Sometimes you just have to pack up your bags and run away to join the circus. But, seeing as I have a new-found fear of clowns thanks to my little incident in July, I decided to run away to join the crew at a haunted house instead.
The Grove boasts over 20 acres of fright-filled fun… and delivers on that hands down. Screams, shrieks, and yelps can be hear throughout the property’s three main haunted attractions: The Hollows haunted forest, Shadows Keep haunted hayride, and Bad Manor haunted house. In addition, the owners have added a few new twists and turns in the form of a ghoulish theatre troupe performing on the fire-lit midway, and the newest attraction opening this week; a zombie shooting gallery.
Visions of Land of the Dead type mischief danced in my head as I sat down with Tanamin Clark, one of the managers at The Grove, to get the scoop on what exactly would happen in their zombie shooting gallery.
For a few years the folks at The Grove have been toying with the shooting gallery idea after seeing something similar at another haunted house. “It looked like a lot of fun,” he commented. With that basic premise, they ran with it, trying out various ideas. One scenario had patrons racing to “kill” the zombies before they reached a bell in order to win, but in the end Tanamin and his crew realized the fun didn’t come in winning anything, but in simply shooting zombies.
I’ve got to agree with him there.
So how exactly are they bringing the zombie shooting gallery to life? Actors will be dressed in padded costumes, helmets, and masks designed to imitate the ravenous undead. The Grove will provide the paintball guns and patrons may purchase anywhere from 10 to 20 paintballs. The zombies are trained to attack patrons as they shoot away. We discussed for a long while how this sort of attraction tied in perfectly to the current zombie trend in popular video games. Who wouldn’t want to take the fantasy and make it reality for a little while? After all, that’s what we here at the Zombie Survival Crew are preparing for. It’s great target practice.
For now, they are starting with a small number of zombies and minimal equipment. However, the managers fully expect to expand on the shooting gallery, probably before the last weekend of the month, the busiest days out at The Grove.
Come on out, test your skill in the zombie shooting gallery. And if you’re brave enough, come find me inside the haunted house. Unlike the zombies, I won’t bite… maybe.
Somehow, someway, you’ve found yourself neck deep in the Zombie Survival Crew website. Don’t worry, this is a good thing. Whether you wandered in off the street after meeting us at a convention, or had a well-meaning friend slip the link onto your Twitter/Facebook page, you are welcome and encouraged to participate and browse around the site.
You may be asking yourself, why do I need to be prepared for the zombie apocalypse? We ask, why aren’t you already? The survival skills imparted on this website will not only help you escape being eaten by a reanimated corpse, but also ensure you are capable of surviving any number of natural or man-made disasters such as flooding, tornadoes, or even a full-scale riot in your home town. You can never be too prepared, a motto we take to heart.
There is a softer, though far from cuddly side to the ZSC. When we aren’t scouring the globe for new recruits, your commanders let their hair down and get to know site members better. We introduce fans of the zombie, horror, and sci-fi genres to movies, television shows, and art they may not have been aware of before. There are also numerous contest opportunities coming up in the near future. (Our prize room is getting somewhat cluttered…)
The ZSC also does it part to help those in need when disaster DOES strike. When we can, we help our celebrity commanders pass on information and aid relief efforts the world-over.
So how do you become an official member of the Zombie Survival Crew? Our registration page is easy, straight forward, and FREE. Once you’ve signed up and confirmed via email, you will be randomly slated into one of our Brigades. Each brigade has a commander and a certain set of skills they are to master in order to help the ZSC as a whole continue to move forward with our efforts. From there on out, how much you want to participate is purely up to you. If you wish to sit back and absorb information posted by the command team, go for it. Feel like you have something to say? We encourage members post their thoughts on the articles posted. Or, if you are an artist, writer, or filmmaker, we’d like for you to contribute articles, stories, art, or videos.
Get it? Got it? If not, feel free to ask us whatever questions you have about the site. We don’t bite, honest! The Command team is here not only to teach you how to survive, but to help you.
In exactly seven days, fans of The Walking Dead will gather around their televisions to watch the season two premier on AMC. It’s no small secret that your Zombie Survival Crew commanders have been not-too-patiently waiting for the new season of the show. We’ve kept our eyes out for any news or tidbits from the set and all that did was create a burning need to see what lies in store for our favorite band of survivors.
Our wait is almost at an end.
To celebrate the upcoming premier of The Walking Dead, the ZSC wants to know what your favorite moments were from season one of the show. We’d also like to hear what you think will happen to Rick, Shane, Lori, Glenn, T-Dog, Daryl, and all the others in season 2. Every crew member that posts a comment will be entered in a drawing, the prize: an official ZSC t-shirt signed by cast members of The Walking Dead.
