Non zombies mix it up with the undead.
There is a link to more photos at the bottom of this article.
I helped organize the 2005 Toronto Zombie Walk this year, and the zombie walk was a huge success. I couldn’t have asked for a better time.
The day started off fairly drearily, as light drizzle sprinkled down from overcast skys. On my way to the walk I had to walk through the University of Toronto in full face paint and makeup. Then sit on a streetcar moaning.
Along the way there and during the route I handed out laminated cards that had a drawing of a brain on it, and the word “Braiiins” and nothing else. For the people walking toward me, expecting me to be promoting a club or something, it must have been a bit of a surprise getting that.
The walk warmed up fairly well. The rain stopped and people started showing up in the dozens. We were the subjects for the Toronto Photographers Meet up Group, and there were about a dozen people that followed us along the route snapping photos. Some complained about their subject, but I really do appreciate the photos, and I found it pretty funny that we were followed by paparazzi. I felt like a zombie celebrity.
Some of my favourite moments were when we first started moving out we encountered a few cars on the residential streets of cabbage town and the zombies would swarm the cars, clawing at the windows and pressing their made up faces against the glass.
A white van passed through us twice. The second time around I saw it was covered in bloody hand prints and face marks. That was awesome. I can imagine him trying to explain to his boss that he didn’t hit a pedestrian but was swarmed by zombies.
We passed a Starbucks and everyone was clawing at that while the people inside sort of nervously laughed and smiled.
Crossing the busy streets of parliament and Carleton the zombies patiently waited for the light to change and pointed across the cross walk. We managed to walk across in two large groups each waiting for the light, I think though we might have lost a few people doing that.
Along the way one of the photographers started herding zombies into the lot of an abandoned building, where some started screaming at the zombies “There are brains in there, get them. Claw harder!”
It was a great to be able to relive Night of the Living Dead, clawing at the boarded up windows.
The zombies assembled and shuffled across the street through some wrought iron gates and into Ryerson University. We hit a few more cars padded at pedestrians, and marched on to Yonge.
Ryerson University - photo by s230photo
Yonge street was great! Zombies smeared blood on shop windows, and pounded at the stores, and moaned about sales and cell phones. A block south was an underpass where they were building a construction site, and the zombies had to squeeze through against the traffic of normal people coming the other way.
We heard some music coming from Dundas Square and headed toward there. I was happy there was an activity going on and just felt like crashing a party.
It wasn’t till I was halfway across the square did I realize it was a rally for United Mothers Opposing Violence Everywhere. (Our walk is mentioned about half way down that link.)
Holy crap! Mothers that have had their families torn apart by death do not need to be reminded of death and have zombies crash their rally! Once the mob heads that way, there isn’t much you can do but keep them moving through. I was busy trying to keep everyone moving and on the way and it looked like we would be out of there in a few minutes.
Then the unthinkable happened, the DJ for UMOVE played the one song that would bring zombies back.
Michael Jackson’s 1985 hit, Thriller.
Suddenly I was a 7 year old kid again.
One of the zombies knew the moves to the song, and we all followed his lead, shuffling along and moaning. (10 meg wmv file)
Thanks to the DJ and to UMOVE for having a bit of humour. The song ended and a couple cops politely waved us good bye and we headed toward my big goal: The Toronto Eaton’s Centre, to shuffle it up Dawn of the Dead style!
Easily one of the biggest malls in Ontario. It takes up two huge downtown blocks and has a subway station at each end. In the event of a zombie outbreak it would be one of the worst places to be because of the multiple entrances and glass doors.
We entered through the Sears Cosmetics Centre, and moaned, shuffled and sneered. Some of the zombies tried on perfume and makeup, some complained that zombies don’t need to smell good. Seeing zombies smear trial lipstick across their face was pretty funny though.
Everyone in the mall was pretty cool. Watching the faces of everyone in every store stop and stare at us as we all filed past was priceless. There were kids at the mall who were a bit spooked of us all, but most had smiles on their faces.
We poured out queen street and headed west toward city hall. Once there I thought it would be a good place to stop and regroup.
At the end of the walk Thea and I gave out prizes to some of our favourite zombies and some that did some pretty neat things.
There was Mohawk Zombie who won the worst zombie film ever made, for genuinely scaring the most people in the Eaton’s centre.
We gave some severed limbs to some of the kid zombies, and an arm to the family of zombies that brought their young son.
The Dawn of the Dead DVD was given to Red-shirt Zombie for never getting out of character, even after the walk was finished.
In all about 150 - 200 zombies were there, and it was a total success.
