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Walk celebrates zombie bloodline
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| Walk celebrates zombie bloodline |
By BILL ZIMMERMAN, billz@indianagazette.net
MONROEVILLE - At the Monroeville Mall the term mall walker takes on a whole new meaning.
Sure there are people briskly strolling through the mall's two levels for fitness, but on numerous occasions the halls of the Allegheny County shopping center have been full of a more sinister sort of wanderers - the undead. Or rather people playing undead. They shambled about during the filming of the horror classic ``Dawn of the Dead'' and have turned out in fake blood, makeup and disheveled clothes to mark World Zombie Day.
Screenwriter and director George A. Romero filmed the majority of his follow-up to ``Night of the Living Dead'' inside the mall in late 1976 and early 1977, but in the decades since, the 1.4-million-square-foot space has become hallowed ground to horror fans, and its horror history has been embraced more than ever.
On Oct. 11, more than 1,700 zombie wannabes shuffled about and filled the mall with groans, setting a Guinness World Record for the largest zombie gathering. The previous record of 1,341 was set last year in the mall. Also on Oct. 11, Kevin Kriess officially opened Monroeville Zombies, an extension of his store, Time and Space Toys, devoted to the undead in movies, specifically ``Dawn of the Dead.''
Released in 1978, the movie follows three men and a pregnant woman who take refuge in a shopping mall to escape the zombie scourge. The clever band of survivors is able to fortify the place and live a fairly normal life - at least for a bit.
Things were certainly not normal on World Zombie Day, where wannabe zombies mixed with Sunday shoppers inside and gathered for a Zombie Fest outdoors that included the Zombie Olympics, an ugly pageant and enough fake blood for several ``Dawn'' remakes. After stores closed, zombies lurched through the mall hallways for the record-setting Zombie Walk.
``I celebrate Halloween and anything spooky as much as I can,'' said Melanie Stone, a Zombie Walk participant from Canonsburg, Washington County. ``And I'm a huge horror film fan.''
Stone and her friend Marlynn White, of Houston, Washington County, called Monroeville the zombie capital of the world.
``It's just always fun acting dead. ... Creep people out, getting to wear makeup,'' White said.
Josh Wray, of Monroeville, and his sister Melissa, of DuBois, call themselves zombie nuts - of course, for the shambling kind of Romero's movies rather than the fast-moving variety in some newer horror flicks.
Many of the undead shuffled into Monroeville Zombies where they found ``Dawn'' props such as a leg and hand signed by Romero and special effects artist Tom Savini and a bullet casing along with various promotional materials such as ad sheets and lobby cards.
``They say zombies are like the blue collar monster. ... Our attraction is kind of a blue collar attraction,'' Kriess said. ``It's kind of homemade.''
(Monroeville Zombies is also the name of a fictional hockey team featured in the 2008 comedy ``Zack & Miri Make a Porno,'' another movie filmed in Monroeville. Clothing with the team's logo is available at Time and Space.)
On Oct. 11 Ken Foree, who starred as Peter Washington in ``Dawn of the Dead'' and frequently returns to the Pittsburgh area for horror conventions, became a member of Monroeville Zombies' Maul of Fame, leaving his handprints in blood-red paint on an exhibit wall.
Before making his mark, Foree said, ``It's an honor,'' and recognized the late Duane Jones, an actor who preceded him in ``Night of the Living Dead.''
Much has changed about the mall, which was built in the late '60s, since the ``Dawn'' days; stores and fixtures have come and gone. But it's not unrecognizable from the mall captured on film either. The J.C. Penney that factors prominently into the film is still centrally located, and the marble throughout the building is still preserved.
To offer a better idea of the ``Dawn''-era look, Kriess' zombie exhibit offers a mall map from that time and scale models, which include such bygone attractions as the ice rink - now the food court - and the two-story clock tower that once stood outside his store.
To Kriess, the mall gives horror fans the unique opportunity to visit the set of one of their favorite films, something impossible for devotees of films such as the ``Star Wars'' series.
