"The Walking Dead" director Greg Nicotero revealed the unprecedented number of walkers that will appear in season six's midseason premiere, why the episode will feel like "Night of the Living Dead" and more during an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

"The first half of the season we introduced the quarry and the fact that the walkers had escaped from the quarry, and then we followed our group through all the trials and tribulations of trying to get back to Alexandria, protect Alexandria, and protect each other," he explained. "And episode 9, basically, takes all of these various storylines and slams everything together in an epic man against the undead battle that is unprecedented in the history of 'The Walking Dead.'"

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"The record that we had established in episode 1 of season 6 will already be broken in this episode in regards to the number of walkers and the number of kills," he revealed. "It's the action movie version of 'The Walking Dead.'"

"With reshoots and with additional photography and things, I think we were over 1,300 walkers for episode," he added.

He also discussed the timing of the episode, as it takes place at night. "When you spend eight episodes of the show seeing the walkers advancing on Alexandria in broad daylight, I felt that it was very important to introduce a bit of the genre element of the spooky, nighttime, boogeyman-coming-out-of-the-dark, 'Night of the Living Dead' sort of vibe and feeling," he said. "Even when they were pitching the episode, I had said, 'Listen, we really need to try to make this episode at night because it will give the show a different look.' I didn't want it to feel like, 'Oh, here's another scene with a bunch of walkers in broad daylight in the sun.'"

Based on the Image Comics series of the same name and created by Robert Kirkman, "The Walking Dead" will return Sunday, February 14 at 9 pm EST on AMC.