“Dead is in,” proclaims a Halloween poster outside my local thrift store.

Case in point, consider the record ratings for the recent season premier of AMC’s The Walking Dead, which now boasts the largest viewership in the 18–49 age group in the US.

Driving the success of The Walking Dead is a doomsday fascination with zombie apocalypse. In the face of crumbling cities, soaring job loss, decaying social services and ecological destruction, impending doom can seem not only inevitable, but even preferable to the slow death march of late capitalism.