's like, "I think an ax." And I was like, "Okay.

So once we kill the person, do they --

do you want to use the ax to dismember the body?

And then where do we put it?"

And I look next to me, and there's an old woman like...

[Laughter]

Like, there's slow-motion food falling out.

I'm like -- They literally thought that we were

planning a real murder. -Oh, well.

Well, Greg, you were actually responsible

for two gross-out effects that get to me

every time that I watch them.

And, oddly enough, they're not even that bloody.

We haven't talked about your career very much,

probably because we don't need to.

Our audience is very familiar with you.

But actually we talked a lot about you

when we were showing "Bride of Re-Animator."

I don't know if you saw that episode.

But you also did the effects on "Green Mile," "Vanilla Sky,"

"Land of the Dead, "Scream, "Pulp Fiction,"

"Transformers," "Sin City."

"Evil Dead II." -Yeah.

-You won an Oscar for "Chronicles of Narnia."

-We did. Our company won.

-Yeah. You've worked with Spielberg.

You've worked with John Carpenter.

You've worked with Wes Craven.

You've worked with Ridley Scott. You worked with Rodriguez.

You're the go-to guy for Quentin Tarantino.

I think he onlyworks with you, right?

-Mm-hmm. -But I'm gonna have you guess.

There must be people who come up to you and say,

"Man alive, Greg. That effect was just too intense."

And are there certain scenes

that people are normally referring to when they say that?

-Yes. -Okay.

-One scene is in Scorsese's "Casino,"

where we -- Joe Pesci puts a guy's head in a vise.

-Right! Oh, God, yes. -And crushes the head.

And as he crushes the head, the eyeball, pfft, pops out.

-Yeah. Okay.

-And I have had people walk out, walk out of the theater.

And even in reviews, they'll talk about it.

"Oh, they just went too far.

That's too much." That's too much."

-But let me tell you my two. -Okay.

-The first one is when Kathy Bates

takes the sledgehammer to James Caan's ankles in "Misery."

I don't know -- I don't know what you --

what I saw or what I thought I saw.

But, you know, I just cringe. I can't --

There are very few times when I turn my eyes away,

but I turn my eyes away.

And then the second one is cutting off the ear...

-"Reservoir Dogs." -...in "Reservoir Dogs."

-That one I get a lot, too.

Well, here. I have a great story.

So, when we did "Misery," we cast James Caan's legs,

and then we made gelatin legs with breakable ankles

and then punched all the hair in.

And I remember they broke for lunch, and they're like, "Okay,

so, you guys -- We're gonna break for lunch.

Get the legs rigged up

'cause we're gonna break them after lunch."

So, there were two holes in the bed,

so his legs went through holes in the bed,

and we attached the fake legs 'cause there was,

you know, blankets and things covering stuff,

and they were all bandaged up.

So, Rob Reiner came back from lunch,

and the first assistant director was like,

"What are you guys doing? You're supposed to be around."

Like, "Well, those are the fake legs."

'Cause they couldn't tell the difference.

So, we had a cable --

So, the leg was secured on the bed,

and then we could pull the ankle with the cable.

Ckk! And that would -- that would do that.

So, we go to the cast/crew screening.

And I'm sitting in the theater,

and Rob Reiner's sitting right in front of me.

And I had a friend with me. And I said, "Just do me a favor.

Don't embarrass me. Don't scream."

'Cause this is -- It's --

I was like, "Rob Reiner's there.

Don't scream in Rob Reiner's ear."

So, Kathy Bates lifts the sledgehammer,

and she says, "God, I love you."

And the sledgehammer goes up. She screams bloody murder.

And, like, everything went into slow motion,

and I saw every head in the movie theater go...

[Gasps] And recoil.

And then you see the first one,

and then you don't even see the second ankle.

We shot it. We built both. But you never even see it.

So, we walk out of the theater,

and Rob stops me, and he said,

"I've never felt the oxygen

disappear from a room in my entire career."

-Was that the first time it was shown?

-It was the cast/crew screening.

So, like, it was the first time that he had been in a room

with, you know, 300 people.

-Wow. -And then with "Reservoir Dogs,"

you know, the thing that nobody realizes

is you never see the ear cut off.

You never physically see Mike...

The camera pans away.

