The Walking Dead will tone down violence after season 7 backlash

"This is not a show that is torture porn."

The Walking Dead's season 7 premiere was an event. After a huge cliffhanger at the end of season 6 that left people waiting for many months, fans were finally going to find out which main character gets their teeth smashed in by the menacing, bat-wielding Negan. When the premiere finally came around, there was a lot of backlash. Some found the death scenes and the entire episode too grotesque and felt it was done for pure shock value while others enjoyed it due to it being accurate to the comics.

It seems that the backlash was large enough for AMC to take a look at the level of violence coming in future episodes. The producers and writers decided to cut back the violence in favor of keeping some of those fans who threatened to stop watching.

“We were able to look at the feedback on the level of violence,” Hurd said during a panel session at the NATPE conference. “We did tone it down for episodes we were still filming for later on in the season.”

Executive producer Gale Anne Herd went on to talk about just how bad the level of violence will get, and they seem to promise that it won't get that bad ever again.

“This is not a show that is torture porn,” she said. After the response to the finale, she said they gave strong consideration to making sure “we don’t cross that line."

Do you think people are overreacting or was the violence in the season 7 premiere a bit too much? Let us know in the comments below!

[Variety]