The Oshkosh West Index - Undead undulate for civic pride

Volume 106, Issue 1

Online Features

Undead undulate for civic pride

By Sadie Dempsey
posted September 29, 2009

Hordes of wailing, blood drenched zombies staggered down the narrow sidewalks of Main Street, bringing an irrefutable smile to horror fans' faces on the evening of September 6. The horror fanatics responsible for the transformation of Oshkosh to an adrenaline drenched scene worthy of a George A. Romero film, would be Oshkoshhorror.com founders Adam Bartlett and John Pata. These two singlehandedly organized the wildly successful Zombie Walk as a means to convince fellow horror fans and the Oshkosh community to support the renovation of the Time Community Theatre.

Inspiration to organize the caravan of undead was spurred by their recent popularity within cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and Boston.

"Zombie walks have been pretty big for the past few years, especially in big cities," said Pata. "For the most part they're pub crawls; however, we wanted to take ours in a different direction so that everybody could join in on the fun."

However, this night quickly turned into more than just an excuse to plaster faces with gray-toned makeup, thick black eyeliner and fake blood. These zombies were plodding down the city's slender streets for a good cause.

"The Time Community Theatre just re-opened about two years ago," said Pata. "It's a nonprofit organization, so they need donations to help renovate the theatre and get it going again."

With the desire to give back to the community and support local artists, the Time seemed a natural choice.

"It kind of pained me in high school that there was nothing going on, and then in college there was nothing going on, and then I heard about [the Time Theatre Community Group] trying to get [the theatre] going again, and I really just wanted to help out any way I could," said Pata.

A Zombie Walk after party took place at the Time, with all proceeds going towards the many renovations that it so desperately needs. The night was filled with costume contests, themed give-aways, improvisational zombie dancing, and a smorgasbord of food and refreshments. Besides benefiting the Theatre in a monetary fashion, the event also gave the Time a means of showcasing itself to the community.

"They really want it to be a base for local performing art," said Bartlett. "We have the Grand which serves one aspect of the community really well; however, there is an entirely different community of independent performance individuals that wouldn't really be able to fit in with the Grand but would be perfect at the Time."

Even with such a worthy cause as motivation, it was apparent that a Zombie Walk in Oshkosh wouldn't yeild the same results as those in larger cities, and predicting the walk's outcome was nearly impossible.

"We had gone to Appleton, Green Bay, Milwaukee, and Chicago to help promote the walk, and our expectations went from about 30 to hopefully being able to break 100," said Pata. "We honestly had no idea what to expect."

An overwhelming sense of anxiety ensued through the day of the walk, but was quickly overcome with relief as soon as Bartlett and Pata stepped out into the House of Heroes alleyway to see it overflowing with zombies.

"We had to get on the fire escape in order to talk to everybody with our megaphone," said Bartlett. "Being up there and seeing everybody was even more exciting than walking in the mob."

That's not to say that everybody didn't have a phenomenal time taking part in the actual walking as well.

"It was always really fun when we were crossing the streets and there were cars stopped at red lights," said Pata. "We could all just walk by and watch their eyes get wider."

That reaction shouldn't have been hard to achieve with a mob of 215 living dead limping and screeching down Oshkosh's narrow streets, interacting with pedestrians in full character. Some costumes proved to be especially memorable.

"One of my favorite costumes was my own mother," said Bartlett. "She has been terrified of zombies since she first saw Dawn of the Dead in the theatre as a kid and had to walk out. I convinced her it would be good therapy to confront her fears and get undead."

Inspiration for the gloriously grim ensembles came from all different spectrums, including famous artwork, nursery rhymes, and Rock and Roll Hall of Famers.

"The Cliff Burton (original bassist of Metallica) zombie really stuck out," said Pata. "During the best costume contest he held up a bloody drumstick and told the crowd he ate drummer, Lars Ulrich."

Zombie Walkers were not only creative with their sources of inspiration but were especially thrifty in obtaining costumes.

"I appreciated the few Bloody Brides we had," said Pata. "It's always nice to see a wedding dress put to good use."

More unconventional methods were also used to create that effervescent undead look that participants strove for.

"One that I also recall standing out is our friend Lance," said Bartlett. "He had a lot of really great face gore going on and used rice and all sorts of other stuff to complete the effect of maggots and decay."

The infectious atmosphere continued throughout the after party as well, where walkers could show off their best dance moves, enjoy some refreshments, and take part in a wide array of zombie-themed contests.

"The Thriller dance competition was probably the highlight of the night," said Pata. "It started out with six people and ended up with two finalists in a massive dance off."

The crowd was able to vote for the winners based on cheers and applause, which echoed the general response participants and spectators alike had regarding the Zombie Walk. The explosive response to the walk and after party also resulted in the Time Community Theatre's largest fundraiser to date, bringing in around $900. After spending countless weeks planning and promoting the event, the night's success proved a well deserved reward for the men behind the blood drenched curtain.

"When I look at pictures they literally give me shivers," said Bartlett. "Looking back on all the work we put into organizing the walk and seeing it become such a huge success with the community and seeing that they were really interested and had so much fun with it makes me feel really good about all the hard work we put into it."

With such amazing benefits to both the community and the arts, it would generally furrow some conservative brows to find that the reason all of this occurred was due to the horror community.

"I know horror gets a bad reputation because it is perceived as being gory and violent," said Pata, "but the people are so nice and open; it's an extremely strong, passionate community."

In Oshkosh, this tight-knit horror family is fostered by the House of Horrors, a monthly horror movie night sponsored by House of Heroes.

"We basically wanted to create a central location where people that are really into horror movies and independent art culture can meet and talk about comics, movies, or really anything else," said Bartlett.

House of Horrors welcomes anybody ages 16 and older to enjoy a night of ghoulishly good times, a wide array of horror movies, and plenty of food.

"We generally ask attendees to bring a treat to share and sometimes people get extremely creative," said Bartlett. "When we watched The Blob, some people made an enormous jello blob with an army of toy soldiers set up all around it."

The successful turnout and enthusiastic response of horror fans to House of Horrors prompted Bartlett and Pata to start their own horror related website, oshkoshhorror.com.

"After seeing the success of House of Horrors, we really realized that we're all into the same things and that we should meet and talk more than just one Saturday a month," said Pata.

The community will surely be seeing more of these ambitious horror and local arts supporters as they continue to bring together a vast variety of people.

"As I said, horror has a bad rap," said Pata. "We really wanted to show horror as a really positive thing, its not just about people getting bloody and all that, it's really just about bringing people together, and this is a perfect example of how we plan to accomplish that."

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photo by Emily Moss

A mob of Zombie Walkers takes to the streets of Downtown Oshkosh.

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