Hey Everybody, my name is Jim and I'm a Zombieholic and now crew member at Zombie Infection!
It's seems somewhat ironic that a guy who has spent the best part of 30 years thinking about, discussing, prepping and training for the imminent zombie apocalypse would now spend odd weekends pretending to be one, and enjoying it thoroughly.
I've been a fan of the zombie genre since I was around 10 years old (that's me above!). A friend's dad had a collection of terrible horror films (Copied VHS, I'm so old) and we spent our weekends going through them, I don't think our parents would have approved. We watched countless vampires, werewolves, miscellaneous creatures from miscellaneous lagoons but zombies were the ones that endured.
Zombies are different to the other onscreen monsters. There is an appeal to being an immortal vampire with limitless strength or having the ability to morph into a great beast but who wants to be a walking corpse? The rotting bodies of the undead have no sex appeal, no style. They are the one bad guy you don't want to be. They are, however, the thing that we all will inevitably become...but hopefully slightly more animated.
The appeal then is different to the other creatures afore mentioned. They represent us at our worst, and that's scary, but they also make us think. What's your plan? Where would you go? What's the best weapon to fight them? You could stay up all night debating this.....and I have....many times. They give us the opportunity to think ourselves better than the onscreen victims, to devise superior strategies, to be the hero of our own imagination.
So then Resident Evil happened and, like a virus, the zombie genre evolved. The shambling, one head shot and gone, George A Romero zombies were joined by Umbrella's ever evolving hordes of mutant infected and these were soon accompanied by movies full of running, jumping, almost sentient dead folk desperate to bite bits off people for no good reason.
Until recently your own involvement in the genre has been limited to your own meandering imagination, maybe you've been to comicon dressed as Rick Grimes....big deal.
In 2017 I visited an abandoned tools factory in Sheffield with a stag party of 18 over grown children and took on an army of the undead. I survived the experience but came away infected. A couple of years later I saw a casting call for Zombie Infection and thought I'd have a go.
Zombie Infection and its award winning Zombie Experience are the latest evolution of the zombie genre virus. Halfway between a live theatre show and a real life computer game the events will test your reflexes, puzzle solving and your nerves.
Everyone I've worked with at Zombie Infection loves it. The lengths that some of the team go to to develop their characters or drop hidden Resident Evil references into the venues is incredible. The level of detail throughout the story line and within each of the many characters is impressive and our customers leave the events feeling like they have been through something, with memories they won't soon forget.
It wouldn't work if the cast didn't love it. You wouldn't be able to do it if you didn't. It's hard work but no one notices until a shift is over.
Zombies endure. How many more Walking Dead spin offs will I get hooked on?, and in a way that other undeads and monsters don't. You couldn't do events centered around vampires.. .it wouldn't work... would it?
I still walk into buildings and instantly look for escape routes, I just started replaying the old computer games and I can't wait to watch the new Zombieland movie. If you are a mad Zombie fan or even a fan of horror in general get yourself to your nearest Zombie Infection event, then , when you have calmed down a bit, come and work with us! Being Infected is fun!
To take part on one of our new 2020 events head over to our website www.zombieinfection.co.uk and follow us across social!
Facebook: www.facebook.com/zombieinfection
Instagram: @official_zombieinfection
Why not join our community for all things zombie on our live Twitch channel: twitch.tv/zombieinfection or better still become "part of the ship, part of the crew!"
