The secret world of zombie lovers
- Text by D'Arcy Doran
- Photography by Elizabeth Dalziel
Leanne Hicks doesn’t just watch horror films, she reverse engineers them. “I wonder how they got that effect or what they did to make the blood jet like that. I’ll go research and we try to copy it,” the thirty-two-year-old men’s clothing store manager says. In a pub off Trafalgar Square, she’s upbeat despite her head looking like it’s been blown open and her chest looking like patches of skin were torn from it.
Meanwhile outside the pub, a passerby pays tribute to her work by stopping her brother-in-law Gary Hillier, who she has transformed into a zombie, to check if he’s okay. “It’s really rough in there,” Hillier says.
Hicks and her friends are waiting for more zombies to join them for a pub crawl through London’s West End organised through Meetup.com, a website that its founder Scott Heiferman says uses the internet to get people off the internet. The site helps local groups organise activities ranging from knitting to nude bike rides. The zombie event was organised by members of the London Cosplay and Harajuku group – Cosplay short for ’costume play’ for fans of dressing up as anime or video-game characters and Harajuku in reference to Tokyo-style experimental fashion.
“It’s not really an apocalypse when there’s only four of you,” says Konrad Abel, a zombie butcher with a head hanging from his belt. “But that’s how it gets started,” Hicks replies. This is a warm-up, she says, for World Zombie Day on October 13, when hundreds of zombies are expected to take to the streets. She calls up a photo on her phone showing possibly her most frightening creation: a costume comprised of doll parts that made her pregnant sister’s unborn baby appear to be tearing through her stomach.
“I usually bring a bag full of goodies so I can infect members of the public on the way if they want to get in,” she says. Her first victim today is Paul Little, a Meetup member who had only planned on taking photos. “I love the humour. Most people walk around London like zombies anyway,” he says.
Little joined Meetup only a few months ago, but since then he has played mandolin at folk music jam sessions, eaten out with Asian food aficionados and toured haunted corners of the city. “London isn’t a friendly town,” he says, but adds Meetup has transformed his social life. “Even if you turn up at a place for the first time, you’ve turned up to meet somebody,” he says. “It’s not like walking into a strange room as a complete stranger.”
This story originally ran in Huck 34, September 2012.
Latest on Huck
Clubbing is good for your health, according to neuroscientists
We Become One — A new documentary explores the positive effects that dance music and shared musical experiences can have on the human brain.
Written by: Zahra Onsori
In England’s rural north, skateboarding is femme
Zine scene — A new project from visual artist Juliet Klottrup, ‘Skate Like a Lass’, spotlights the FLINTA+ collectives who are redefining what it means to be a skater.
Written by: Zahra Onsori
Donald Trump says that “everything is computer” – does he have a point?
Huck’s March dispatch — As AI creeps increasingly into our daily lives and our attention spans are lost to social media content, newsletter columnist Emma Garland unpicks the US President’s eyebrow-raising turn of phrase at a White House car show.
Written by: Emma Garland
How the ’70s radicalised the landscape of photography
The ’70s Lens — Half a century ago, visionary photographers including Nan Goldin, Joel Meyerowitz and Larry Sultan pushed the envelope of what was possible in image-making, blurring the boundaries between high and low art. A new exhibition revisits the era.
Written by: Miss Rosen
The inner-city riding club serving Newcastle’s youth
Stepney Western — Harry Lawson’s new experimental documentary sets up a Western film in the English North East, by focusing on a stables that also functions as a charity for disadvantaged young people.
Written by: Isaac Muk
The British intimacy of ‘the afters’
Not Going Home — In 1998, photographer Mischa Haller travelled to nightclubs just as their doors were shutting and dancers streamed out onto the streets, capturing the country’s partying youth in the early morning haze.
Written by: Ella Glossop