Editorials
Set Report Part 2: ‘The Walking Dead’ Zombies Invade the ATL
It’s time to head down to the smoldering heat of Atlanta, GA with Bloody Disgusting’s Jeff Otto as he reports in with his second of four The Walking Dead set pieces. Airing this October on AMC, the pilot episode was directed by Frank Darabont with six episodes locked for the first season. The Robert Kirkman adaptation follows a group of zombie apocalypse survivors just trying to survive, and find a new place to start over.
PREVIEW | PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4
These days, it’s a pretty rare occurrence to shoot exactly where a script is set. Vancouver doubles for New York. Montreal is London. Louisiana becomes for L.A. So on and so forth. But Georgia has been making headway of late in the motion picture industry, offering a sizable tax break good enough to lure fellow horror productions ZOMBIELAND, THE CRAZIES and QUARANTINE 2. When Darabont, Hurd and AMC started putting together WALKING DEAD, Atlanta was the logical choice.
“Atlanta was just the close city, that’s really all it was,” says Kirkman of the setting for the series. “The opening issue takes place in Cynthiana, KY which is where I went to high school and lived a good portion of my life. At the beginning, they talk about how some of the people in neighboring states would have gone to larger cities so they could fortify them and protect the population. So Atlanta’s only six hours away from where I lived and I figured it would be like New York, Atlanta, Miami, maybe Chicago, they would protect those and kind of funnel people in there.”
“Whenever you’re producing, the best possible scenario is to film it where it’s set,” says Hurd. “And then I also had experience shooting in Atlanta on a Lifetime TV movie, so I already knew the crews here were fabulous.”
On the negative side, the heat index on set during our June visit pushed the temperature to over 100 degrees with humidity. “We just suck it up,” says Hurd.
“You don’t get used to the heat,” Darabont admits as he wipes sweat from his brow. “I’ve never had clothes stick to me like this in my life.”
“It’s becoming a running joke is that people arrive on set ready for the day and then they are battered and beaten up by the weather,” says Lincoln. “It’s kind of the right of passage on this job, but it’s great. It makes it real. There’s a lot of hard-earned sweat on camera. It’s not comfortable and it’s not pleasant, but it’s as you would imagine it would be trying to survive in this world.”
Fortunately, the zombies don’t mind too much and Atlanta’s got plenty of walking dead at the ready, including one of the nation’s largest zombie walks. “I don’t think there’s anywhere in the world where you could find better zombie extras,” says Gale. “They are amazing.”
“The people that are playing the walkers are incredibly committed,” adds Lincoln. “They get in very early and they have long hours. All the sequences that I’ve had to do with the walkers have been amazing. They’re so charged for it.”
The production held an open casting call to locate the best and the brightest local undead. And once the right men, women and whatnot were assembled, they headed to zombie school to prep for production.
“We actually spent three days and auditioned everybody,” says Nicotero of the zombie casting. “It was interesting because I initially thought my experience with zombie movies is you just let them do whatever they want to do. George [Romero] always said, ‘You show 50 people one movement then you have 50 people doing all the same thing.’ So we sort of just lined them up and said, ‘Let’s see what your zombie walk would look like,’ and then they would do it and we would say, ‘Try this or try that.’ You know, sort of fine tuning everybody.”
“You learn what your motivation is,” adds Hurd. “We’re hungry, we want to eat. And the fact that not everything is working quite properly. We talked about the inspiration being not the super fast zombies, but the cemetery zombies in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. They can get up to kind of a jog.”
Both Darabont and Nicotero, who has worked with Romero several times, are zombie purists. In their mind Romero’s zombies are the bible by which all others should be judged. “It’s not that I’m against [fast zombies],” says Nicotero, “it’s just not what I grew up with. It’s interesting too because a couple takes we did where a couple of the zombies kind of broke into a run and after one take Frank’s like, ‘Did they run too fast? They shouldn’t be running. Slow them down.’ This is trying to be creepy and moody and, you know, you’re building up all this kind of scary tension.”
Kirkman promises the show will have some easter eggs for fans of the series paying attention, but you won’t be seeing him amongst the undead any time soon. “I have decided that I do not want to [be a zombie], simply because I don’t like myself,” says Kirman. “It’s a problem I have. I can’t wait to sit down and watch the finished pilot. If I were to walk by on that screen sometime, it would just ruin the whole show for me.”