``Most sets of movies are not there. ... But this is a set that's still here,'' he said. ``The mall is the whole set.''
Kriess, of Zelienople, grew up in Butler, near Evans City, where Romero filmed his 1968 horror classic ``Night of the Living Dead.''
``It made me like, `Wow, Hollywood's like this magic place far away, but there's a movie that's here? Like here, in the middle of nowhere?''' he said.
Romero, a native New Yorker who attended Carnegie Mellon University, called Pittsburgh home for many years. In 1998, he visited Indiana University of Pennsylvania to take part in a panel discussion on horror films. At the time, he expressed frustration with Hollywood, saying, ``It is very hard to find an executive to understand the genre, let alone have passion for it,'' according to a Gazette article. However, in the 2000s, Romero has been quite active, completing three additions to his Dead series: ``Land of the Dead'' (2005), ``Diary of the Dead'' (2007) and the upcoming ``Survival of the Dead.'' Remakes of ``Dawn of the Dead'' and 1985's ``Day of the Dead'' were also made by other filmmakers this decade.
According to Mark Mason, a founder of the firm that once owned and operated the mall, Romero and producer Richard Rubinstein approached his company about using the space for ``Dawn of the Dead.'' Mason, of the Pittsburgh-based Oxford Development Co., said the arrangement was more a favor to his friend Romero than a money-making venture, although the mall did charge a one-time fee and collected small royalties for about 10 years.
``The amounts were not in the big thousands, but I don't remember the number,'' Mason said. ``But they were relatively small. We're not talking about the hundreds of thousands, plus he didn't have any money.''
Mason said crews filmed from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. and caused no disruption to normal operations at the mall. Although he saw great potential in the genre, he said the filming didn't make him a horror fan.
``The credit really goes to George for creating this type of filming and getting the young people on board to appreciate it,'' Mason said. ``I don't think most business people thought a film like this would become a genre film that people would stay with for a long time.''
``Dawn'' has been seen by many as an attack on consumerism, but to Mason that message mattered little to the families that frequented the mall at a time before young people made it a hangout.
``We didn't think it was going to reach the customer base for the mall,'' he said. ``I didn't know if it reached them at all.''
To ``Dawn'' extra Leonard Lies, who gets a machete lodged into his skull and appeared prominently in film posters, the mall is a ``mecca'' for fans. He worked 18 weeks behind the scenes as a grip, and logged 19 seconds in front of the camera. However, those few seconds of footage, recorded while Lies was in his early 20s, were enough to secure his place in horror history.
``It was so much fun,'' he said. ``The energy was really high; everyone bonded. ... I don't remember any negativity at all. It was just a fun ride. Every night there was blood splattering all over the place. We had a crew that was just there to clean up blood.''
His 19 seconds of fame affords him the opportunity to be a guest at a handful of horror conventions each year where he sells autographs, plastic machetes and T-shirts bearing his image from the film. He even once sold ``Machete Zombie'' chocolates.
Lies, of Mount Lebanon, operates his own company, Dream Catchers Films, and runs a Web site (www.machetezombie.com) that includes photos of several ``Machete Zombie'' tattoos that people have shown off at conventions. Lies said horror fanatics are a diverse bunch - some have lots of tattoos and piercings; others have families and well-paying jobs. Some come from out of state or even out of the country to visit the mall. Lies knows some particularly passionate German fans by name.
``I can't imagine devoting that much time to an individual film series, but I understand it,'' he said.
The mall also attracted a few famous fans in 2005, when directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez visited when they were in town for the premiere of Romero's ``Land of the Dead'' in Pittsburgh. That movie was filmed in Toronto, where Romero now lives, but featured shots of downtown Pittsburgh. British actor Simon Pegg, who wrote and starred in 2004 zombie hit ``Shaun of the Dead,'' along with the film's director, Edgar Wright, also visited the mall. They both appeared in ``Land'' as zombies.