Neat, huh?
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Here’s what you have to do to win:
~ Log in to ZombieSurvivalCrew.com (if you are not a member, please sign up. It’s FREE and easy.)
~ Post a comment on this article telling us your favorite moment of TWD season 1 and predictions for season 2 before October 16th.
The Prize:
~ One (1) random commenter will be picked to win a ZSC shirt signed by the cast of The Walking Dead.
Rules:
~ One (1) entry per site member.
~ Entries must be posted on the website by 11:59 PM PST on 10-16-2011.
~ Entries containing foul language will be disqualified.
~ Entrants must be registered members of zombiesurvivalcrew.com.
Don’t forget to tune into AMC on October 16th at 9PM ET to catch the second season premiere of The Walking Dead!
October’s bony knuckles are rapping on our front door. Hundreds of thousands of people will be lining up, eager to have the wits scared out of them at local haunted houses. TV stations are running horror movie marathons designed to make sure you lose sleep at night.
And the Zombie Survival Crew has a few events in store for its members to make sure that y’all are ready to face your fears.
Don’t miss the chance to meet your ZSC commanders face-to-face in Florida:
Halloween weekend we have not one, but two events for crew members to participate in. We fully encourage your to gear up and take place in the 2011 Halloween Zombie Event, a live-action scenario where you can chose between playing a zombie or a survivor. This is the perfect opportunity to test your skills in a safe manner before the Zombiepocalypse catches you unprepared. Go to their website to find a participating city near you.
For crew members unable to make it to the live-action 2011 Halloween Zombie Event, don’t worry. Commanders LK and RC have been wracking their brains (mmm… brains…) and developed an online version of the event. For more information, read here and keep an eye on this site for rules, regulations, and suggested role-play strategies for the online 2011 Halloween Zombie Apocalypse.
We’ve been talking about the three day zombie extravaganza called the 2011 Halloween Zombie Event and how you can participate in person. If you missed the video teaser about it, check it out here. The command of the Zombie Survival Crew is excited about the opportunity to test our brigades strengths in a mock zombiepocalypse and look forward to fielding all of the reports during the event to keep all our members up to date with how everyone is faring. But when Joseph Tremblay first approached us about partnering with him to support the event, the Oracle (Purple Brigade Commander, LK Gardner-Griffie) posed the question: “But what about those who don’t have enough people close by to play in person or those who are unable to do so? Do we deny them the opportunity to participate?” She then followed it with the suggestion of going back to the ZSC roots and hosting an online portion of the event. And we’re finally ready to reveal what Orange Brigade Commander, RC Murphy has cooked up. So, take it away RC!!!
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This is the moment we have been preparing for. The undead have vacated their graves and are on the hunt… for us. They will not stop. Very little can destroy them. You are the last line of defense for mankind. Now is not the time to realize you aren’t ready for the Zombie Apocalypse.
On October 29th through October 31st, the world as you know it will come to an end. Your city, Grizzly City, is under attack by hordes of hungry, newly-risen zombies. Survivors must band together to fight them off and escape to safety outside of the infested city.
If you think you are up for the challenge, join us on Twitter for a 3-day Role-play scenario that puts you in the first 72 hours of the Zombie Apocalypse. To join you must first decide if you want to be a Survivor or a Zombie. Once you’ve decided, apply the appropriate Twibbon image to your avatar (we will be revealing the twibbons soon). With your designation in place all you have to do is use the official Halloween Zombie Apocalypse hashtag in your tweets, #HZA11. Follow the hashtag via Twitter’s search function to immerse yourself in the action.
Each day of play will last a full 24 hours. The action will unfold thusly in conjunction with the live events hosted by the 2011 Halloween Zombie Apocalypse site.
Day 1 – Zombie Outbreak: The first zombie sightings are reported in the city. In response, the Survivors begin to execute their escape plans, utilizing information broadcasted on TV.
Day 2 – Survival: The Survivors band together and establish safe zones within the city while the Zombies dog them at every turn. These attacks breed more undead, increasing the size of the attacking hordes.
Day 3 – Fight to the End: The city is overrun. Survivors are attacked more and more frequently. The only way to survive is to abandon the city. They flee or succumb to the zombies.
We understand that most participants will be unable to take part during all 72 hours of the #HZA11 Twitter event. Should you need to leave the role-play for any amount of time, switch out your Survivor or Zombie Twibbon image with the Idle image. This conveys to other participants that you are unable to interact or fight, but will return to play at some point.
The city, Grizzly City, has been divided into sectors. Participants may utilize these sectors while setting up their Safe Havens, planning raids for supplies, or arranging a location to battle a Zombie opponent. The hashtag for each sector will look like this – #HZA11S4.
