Zombies!

On Oct. 26 the streets of downtown Portland were swarmed by more than 1,000 zombified people as part of the city’s Fourth annual Zombie Walk. Inspired by George A. Romero’s zombie horror films, the attendees–among them many undead pets and children-gathered and marched to support world hunger awareness and the Oregon Food Bank’s efforts to relieve the stress on the impoverished.

On Oct. 26 the streets of downtown Portland were swarmed by more than 1,000 zombified people as part of the city’s Fourth annual Zombie Walk.

Inspired by George A. Romero’s zombie horror films, the attendees–among them many undead pets and children-gathered and marched to support world hunger awareness and the Oregon Food Bank’s efforts to relieve the stress on the impoverished.

Portland’s walk, which coincided with walks in over 50 other cities around the world, took place across the city and featured a free benefit concert at the Satyricon, whose proceeds went to the Oregon Food Bank.

Surpassing 1,000 zombies this year, the shambling crowd poured into Pioneer Square at 4 p.m. to have a bloodied head count for the record books before beginning their march across the River City.

“The sheer volume of the zombies this year filled Pioneer Square to its capacity,” Zombie Walk organizer Blanca Garcia-Rinder said. “It took at least 20 minutes for the zombies to leave. Shoulder to shoulder, five men deep, trying to get outside to the sidewalk.”

Despite the hundreds of people who showed up for the walk, however, Garcia-Rinder reported that only $50 was raised at the concert.

Garcia-Rinder said that zombie participants reached the venue much earlier than anticipated, which may have been a contributing factor to low donations.

Portland’s inaugural zombie walk, held in 2005, saw about 80 people in attendance, she said. Since then, the number of attendees has continued to rise annually. The 2006 walk resulted in approximately 250 participants, which rose again in 2007 to 700.

With such a large group of people, “zombie wranglers” have been an integral part in the pre-walk, assisting with make-up and other zombie-related advice. This year, however, wranglers also had to assist with impromptu cleanup, as the size of the crowd led to some blood-soaked vandalism along the walk route.

Garcia-Rinder said in an e-mail that next year’s zombie walk will require further assistance from wranglers and possibly the Portland city police to help with crowd control.

This year, a group of socially conscious zombie participants took it upon themselves to purchase cleaning supplies mid-walk, cleaning up fake blood and other costume residue off of storefronts.

Garcia-Rinder said the acts of vandalism do not represent the entire group–on whole the crowd is generally peaceful, she said.

“[They] absolutely do not want to destroy, damage, deface, or even temporarily smear fake blood on a business,” Garcia-Rinder said.

Garcia-Rinder also expressed her astonishment with participants’ dedication.

“I was very amazed at everyone’s ability to stay in character,” she said. “To walk with one leg dragging behind the other is quite impressive. I don’t think I could do the zombie shamble for that far.”

Participants came in all shapes and sizes, Garcia-Rinder said–even some prominent political figures.

“There was a zombie who had a chef coat from western culinary school, who was carrying around an 18 inch cow femur and gnawing on it over the course of the day,” she said, laughing. “And also zombie Palin–a zombie Sarah Palin, and a zombie Obama too.”

The root of World Zombie Day lies in Pittsburgh, PA–where the Romero’s 1978 film Dawn of the Dead was filmed. The Pittsburgh Zombie Walk has been the record holder for the last two years with about 1,300 participants each year.

This year’s Zombie Walk marks the first Portland attempt to reach the world record for the largest gathering of zombies in a single day.

Organizers said the event is foremost about maintaining a sense of community. Those in charge of the Pittsburgh Zombie Walk have organized a method for every participating city to run under the name of the “It’s Alive!” Zombie festival.

Organizing under one name allows participating cities around Pittsburgh to develop the record based on a total average number of zombies for all cities.

While Portland is still making headway toward matching Pittsburgh in the rankings, the city’s ranking still comes out far ahead of other participating cities in the nation, beating out New York City’s count of just 450 zombies this year.

Zombie Walk organizer Blanca Garcia-Rinder has set up a donation Web site for continued contributions to the Oregon Food Bank. The Portland Zombie Walk hopes to raise at least $1000 for the food charity. Donations can be made at www.firstgiving.com/portlandzombiewalk.