From what we saw both live on set and in images from the production, the zombies look simply stellar. We’ve seen great work from Nicotero before, but he’s truly outdone himself here, especially considering the time constraints of shooting a television show compared to a feature. When the dead hit your TV on AMC this October, prepare to be disgusted (in a good way).
We’re now officially in the back half of 2026 now that July is here, but what a year it’s been for horror so far. The sequels and reboots are still holding strong at the box office with films like Scream 7 and Scary Movie, but it’s also been a year where new voices are shattering records in unexpected ways.
Markiplier eschewed conventional production and distribution channels with his feature adaptation of Iron Lung, for example. We’re also still in the midst of Backrooms and Obsession-mania, with the former back in theaters with bonus footage and the latter extending its box office reign. Liminal horror has exploded, and low-budget indie horror is seeing just as much, and sometimes even more, success as big studio-backed fare.
All of which to say that 2026 has been a hell of a year so far for the genre, and it’s only getting warmed up. Still on the way are Evil Dead Burn, Insidious: Out of the Further, Resident Evil, Clayface, Whalefall, and Werwulf, just to name a few.
Also catch up with the Best Horror Books and Best Horror Games of the year so far.
Here are the ten best horror movies of the year (so far).
10) Chime
Horror master Kiyoshi Kurosawa is back with one of his most haunting yet, though one that’d likely be higher on this list if it were more accessible. The 45-minute feature was initially produced and distributed as an NFT before receiving a theatrical run earlier this year, with no plans to distribute digitally or on home media. It spins a somewhat cryptic tale, introducing a culinary teacher, Takuji Matsuoka (Mutsuo Yoshioka, Never After Dark), whose classroom becomes disrupted by a strange sound that leads to violence. It’s a quiet but haunting unraveling, one that leaves no aspect of Matsuoka’s life untouched, in true Kiyoshi Kurosawa style. That it defies any easy explanation also ensures Chime embeds itself under your skin.
9) Send Help
Sam Raimi’s splatstick return to form is a delightfully deranged two-hander that doubles as infectious catharsis for anyone who’s ever had a bad boss. Rachel McAdams (Doctor Strange) and Dylan O’Brien (The Maze Runner) face off when their characters are shipwrecked on an island, prompting a bid for survival in more ways than one. While O’Brien often matches her, It’s McAdams who shines as she deftly handles everything that Raimi, working from a script by Damian Shannon & Mark Swift (Freddy vs. Jason), throws at her. Send Help is full of vibrant personality, packed with all of Raimi’s signatures, making for one of the most entertaining films of the year.
8) Mārama
New Zealand filmmaker Taratoa Stappard’s gothic tale begins in familiar fashion, with Mary Stevens (Ariāna Osborne) arriving in Yorkshire upon invitation to learn more about her parents, only to find the remote manor haunted. Just when Stappard’s period horror story feels doomed to succumb to familiar gothic trappings and jump scares, though, its true horror emerges. The more Mary uncovers about her heritage and her Māori culture, the clearer it becomes that this grim home is built on violence and exploitation. Stappard’s vision comes into its own when it leaves behind its gothic influences and embraces its Māori identity; few scenes are as powerful as when Osborne’s Mary performs a haka in response to her vile oppressors, heralding in a righteous bloodbath.
7) Touch Me
Writer/Director Addison Heimann draws from retro Japanese horror, exploitation cinema, and perhaps even hentai for his campy, psychosexual sophomore feature. A toxic friendship plagued by trauma, codependency, and addiction gets tested to the extreme when Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci), a hip-hop-loving, tracksuit-sporting alien, gets between them. Olivia Taylor Dudley and Jordan Gavaris have an easy rapport and play off each other well as directionless, depressed Millennial besties prone to ignoring their problems until they become insurmountable. But it’s Pucci’s inspired, childlike take on the chicken nugget-loving extraterrestrial with tentacled secrets of his own that steals the show. Heimann has a lot on his mind with his sophomore feature and neatly condenses it all into a quirky, eccentric psychosexual camp odyssey that leans heavily into humor.
