Vancouver Zombie Walk 2007

Well I experienced my first Zombie Walk and it was a blast: It has been a long time since I laughed that hard and walked for so long... I have blisters on my rotting feet and aching muscles from the undead gait I willfully subjected myself to for two hours.

I attended the 2007 Vancouver Zombie with a good friend of mine who also experienced his first Zombie Walk and had just as much fun as I did. All my other (so called) friends and acquaintances apparently had "more important" things to do... Sheeesh! This is the Zombie Walk for groaning out loud!

Anyway, I only found out about this event 4 days prior to it thanks to an email I received via vancouverhalloween.com and after doing a little online research I was totally hooked, especially after watching a few YouTube videos about it. So in an undead frenzy I whipped up a web page about the Zombie Walk and jumped right into the community. I found MySpace and FaceBook pages, a Wikipedia entry, blogs, and even an official forum at zombiewalk.com. Did I say I was hooked?

Now for those of you who don't know me, I am always on the look out for a masquerade and the Vancouver Zombie Walk provided a perfect excuse to costume up. So in the days leading up to the walk, I bought some used clothing at Value Village and a few make-up effects at Thomas FX. I also have a well stocked make-up kit and Tickle Trunk so I was ready to transform myself into a zombie. (See my zombie photos here http://www.vancouverhalloween.com/vh_ZombieWalk.html )

Saturday finally arrived with as much anticipation of Christmas morning and off to Josh's house I went. Within the hour we were ready and driving downtown. Along the way we saw scattered groups of zombies and felt reassured that we wouldn't be the only two zombies on Georgia Street. By the time we got to the Art Gallery, around 2:50 pm, there were several dozen zombies and non-zombies already there. The Party had begun! As the minutes passed, our ranks began to swell to several hundred [I’m guessing].

I was amazed at the spectacle that spread out before me. I had never seen so many zombies gathered in one spot before and if you looked beyond the “lets pour blood over my head and call me a zombie” costume, you saw wonderfully horrifying examples of creativity and special effect make-up.

There were photographers and cell phone cameras everywhere with zombies and non-zombies taking pictures and posing with each other for gory keepsake remembrances of the living dead. For awhile there I felt like I was working at Disneyland but instead of being surrounded by the joyful giggles and laughter of little children, I was awash in the din of the relentless groaning of "Brains! Brains" repeated over and over again like some sort of zombie mantra. And all the while lifeless bodies of the undead were bouncing off each other in their mindless meandering and soon I found myself drawn into a gigantic, slow motion Zombie Mosh Pit.

Finally someone gave the word and we began our walk. It was at this time I realized that we had all missed an opportunity to something good for our community because lets face it, hundreds of zombies swarming the downtown core does pose a bit of a traffic and pedestrian inconvenience, not to mention all the bloody hand smudges on all those windows that need to be cleaned, so it would have been nice to say we were doing all this for a charitable cause…

We need and must give something back to the City of Vancouver who has thus far, graciously tolerated this event. So I strongly feel that next year and each year after that, there needs to be a chartable purpose to the Zombie Walk. Organ Donating and Giving Blood immediately comes to mind but a more practical option would be to bring some non-perishable food for the Vancouver Food Bank.

Let’s show the citizens of Vancouver that zombies aren’t just mindless, lifeless, thrill seekers, no let us show that zombies have heart (that is until it is eaten) and that we care for those less fortunate, and let us say “Thank You” for allowing us to indulge in our annual macabre masquerade with our generous donations.