How Does the Guts Technique Work on The Walking Dead? The 1 Gross Way to Fend Off Zombies, Explained

The rules on The Walking Dead are simple: don't get bit by a walker, don't draw walkers in with noise, and remember to kill walkers through the head. While slower than humans, walkers are triggered by noise and the smell of humans. When many walkers get together to attack their prey, a herd is nearly impossible to escape. But over time, characters in the 11-season AMC found loopholes to survive alongside the undead creatures.

Some of these techniques were pretty standard, like ensuring a recently deceased person's brain is punctured to avoid turning into a walker. In Season 3, Rick and his crew discovered by sheer luck that amputating a limb within moments of being bitten saves the victim. Fear the Walking Dead later found a temporary "cure" for the Wildfire Virus using radiation, but its credibility in the canon is deserving of being questioned. Before all these revelations, though, survivors had to get their hands dirty to avoid being detected by walkers in the first place, using something unofficially called the "guts technique."

Why Do Survivors Cover Themselves In Walker Guts on The Walking Dead?

Camouflaging as the Dead, Explained

The technique was chronologically first discovered by Nicholas "Nick" Clark in Fear the Walking Dead Season 2, Episode 3, "Ouroboros." Nick realized that by covering himself in the blood of walkers, he could disguise himself among the dead. As long as he "acts" like a walker by moving slowly and not speaking, he can pass by them easily because they can't smell that he's alive. Within the first three years of the apocalypse, a woman named Hera also began camouflaging herself with walkers, though she wore their skin as protection. She would go on to be the leader of the Whisperers until Alpha took over.

In order of release dates, the first instance of this camouflaging tactic was written in Issue 4 of The Walking Dead comics and later adapted in Season 1, Episode 2, "Guts." When the group of survivors got trapped in a department store in Atlanta, they butchered a walker (whom Rick honored by promising to remember his sacrifice) and smeared his guts and organs on Rick and Glenn so they can walk through a herd of walkers on the street. This technique would be the go-to for survivors on the main series for several seasons.

There are other ways characters have masked their "living smell" in the television shows and comics. Michonne chained up two pet walkers that were missing arms and jaws, keeping them with her to draw off other walkers in areas. Daryl and T-Dog bury themselves under corpses in the Season 2 premiere when a herd passes through. When Morgan's shoulder wound turned gangrenous on Fear the Walking Dead, the rotting smell made walkers ignore him. In a unique situation, Dead City's Bruegel would pour fresh blood and meat on walkers to disguise them as living people so walkers would fight each other.

Why Don't the Survivors Use the Guts Technique More?

Risk of Infection Still Poses a Problem on The Walking Dead

Using walker guts and blood has proven to be effective for days, as with Connie when she was trapped by a herd for a long period of time. Given how well it works in protecting survivors in dire situations where it would be nearly impossible to avoid walkers, why don't they use it more often? There are several times on The Walking Dead when Rick finds himself cornered, yet he chooses to fight his way out or use another means to escape. In fact, Rick only uses the guts technique twice on the show, in "Guts" and Season 6, Episode 9, "No Way Out."

Smearing walker blood and guts on one's body poses several potential risks. As the infection is spread via bites and scratches, contact between a walker's blood and a human's blood could be fatal. Rick's group takes precautions by covering the blood and guts on bed sheets or ponchos over their own clothes. It's assumed that getting walker blood in the eyes or mouth could lead to death, though it's never been proven. In Season 8 of The Walking Dead, Gabriel was blinded in one eye after using the guts technique, which probably led to influenza or cryptococcosis.

Infections aside, using walker guts as camouflage also isn't a permanent solution. In the second episode of TWD, Rick and Glenn were exposed to walkers when the rain washed the blood off of them. Additionally, if a person doesn't remain calm while blending in with walkers (seen with Jessie's son, Sam, in "No Way Out"), then it ends up drawing attention back to the humans. It's also considered a volatile act that strips the survivor of their humanity. Becoming one with the dead for an extended period of time has a disturbing impact on a survivor's psyche that's already undergoing major trauma from the apocalypse to begin with. No matter how many times it works, the guts trick is a last-minute resort, but it's always good to have as a back-up plan.