For a long while I’ve had an idea for a Halloween decoration to sit atop my fireplace mantle for the month of October. In the same way people display Mary, Joseph & Baby Jesus in a manger for Christmas, I wanted to make a somber zombie uprising at the graveyard for Halloween.
Unfortunately my religious mother did not love Halloween as much as I. “Why do people want to celebrate evil, death and ugliness??” she’d exclaim. Reasons could be given but her stance was unwavering, and my idea remained only an idea. But now the mantle is mine, and over this last month of September I began work on my Zombie Uprising Halloween Display – “A Nativity Scene for Halloween.”
My concept was to design several different zombies, have them printed on foam core, individually cut them out out, and propped by little wooden stands. Behind them a black background of gravestones, creepy trees and boarded up houses cut from matte board. The background backlit by a string of red lights to create an ominous horizon. In front, zombies lit by a string of orange, green & purple Halloween lights. I could picture it clearly.
Drawing the zombies came easy. The first one, Sawhead (above), came to me while I was driving to the coffee shop. A couple hours later he was complete, along with the background concept, and their style was established. After that inventing and drawing zombies and other spooky Halloween ideas came easy. The pencil sketches were inked in, later to be filled with Autumny colors in Photoshop.
Miniature background concept w/knife
My first issues came with my attempt to cut the matte board with an xacto knife. Almost impossible! Especially for the size I had in mind. There was no way I was going to be able to carve the details I expected with an ordinary xacto knife. For a moment I found myself doubting whether or not I could make this happen at all. But after looking online I discovered they’re making xacto knives that vibrate now! NeoBlade’s the one I bought, and it’s amazing. It cuts through the matte like butter! With it I made a miniature version of what I imagined. One piece of board cut and folded so it can be displayed and stored easily. My vision was coming to fruition.
Full size background cut, not folded
Cutting out the giant piece of black board was actually fun! This NeoBlade, at first, I found kinda terrifying. It vibrates at 40,000 times per second (so says their website), which obviously can’t be seen with the naked eye. It only makes a quiet high pitched hum when it’s on. DO NOT TOUCH BLADE! the warning strewn across the instructions. But once I got comfortable with it, I found myself looking for excuses to cut more and expand my idea.
Each zombie, after having them printed and mounted on foam core, was designed so I wouldn’t have to cut around each claw, fang and nose hair. Each had its own unique shape, with simple straight lines, and a black background I hoped, when lit properly, would blend seamlessly into the background I’d prepared. The NeoBlade cuts through foam core with ease. And for each of them I made little wooden stands, painted black, so they could stand on their own.
I got little plastic stick-on hooks that attached to the back of the black background for the red light horizon I imagined. I also cutout grave stones in a separate piece of matte to sit in front to hide the lights illuminating the zombies.
It was October 1st I finally got the entire thing set up. After adjusting the lights and the zombies, my creation was complete. The Zombie Uprising is now haunting my fireplace mantle for this and many more Halloweens to come. I wonder what mom would’ve thought of it?
Christy Christ, circa 2008 digitized in Adobe Illustrator
A few weeks ago, just before Halloween, I went to Texas to visit Super Chic Christy, her friends, family and the city of Austin. On the last evening of my trip we were invited to go to an authentic Hell House, Texas style! So a whole bunch of us piled into vehicles and headed for the event. It was all very last minute.
It ended up not being quite what we expected as it was laid out on a stage which we sat in the audience of and watched, like a play. It was a HUGE church. A “Megachurch” as they say, and the place was packed. We were shown our seats off to the right of the stage. Everyone was very polite and helpful. And there before us was heaven! A giant castle shaped mound of draping white sparkling fabric everywhere, with a doorway in the middle, and angels perched randomly around it, wings, dresses, blond wigs and all. It was the gaudiest heaven depiction you could ever imagine. Actually, it’s just how I’d always imagined it. From one end of the stage to the other. It was a sight to behold.
So the show was what you’d expect. It was a series of skits about people doing things that were going to get them damned to hell. There was a suicidal girl who was being taunted and degraded by Satan until she shot herself in the head. Oh! And their Satan was a complete rip-off of Skeletor. Undoubtedly the best performer of the night however. Anyhow, there were gangbanger kids who did a drive-by shooting then crashed their car and went to hell. I believe there was a drug skit too. They didn’t however touch on abortion or homosexuality which I thought were standard churchie lecturedom. It surprised me.
But it was the last story of the evening that was most amazing. It was the moral of the event’s plot. It was about a Christian family being held prisoner in Iraq …possibly communist Russia. Or it could have even been Nazi Germany. It was hard to tell exactly. The accents of the soldiers were all over the place, and quite frankly their uniforms looked American, except for the berets, which was the “foreign” element of the costume I assume.
