OK, the beta version of the Zombie Claus site has been launched. Those of you who haven’t already contacted me and asked to be added to the official Zombie Claus mailing list can do so there… As you know, the attack is set to take place a week from Friday, somewhere in the Ann Arbor / Ypsilanti area. So far, I have a videographer, a photographer, and a makeup artist signed up to help. I’ve also been told that there’s a bar owner somewhere that has offered to make her establishment available to us beforehand to apply our makeup and practice our zombie walks. I’m still looking for a zombie choreographer though, so if you know of someone, please feel free to pass along my email address… And more zombies are always welcome.
I’m watching Dawn of the Dead right now, as I type this. Linette just popped her head into the room to ask if I’d perfected my “signature zombie walk” yet. (Last night was the finale of America’s Next Top Model, so we’ve got things like “signature walks” on our minds.) My friend Brett told me that George Romero, when directing Dawn of the Dead, told every actor portraying a zombie to create back-stories for their characters that included the circumstances under which they had died. His suggestion was then to build your zombie’s character, including the walk, from there. For instance, if you became a zombie after being attacked (by zombies) while jogging, and if, during the attack, one of the zombies consumed your entire calf muscle, then you might (as a zombie) be wearing a headband and a shredded track suit, and dragging one leg behind you. As of right now, my intention is to go as a bell-ringing store Santa that had been partially consumed by his attackers. I’m still not sure how that would be reflected in my walk though. I’ll have to give that some thought.
(The rest of the entries to the Zombie Claus logo contest are in this post. The top one comes from a fellow named Brian Hunter, and the bottom one comes from fellow obsessive, Kez Panel. A few others submitted, but then withdrew their submissions once they saw how good the first few were… As I don’t think there’s a clear winner, I’m going to use several of them over the course of the next week in promoting the event, and I’d like to ask that you do the same. If you have a website, and if you’d like to help promote the Zombie Claus movement, just pick whichever logo you like best and link it to the ZC site.)
OK, I’ve given my signature walk some more thought and I think I’m going to model it after… (warning: this reference is going to be pretty obscure)… the walk of Timothy Carey as the paraplegic horse sniper in Stanley Kubrick’s 1956 film, The Killing. (If you’ve never seen the film, it’s worth it for just the few short minutes that Carey’s on screen.)
Stay tuned for more details… And, for God’s sake, warn your friends.
3 Comments
Cyndy says that there is a Santa at Sam’s Club that looks suspiciously zombie-like. So watch yourselves out there. Or maybe I should say, let’s do it to them before they do it to us.
My guess is that the Santa at Sam’s Club is an illegal allien that they’re paying four dollars an hour.
He probably looks “zombie-like” because they don’t allow him time to eat.
If you look closely, I think you’ll find that he’s shackled to the building.
Do you mean alien as in from some other country, or some other planet? And I didn’t know they paid that much; I might try to get a job there too.