Nights of the Living Dead

by Maciejka Gorzelnik

Moans, grunts and calls for brains echoed through downtown Windsor Oct. 12 when people dressed as zombies filled the streets.

According to torontozombiewalk.ca zombie walks originated in Toronto in 2003 and have since spread worldwide regularly drawing crowds of over 1,000 people. Windsor’s first zombie walk was held in 2007. Jakub Witalec has organized the zombie walk from the beginning as well as other local events including a flash mob at last year’s Balloonapalooza and said the walk is a celebration of geek culture.

“It’s a project to get people out into the streets, out of their comfort zones and to do good things for the community,” said Witalec.

This year’s zombie walk drew crowds of over 3,000 people and approximately 3,500 canned goods were collected. All donations will benefit the Windsor Homes Coalition Inc., according to Witalec.

Michael Reeve has been participating in zombie walks for three years as Captain Hindgrinder, his zombie alter ego. Being a zombie fan from a young age, Reeve said he enjoys the zombie walk but had a different vision than Witalec and wanted to expand on it. From Reeve’s vision spawned Zom-B-Con, a family oriented celebration of zombie pop culture.

“With zombies, it’s not just one monster that you have to worry about. It’s a horde of uncompromising evils,” said Reeve. “It’s horror on a larger scale and there’s a small part of me that says ‘Hey, it could happen.’ That’s part of the appeal.”

Villains Beastro was at capacity Oct. 13 with about 130 people attending Zom-B-Con. Prizes were handed out for categories such as cutest zombie and best zombie couple. Maxine X, owner of Maxine’s Adult Playground, sponsored the event because of how much fun she said she had at previous zombie walks.

“Two years ago I had just opened the store downtown and I’ve never seen a zombie walk before so I thought people would be banging on my windows trying to freak me out,” said Maxine X. “I’m a huge horror movie fan but I actually get scared really easily.”

Crowd control for the zombie walk is handled by the Windsor Police Service and there have not been any major problems to date according to Witalec.

“The only thing we’ve had is people getting a little too enthusiastic,” said Witalec. “If I were parading thousands of bandits through the city, tearing the place up then we wouldn’t have another one. It would end fairly quickly.”

Zombie walker Alyssa Bortolotto attended both zombie days for the first time this year. She said it was a comfortable and positive atmosphere.

“It’s actually something fun to do in Windsor which is a good thing,” said Bortolotto. “I’ll be out next year. It’s really fun and now I’m hooked.”

For information on future zombie events in Windsor, visit Windsor Zombie Walk and Windsor ZOM -B- CON on Facebook.