iZombie’s New Take on Walking Dead Still Requires Braaiiins

Bring out your dead! The CW’s upcoming iZombie, based on the DC/Vertigo comic book by Chris Roberson and Michael Allred, offers more laughs than screams in this twist on the popular horror genre. Instead of decaying flesh and rotting teeth, a relatively normal appearance allows undead protagonist Liv (Rose McIver) to successfully integrate into society. (Pale skin and white hair are the only hints at her affliction.) But in the show’s third episode, she encounters a friend and former coworker who has made the transformation into a full Walking Dead-like walker. “Actually, we call them Romeros,” exec producer Diane Ruggiero-Wright says, referring to legendary horror director George Romero. “Liv, who smartly works at the morgue, gets to eat as many brains as she can to keep functioning. [Romeros are] what happen when you don’t have that access.”

iZombie exists in a universe where movies like Romero’s and series like The Walking Dead are wildly popular and are used by Liv as research tools, leading to humorous instances of self-awareness. “There’s a lot of fun in that for us,” Ruggiero-Wright says. “We’re happy to have these moments within our show that are more traditional zombie moments, but we’re not trying to dive into that pool, so we have a different spin.”

Premieres Tuesday, March 17, 9/8c, The CW