And then Mike Madsen walks into the shot holding the ear.

-Okay. -But every single person

is convinced that they saw it.

-There must be a sound effect or something

'cause I just get chills,

and I never look away from the screen.

And I wouldn't know anyway 'cause I do look away

from the screen when that's on.

So, all right.

Well -- So you're a cruel man, Greg, and we love that.

So let's get back to the premiere episode

of "The Walking Dead." Roll the film.

Have you watched every zombie movie ever made?

-I've seen probably 98% of the zombie movies.

Like, even newer stuff. You know, "Train to Busan," I love.

There's a great zombie series called "Kingdom"

that's set in feudal China.

I'm always curious that -- people that continue

to make installments into the zombie universe

and what their take on it is. -Right.

-Because it's in my blood, I guess.

-Right, right, right.

Do you think Mads Bellamy was brilliant in White Zombie?

[Laughter]

-I would say yes.

-Okay. Can we quickly go to the makeup-room cam?

-Oh, yeah. -All right.

Did you set something up in there?

-Yeah. -All right.

Darcy, can you hear me? How's it going in there?

-Great.

-Greg thinks Madge Bellamy is a superstar!

-That's what you wanted to tell me?

-Yeah. And a message for Carey.

More open wounds! Okay, Carey?

-Sounds good.

-I don't think they can hear me.

[Laughter]

[Hinges creak]

-Rick: Are we sure they're dead?

I have to ask at least one more time.

-Morgan: They dead,

except for something in the brain.

That's why it's got to be the head.

-[Hisses]

[Growling]

[Grunting]

-You all right?

-[Breathing shakily]

Need a moment.

-They're alive -- my wife and son.

At least they were when they left.

-How can you know?

By the look of this place, they --

-I found empty drawers in the bedroom.

They packed some clothes -- not a lot,

but enough to travel.

-You know anybody could've broken in here

and stole them clothes, right?

-You see the framed photos on the walls?

Neither do I.

Some random thief take those, too, you think?

Our photo albums, family pictures -- all gone.

-Photo albums. [Laughs]

My wife -- same thing.

There I am packing survival gear,

she's grabbing photo alb--

-They're in Atlanta, I bet.

-That's right.

-Why there? -Morgan: Refugee center.

A huge one they said, before the broadcast stopped.

Military protection, food, shelter.

They told people to go there, said it'd be safest.

-Duane: Plus they got that disease place.

-The Center for Disease Control.

Said they were working out how to solve this thing.

[Lock clicks]

-Gas lines have been down for maybe a month.

-Station's got its own propane system.

Pilot's still on.

-Whoo-hoo! -Oh, my Lord!

-Hot water! -Ah!

That feels good, right?

-[Laughs] -♪ Bring it around, bring it ♪

♪ Bring it, bring it, bring it around, uh! ♪

Yeah. I'm wet. Take that. What? Whoo!

-Duane.

Dressing room back there.

-What you say, Duane?

-Thank you.

-Mm-hmm.

-Atlanta sounds like a good deal.

Safer anyway. People.

-That's where we were headed. Things got crazy.

Man, you wouldn't believe the panic.

Streets weren't fit to be on.

And then...

My wife couldn't travel, not with our herd,

so we had to find a place to lay low.

And then after she died...

we just stayed hunkered down.

I guess we just froze in place.

-Plan to move on?

-Haven't worked up to it yet.

-A lot of it's gone missing.

-Daddy, can I learn to shoot? I'm old enough.

-Hell yes, you're gonna learn.

But we gotta do it carefully, teach you to respect the weapon.

-That's right. It's not a toy.

You pull the trigger, you have to mean it.

Always remember that, Duane. -Yes, sir.

-Here.

Load up.

-You take that one. Nothing fancy.

The scope's accurate.

Conserve your ammo.

Goes faster than you think, especially at target practice.

-Duane. -Uh-huh?

-Take this to the car. -Okay.

-Are you sure you won't come along?

-A few more days.

By then, Duane will know how to shoot,

and I won't be so rusty.

[Walkie-talkie clicks, whines]

-You've got one battery.

I'll turn mine on a few minutes every day at dawn.

You get up there, that's how you'll find me.

-You think ahead. -Can't afford not to.

Not anymore. -Morgan: Listen. One thing.

