The Walking Dead Delivers Creepy, Classic Horror Feel in Season 10

Following Season 9’s introduction of the walker skin-wearing Whisperers, commanded by Samantha Morton‘s scary new villain Alpha, The Walking Dead Season 10 will play up a “classic horror feel.”

“We have some really good, just classic horror feel to some of these episodes,” showrunner Angela Kang told Skybound during TWD‘s Season 10 premiere in Hollywood. “I’m such a fan of that genre, and sometimes the show is very actiony, or sometimes it’s more beautiful character stories, but I still love those just good, creepy, suspenseful scares. We’ve got a lot of that this season, it’s great.”

The Season 10 trailer was first to tease a horror movie vibe when it revealed Carol (Melissa McBride) is haunted by horrific visions of murdered son Henry (Matt Lintz) alongside other doomed figures from her past. A common theme this season is fear, mostly stemming from the presence of the ever vigilant Whisperers.

“This season is about fear, and what that fear looks and feels like,” Siddiq star Avi Nash said in a sneak peek released ahead of Season 10. “[The Whisperers] are the terrorists of the apocalypse.”

Also promising a “creepy” season is longtime Daryl Dixon star Norman Reedus, who warns the survivors will have to overcome the mounting paranoia infecting their communities.

“It’s different. There’s a whole theme of paranoia this year, because you don’t know who’s who,” Reedus told Entertainment Tonight during San Diego Comic-Con in July. “It’s starting to cause a rift within the groups in who you can trust, there’s spies, it’s a whole creepy way of doing things this year.”

Added Judith Grimes star Cailey Fleming, “The Whisperers are a really different threat. They’re really scary, and you can’t tell if they’re a walker or a Whisperer.”

It is now Spring, a few months after the end of Season 9, when our group of survivors dared to cross into Whisperer territory during the harsh winter. The collected communities are still dealing with the effects of Alpha’s horrific display of power, reluctantly respecting the new borderlines being imposed on them, all while organizing themselves into a militia-style fighting force, preparing for a battle that may be unavoidable. But the Whisperers are a threat unlike any they have ever faced. Backed by a massive horde of the dead, the Whisperers are seemingly a fight the survivors cannot win. The question of what to do and the fear it breeds will infect the communities and give rise to paranoia, propaganda, secret agendas, and infighting that will test them as individuals and as a society. The very idea of whether civilization can survive in a world filled with the dead hangs in the balance.

The Walking Dead Season 10 premieres Sunday, Oct. 6 at 9/8c on AMC. For more TWD intel, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.