4 Years Later, TWD's 'Spider Zombie' is Still Creeping Fans Out

From the very first episode, The Walking Dead set a new standard in the way we see zombies. One of the first walkers ever encountered by Rick Grimes was a horrifying half-corpse, later nicknamed Bicycle Girl. Her crawl is still one of the most blood-curdling scenes for many fans who took to Reddit to discuss The Walking Dead creepiest walkers.

Fans noted that while the first episodes were shocking, with time viewers got used to the concept of walkers, and the flesh-eating corpses no longer seem that scary. So the writers of the series often had to get creative with walkers to make sure they were as hair-raising as possible.

In addition to Bicycle Girl, fans remembered Barnacle-Covered Walkers, Mud Walker, Swamp Walker, Water Well Walker, Prison Guard Walker, and other spine-chilling zombies. But there was one walker particularly scary to everyone suffering from arachnophobia.

"This was the first moment on this show that made me scared," one of the commenters shared.

In the season 9 premiere, the characters go to DC, where they search an abandoned art museum. In the basement, the group encounters a nightmarish walker covered in spiders. Spiders come out of the zombie's nose, empty eye sockets, and mouth. Characters even see a huge mama spider crawling out of the walker's mouth, which naturally creeps them and all the viewers out.

"Siddiq being horrified of spiders and not the zombie is an accurate reflection of what I'd be like," a fan commented.

Many fans noted that they'd never seen a zombie full of spiders before. The episode director Greg Nicotero told Screen Rant that the walker was his homage to Deadly Blessing, where Sharon Stone's character eats a giant spider.

The spiders on the walker were CGI. As some fans noted, the visual effects in this episode were noticeably subpar. The director said that his first intention was to create some crazy device and use real spiders, but that would be too expensive, so he had to put up with CGI. But even digital spiders made viewers' blood run cold

"I actually thought these spiders were real till Greg said it was all CGI," one viewer admitted.