After 16 Years, The Walking Dead Proves The 'Zombie Guts' Trick Was Always Unnecessary

Published Sep 14, 2026, 3:31 PM EDT Kyle is a senior writer at ScreenRant and has been part of the team for over two years. Having led coverage on The Walking Dead projects alongside Rick & Morty, Kyle is well versed in numerous genres. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Kyle is a passionate journalist who has a keen interest in TV and film. He has six years of experience studying journalism including a HND in Practical Journalism and a BA Honours in Journalism, Media and Communication and History. Alongside his love for TV and film, Kyle enjoys video games, football and Formula 1. Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for The Walking Dead: Dead City season 3's finale.Despite all the great zombie projects that came before it, The Walking Dead really helped reignite the popularity of these monsters and redefined the genre, prioritizing drama over horror and comedy. It focused largely on the survivors and the panic of living in this new world, reusing some old zombie tropes while inventing new ones. As a result, The Walking Dead was able to popularize its zombie guts trick, which involved survivors mutilating walkers before covering themselves in guts and blood to mask their scent. This allowed them to navigate through hordes of the undead undetected by mimicking their slow movements and staying quiet. The idea felt like some truly genius innovation at the time, as it created some gripping tension, knowing one wrong move could cause chaos. "No Way Out" showed the harsh realities of this tactic, as a child named Sam couldn't hold his nerve and was eventually bitten, resulting in all hell breaking loose, including Carl Grimes losing an eye. Having witnessed this survival method work so often, it was a true shock to see things go so brutally wrong, but these high stakes are why there are few apocalyptic shows better than The Walking Dead, even after all these years. However, despite how often the guts trick has saved our heroes, it turns out the whole thing was never necessary. Maggie and Negan's Dead City spinoff has continued to breathe new life into the franchise, including the introduction of The Walking Dead's alternate timeline. This wasn't season 3's only big reveal though, as Negan's role in season 3's finale showed that covering yourself in guts isn't the only way to sneak through a horde in this fictional universe. Turns Out Rick & The Others Never Needed To Cover Themselves In Zombie Guts After All Looking back at all the times Rick and the others covered themselves in guts to survive makes it feel all the more impressive that so many have lasted this long, especially since they found few alternatives, unlike Negan. It may not be more practical, but Negan managed to travel through a horde by crawling with the corpse of a walker on his back. Undoubtedly, this method took a lot of energy and was still extremely risky, but it proves there are other ways of passing through high numbers of zombies without the group's more extreme method. Cutting up these walkers would've certainly been exhausting, and this approach is also way more likely to lead to infection. The tainted blood could easily go somewhere it isn't supposed to and cause a serious illness, if not death, which is much more avoidable by just using an actual corpse to blend in with. Therefore, despite all Rick and Negan's differences in The Walking Dead, they could've learned from each other, since both are clearly exceptional survivors with creative minds. The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 4 is the only confirmed televised project still to be released in AMC's Walking Dead universe. The show is set to premiere in 2027. Together, they could've found an even more efficient method than the guts trick or crawling with a corpse — one that involved less risk. As it stands, there still isn't a foolproof plan to deal with such a big group of the undead, but all these years of survivors throwing blood over themselves could have been avoided. It's nice to see that even after 16 years, The Walking Dead is still introducing new ideas when it comes to dealing with the apocalypse, but Negan's new technique is a long time coming, since the zombie guts trick has lost some of its initial mystique. The Walking Dead Has Been Walking Back The 'Zombie Guts' Trick For Years Image via MovieStillsDB The Walking Dead's first season had a lot of standout features that have been lost over the years, such as the intelligence of zombies, their movement speed, and the guts trick itself. During the early days, survivors were forced to completely cover themselves with the blood of walkers, and even then, the undead sniffed around them curiously. As time went on, that all seemed to change, as masking their scent didn't require nearly as much gore. Obviously, our main heroes adjusted to these discomforts over time, but it also seems like they learned only a little bit of blood and guts was needed for this trick to work, which actually makes sense. People would naturally be cautious about trying this early on, especially when zombies were faster and more intimidating. However, throughout the years, our survivors have gradually become more confident about dealing with them, making it no surprise they'd risk having less mess on their clothes. The Whisperers' arrival showed that this whole process is entirely avoidable by simply wearing a mask made from the skin of walkers, which also helps blend in. Likewise, Michonne used to drag mutilated walkers with her, which also gave her some protection from hordes, proving the franchise has been backtracking for years. There is no denying The Walking Dead's original zombie guts trick was a smart survival tactic that was also incredible to watch from a viewer's perspective. That said, characters were always going to adapt to this new world, hence why the series has walked back on how much blood is needed, while also offering alternative solutions to dealing with hordes. The Walking Dead: Dead City 8/10 Release Date June 15, 2023 Network AMC Maggie Rhee and Negan travel into post-apocalyptic Manhattan, a city isolated from the mainland and overrun by walkers and competing factions. Forced into an uneasy partnership, they pursue a dangerous mission tied to Maggie’s past. Created by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, Charlie Adlard First TV Show The Walking Dead Latest TV Show The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Upcoming TV Shows More Tales from the Walking Dead Universe First Episode Air Date October 31, 2010 Cast Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Danai Gurira, Lauren Cohan, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Chandler Riggs, Steven Yeun, Lennie James The Walking Dead is a massive multimedia franchise that began with a comic book series created by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard. The franchise gained widespread popularity with the launch of the television series The Walking Dead in 2010 on AMC, which chronicles the lives of survivors in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by zombies, referred to as "walkers." The success of the original show has led to numerous spin-offs, web series, video games, novels, and other media. The franchise explores themes of survival, human nature, and the breakdown of society in the face of an existential threat, making it one of the most successful and influential horror series of the 21st century.