Zombies are popular these days. Well, no, they aren't - it's hard to find a story wherein a voodoo practitioner drugs a person into passive servitude, but stories about undead, plague-carrying shamblers are common! Just as modern werewolves owe everything to the 1941 movie The Wolfman, modern zombies owe their entire existence to Night of the Living Dead, a film which never even uttered the Z-word. So, back to the story at hand, The Walking Dead is a series about the horrible parts of human nature, and our savage, inhumane tendencies toward one another. Also, it has Romero zombies. McFarlane Toys has been producing pseudo-LEGO playsets based on thi series for about a year now, and I've periodically reviewed a few of them. Well, today we've got two more! They're tiny, and not too expensive, retailing for between $15-$20, depending on where you find them,
The Zombie Barricades are the least playset-esque of the various sets, being essentially being an add-on accessory for the "outdoor" sets, like the prison tower or the RV. It consists of a buunch of log segments, a bunch of sharpened stakes, and three unique zombies.
The logs can be arranged to form two fairly large barricades, or one barricade, or even a bunch of single-segment spike traps - some of the stakes are bloodstained whereas some are not, and they come in several different lengths, but if you pay attention you can keep them consistent.
The barricades also come with three zombies. Although one is "normal" (albeit extremely decayed), the other two have huge torso holes, designed so they can be impaled on the spikes. You'll note that both zombies are bent as if impaled in a certain direction, but both poses can work.
It's somewhat amusing how they are also designed to stand on their own two feet (with thoe foot-brackets common in this line), considering how they clearly aren't meant to just stand around.
What more is there to say about the barricades? They're extremely straightforward, and a lot smaller than the package makes them seem. Don't think of them as a full set, but they are a decent add-on.
And then we have my room. Ha ha, just kidding! My room is messier than that. Anyway, on the opposite end of the spectrum from the barricades - and also about as inexpensive as a prison cell - is the hospital diorama. This reproduces one specific scene from the first episode, namely when Rick wakes up from his coma to fint aht the world has... changed.
As is obvious, it comes with only Rick - no zombies. But then, there weren't any directly in the scene, with the exception of whatever unseen horrors lurked behind the "DEAD INSIDE" doors - wnd this set does come with a piece covered in zombie hands, though it can be tricky to set up with the doors. You kind of snap it into place in the doorjamb, let it bow from thestress (it's a tiny bit taller than the entrance), and situate the doors around it. If you do it right, you can fit in the chains and wooden bar in the handles, and it'll stay snug and secure. It just takes some fiddling to get it right. And of course, if you don't want to use the hands, those doors are perfectly functional on their own.
The set also has customizable debris piles - the gray piles fit onto several pegs on the floor, whereas the brown one is loose, but they look good pretty much however you arrange them. Rick can also make use of the floor pegs, as well. The wires hanging from the ceiling are also pseudo-customizable, as the included ceiling tiles do have room for them both.
As for Rick himself, he's specific to the hospital scene, wrapped in a gown and bandages. It's pretty much the figure you would expect for this scene. It looks good, but it can pretty much only be used here - though hilariously, he could almost stand in for a zombie if you felt like it.
The Hospital is one of the most detailed sets McFarlane has produced, and unlike the Boiler Room, it actually has floor space. It's a really good addition to this line, and though the doors and hands make it pretty zombie-specific, they an be customized without much difficulty.