They may not seem like much one at a time,

but in a group, all riled up and hungry --

Man, you watch your ass. -You too.

-You're a good man, Rick.

I hope you find your wife and son.

-Be seeing you, Duane.

Take care of your old man. -Yes, sir.

[Walker snarling]

-Leon Basset?

Didn't think much of him --

careless and dumb -- but...

I can't leave him like this.

-[Growls]

-You know they'll hear the shot.

-Let's not be here when they show up.

-Let's go, son. Come on.

[Car doors open]

[Doors close]

-[Snarling]

[Gun cocks]

[Gunshot echoes]

[Horn honks]

[Siren chirps]

[Flagpole dinging]

♪♪

♪♪

[Engine shuts off]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

-Read your comic books a while. Daddy will be upstairs.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

[Groaning]

♪♪

[Groaning]

♪♪

[Whistles]

[Gunshot]

[Casing rattles]

-[Wheezing]

-Daddy?!

-It's all right, Duane! You stay there, son!

Don't you come up here!

♪♪

-[Muttering]

♪♪

[Gunshot]

♪♪

Jenny.

Come on, baby.

♪♪

[Groaning]

♪♪

♪♪

[Groaning weakly]

♪♪

-I'm sorry this happened to you.

♪♪

♪♪

[Gunshot]

♪♪

[Walkers snarling]

♪♪

[Breathes shakily]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

[Crying] Come on.

♪♪

Come on.

♪♪

♪♪

[Grunts]

[Sobbing]

♪♪

♪♪

-So, Greg, you just told me

that this is your favorite part of the premiere episode,

where Rick goes back to the half-woman in the park

and Morgan is trying to --

He's trying to do euthanasia on his wife.

But he can't -- He can't bring himself to do it.

And they're intercutting between those two things.

Show me -- This is -- We have here your work

on what's called the Bicycle Girl,

which is the -- which is the zombie that was shot by Rick.

Explain the -- the process that you were using here.

-So, this was one of the things that was most important to us

to sort of delineate our zombies from -- from other zombies.

So, this is a live cast of the actress.

This is a girl named Melissa Cowan,

so this is what her face looked like.

And then this is the sculpture

that was done by a sculptor named Jaremy Aiello.

So, what we did was we actually made the teeth first,

and the teeth fit overtop of the lips.

So you can see from the sculpture,

we were able to pull the lips away from the teeth,

which I think is kind of a signature

"Walking Dead" look.

Now, even though technically it's only been six weeks

since the zombie apocalypse happened in the show,

since she was in the sun,

lying in this park for six weeks,

we went with this sort of, like, rotten-pumpkin texture

where she was just getting beat by the sun.

That's why -- That's why we have all the decomposition.

And then the last -- the last bust on the corner

is what the end result looked like.

So, she had dentures in.

We did the prosthetic makeup on her face.

She had contact lenses.

And there was four of us.

It was two hours to do her whole body.

-And so you kind of sculpted all this around her face?

-Yeah. This is what we started with.

And then we had a chest piece.

And originally what we were gonna do

is we were gonna dig a hole in the ground

and we were gonna hide her legs.

And so we had the prosthetic piece, like an old magic trick,

that would look like that's where her legs were.

And during the production meeting,

Greg Melton, the production designer, said,

"Well, you can't dig a hole in the ground. It's a public park."

So we ended up modifying the prosthetic,

and she wore green leggings,

and the visual-effects people erased her legs.

-Oh, okay. -But interestingly enough,

when "The Walking Dead" was being promoted by AMC,

the first picture that was ever released was a photo of her.

-Well, I think everyone remembers that moment

and I think mostly because of the compassion

that you see in Rick saying,

"I'm sorry this happened to you."

You know, what I like about Andrew Lincoln's performance

as Rick is how controlled it is.

He has that one moment

where he slaps himself in the head,

you know, but it passes 'cause he's a cop.

He's -- He's trained to do one task at a time.

So Rick is headed into the new world.

Morgan is still tied to the old world.

He can't put his wife down.

You know, he's still making sure his son says "thank you"

and is polite to everyone, and he's still --

They're still saying a prayer every night.

They're still thinking there's some way to go back

to the way the world used to be.

And every time a zombie gets killed,

for whatever reason, it's kind of a release.