On the 25th anniversary of ``Dawn,'' Romero discussed his cult following in a 2003 Associated Press story, saying, ``I really have no clue as to what the head (of a fan) is like. It's rubbing up against something that was pop culture, I guess.''
§
Sure there are people briskly strolling through the mall's two levels for fitness, but on numerous occasions the halls of the Allegheny County shopping center have been full of a more sinister sort of wanderers - the undead. Or rather people playing undead. They shambled about during the filming of the horror classic ``Dawn of the Dead'' and have turned out in fake blood, makeup and disheveled clothes to mark World Zombie Day.
Screenwriter and director George A. Romero filmed the majority of his follow-up to ``Night of the Living Dead'' inside the mall in late 1976 and early 1977, but in the decades since, the 1.4-million-square-foot space has become hallowed ground to horror fans, and its horror history has been embraced more than ever.
On Oct. 11, more than 1,700 zombie wannabes shuffled about and filled the mall with groans, setting a Guinness World Record for the largest zombie gathering. The previous record of 1,341 was set last year in the mall. Also on Oct. 11, Kevin Kriess officially opened Monroeville Zombies, an extension of his store, Time and Space Toys, devoted to the undead in movies, specifically ``Dawn of the Dead.''
Released in 1978, the movie follows three men and a pregnant woman who take refuge in a shopping mall to escape the zombie scourge. The clever band of survivors is able to fortify the place and live a fairly normal life - at least for a bit.
Things were certainly not normal on World Zombie Day, where wannabe zombies mixed with Sunday shoppers inside and gathered for a Zombie Fest outdoors that included the Zombie Olympics, an ugly pageant and enough fake blood for several ``Dawn'' remakes. After stores closed, zombies lurched through the mall hallways for the record-setting Zombie Walk.
``I celebrate Halloween and anything spooky as much as I can,'' said Melanie Stone, a Zombie Walk participant from Canonsburg, Washington County. ``And I'm a huge horror film fan.''
Stone and her friend Marlynn White, of Houston, Washington County, called Monroeville the zombie capital of the world.
``It's just always fun acting dead. ... Creep people out, getting to wear makeup,'' White said.
Josh Wray, of Monroeville, and his sister Melissa, of DuBois, call themselves zombie nuts - of course, for the shambling kind of Romero's movies rather than the fast-moving variety in some newer horror flicks.
``They say zombies are like the blue collar monster. ... Our attraction is kind of a blue collar attraction,'' Kriess said. ``It's kind of homemade.''
(Monroeville Zombies is also the name of a fictional hockey team featured in the 2008 comedy ``Zack & Miri Make a Porno,'' another movie filmed in Monroeville. Clothing with the team's logo is available at Time and Space.)
On Oct. 11 Ken Foree, who starred as Peter Washington in ``Dawn of the Dead'' and frequently returns to the Pittsburgh area for horror conventions, became a member of Monroeville Zombies' Maul of Fame, leaving his handprints in blood-red paint on an exhibit wall.
Before making his mark, Foree said, ``It's an honor,'' and recognized the late Duane Jones, an actor who preceded him in ``Night of the Living Dead.''
Much has changed about the mall, which was built in the late '60s, since the ``Dawn'' days; stores and fixtures have come and gone. But it's not unrecognizable from the mall captured on film either. The J.C. Penney that factors prominently into the film is still centrally located, and the marble throughout the building is still preserved.
To offer a better idea of the ``Dawn''-era look, Kriess' zombie exhibit offers a mall map from that time and scale models, which include such bygone attractions as the ice rink - now the food court - and the two-story clock tower that once stood outside his store.
To Kriess, the mall gives horror fans the unique opportunity to visit the set of one of their favorite films, something impossible for devotees of films such as the ``Star Wars'' series.
``Most sets of movies are not there. ... But this is a set that's still here,'' he said. ``The mall is the whole set.''
Kriess, of Zelienople, grew up in Butler, near Evans City, where Romero filmed his 1968 horror classic ``Night of the Living Dead.''
