ZombieRomper996
05-19-2010, 12:37 PM
So, here is the story:
I work with The Houston Zombie Walk www.zombiewalkhouston.com. This event is exactly what it sounds like. You show up to a designated location dressed like a zombie, and you shuffle/walk this route. It's a nice, big public spectacle and it's all for charity. Amy will pick one, and then you bring the corresponding charity items. The 1st year was the Houston Food Bank, last year was Tillman's Troops...You get the idea. Anyrate last year we had 300 zeds show up for the walk, triple the number from the year before. In addition, we provided an additional 200+ zombies for the Zombieland movie premiere.
So about 6 weeks ago, this lady Louana Gomez contacts us on the website. She wanted to have this big birthday for her daughter last year, but several terrible things happened. She lost her job, her sister died, and the house went into foreclosure all around the same time. So, as you can imagine, the party never happened. They sent in a tape to MTV, explaining the situation, and the MTV crew fell in love with Erika, the daughter. MTV and other sponsors covered the entire event, and made a TV show about it. "My Sweet 16"...I think. Anyrate, the theme was "Nightmare Before Christmas" and she wanted to have a zombie horde on site as part of the production. A few phone calls and meetings later, we were all set. A few personal friends, Matt, Peter, Catherine, Rachel, and Sam came on as zombies, as well as people we recruited during a pub crawl. You can see everyone in my photos section. I will be receiving a photo disk from Brissa (MTV Photographer Extraordinaire) sometime in the future, with all the pictures.
I believe we might be seen in 3 segments. There was the graveyard photo shoot, the final rehearsal, and the party itself. Mad props go out to Catherine Smith, and Suly, these are Paul Mitchell goddesses who helped do our final hair and makeup prep. The party was huge; easily over 1000 people came and went.
I was standing by myself next to the craft services tent out back drinking a beer and no shit, eight clowns round the corner in front of me. They were all really small. They looked at me, I looked down at them…It was a clown vs. zombie stand-off, just like I always wanted. Check out my profile picture to see how it turned out.
Christian Chavez, singer for the group RVD (Yeah, I never heard of him either) was flown in as the special guest. I got invited into the green room to meet him personally, nice guy.
The horde walked him to the stage, entourage style, with me right behind him to ensure he didn’t get mauled by all the ****age girls. About halfway there, I stepped on the back of his right shoe, and his foot came almost completely out of it! I was just happy he didn’t fall, but when he was on stage, the crushed shoe heel was all I could look at and laugh to myself. The guy was a trooper and didn’t even try to fix it, just kept performing.
Like, 3 songs into it, I look over at my fellow zombie Sean, and he’s got this 12 year old girl clinging to him with one arm, and reaching the other one to the stage. She was bawling her eyes out and talking to Sean, who had no idea what she was saying since she was speaking Spanish. He looked at me like “Please Help”, but it was so damned funny, I was like “Buddy, you’re on your own with this one”.
Our job was done after that. Amy went to Kroger and was accosted by a security officer who demanded she sit down so she could call an ambulance. Pete, Sam, Catherine, Melinda, Jackie, and I all went to The Poison Girl Bar. Obviously people are staring a bit, and we had some questions to answer dressed as zombies at the local watering hole. However, all attention was taken off of us when a guy dressed as Batman walks through the door. It’s just him, and some guy taking pictures of him. This wasn’t a ***** costume, it was theatre quality. He just walked through the bar, and came back a couple of minutes later. He grabs Sam by the shirt, raises his fist, and in his best Christian Bale voice growls “Two-Face! I’ve found you!” His buddy snaps a photograph, and they dash out the front door. We were so shocked by this we didn’t even think how funny it would be to someone watching Batman get his ass kicked by 3 zombies down on Westheimer.
If you'd like to see photos from the event, be sure to friend request me on Facebook (Darren Tompkins) or the Houston Zombie Walk.
I don’t know the air date for the show. It’ll prolly be this fall sometime. It was a lot of work, but ultimately great exposure for the foundation. I’ll keep everyone informed though, and please check out www.zombiewalkhouston.com and www.predatorlacrosse.net.
