Thousands of living corpses hunger for human flesh and brains, dragging their lifeless limbs through city streets, covered in blood and gore. It looks like the scene from a horror movie, but these zombies are walking the streets of Brisbane City for the fourth annual Zombie Walk to raise funds for the brain foundation.

A zombie is a creature that appears as a mindless dead human being. After the success of George A Romero’s 1968 film ‘Night of the Living Dead’ the concept of reanimated corpses became quite common in modern horror films and pop culture. These days Zombie Walks are held all over the world, the earliest on record was in 2001 in Sacramento California, to promote a midnight film festival. Since then Zombie Walks have become organised public gatherings, simply for fun and those fascinated with the living dead. This years Brisbane Zombie Walk started at Wickham Park and flooded through Fortitude Valley concluding an hour later at Centenary Place.
Last year over 1500 people participated in the Brisbane Zombie walk and this year saw increased numbers of the walking dead to approximately 5000. Masses of families, friends, children and even pet dogs staggered the city streets shocking and entertaining the general public who encountered them. Police were quite co-operative and for an hour zombies were allowed to walk in the middle of roads which disrupting vehicle access. Identified by white signs on their backs, Zombie Walk Officials helped to ensure that minimal gore got left in the streets and that the event ran smoothly.

For some, preparing for the walk is an event in itself. Many zombie fanatics spend hours perfecting their bloodied wounds and realistic costumes. Gold Coast local Izzy Vesey and friends are Zombie Walk veterans. The effort that went into their makeup and outfits this year was intensive. Izzy, a self taught makeup and prosthetics artist, spent approximately four hours creating broken bones, burnt flesh and gaping wounds on fellow Gold Coast zombies Zoe King, Blake Kerwick and Naomi Le’Plastrier. Izzy explains her creations as pure experimentation. She starts with plastic appendages such as bolts, bones, teeth or biomechanical parts then utilises materials such as toilet paper, liquid latex, spirit gum and fake blood to create her horrifying prosthetic masterpieces. “I’ve always been interested in gore and horror, but I really started experimenting for work because I had the materials available there,” she says. Izzy and Blake have both worked at horror themed restaurant Draculas on the Gold Coast, thus dressing frightening and acting creepy is nothing out of the ordinary for them. “It’s my favourite thing ever! I look forward to the Zombie Walk every year,” says Izzy. There are a variety of different dress up themes such as Zombie Jesus, Santa, Doctors, Brides, Pin-up girls etc. Izzy attended the walk as a zombie pin-up while Blake fashioned himself as a zombie Frankenstein’s monster. Naomi sported a burnt face whilst Zoe had an exposed mechanical skeleton in her arm and a wounded blood-spattered eye. After making themselves look as dead as possible, the group drives to Brisbane, attracting plenty of attention from passing motorists on the highway.

Upon entering Wickham Park ghastly groans can be heard as the zombies slowly begin to take over the streets. Humans become scarce as the living dead pretend to maul them for their brains. However, don’t worry too much, luckily these zombies are only in it for fun and games- not brains.

Text, images and audio gathering by Chelsea Vendy for the Argus