POST EVENT REPORT

On a damp, cold Saturday in November, Leicester was under threat of the third massive zombie outbreak in as many years, people ran in terror, blood filled the streets and flesh was hanging off these Living Dead fiends… but these Zombie were not hungering for human flesh, they were searching out a fresh source of Zombie Films and at Terror4funs UK Festival of Zombie Culture they found them…

Below, you can see 'Zombie Ed' introducing one of the films, the packed out cinema, except fopr one annoying person in the front row, who left for a pee before the pic was taken and the projectionist... Who was ace and essentially did a pile of the hard work, not getting drunk out front, but in a small dark room, looking at the back of heads.... Sounds glamorous doesn't it...

Day of the Undead is the annual ‘UK Festival of Zombie Culture,' this its third year, held at the new £21 million digital media centre, Phoenix Square, deep in the beating heart of Leicester. With Phoenix Square opening to the public only 8 days before the event and the website not going live until 5 working days before, things initially looked bleak and desolate for the event, but bleak and desolate are all words that help bring the undead out the ground and by the end of the 13 hour zombie movie marathon and rise they did… Below are a collection of the zombies who rose from the ground to support the living dead of Leicester...

A mixture of zombie make up artists, book signings, horror traders, Zombie console gaming and of course a healthy mixture of films from out and out classics that most of the crowd had seen, to rare international films only shown once on these shores, made the event a great big, blood soaked day for all the family… Leicester made feature film ‘Zombie Undead' sold out the biggest screen at the centre and people even had to be turned away… In order below can be seen, Rhys Davis , Director, Kris 'Monster Man' Tearse, actor and writer and finally Alan 'Obi-Wan' Alderson-Smith, the Phoenix's film guru and host of the Q&A Session...

As far as the zombie gaming was concerned, over one hundred people attempted to kill the most zombies in three minutes on CAPCOMs Dead Rising, using baseball bats, chainsaws, buckets and anything they could lay their hands on, the rules were simple, kill the most AND survive for the three minutes and the winners takes it all, well a Nintendo Wii supplied by CAPCOM. The game was played in Hi-Def thru an Xbox 360 on a cinema screen and a suitably modern, complete surround sound, cinema quality, sound system to make sure every skull that was cracked, torso torn open and legs hacked off with garden shears was heard loud and proud…

At the end of the day the scores racked up, some did not survive the three minute period, others totalled 6 zombies, some 8 and then the big guns took to the screen, 85 zombies dead, then 94 and then a married couple with 103 and 104, finally young Tully Lennon (in the middle picture above), stood up and was counted, 111 zombies slain in 3 minutes… It was a thing of beauty, as the final drops of blood hit the floor… he raised his arms in victory… He was the last man standing…. He is the Ultimate Zombie Slayer 2009…

Above can be seen on the top row, some of the make up artistes, such as Gav'n Gore and Stevie Uden and centre is Harvey from FAB Press and then below there are two pics of the authors Jasper Bark and the Thomas Brothers signing their books and cnetre is Kit Cox, caricaturist and contributor to the 'Night of the Living Dead: Re-animated' film that we showed throughout the building... and below can be seen 'Bad-Boy James Dougan' winner of the Best Dressed Zombie competition, winning somer signed books and other bits and pieces...

Terror4fun and organiser of Day of the Undead ‘Zombie Ed' are already looking forward to making next years event bigger, better and even more immersive, helping once again to get the crypts of midlands open and having the annual invasion of the Undead fill the streets… and thoughts of the UKs short zombie film competition are now looming…

An independent review of the event can be found at http://www.stalknslash.com/

A list of the films we showed can be found Here..

 

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