So here’s this family- father, mother, teenage emo son, and 9 year old little girl, all being held at gunpoint by these enemy soldiers. The commander is screaming at them, “So! You’re all Christians, huh? Believe in Jesus and think you’re going to heaven for believing in Jesus, huh?!”
“Yes, me and my family are Christians and we believe in Jesus!” The father replied.
The guards responded to this by pointing their guns in their faces while the commander continued, “We’ll just see about that! If you do not denounce Jesus Christ we’re going to execute you! Each and everyone of you! You will die here tonight if you do not reject Jesus!!!”
The mother and daughter fake cried into the shoulders of dad, while the insecure kid playing the emo son did his best to look like he was part of the acted drama.
“Each of you will be shot dead if you do not reject Christianity and Jesus Christ right here, right now! I will give you 5 minutes alone together to make your decision!”
And the soldiers walked away.
So the family was there fake crying and such. “Acting.” The wife cried “Oh Peter, what are we going to do? They’re going to kill us if we don’t denounce Jesus!”
“Elizabeth,” the father consoled, “Jesus has always been there to get us through the hard times. He promised us in the Bible he would watch over us and guarantee us eternal paradise if we believed in him. We will not denounce him, because we all have unwavering faith he is our savior!”
“Oh Peter, I completely agree! I love Jesus! He’s always watched over us, and I believe he’s watching over us all here, right now!”
“Kids? Do you agree? Do you believe in Jesus and trust him?”
“Daddy, I love Jesus and would never deny him! I believe in him, mommy and daddy! I believe!” the daughter cried. They all cried.
Then the soldiers returned, pointed their guns in the family’s faces, and the commander yelled, “So, have you made your decision, Anderson family?! Do you denounce Jesus Christ, or are you going to DIE?!?!”
To which the father stood and said, “My family and I have discussed it, and we WILL NOT denounce Jesus!”
The audience cheers.
“THEN YOU WILL EACH DIE!” And the solders shot the father, the mother, and the son, who all dramatically fell to the ground, dead. Then, the commander with his handgun pointed at the 9 year old little girl and shouted angrily, “Little girl, are you sure you do not denounce Jesus Christ!? Are you prepared to die like your family!? You have one more chance to change your mind!!”
The daughter stood and she stated, “I will……….. NEVER denounce Jesus! He is my savior and I love him!”
“THEN DIE!” And everything goes black. There’s a gunshot with a flash of light, and quiet.
When the lights come on we’re all back at that gaudy heaven display I described earlier, with the angels, and Gabriel at the doorway in front of a giant book. Then up comes the Anderson family, casually strolling into the scene.
“Look daddy! Is this Heaven!?! It’s more beautiful than I imagined!” the little girl joyfully cried.
“See?” Daddy said, “I told you Jesus’ promise was true! This is heaven! We made it to heaven!”
Then the angel Gabriel, with his book open in front of him said, “Is this the Anderson family?”
“Yes, that’s us!” the father responded.
“Peter Anderson!” Gabriel boomed. To which the father stepped up from his family and did a dance. No kiddin’. He did a little dance like a middle aged man who’s making a joke about how he can’t dance. The audience laughs, cheers and whistles.
“Peter anderson! You did NOT denounce Jesus and you were a good Christian! You are here in the Book Of Life and get to come into Heaven!”
The father does a fist pump “YES!” and returns to his family.
“Elizabeth Anderson!” The wife steps in front of the angel and she does the middle-aged woman dance. The audience whistles, cheers and laughs some more.
“You too were a good Christian and believed in Jesus until the very end! You are in the Book Of Life and get to come into heaven!”
She then returns to her family.
“Jonathan Anderson!”
The emo teen comes into the spotlight and does a typical insecure looking dance, raising the roof and such. The audience laughs and cheers.
“You too are in the Book Of Life and get to enter heaven!”
Then finally the daughter is called forward, she dances cutely, gets into heaven, the audience cheers and laughs, and so fourth.
Then, quite abruptly, Gabriel says, “Anderson family! We have one last surprise for you! Do you remember many years ago little Suzy, your other child who died so young?”
And the mother, with her hands covering her face, nods and says “Yes! Oh yes I do!”
Then Gabriel motioned towards heaven’s doorway with his hand. “Little Suzy, come out here and be with your family!”
And out of that doorway appears a cute little three year old in a white dress and angel wings, bashfully stepping out into the spotlight. The crowd goes bananas with “awws” and cheers and clapping. The works.
And they all run up, group hug and stampede into heaven. The End.
All of us left at that point to go have delicious mexican food. We kind of had to hurry out of there before the restaurant closed. Everything in Austin closes at 9, but we made it in time, and the cheese enchiladas there were truly amazing.
It’s hard to find good Mexican food in New York City.
