Some Scary Horror Stuff for You!

For the season finale of the first “The Walking Dead” anthology series, “Tales of the Walking Dead” delivers an unexpected supernatural haunted house story set amidst the zombie apocalypse. Directed by Deborah Kampmeier (“Clarice”), “La Doña” follows a survivor couple – Eric (Danny Ramirez) and Idalia (Daniella Pineda) – as they make an eerie, candle-lit home their new place of sanctuary away from the undead. With the shambling corpses of the outside-world at bay, the duo must face off against a new set of horrors nestled within their humble abode.

“La Doña,” which translates to “The Lady,” makes use of cultural elements to set the scene for its chilling main location. Candles, crosses, Jesus statues, and other spiritual objects line every nook and cranny of the episode’s setting. Aside from Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam), the world of “The Walking Dead” hasn’t explored many other cultural and religious reactions to the rising of the dead.

This installment doesn’t exactly do a deep exploration on this concept, as the main religious character La Doña Alma (Julie Carmen) meets her end pretty early in the episode. The death of this character leaves her unsettling home available to the intruding survivors. Despite her apparent physical demise, it becomes evidently clear that her spirit remains to torment the survivors.

The main draw of the narrative comes from the slow deterioration of the couple’s mental state in the aftermath of La Doña’s death. As guilt rears its ugly head, the couple begins to hallucinate and question reality. This proves to be even more deadly as blood-thirsty walkers begin to appear as humans, tricking the leads into engaging with the dangerous threat.

After La Doña dies of a heart attack from being startled by Eric, the two distinct ideologies of the couple begin to clash. Eric is relieved and almost grateful that La Doña perished, leaving behind a safe-haven for the long-struggling survivors. Idalia is the opposite, ridden with guilt and uncomfortable taking up residence in the deceased’s home. With La Doña’s candles, artworks, and shrines still displayed just as she left them, Idalia can’t shake the feeling the house’s owner may not truly be gone. As the haunting intensifies, Eric and Idalia begin to face off against not only the exterior horrors around them, but their interior demons as well. Plagued by a particularly brutal approach to survival, Eric begins to feel the weight of the lives he has so savagely taken.

While otherwise tonally off, this installment of “Tales” certainly has a few ghoulish tricks up its sleeve. A scare-sequence involving small, chrome Jesus statues crawling all over one of the survivors is certainly one of the most unsettling/uncanny visuals I have seen in “The Walking Dead” universe. There’s a gag involving a talking parrot that slowly reveals itself to be more and more disturbing. The use of heavy-fog and candle-lit corridors injects an old-school horror vibe to the world of the show. The episode’s final moments showcase an incredibly cool set-piece with a gaggle of walkers, making for the anthology series’ most arresting shots. One particular moment harkens back to Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead, with a wonderfully spectral camera push-on, complete with a rising-from-the-grave zombie sequence.

While all of these elements are effective in their respective moments, the episode as a whole fails to reach a cohesive tone and atmosphere. Some scares such as the ominous parrot and sentient Jesus statue provide genuinely unsettling frights, while appearances of the ghostly La Doña feel as if ripped straight from a B-movie supernatural film. As always, walker makeup designs remain superb, which is the one element that remains consistent throughout every entry into the “TWDU.”

Overall, “Tales of the Walking Dead” was an interesting and respectable experiment. The biggest issue within all of these installments was working with and against the previously established “The Walking Dead” tone. While telling stories underneath the umbrella of an extremely recognizable world and franchise can be an exciting prospect, it also invites extreme comparison with the phenomenal storytelling that has preceded it.