Undead Hordes Take to the Streets in Annual Vancouver Zombiewalk
Zombie culture isn’t dead yet
It wasn’t an episode of The Walking Dead, but zombies took over the streets of downtown Vancouver on Sept. 10 for the city’s largest annual flash mob: the 2016 Zombiewalk. The gruesome horde could be seen limping and strutting down Robson Street and onto Denman, eventually ending their march at English Bay.
The meetup began outside of the Vancouver Art Gallery, where zombies arrived early to show off their costumes and put on a bit of a show for the cameras and passer-bys along the streets.
At the event, make-up artists set up on the art gallery stairs to help zombify anyone wishing to join the herd for a small fee. While many attendees were made up in green, red, and grey, others used liquid latex to give off a more horrific, decayed zombie vibe.
Among the band of zombies were businessmen, nuns, children, schoolgirls, a few bride and groom duos, and a handful of regular ol’ punk rock zombies. One notable punk zombie drew quite the crowd with her screaming and thrashing through the crowd. Another particularly terrifying zombie drew attention not only for his torn up torso and all-white eyeball surrounded by ripped flesh, but also by drinking, gurgling and spewing blood up into the air.
One happy zombie couple, with their three children in tow, expressed their fondness for the event.
“It’s what we like to do every year. It’s our tradition,” says Sarah Widmeyer, the wife of the family. “It actually happens to fall on our anniversary. It’s our 5th anniversary, so what better way to spend it than at the Zombiewalk, the thing we love to do as a family?”
Of course, it wouldn’t be a true zombie takeover without a few dedicated zombie hunters around. And so, armed with Nerf guns and giant foam machetes, the apocalypse survivors were determined not to succumb to the undead.
As the march went on, traffic stopped and civilians gathered to take photos and watch the zombies stagger by. While some children were happily involved and engaged with the event, there were a number of unsuspecting ones in the crowd crying their eyes out from the sheer horror of it all.
It appears that zombies are here to stay, and that’s probably okay—as long as they keep the blood and gore to themselves.