It's kind of an emotional safety valve for everyone.

And, Greg, I have to say one thing you do

in quite a few episodes

is you use those rifles with scopes on them.

So, you get the zombies in the crosshairs,

and they shoot them in the head.

And there's no cutaway. There's no edit.

You apparently have actors out there

with exploded heads or something.

So -- [ Laughs ] How do you do that?

-There's a -- There's a great rig that we built

that is sort of like a little funnel that we fill with blood,

and then it's hidden in their wardrobe

or in their clothes behind them.

So, in that particular scope shot, the performer walks in,

and he's got a tube sort of dragging out

the bottom of his pant leg that you can't see

because we wanted that explosive vibe.

So, we didn't want to put a squib on them.

I mean, you could have just put a squib there

and blown the squib up.

-But it looks like the head, like, flies apart.

-Yeah. Well, we built --

we built multiple versions of these particular --

these particular gags.

And some of them, it's compressed air.

You just fill a fake head,

you pre-score it, and you cut it apart,

and then you close it back up, and there's a tube in there,

and you hit a button, and then it just blows it to pieces.

-Okay. Well, we're about to see the concluding set piece,

which is a famous sequence in which Rick rides into Atlanta

on a horse and proceeds to fend off hundreds of walkers.

Now, how -- how many are on your crew

when you have a huge zombie attack scene like that?

-I think we had -- There were 200 people

when we shot that scene.

We had 200 people in makeup.

We had a few background zombie masks,

but most of it was people in makeup.

So, I think I had 11 makeup artists,

and when we shot the first season,

we were shooting on a shifted schedule.

So we would shoot Wednesday, Thursday,

Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

So, on the weekends, they would close sections of Atlanta down,

and then they would bring the tank in

and they would dress it to make it look like

it had been abandoned.

So we would shoot -- Saturdays and Sundays

would be our big zombie days.

-And so you have 11 people running around, you know.

"More blood on this zombie. More..."

You know, "Come over here.

This zombie's losing his prosthetic or whatever."

-Yeah. -All day long?

-I think we would -- we would get home from work

at about 10:00 at night, and then at 4:00 a.m.,

we would go back and start it all over again

because it would take a good amount of time

to get all those people through makeup.

And then when the crew wraps and everybody goes home,

you got to clean all those people up.

-And have all 200 of those people

been through zombie school? -Yeah.

-Okay. So they know what they can do and what they can't do.

-We had to even think about stuff like --

There were a few people that were barefoot.

We had to put neoprene on the bottoms of their feet

because the concrete was so hot

that they were burning their feet.

Or if somebody fell on the ground, you know --

At the end of -- At the end of season one,

when they get to the CDC

and they find all the --

There's 200 dead bodies. We had people lying there.

We had to put reflective, like, sun blankets underneath them

because the ground was so hot.

Because it was -- it was, you know, July in Georgia.

-In Georgia. All right, Greg,

I want you to come back for our second feature,

which is episode two of "The Walking Dead."

How many episodes are there? You remember?

-I think we're around 150.

-Okay.

Somebody did a calculation of how long it would take you

to binge-watch "The Walking Dead"

if you didn't go to sleep.

5 days, 11 hours.

And see?

Here's the dangerous thing of me talking about this.

Now that I said that -- -Somebody'll do it.

-I shouldn't have said that because we have

such weird fans of this show,

that some guy in the panhandle of Texas went, "Hell, yes!

I know how I'm spending next week!"

You know? Because --

"Hey, Cletus, you know, how much Ritalin and Adderall

can you get me from over in North Lubbock?"

Is there any -- Is there any episode of the show

that you have not worked on

over the past 11 years of doing the show?

-No. -You've worked on every show.

-I've been in the trenches. I've been down in Georgia.

You know, I haven't been on set for every single day

because a lot of times, like, if I'm directing, I'm not on --

If I'm in prep, I'm not on set for that episode that's shooting

and then I go to L.A. and edit.

But in terms of my day-to-day involvement,

you know, I am proud of what we've done

and what we continue to do on the show.

And if there is somebody that's going to watch all episodes

for five days,

you need a time-lapse camera in there someplace to just --

watch them turn into whatever they're gonna turn in.

-Oh, yeah, we want to see that. Yes. Send that in.

