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At 9:45 on October 23, 2010, AFI Silver Theatre will be showing George Romero’s cult zombie film Dawn of the Dead as part of the 3rd Annual Silver Spring Zombie Walk. Here’s a little taste – one of the classic clips from the movie.

Special thanks to the staff at AFI for coordinating this. Start scheduling your rewatching parties in preparation. For those who want a double feature, AFI will be showing the Italian horror flick Suspiria (1977) at midnight – about a coven of witches disguised as the staff of a ballet academy.

More Good News
Since we quickly outgrew the space at the Quarry House for last year’s walk, Jackie Greenbaun has graciously offered the use of both Sidebar and the Backroom adjacent to her eponymous restaurant at Georgia and Sligo. While I have a feeling turnout may still pack the place full, it’s a far cray from the confines of the basement bar. And as an added bonus: much more retail storefronts on which to wreak havoc.

There should also be plenty of space at Fire Station 1 for additional zombie congregation and potential overflow. Plus families with kids you can scare the bejeezus out of.

For more info and additional updates, check out the official site at www.silverspringzombiewalk.com.

The date is set and the sickness is starting to spread. Saturday, October 23, 2010 is the official date for the 3rd Annual Silver Spring Zombie Walk. We’ve confirmed the date with AFI Silver Theatre and are working on securing a movie now. More updates on that when it’s finalized. Stay tuned to the official site and the Facebook page for details, as well as the Twitter feed for random kitsch and up-to-the-minute details.

Also, if you need some ideas for your zombie getup and be chronologically relevant, feel free to peruse the list of people who have died this year. (Remember: tragedy+time=comedy)

Now for those of you who want to know about the communist product of tampering with forbidden science, we present some propaganda:

I hope you’ve all finally recovered from a flippin’ sweet event. There are plenty of roundups out there, so without duplicating things, I’ll list a bunch of links here. They’ll also be available on www.silverspringzombiewalk.com. And feel free to send me anything else that pops up – photos, stories, videos, or otherwise.

• YouTube Playlist (including Pippermill, GranTheftPanda, eamono, and penguinstate)
• Silver Spring, Singular
• The Gazette (10/28/2009)
• Silver Spring Penguin
• Flickr Photo Pool (2009)
• Chip Py, Photographer
• Pay What You Can Photo Gallery
• MetroMix DC
• Brightest Young Things
• RussellHeimlich.com

This one, for obvious reasons, is my favorite (thanks, Chip):

Many thanks to all who participated, and especially to the Montgomery County Police Department for helping keep everyone safe and alive undead.

The excitement is almost palpable, don’t you think? I’m just waiting for one more package to arrive, and the costume will be complete. The response so far seems to be tremendous. The Facebook event page alone has at least 183 confirmed attendees and 214 “maybe” responses. And the slew of recent press mentions is impressive. Here is just a sampling…

• Washingtonian
• DCist
• Gazette
• Boston Globe
• NBC Washington

How we got on the Boston Globe site, I have no idea. I’ve also posted the official press release. Add the various local blogs, the Twitter account, and Zombie Walk site, and the word is definitely out. Because of the sheer number of people, be ready to split up before the event between the Quarry House, Olazzo, Piratz Tavern, and various other locales. Or just show up for the start of the walk about 9:30 or so. More on that soon, I hope.

And because of the turnout, don’t forget to get your Shaun of the Dead tickets ahead of time. And make sure you check out the Flickr pool for ideas and what to expect after last year’s shin dig.

And in ESSCA News…
The monthly meeting was last night, and I can no longer say ESSCA never gave me anything.

Real, actual ESSCA swag! And lucky for me, someone brought up the PREZCO issue while I was in the room. Nothing glamorous, really. Just the fact that they don’t necessarily represent all the various groups properly, which comes as no surprise to most of the civic groups in the area. And, of course, I actually got called out in the conversation. Score one for the hack neighborhood blogger!

Of course, they went and changed the date on things. Walk and movie screening are tomorrow in Georgetown. For all the latest details, go to www.zombielandzombiewalks.com.

In other news, tickets for Michael Moore’s appearance at AFI for Capitalism: A Love Story sold out in all of 17 minutes, according to Silver Spring Penguin. The screening itself is on Monday, October 5 at 8:00pm.

