Editorials
Set Report Part 3: ‘The Walking Dead’ Casting and Prepping Production
Our ongoing The Walking Dead set coverage continues this afternoon as Jeff Otto writes in about what it took to get the AMC zombie series off the ground, and how the casting came together. With the trailer premiering yesterday, AMC announced that the live-action adaptation of the popular Robert Kirkman comic series will premiere on Halloween with the Frank Darabont directed pilot clocking in at a feature-length hour and a half!
PREVIEW | PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4
Casting believable undead is an important aspect of any zombie show, but if you don’t have a great hero blowing off their heads, you might just end up routing for the zombies. Kirkman crafted a great protagonist in the venerable Rick Grimes, so finding the right man to breathe life to him on screen would be a challenge to be sure. In the end, it was a Brit who had the goods.
“We never thought we’d find our Rick Grimes in the U.K.,” admits executive producer Gale Anne Hurd. “[Andrew Lincoln] was in the U.K. at the time and he submitted his audition and we were all blown away.”
“I read it and I thought it was well written and I put myself on tape just for one scene,” says Lincoln. “I didn’t know who was involved at this point. Then the following day my agent called me and that’s when I got very excited. It’s kind of like a dream list. Then I filmed myself in my bedroom and then Frank Skyped me that night. So we spoke for about 40 minutes about his ideas for the project, about what I liked about Episode One and then he asked would I fly over to come and test. I flew out a couple of days later and screen tested in his garage. It was brilliant, it was very intimate.”
“The second he opened his mouth and started reading the scene, I knew it was him,” says Jon Bernthal, who plays Grimes’ buddy Shane. “There was no question. I saw Frank and I knew it. He’s the guy. He’s a wonderful actor and he’s going to kill it in this role.”
Bernthal’s Shane is one of the most complex parts of the series. We don’t want to give anything away, but fans of the series will understand when I say that Shane ultimately goes through some rather, ahem, disturbing changes. “When I first read the script,” says Bernthal, “I had no idea about the comic. I responded so organically to the script that I didn’t want to be colored by anything else. When I did read the comic I was shocked. Look, I’m not going to sit here and regret. One of the great things about doing TV versus film is to be surprised yourself, to not let where you’re going color where you are.”
Bernthal read the script amongst a stack of potential television pilots. WALKING DEAD quickly stood out from the rest of the pack. “[It was] pilot season and I read everything that was out there,” says Bernthal. “I still remember the day that I got this script. I told my agent that I’d be thrilled to be an extra in this, it’s so good. It just blew the rest of them right out of the water.”
“I love the way that he feels about Rick,” the actor says of Shane. “I love the friendship there. I love the way he uses this unbelievable dialogue that Frank wrote to be a good friend to Rick and to be by his side. Any time you can have a character that starts in one place and go somewhere completely different, that’s the journey that we’re mostly hungry for.”
Darabont and Hurd were encouraged by the fact that AMC gave WALKING DEAD six episodes to start off rather that just a single pilot. “It’s fantastic,” says Darabont. “These folks committed to production and air and gave us six episodes to prove ourselves. Usually you just get a shot at doing one episode, you shoot the pilot [and] there’s no on-air commitment. At some point they decide whether or not they’re going to air your show or toss it in a dumpster and it’s never heard from again.”
“I’m glad the first season isn’t 13 quite honestly because there’s a learning curve in how to prep for x number of episodes,” says Darabont. “I’m glad we’re getting sort of the half measure to start. I’d be feeling a little overwhelmed. But, you know, if there is a second season, which I believe there will be. I hope I don’t eat shit having said that. I hope I haven’t tempted the fates, but we’ll be on the hook for 13. Now I’ll know really how to get started for that.”
One last part of the puzzle for any good horror show is the right mix of creepy, atmospheric music. DEAD doesn’t disappoint in their choice there either. “Bear McCreary is our composer,” Hurd confirms. “He’s from Battlestar Galactica.”
The show will also mix in some contemporary music, but Hurd promises it won’t be gratuitous. “It’s not going to have a bunch of Linkin Park. No, we are in a post-digital, post-electronic world and when there is music, there’s a reason for it.”
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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