All right. Well, I know you have important phone calls to make

because we're in the middle of the third season of "Creepshow,"

so you're getting all kinds of accolades for "Creepshow."

What would it take to get Andrew Lincoln

for an episode of "Creepshow"?

-Andrew was down, actually.

We shot an episode for season two,

which became our holiday special

called "Shapeshifters Anonymous,"

and it was about a support group for people

that turn into werewolves or animals or creatures.

And it's -- it's really a completely outrageous

and super-fun episode,

and he was going to play Evil Santa Claus.

Yeah? -And he was down to do it.

And then this kind of world sort of

took a little bit of a left turn for a while,

and he couldn't travel at that particular time.

And then, you know,

we had actually talked to Michael Cudlitz

because Michael Cudlitz was going to do it,

and then he got cast in "Clarice."

So, you know, it's --

And then, of course, I -- You know, I mean, like --

Jeffrey Dean Morgan is -- And Norman are always like,

"Hey. Wait a minute. Why don't you --

Why don't you put me in an episode of 'Creepshow'?"

And Michael Rooker stars in a season-three episode.

Did an amazing job.

So, you know, I got my "Walking Dead" peeps.

-All right. All right.

Well, it's time now for the gripping,

stunning, flesh-eating conclusion

of "The Walking Dead" premiere episode.

So roll it.

And I want to ask you,

since you're always in the --

Since you're always in the writers' room, I assume,

for the series now.

-Not lately, no. -No? No?

But you have been in the writers' room, right?

-Yes. -All right.

Well, I came up with three principles

that seem to always be true for a "Walking Dead" episode.

Tell me if I'm on target.

Numero uno,

doing the right thing always endangers your life.

-Yes. -Yeah?

Numero two-oh, being selfless and making sacrifices

is almost never rewarded.

-Yes. -Yes.

And three, God is absent.

[Laughter]

-Um...

You know, there -- there have been moments,

like when they discover the prison.

There have been moments of clarity

where things have worked out for our group.

-Yeah, but usually when they talk about God,

it's a delusion, right? -Yeah.

-I mean, I'm thinking about -- there's this Isaac Singer story

where the inmates in a Nazi concentration camp hold a trial.

They put God on trial, and they find him guilty.

-Hm. -It's a brutal, brutal show,

and it's kind of that same feeling, you know?

And yet the whole world loves it.

♪♪

-Broadcasting on emergency channel.

Will be approaching Atlanta on Highway 85.

If anybody reads, please respond.

Hello? Hello?

Can anybody hear my voice?

Anybody out there?

Anybody hears me, please respond.

Hello? Can you hear my voice?

-[Radio crackling] -Hello? Hello?

Can anybody hear my voice?

-Hey! Hello?

-Can you hear my voice?

-Yes, I can hear you. You're coming through. Over.

-If anybody reads, please respond.

Broadcasting on emergency channel.

Will be approaching Atlanta on Highway 85.

If anybody reads, please respond.

-We're just outside the city.

-[Radio crackling] -Damn it.

Hello? Hello?!

He couldn't hear me. I couldn't warn him.

-Try to raise him again. Come on, son.

You know best how to work this thing.

Hello, hello. Is the person who called still on the air?

[Crackling]

This is Officer Shane Walsh broadcasting to person unknown.

Please respond.

[Radio crackling]

He's gone.

-There are others. It's not just us.

-Yeah. We knew there would be, right?

That's why we left the C.B. on.

-A lot of good it's been doing.

-Okay. -And I've been

saying for a week we ought to put signs up

on 85 and warn people away from the city.

-Folks got no idea what they're getting into.

-Well, we haven't had time.

-I think we need to make time.

And that -- that's a luxury we can't afford.

We are surviving here. We are day-to-day.

-And who the hell would you propose we send?

-I'll go. Give me a vehicle.

-Nobody goes anywhere alone. You know that.

-Yes, sir.

-Hey, hey, hey. Go on, take a seat, bud.

You're all right. Go on. You're all right.

Wait. You pissed at me?

Can be pissed at me all you want.

It's not gonna change anything.

I'm not putting you in danger, okay?

I'm not doing it for anything.

That make you feel like sometimes you want

to slap me upside the head.