Below is the map we will be using throughout the event. Study it well. Preparation may be your best defense when the zombies are on the hunt. More information on how to play is posted here. (Click the map to make it larger.)
To celebrate the September 2nd release of InSight, starring Yellow Brigade 1st Lieutenant Sean Patrick Flanery, we’re giving the Zombie Survival Crew faithful another opportunity to win something from our prize vault.
We want you to create your own crime scenes. They can be as simple as a chalk outline, or more complicated with some blood and guts. We encourage you to be creative. Oh and one more important bit, your ticket stub is the key piece of evidence, be sure to include it in your crime scene photo! Can’t get to a theatre playing the film? Then include something bearing the title of the film.
From Braeburn Entertainment:
InSight follows Kaitlyn (Natalie Zea), an ER nurse who while tending to a young stabbing victim, Allison, is accidentally electrocuted by the defibrillator that was being used to save the woman’s life. Almost immediately she starts to experience the victim’s memories. Kaitlyn turns to family, friends, and the police, but no one takes her seriously, so she takes it upon herself to solve the crime – as the terrifying visions threaten her sanity. Ultimately, Kaitlyn teams up with detective Peter Rafferty (Sean Patrick Flanery) and waves her way through the victim’s past in an attempt to discover the brutal truth about the murder and herself.
Here’s what you have to do to win:
Create your own crime scene and snap a picture. Include a piece of “evidence” with the film name or your ticket stub in the picture.
Crewmembers that include their ticket stub in their crime scene will receive two (2) entries into the contest.
Email your crime scene photos to: command [at] zombiesurvivalcrew [dot] com by 9-19-2011. (subject: InSight Contest)
Prize:
One random entrant will be chosen to receive ZSC swag signed by Sean Patrick Flanery.
The first five (5) entries received will win an official ZSC keychain.
Rules and Regulations:
One entry per person.
Entries must be sent to command [at] zombiesurvivalcrew [dot] com and entries received via Twitter, Facebook, or website comments will be disqualified.
Entries must be submitted by 11:59 PM Pacific on 9192011.
Images containing nudity, obscene gestures, or illegal activity will be disqualified.
When submitting entries, you give the Zombie Survival Crew permission to post you image on zombiesurvivalcrew.com and it’s associated social media outlets.
Winners will be notified via the email address given with the entry photo.
To get you ready for September 2nd, here’s the InSight trailer:
First, before anyone calls foul, I’m an educated zombie. Reading a few subtitles is not beyond my skill set. Don’t act all surprised. I manage to write these reviews, right? Good. Now… on to La Horde (The Horde).
The first few seconds of this film are striking. I’m not saying this to garner favor with our French counterparts. We’re dragged instantly into a world of extreme violence. That scene set a dark, disturbing tone and made it impossible to glance away from the screen. Forget trying to snack during The Horde. My finger sandwiches spoiled because I just couldn’t look away.
The movie puts us smack dab in the midst of a group of corrupt cops hell-bent on revenge. Their anger over the abduction of one of theirs carries the plot despite a noticeable lack of undead action for roughly the first twenty minutes as the cops track down the group of gangsters responsible. Our first taste of real blood and guts is startling, graphic, very real and not at the hands of a zombie. Few movies utilize the ungodly death rattle the dying make. It was music to my ears, or at least the one still attached.
A note on the zombies in The Horde; they are not Romero’s vision of shambling, decomposing corpses. These are freshly dead, revived only seconds after passing. Watch the resurrections, it is clear that an outside source is pulling the strings when we get the first good look at the transformation process. Even I was a tad creeped out. Undead marionettes with huge hungers and quick reflexes… I’m not a spring chicken. They’d beat me in a race for food.
Can zombies starve to death? I shudder to think so.
The characters in this film aren’t likable. At no point did I find myself pulled towards a particular person hoping they’d make it out alive. The cops are a family, but a highly dysfunctional one and the pair of brothers within the group of gangsters are ten times worse. Nevertheless, watching them band together in order to survive is still compelling in a very basic way. The need to escape a deadly situation is all consuming. Before my death I felt that driving need to make it out alive. After, well, it became all about the chase.
I will say, The Horde is a very bloody film. The language would make undead sailors blush. And there are a couple scenes that are really tense and flat-out wrong. My inner lust for gore was sated with this film. That’s saying a lot right there. I also picked up a new favorite kill, as demonstrated by the lone female in the band of survivors. She put that zombie on ice. (Bad pun, yes I know.)