6) Backrooms
Director Kane Parsons translates the vast liminal labyrinth of his web series to the big screen in his feature debut, one that instills existential dread with its atmospheric horror and narrative. The ‘ 90s-set horror movie introduces a protagonist with a serious chip on his shoulder over life’s many disappointments, who then discovers his furniture store harbors a hidden door that leads to an endless labyrinth. It’s not just the incredible production design that instills a disorienting sense of doom and terror, but the lead characters’ palpable and profound sense of loneliness and isolation. Parsons exudes impressive confidence and control as he methodically entrusts his quiet worldbuilding and talented leads to carry the dramatic weight. While Backrooms does deflate by the film’s cryptic, cliffhanger-y end, it’s arguably the most effective and scariest yet at capturing the uncanny valley of generative AI.
5) Leviticus
Writer/Director Adrian Chiarella uses an It Follows-like supernatural entity that relentlessly stalks its prey as a launchpad to immerse audiences in the horror of constantly living in fear for simply existing. A conversion therapy ritual among a deeply conservative community plunges a pair of erstwhile lovers into a nightmarish bid for survival when it summons a force that takes the shape of those whom the afflicted desires most. Chiarella refines the horror mechanics and metaphor with much sharper precision, ensuring that the scares and emotional gravity of the young couple’s terrifying predicament reach their intended impact. It’s the central layered performances by Joe Bird (Talk to Me) and Stacy Clausen (Thrash) that clinch emotional investment in their heartbreaking plight, ensuring that the social horror cuts deep.
4) Redux Redux
The McManus Brothers, writer/director duo Matthew and Kevin McManus (The Block Island Sound), dials up the intensity of a classic revenge story by setting it within a multiverse, where Irene Kelly (Michaela McManus) seeks to snuff out every single iteration of her daughter’s murderer, Neville (Jeremy Holm). The more she stalks and slays every world’s Neville, the more she risks losing her humanity entirely. Through a narrative foil in Mia (Stella Marcus), Redux Redux smartly bypasses repetition as it explores the moral complexities and vulnerabilities of Irene’s extremely violent quest. Holm becomes utterly terrifying in the climax, ensuring that no matter whether Irene loses herself to vengeance for good or not, it’s justified if it means ridding the world of this sick maniac.
3) 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
Director Nia DaCosta takes the reins in the second entry in writer Alex Garland and original director Danny Boyle’s trilogy, picking up from the previous conclusion that saw Spike (Alfie Williams) fleeing from the infected straight into the welcoming arms of Sir Jimmy Crystal (Sinners’ Jack O’Connell). From here, DaCosta presents a stark contrast between humanity’s best and worst. The former sees the tender studies of Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) make poignant strides toward humankind’s future, while the latter unleashes more pain and bloodshed courtesy of the Jimmies. The dual paths of light and dark collide in one epic conclusion, an inspired confrontation between good and evil on a stunning set piece of heavy metal insanity. Yet it’s DaCosta’s handling of both extremes that impresses most, teeing up one epic conclusion to this trilogy.
2) Obsession
Sketch comedian turned horror filmmaker Curry Barker (Milk & Serial) wrings blood-curdling terror from a classic Monkey’s Paw wish fulfillment scenario in a way that no one could have ever anticipated. To say that it’s taken the box office by storm would be a massive understatement; Obsession is the top horror movie of the year in terms of gross. It’s not hard to see why, either. While Monkey’s Paw scenarios often yield predictable outcomes, and this outcome is practically telegraphed from the start, Barker manages to surprise with the journey itself. And it’s one insane journey paved with blood-soaked violence and no shortage of nightmare fuel. What truly sets it apart, though, is leads Michael Johnston and Inde Navarrette as the central pair undone by one vicious wish. Expect to see a lot more from breakout Navarette.
1) Hokum
A surly, traumatized writer must break free from his self-imposed shackles of guilt when confronted by a wicked witch haunting a quaint Irish inn in the latest by writer/director Damian McCarthy (Oddity). Adam Scott’s Ohm makes for an atypical but rewarding protagonist, and his complicated emotional journey gives way to a deeply moving story of a man so thoroughly broken by personal trauma that he constantly dwells in darkness. In true McCarthy style, expect the creepy as hell witch to dole out some supernatural retribution for crimes committed, but never in the way you’d expect. The filmmaker has a way of making whimsy pure nightmare fuel; Hokum distorts a kids’ show into eerie, uncanny valley-induced terror in its torment of Ohm. Channeling Stephen King, this creeper plays like a traditional campfire tale in mood and style, infusing genuine scares with a sense of magic and heart.
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