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'Fear The Walking Dead' trailer plays on real Los Angeles fears
(L-R) Executive producer/writer Dave Erickson, executive producer/director Adam Davidson, executive producer Dave Alpert, and actors Kim Dickens, Cliff Curtis, Frank Dillane, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Mercedes Mason, and Lorenzo James Henrie speak onstage during the 'Fear the Walking Dead' panel discussion at the AMC/IFC Networks portion of the 2015 Summer TCA Tour at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on July 31, 2015 in Beverly Hills.
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Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
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AMC's "The Walking Dead" has spent five seasons making everyone who watches increasingly anxious as everyone turns against each other and somehow everything gets worse. Now, Angelenos will have the chance to get even more anxiety-ridden!
The new spinoff "Fear the Walking Dead" offers a dystopian take on L.A.'s future, offering a look at what happened before zombies — excuse me, fans of the show, I mean "walkers" — took over the world and everyone's friends started being eaten and the CDC got blown up. (Sorry, season 1 spoiler.)
The show left the backstory to the zombie takeover mostly a mystery. Now they're returning to Southern California to tell the tale of the early days of the nation's zombie-like influenza.
Uh oh. Should we start eyeing pasty Angelenos a little more suspiciously?
In the latest trailer, L.A.'s accelerated downfall is shown: the power grid going down, fires burn across the city, gunshots are fired and police vehicles dart back and forth on land and in the skies. So, a slightly worse-than-average L.A. day. (At least there aren't any earthquakes.)
The show is fantasy, but it does play on some of Southern California's historical phobias — crime, power outages, riots and more. And based on early trailers, it sounds like the virus that leads to zombies taking over starts with what looks like a mutated flu-like virus. If only they'd had their shots.
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So add vaccine avoidance and a metastasizing "walker" invasion to SoCal's cinematic woes — along with heat, riots, gangs, alien invasion and shark-infested tornado.
Fear The Walking Dead teaser trailer
What are your favorite on-screen depictions of Southern California in apocalypse times? (Don't see your pick on the list? You can add it by clicking the "+" icon at bottom.)
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See the extended "Fear the Walking Dead" trailer which debuted at this year's San Diego Comic-Con:
Full Fear The Walking Dead trailer
"Fear The Walking Dead" debuts on AMC on Aug. 23.
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