Syfy’s Day of the Dead Gives SDCC 2021 a First Look at Zombie Tale

Even probably the most diehard horror fan may be forgiven for forgetting (or not even realizing in any respect) that George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead is changing into a TV present. It was first introduced in February 2020 and, effectively… a lot has occurred since then. But immediately’s San Diego Comic-Con @ Home panel, that includes the primary trailer from the Syfy collection, aimed to deliver the brand new tackle the zombie basic into the highlight.

Right off the bat, the title of the panel—“Day of the Dead: Adapting a Legend”—signaled that each one concerned realized they had been working with a beloved style property, adapting the third movie in Romero’s esteemed trilogy that additionally consists of Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. Back when the present was introduced, Deadline reported it might observe “the intense story of six strangers trying to survive the first 24 hours of an undead invasion,” a logline that recommended it might not be taking story inspiration from Romero’s 1985 movie (which is ready on a navy base amid the chaos of an ongoing zombie outbreak).

That’s mainly all that was identified in regards to the collection, aside from the casting, till immediately’s panel—which featured showrunners Jed Elinoff and Scott Thomas, director Steven Kostanski (The Void), and solid members Keenan Tracey and Natalie Malaika. The panel featured a sneak peek on the present (watch it beginning at 1:55 beneath) that exposed this Day of the Dead— a contemporary story that takes place inside a single day in a single small city—wailing have a bit extra comedy than we anticipated.

“Night of the Living Dead was in ‘68, and we’re still, every time zombies come up, we talk about Romero,” Thomas mentioned of the present’s inspiration. “He established what we know as the modern zombie now in Night of the Living Dead, and then Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead and everything else. And he did it in a way that also added social commentary, it spoke to the times that these movies were made—you know, they’re classics … every single zombie movie or TV show or graphic novel owes Romero for his legacy.” When given the chance to create a brand new story in Romero’s world, Elinoff mentioned, they felt two issues: “Immense excitement … and a sense of responsibility, because we’re taking on somebody’s legacy and here’s a chance to do something really special, and you don’t want to screw it up.”

The present goals to strike a stability between paying homage to Romero and the unique Day of the Dead film and its characters (there shall be Easter eggs sprinkled all through the collection) whereas bringing a contemporary perspective to the fabric—no small feat contemplating what number of zombie-themed tasks we’ve seen through the years. “I’m a huge horror fan,” Thomas mentioned. “And I think we kind of took inspiration from a lot of moments in zombie history to go, how do we sort of present a zombie that maybe isn’t on TV right now? We made a decision to go with slow zombies … and we also wanted to go, this is not necessarily an outbreak that turns everyone into zombies; this is the dead coming back to life. So what is happening here is the dead crawling out of graves. In a morgue, the dead coming back … this really is the dead rising up on their feet and then coming to eat everyone.”

Day of the Dead additionally tweaks a number of the established zombie “rules”—for occasion, photographs within the head (a go-to since Night of the Living Dead) received’t kill them simply, and zombie bites may not have the identical infectious high quality that we’re used to seeing. “The thing you have to worry about is: these are animals that want to kill you,” Thomas defined. “For me, that’s the thing that’s scary about zombies … that they want to rip you to shreds.” And it appears like there’ll be no scarcity of that; because the SDCC panel gleefully mentioned, you possibly can count on to see blood and gore galore—together with numerous sensible results—when the present arrives later this 12 months.

Day of the Dead, which can run 10 episodes, arrives this October on Syfy.

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