10 Terrible CGI Moments That Almost Ruined The Walking Dead

8. Carol's Walker Explosion

The Walking Dead
AMC

The season 5 premiere is arguably one of strongest hours of television TWD has ever produced. Chronicling Rick's group's escape from near-death at the hands of the Terminus cannibals, the action set-pieces are brilliantly choreographed and executed, utilising a surprising amount of practical effects as well as pretty solid CGI to sell the revolt.

However, how strong the rest of the episode is only serves to highlight just how poor one egregious use of CGI is. When Carol is storming the base, she takes aim for a giant barrel and, because The Walking Dead works on the same logic as a video game, starts shooting it to cause a huge explosion.

The blast itself is fine (if a bit B-movie in its execution), but the zombies that fly up alongside it and the highlights of the fire are inexcusable. The violence in the rest of the ep is so grounded and nasty that it works where a lot of shootouts in TWD don't, but this explosion is so over-the-top and out there that the writers had to spend a whole season attempting to bring Carol back down to reality.

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Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.