Wow, guess who was named Best Zombie at this year's Zompire Film Festival? (I'll give you a hint, it was the female zombie in the photo above wearing the pink prom dress.) One more costumed win and I've won the equivalent of Portland's Triple Crown among geeks who like to dress up on the weekends! :)
So as soon as my hunkalicious zombie date and I arrived at the Hollywood Theater, one of the organizers grabbed us by the arms and said, "You both need to come with me right now, trust me," and lead us up the stairs leading to the stage.
One of the filmmakers immediately began asking the audience who was the best zombie. I looked to the left and right to gauge my zombie competition. I was the only female zombie on the stage facing a packed house at the Hollywood Theater.
The zombie next to me groaned and then the hand came to me.
"Grrrr?" I said.
"Come on girl, you've got to work it!" the organizer said.
So I did my best zombie crouch, hiked up my pink zombie prom dress to show a bit of zombie leg and projected my best zombie groan out to the audience.
The crowd approved. Being a female who loves to dress in costume can really pay off sometimes!
"Looks like we have a winner!" he shouted out, and suddenly a microphone was in my face. "So, what's your zombie name?"
Zombie name? "Um, Zompira?" I said. Sheesh, who would have known I'd have to invent a zombie name on the fly.
My hands were filled with zombie prizes including a Twilight Creations' Zombies!!! board game and a Cannibal Flesh Riot coffee mug. Then it was finally time to sit back and enjoy the first half of the night's zombie flicks before we needed to rush off to Zombie Prom at Mt. Tabor.
Some of the favorites: "Zombie Jesus," "The Laundromat," the Danish zombie puppet film "Zombie Western - It Came From the West," and the short "El Zombie De La Muerte."
We attempted to slip out during intermission to make our way to Zombie Prom, but were intercepted by Mail Order Zombie's podcaster, who wanted to interview me about the zombie genre.
Ugh. Suddenly I was supposed to be an expert in the zombie film genre? I fumbled my way through the interview, barely. (My current favorite zombie film is "Wild Zero," although I didn't see that for the first time until after the festival.)
"Where are you going?" the organizers called out as we tried to discreetly slip out toward our cab.
"We have a zombie prom to get to," I called out over my shoulder.
Alas, we were intercepted by a woman who spun me around by the waist and asked if we would pretend to "eat her brain" (a zombie's favorite food, after all) while her family took her photo. We snapped a few pics, then she stepped into our cab and drove away in it!
We finally arrived at the Zombie Prom for a night of dancing and drinking with other fellow zombies and zombie catchers. It was totally the undead place to be.