Speaking of AFI, there’s been a lot of chatter on Twitter and such about the new AFI Silver Theatre marquee. When I first saw it I was unsure, and while it’s growing on me, I still continue to miss the old one. Evidently the parts weren’t available to fix the old one properly, so they decided to upgrade. As long as it doesn’t get too Times Square-like (now that Rudy Giuliani ruined that area for good), I’m okay. It’s here to stay, so bitching and moaning isn’t going to do much good anyway. You make the call.

ATTENTION WASHINGTON DC ZOMBIES!! Join your fellow DC Zombies at an advanced screening of Columbia Pictures’ ZOMBIELAND (Rated R) on Thursday, October 1 at a local movie theater to be announced soon! Admission is FREE  but you must dress like a Zombie. To reserve your seats, RSVP by sending an email to zombielanddc@gmail.com with the full name of each guest. You will receive a confirmation email with event details. After the screening, the undead will walk the streets of DC!

Stay tuned for news about an accompanying ZOMBIELAND Zombiewalk to be announced VERY SOON! Check out the Zombieland trailer here. View the Facebook event page here.

Editor’s note: This came from the Sony/Columbia pictures folks, and I told the people at the promotions company that I’d be willing to promote the hell out of this. Should be a great movie. Please feel free to pass it on. Details on actual theater and walk should be forthcoming any day now.

Boy – this zombie stuff has taken on a life of its own. We’ve gotten multiple requests for movie screenings from producers and filmmakers, and even questions about filming the event for a documentary on zombie culture in our society. This is gonna be something.

We have also been notified of a promotional screening of the new film Zombieland, due out in theaters October 2. The actual location of the screening is yet to be determined (most likely in the District), but it looks like it’s going to be scheduled for September 30. The company doing the promotion for Sony pictures plans on doing a zombie walk, and capacity notwithstanding, all the zombies in the walk will be granted free passes to the pre-release showing. There’s also talk of some good swag to go along with.

Stay tuned for details. The movie looks great, and it could be a good choice for next year’s walk if we can get a print at AFI.

It’s the quintessential line shared by last year’s Zombie Walk movie, Night of the Living Dead, and this year’s spectacular showing, Shaun of the Dead. It’s official. AFI Silver Theatre will be showing this Zom-Rom-Com at 10:00pm on Saturday, October 24 as part of the 2009 Silver Spring Zombie Walk.

The official site will up and running at www.silverspringzombiewalk.com where you’ll be able to find all the details, as well as links to related groups, zombification, movie information, and much more.

It looks like this year’s Zombie Walk (site updated soon) will be held on Saturday, October 24 in Downtown Silver Spring. Those of you who participated in last year’s event know what a great time it was, and we hope this year will be even bigger. A rough count of 2008′s participants clocked in at nearly 200 undead from the estimates we got, and I know we can get enough people to fill the theater this year.

Speaking of which, stay tuned for a special announcement in the coming days about the entertainment we’re trying to line up. And I call dibs on my special zombie costume for this year.

In Other News…
Keep an eye out for some historical banners making their way to Silver Spring, sponsored by the Montgomery County Historical Society. They’ll highlight different themes, including agriculture, the Civil War, the Depression, and slavery and freedom in three different languages: Chinese, English and Spanish. And seeing the MoCo Society’s site and the wealth of information it has makes me think it’s a shame the Silver Spring Historical Society can’t get a decent site up.

There had been some early discussion about whether the Zombie Walk would be a lame bust or get out of control. Thankfully, we moved toward the latter. Imagine my surprise when we showed up at the Quarry House at about 8:30 and the place was full of the bloodied undead. Just awesome. We counted close to 70 people there, and added even more between Quarry House and AFI. I’d put the number somewhere just over the century mark. Outstanding.

This could not have had the success it did without lots of people – the participants, in particular, as well as Silver Spring, Singular and Silver Spring Pengiun. Special thanks to Chip Py, who has already posted some great photos. When I got up this morning, I was relegated to cleaning up latex, coffee grounds and fake blood from every surface in the bathroom (and most of the doorknobs in the house), but it was all worth it.

Some great links for the event:

Flickr Photo Pool

SS Penguin YouTube Videos

Facebook Event Page (with photos)

Already looking forward to doing it again next year. Guuhhhrrrrrrhhhh!