The Gnarliest Walkers On The Walking Dead – Looper

Regular old walkers can be gruesome enough. But put them in water, and it turns out they get downright disgusting, as Rick and his crew learn when they encounter a walker stuck in a well on Hershel’s farm (“Cherokee Rose”). Before the fallen walker can contaminate their drinking water, the Greenes decide to work with Rick’s group to remove it from the well. Unfortunately, their plan is fairly ill-advised, things take a turn for the worse almost immediately.

After an indeterminate amount of time in the water, the walker has become horrifically bloated. Although the group rather effectively uses Glenn to lasso the walker, their efforts to pull him out backfire when the cartoonishly inflated corpse splits apart, with its lower half falling into and ultimately contaminating the water. The special effects crew teamed up with KNB EFX Group to create the super-bloated zombie, and after researching cadavers, they wanted to recreate the way liquid soaks into the skin until it swells up so much it splits.

To reproduce the gruesome effect, they sculpted a multi-layered head and body cast using foam and silicone with bladders filled with viscous fluid nestled between them. The finished costume weighed in around a whopping 60 pounds, and a mask from the 2007 film “Grindhouse” was recycled to complete the look. The body was rigged to release plenty of goo at just the right moment, and a second suit was used to create the splitting effect.