ZZZZOMBIEEEEEZZZ!

(above: Dead Of Night, M. Cathcart, ©2009, the october country llc)

2008 marked the 40th anniversary or the original Night of the Living Dead, and the 30th anniversary of its 'sequel', Dawn of the Dead. I wanted -- hell, needed -- to tribute these legendary works, and therefore zombies were in order.
SO... lots of pvc pipe, foam tubes, old clothes and sculpting materials later... I'd 'dug up' a dozen ghouls for the ol' haunt.
Now, the Night ghouls had to be in black & white, of course. True to the film and all, you know how it is.
(All images can be clicked to enlarge):

There are more zombies down the hill but the pic's too dark. They each had little pinspot LEDs shining up from below them, it REALLY looked awesome!
And of course, I had to have a little Kyra Schon:
Holding her trowel, looking perfectly ghoulish. The harsh flash kills a lot of the ambience, as anyone who's ever tried to video or photograph Hallowe'en displays and dark rides will know. Oh well.
A little detail on li'l Karen Cooper's face:

By the way, mache or other paper-based sculpting materials are excellent when you need the final product to be lightweight and solid, but can be a real b***h for holding detail and when drying, they crack and shrink for weeks. Just a public service announcement.
Now of course I had to have a few Dawn zombies in my Treat Room, so I settled on the most iconic: The airport/poster zombie, and the Flyboy zombie. Here's a nearly un-terrible pic of them in the basement after their paints dried:
They didn't even move but they scared the pants off of the kids brave enough to enter the Treat Room. And for fans of the films, well, they just howled with delight.
One more 'of course'... since I was the head of this All Hallow's zombiefest, I had to dress the part:
I walked around all night calling people 'hey maaan!'

Oh, and one more detail pic. The center-ish ghoul in the first picture, the one with the white jacket? I loved how his face looked so I thought I'd add a little detail 'art' shot of it:
LOVE his upper lip, rotten lower teeth, his popping eye and general expression.

Hmm? What's that? The scary vampire guy behind him? OH, right! He was in the Treat Room in '07, looking over the kids and shaking his head, grunting his disapproval, and then a big bat would screech up from behind the treat trunk. A great misdirection, and a nice scare. I'll get more of him later.

Spook on!