Tell you what, girl, you feel that need,

you go right ahead. I'm right here. Go on.

You cannot walk off like that, all half-cocked.

Look, you do not want to do it for my sake or your sake.

That's fine. But just -- You do it for him.

That boy has been through too much,

and he's not losing his mother, too, okay?

Okay?

-I'm a good mom.

-You tell me "okay."

Hmm? [Chuckles]

It's not hard.

All right? Hey.

-Mom?

-What's up, bud? She's in there. Go on.

-Hey, I don't want you to worry.

Your mama's not going anywhere, okay?

Yeah? Yeah?

Go finish your chores. -Okay.

-Okay.

[Trunk clicks]

Hello?!

Police officer out here!

Can I borrow some gas?

[Wind chime tinkling]

♪♪

Hello?

[Knock on door]

Hello? Anybody home?

[Flies buzzing]

[Groans]

[Spits]

[Horse nickers]

-[Horse neighs] -Easy, now. Easy.

Not gonna hurt you.

Nothing like that.

More like a proposal.

Atlanta's just down the road a ways.

It's safe there.

Food. Shelter. People.

Other horses, too, I bet.

How's that sound?

There we go. Good boy.

Good boy. Good boy.

Here. Come with me. Come.

Come on.

♪♪

Good boy.

♪♪

Let's go easy, okay?

I haven't done this for years.

Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa!

[Horse neighs]

Easy, now. Easy, boy.

Easy. Easy. Easy. Easy.

Easy. Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Whoa, whoa. Whoa.

[Hooves clicking]

[Horse whinnies]

♪♪

[Smooches] Let's go.

[Hooves clicking]

[Horse whinnies]

-[Growling]

-[Horse whinnies] -Whoa.

-[Horse whinnies] -Steady.

There's just a few. Nothing we can't outrun.

Okay. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

[Crow cawing]

[Helicopter approaching]

-Hyah! -[Horse neighs]

[Walkers groaning]

[Horse whinnying]

[Walkers growling]

[Walkers growling]

[Gasps] Sh...

[Horse whinnying]

[Squishing]

Sh...

♪♪

[Walkers growling]

Oh, God. Oh, God.

♪♪

♪♪

[Walkers growling]

♪♪

Lori, Carl, I'm sorry.

[Hatch thuds]

[Panting]

Oh...God.

[Grunts]

-[Growling]

-[Gasps]

-[Gunshot echoes] -[High-pitched ringing]

[Groans]

♪♪

♪♪

Oh. God.

♪♪

♪♪

[Groans]

♪♪

[Muffled growling]

[Ringing fades]

[Pounding]

[Gun cocking]

[Pounding]

[Radio crackling]

-Man over radio: Hey, you.

Dumbass.

Yeah, you in the tank.

You cozy in there?

♪♪

-♪ Yeah ♪

♪♪

♪ Drifting on the spaceway ♪

♪ By the Betelgeuse Hotel ♪

♪ Mapping out constellations ♪

♪ Of the place I know so well ♪

♪ Sifting through the system ♪

♪ For the piece that knows my name ♪

♪ Endlessly I list them in the master game ♪

♪ Welcome to my world ♪

-♪ Welcome to my world ♪

-♪ Welcome to my only world ♪

-♪ Welcome to my only world ♪

-♪ It is full of space junk ♪

♪♪

♪ But your words are coming through ♪

♪♪

♪ I'm riding on the space junk ♪

♪♪

♪ And it's bringing me to you ♪

♪♪

♪ Bringing me to you ♪

♪♪

-♪ Ooh-ahh ♪

♪♪

[Laughter]

♪♪

-♪ Yeah ♪

♪♪

-♪ Ooh-ahh ♪

♪♪

-♪ Ooh-ahh ♪

♪♪

-♪ Ooh-ahh ♪

♪♪

-♪ Ooh-ahh ♪

♪♪

-Oh, yeah. The sequence that has been reproduced

more times than just about any other.

First, that shot of Rick on the horse

riding down the Interstate

towards an apparently empty Atlanta

with hundreds of abandoned cars on the other side of the median.

And then that last crane shot with one zombie horde

swarming over the tank

and another zombie horde devouring that horse.