D
I work with The Houston Zombie Walk www.zombiewalkhouston.com. This event is exactly what it sounds like. You show up to a designated location dressed like a zombie, and you shuffle/walk this route. It's a nice, big public spectacle and it's all for charity. Amy will pick one, and then you bring the corresponding charity items. The 1st year was the Houston Food Bank, last year was Tillman's Troops...You get the idea. Anyrate last year we had 300 zeds show up for the walk, triple the number from the year before. In addition, we provided an additional 200+ zombies for the Zombieland movie premiere.
So about 6 weeks ago, this lady Louana Gomez contacts us on the website. She wanted to have this big birthday for her daughter last year, but several terrible things happened. She lost her job, her sister died, and the house went into foreclosure all around the same time. So, as you can imagine, the party never happened. They sent in a tape to MTV, explaining the situation, and the MTV crew fell in love with Erika, the daughter. MTV and other sponsors covered the entire event, and made a TV show about it. "My Sweet 16"...I think. Anyrate, the theme was "Nightmare Before Christmas" and she wanted to have a zombie horde on site as part of the production. A few phone calls and meetings later, we were all set. A few personal friends, Matt, Peter, Catherine, Rachel, and Sam came on as zombies, as well as people we recruited during a pub crawl. You can see everyone in my photos section. I will be receiving a photo disk from Brissa (MTV Photographer Extraordinaire) sometime in the future, with all the pictures.
I believe we might be seen in 3 segments. There was the graveyard photo shoot, the final rehearsal, and the party itself. Mad props go out to Catherine Smith, and Suly, these are Paul Mitchell goddesses who helped do our final hair and makeup prep. The party was huge; easily over 1000 people came and went.
I was standing by myself next to the craft services tent out back drinking a beer and no shit, eight clowns round the corner in front of me. They were all really small. They looked at me, I looked down at them…It was a clown vs. zombie stand-off, just like I always wanted. Check out my profile picture to see how it turned out.
Christian Chavez, singer for the group RVD (Yeah, I never heard of him either) was flown in as the special guest. I got invited into the green room to meet him personally, nice guy.
The horde walked him to the stage, entourage style, with me right behind him to ensure he didn’t get mauled by all the ****age girls. About halfway there, I stepped on the back of his right shoe, and his foot came almost completely out of it! I was just happy he didn’t fall, but when he was on stage, the crushed shoe heel was all I could look at and laugh to myself. The guy was a trooper and didn’t even try to fix it, just kept performing.
Like, 3 songs into it, I look over at my fellow zombie Sean, and he’s got this 12 year old girl clinging to him with one arm, and reaching the other one to the stage. She was bawling her eyes out and talking to Sean, who had no idea what she was saying since she was speaking Spanish. He looked at me like “Please Help”, but it was so damned funny, I was like “Buddy, you’re on your own with this one”.
Our job was done after that. Amy went to Kroger and was accosted by a security officer who demanded she sit down so she could call an ambulance. Pete, Sam, Catherine, Melinda, Jackie, and I all went to The Poison Girl Bar. Obviously people are staring a bit, and we had some questions to answer dressed as zombies at the local watering hole. However, all attention was taken off of us when a guy dressed as Batman walks through the door. It’s just him, and some guy taking pictures of him. This wasn’t a ***** costume, it was theatre quality. He just walked through the bar, and came back a couple of minutes later. He grabs Sam by the shirt, raises his fist, and in his best Christian Bale voice growls “Two-Face! I’ve found you!” His buddy snaps a photograph, and they dash out the front door. We were so shocked by this we didn’t even think how funny it would be to someone watching Batman get his ass kicked by 3 zombies down on Westheimer.
If you'd like to see photos from the event, be sure to friend request me on Facebook (Darren Tompkins) or the Houston Zombie Walk.
I don’t know the air date for the show. It’ll prolly be this fall sometime. It was a lot of work, but ultimately great exposure for the foundation. I’ll keep everyone informed though, and please check out www.zombiewalkhouston.com and www.predatorlacrosse.net.
D