To kill a zombie, you need guts, a sizable gun — and you need to know your cue.
No one knows this better than J.T. Taylor, an actor in The Walking Dead Experience. The theatrical zombie escape challenge drops participants into the world of the hit television show “The Walking Dead.”
“People have to die,” Taylor said. “This is the world we live in.”
The immersive attraction landed at the National Western Complex over the weekend as a part of the Walker Stalker Convention, a two-day zombie fan event with exhibits, panels and all things undead.
Going through the experience takes nerve, but orchestrating it requires serious brains.
“The biggest thing is that it’s highly technical,” said Ashley Holmes, manager of The Walking Dead Experience. “There are speaking roles and nonspeaking roles. And we have 3-D holographic projectors, lighting and sound.”
To move through the challenge, participants must figure out how to evade the zombies that are lurking at every turn.
Actors rely on the reactions of the people they’re trying to scare to move them through each section of the course.
The whole thing takes about 30 minutes.
Each room has a different smell, temperature and mood, said Alex Givens, an actor and production assistant.
“It’s sensory overload,” she said. “It’s very hot in one room and enclosed. It smells rancid, like there are dead humans in there.”
But before the actors can terrify the plucky zombie enthusiasts, they undergo a gruesome transformation.
Lintu Holman, lead makeup artist for the attraction, said the process takes 15 to 20 minutes for every actor. It starts out as it would if they were preparing for a prom or a wedding.
“We do a lot of contouring, adding definition to the face and highlighting the bones in the face,” she said.
Then comes the blood.
Holman applies thick coagulated blood first. Then, to create a “freshly dead” look, she applies a smattering of runny, red face paint.
“I just like to make them look as realistic as possible,” she said. “I like for them to look very dead.”
To complete the look, Holman stains the actors’ teeth with edible dye.
“It’s the same stuff that’s in cupcake frosting dye,” she said. “You can’t have a zombie with pearly whites.”
Katy Canada: 303-954-1043, kcanada@denverpost.com or @KatySusanna