``It made me like, `Wow, Hollywood's like this magic place far away, but there's a movie that's here? Like here, in the middle of nowhere?''' he said.
Romero, a native New Yorker who attended Carnegie Mellon University, called Pittsburgh home for many years. In 1998, he visited Indiana University of Pennsylvania to take part in a panel discussion on horror films. At the time, he expressed frustration with Hollywood, saying, ``It is very hard to find an executive to understand the genre, let alone have passion for it,'' according to a Gazette article. However, in the 2000s, Romero has been quite active, completing three additions to his Dead series: ``Land of the Dead'' (2005), ``Diary of the Dead'' (2007) and the upcoming ``Survival of the Dead.'' Remakes of ``Dawn of the Dead'' and 1985's ``Day of the Dead'' were also made by other filmmakers this decade.
According to Mark Mason, a founder of the firm that once owned and operated the mall, Romero and producer Richard Rubinstein approached his company about using the space for ``Dawn of the Dead.'' Mason, of the Pittsburgh-based Oxford Development Co., said the arrangement was more a favor to his friend Romero than a money-making venture, although the mall did charge a one-time fee and collected small royalties for about 10 years.
``The amounts were not in the big thousands, but I don't remember the number,'' Mason said. ``But they were relatively small. We're not talking about the hundreds of thousands, plus he didn't have any money.''
Mason said crews filmed from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. and caused no disruption to normal operations at the mall. Although he saw great potential in the genre, he said the filming didn't make him a horror fan.
``The credit really goes to George for creating this type of filming and getting the young people on board to appreciate it,'' Mason said. ``I don't think most business people thought a film like this would become a genre film that people would stay with for a long time.''
``Dawn'' has been seen by many as an attack on consumerism, but to Mason that message mattered little to the families that frequented the mall at a time before young people made it a hangout.
``We didn't think it was going to reach the customer base for the mall,'' he said. ``I didn't know if it reached them at all.''
To ``Dawn'' extra Leonard Lies, who gets a machete lodged into his skull and appeared prominently in film posters, the mall is a ``mecca'' for fans. He worked 18 weeks behind the scenes as a grip, and logged 19 seconds in front of the camera. However, those few seconds of footage, recorded while Lies was in his early 20s, were enough to secure his place in horror history.
``It was so much fun,'' he said. ``The energy was really high; everyone bonded. ... I don't remember any negativity at all. It was just a fun ride. Every night there was blood splattering all over the place. We had a crew that was just there to clean up blood.''
His 19 seconds of fame affords him the opportunity to be a guest at a handful of horror conventions each year where he sells autographs, plastic machetes and T-shirts bearing his image from the film. He even once sold ``Machete Zombie'' chocolates.
Lies, of Mount Lebanon, operates his own company, Dream Catchers Films, and runs a Web site (www.machetezombie.com) that includes photos of several ``Machete Zombie'' tattoos that people have shown off at conventions. Lies said horror fanatics are a diverse bunch - some have lots of tattoos and piercings; others have families and well-paying jobs. Some come from out of state or even out of the country to visit the mall. Lies knows some particularly passionate German fans by name.
``I can't imagine devoting that much time to an individual film series, but I understand it,'' he said.
The mall also attracted a few famous fans in 2005, when directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez visited when they were in town for the premiere of Romero's ``Land of the Dead'' in Pittsburgh. That movie was filmed in Toronto, where Romero now lives, but featured shots of downtown Pittsburgh. British actor Simon Pegg, who wrote and starred in 2004 zombie hit ``Shaun of the Dead,'' along with the film's director, Edgar Wright, also visited the mall. They both appeared in ``Land'' as zombies.
On the 25th anniversary of ``Dawn,'' Romero discussed his cult following in a 2003 Associated Press story, saying, ``I really have no clue as to what the head (of a fan) is like. It's rubbing up against something that was pop culture, I guess.''
§
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