The Walking Dead – Seven More Awesome Zombie Tributes
One of the hardest to spot zombie tributes in the show’s history is also one of the coolest, and it proves that Nicotero has a whole lot of love for more recent zombie flicks. In the twelfth episode of Season 5, when the group arrives at Alexandria, Sasha shoots and quickly kills a walker; and if you freeze-frame at just the right time, you’ll notice he’s wearing a shirt that reads “I Got Wood.” Yup, that is indeed a loving homage to zombified Ed from 2004 horror-comedy Shaun of the Dead!
A good portion of Nicotero’s zombie tributes are ripped straight out of George A. Romero’s films, as again Nicotero got his start working alongside the creator of the modern day zombie, and the Season 5 finale featured the most recent Romero homage. In Dawn of the Dead, Tom Savini memorably sticks a machete into the head of a zombie – commonly referred to by fans as Machete Zombie – and “The Walking Dead” saw a walker suffer the same fate. The EXACT same fate.
We’re currently in midst of Season 6 of “The Walking Dead,” and the fifth episode featured a memorable sequence wherein Maggie and Aaron traversed the sewers underneath Alexandria, looking to escape. Down in the sewer they encountered a slimy walker that looked a whole lot like Return of the Living Dead‘s lovable Tarman, and Nicotero himself noted that the reveal of that walker was also a tribute to Ridley Scott’s Alien. That’s what we call two birds with one stone!
We round out this updated list with a walker seen on the sixth episode of Season 6, brought to life (or is it death?) through a wonderful mix of practical effects and CGI. The moss-covered zombie, which terrorized Daryl Dixon, was one of the most rotten we’ve seen to date, its skeleton completely exposed. As Nicotero noted on his Instagram account, the walker was a tribute to Bernie Wrightson, the legendary artist who is perhaps most known for co-creating Swamp Thing.
What zombies will Greg Nicotero pay tribute to next? We’ll be sure to keep you updated as we spot more!