Normally I would go to Darcy right now

for the animal-rights issues involved here,

but she's still ensconced in the makeup room,

getting properly zombified by rock-star

special-effects guy Carey Jones.

So can we go to the remote cam? Can I talk to her?

-Yeah, yeah.

-Darcy! I have no mail.

-No, you do have mail.

I loved it in the rooster letter holder thingy.

-Oh. This thing?

Oh, okay. Thanks.

And looking really nasty, by the way.

And, Carey, you can go as nasty as you want.

-We're getting pretty nasty.

-All right. Let me see there.

This letter poured in from...

Brian Cunningham of Louisville, Kentucky.

"Hi, Joe Bob and Austin."

You know -- Austin. Nobody writes to me anymore.

They read to Darcy, they write to Yuki,

now they're writing to you also.

All right.

"This is Brian Cunningham. one of the filmmakers

behind "Loss Prevention,"

which screened at the Jamboree."

"Loss Prevention" is a wonderful

micro-budget feature that premiered at Mutant Fest,

which was part of Joe Bob's Drive-In Jamboree

at the Mahoning Drive-In in Pennsylvania back in July.

So find it. Watch it!

One of the scariest villains

I have ever seen on film in that movie.

"I just wanted to send you both a note

and thank you again for the awesome experience

of showing the movie and everything surrounding it.

I've been making movies for 10 years

and have gone to a lot of festivals,

but none of them have ever made me feel as valued

or as welcomed as you guys did.

And all this while you juggled the impending doom of hurricanes

and floods and technical carnage.

Austin, thank--" -[Laughter]

"Austin, thank you so much for helping me

troubleshoot our technical issues

and taking the time to sit down and check discs

to make sure everything worked.

And thanks for the constant communication

and for helping us figure out travel logistics

to be able to make it.

This is the first time any festival

has put us up in a hotel, and it really meant a lot

and kept us from trying to drive 10 hours

after the longest day in recent memory."

Aren't you a saint, Austin?

Half the letter's about you. Okay.

"Joe Bob, thank you for putting on an event like this

where average unconnected filmmakers

have a shot at getting their work seen.

Thank you for the zero submission fees

so nobody had to break the bank,

and thanks for taking the time to introduce the films

and spend some time talking with the filmmakers.

I grew up watching you on Showtime,

and I am a huge fan of 'The Last Drive-In.'

I love the communal experience of making and watching movies,

and when it comes to celebrating the pure joy of movies

of all shapes and sizes, you're the only game in town,

so thank you for continuing to do what you do.

If you guys ever need a movie to show

or a writer or director for hire,

please let me know if I can help.

After five movies over ten years,

the Jamboree has helped reinvigorate my passion

for an industry that seems tailor-made

to discourage people, and for that,

I am deeply grateful to you and your entire team.

Thank you again. Can't wait for the next one.

Brian. Louisville, Kentucky.

P.S. -- Also, please pass this along to Darcy,

as I don't have her address.

Her kind words about the movie

and her constant support of the community on Twitter

are amazing."

Okay, well, that's what Mutant Fest

is all about -- trying to take these great storytellers

with the tiny budgets out in the Heartland

and give them some exposure.

So thank you, Brian. And all right.

We're gonna show another episode

of "The Walking Dead" after the break.

And, of course, we'll have the big Zombie Darcy reveal.

So stick with us.

And in the meantime, I'm Joe Bob Briggs

reminding you to never ask a barber

if he thinks you need a haircut.

And The Drive-In will never die.

It's a little creepy to think that there are people watching

this who have no idea who we are because it makes --

I've been thinking about it all night.

[Laughing] It makes me realize how strange our show is.

You guys heard the one about the two cannibals

who were eating a clown?

One cannibal says to the other cannibal,

"Does this taste funny to you?"

[Laughter]

Two cannibals sitting by a fire.

The first cannibal says, "I hate my mother-in-law."

Second cannibal says, "So try the potatoes."

[Laughter]

See, that's the difference between us and "Walking Dead."

There is no subtext here.

[ Laughs ] There's no larger context.

You know?

A man gets captured by cannibals.

Every day, they poke him with spears

and use his blood to wash down their food.

So, finally, the guy calls the chief over, and he says,

"You know, you can kill me and you can eat me,

but I'm tired of getting stuck for drinks."

[Laughter]

♪♪