My verdict? If you enjoy the grittier side of zombie flicks, pick up this movie. It feels real. The characters aren’t inaccessible because of some strange moral high ground. They were plucked out of a harsh gang-fueled reality and shoved into a situation where, for an unknown reason, the dead have been brought back and yet the most shocking violence is human against human. The living are worse than the undead. They are conscious of their decision to harm others and still do it. La Horde may not be suitable for everyone, but those it is aimed towards will love it.
There, I said it. This was not my opinion a couple weeks ago. As a matter of fact, I’d been looking forward to laughing at the Ringling Bros. clowns while waiting to meet with my informant within the circus family. My continued survival requires information. But, seeing as the UGA tracked my travels from Dallas and back in May, I’ve been forced to find outside contacts to bring me information from across the country.
This exposure to new, potentially unreliable sources is what got me in a heap of trouble. And on my birthday of all days!
My contact, an unnamed performer who has been missing since that day, sent me a ticket to the circus along with instructions on where to meet him afterwards. He’d found something while traveling through Colorado he swore was essential for the ZSC to know. However, this something was so sensitive he didn’t trust the phone or Internet to pass it along. His messages, coded of course, made me wary, but I agreed to meet with him face-to-face for the first time. Yeah, yeah… meeting a strange man you’ve only ever talked to via email, not my brightest moment. He’d only ever given me good information, though. I had to take a calculated risk.
Half way through the show I realized that my contact wasn’t performing. No one matching the description he’d emailed made an appearance in any of the three rings on the convention center floor.
By the end of the show, I wanted nothing more than to figure out why he wasn’t out there. I’d adopted him as part of my team and I don’t leave team members behind. So, despite the warning in the back of my head, I made my way to the meet spot. The massive crowd masked my movement and, I hoped, confused anyone trailing me.
It was a trap. The meeting location, tucked between two semi trucks, had been compromised. Instead of my contact, a group of clowns milled around. Some carried lengths of rope. One toyed with a knife, flipping it in the air over and over. When I went to back away from where I’d been spying, someone caught me from behind. They had the element of surprise and far superior numbers. There was no way I’d fight. Not if I wanted to live.
See? Sometimes your commander uses her brain.
They tied me up and shoved me inside one of the trailers hiding us from public view. If you’ve never been locked inside a trailer, it is really dark. Sure, there’s plenty of space and air, but that doesn’t mean a dang thing when you’re bound. Nor does all that air help when the darkness is dense. I may as well have been in a coffin. And that was the point. My captors were trying to rattle me. It only worked for a moment before I kicked myself for being weak.
The next day the circus rolled out of town… with me tagging along. Wasn’t like I had much of a choice. No one came into the trailer aside from those who’d captured me. One of them rode with me to the next city. Occasionally he would try to interrogate me and I feigned deafness from the sound of asphalt racing by under the truck’s tires. From the gist of the conversation, they thought I was responsible for my informant’s disappearance.
Things went from bad to worse when we got to the next city.
Since subtle attempts at interrogation didn’t work, my captors got really inventive with their techniques. Won’t go into what all happened, you all saw the damage in my PSA. But know this: I. Did. Not. Break. The secrets I’ve collected for the ZSC are safe. All I told them was the truth; I don’t know where their comrade went off to. If he is dead, he died with the information he’d gathered for me. The guilt of knowing this eats at me, even now after being dumped in the middle of the desert and forced to find my way back home. If he is alive and set me up to be kidnapped, may the gods help him…
Don’t worry about me. Just need to lick my wounds, then I’m back in action.
Some of you might have noticed that Commander Murphy has been a little quieter than usual lately. In the below video, you’ll see why that is. We kept her missing status quiet because we didn’t want the UGA to hear any rumblings in case they weren’t behind her disappearance. She will brief you on her full experience at a later time, but for now, please listen to her words of advice.
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A special thanks to Commander Murphy for bravely sharing what happens when you trust the wrong informant. We love you, RC.
Sometimes you just have to pack up your bags and run away to join the circus. But, seeing as I have a new-found fear of clowns thanks to my little incident in July, I decided to run away to join the crew at a haunted house instead.
Visions of Land of the Dead type mischief danced in my head as I sat down with Tanamin Clark, one of the managers at The Grove, to get the scoop on what exactly would happen in their zombie shooting gallery.
So how exactly are they bringing the zombie shooting gallery to life? Actors will be dressed in padded costumes, helmets, and masks designed to imitate the ravenous undead. The Grove will provide the paintball guns and patrons may purchase anywhere from 10 to 20 paintballs. The zombies are trained to attack patrons as they shoot away. We discussed for a long while how this sort of attraction tied in perfectly to the current zombie trend in popular video games. Who wouldn’t want to take the fantasy and make it reality for a little while? After all, that’s what we here at the Zombie Survival Crew are preparing for. It’s great target practice.
I. Hate. Clowns.