Monday, August 30 was a strange day for me; the sky was deceptively sunny, and I felt the cold bite of winter as I left the house — an ominous start to the day. As I travelled through the outskirts of London, everywhere felt a little desolate — a poetic setting for where I was going. As is usual on a bank holiday, the centre of London was busy, the air filled with the hum of people going about their business enjoying their day off.
I arrived behind the Houses of Parliament to find a gathering crowd of “zombies,” acting suitably undead and carrying picket signs. Beams of light shone down from the clear sky, accenting the bloody, ripped features of each individual in the crowd — gruesome smiles and yellow contact lenses stared back at me, and for a moment I was intimidated. Poised around the group were uniformed security guards, looking decidedly bored and fed up, though the event had barely begun. It’s not every day that you come across this kind of thing, and it was clear from the bemused faces of tourists around me that they had the same thoughts. People were laughing and pointing, taking pictures and speculating out loud as to the reason behind the appearance of the walking dead in Old Palace Yard. I took a few pictures myself before heading over the road to join the throng of press people. National Geographic were in attendance, apparently filming and obtaining information for an upcoming documentary about zombies.
I was there to attend the zombie gathering, sponsored by Capcom and organised by the Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality (CURE) political party. I say political party because CURE ran in the last Election, in four constituencies, as something of a joke. They actually didn’t do too badly:
“We didn’t come last in any of our constituencies, so a huge thanks to our supporters and campaigners. Our experiment in General Election tomfoolery was a success in that sense. “
It makes sense that Capcom would sponsor this kind of thing, being the lead producer of zombie-related video games. They’ve also taken the chance to promote their new video game: Dead Rising 2. Every person who attended the gathering and dressed as a zombie received a t-shirt from CURE and will receive a free copy of Dead Rising 2 when it comes out, for their respective console — PlayStation 3, Wii or Xbox 360.
The demonstration — if you could call it that — was quite impressive at first but soon just became amusing, then boring. As the time wore on, the zombies became less of a shuffling, groaning mass and more of a restless, bored group of young adults. It’s nothing short of bemusing when you see a convincing zombie stroll away from the rest lighting a cigarette, or sit down to chat to their onlookers, friends and family. The weather also improved as the performance deteriorated, making things even worse. Despite being cloudless and sunny the entire time, the day had been cold but as it began to heat up, makeup began to run and weariness became apparent on the faces of the demonstrators, struggling to keep their signs aloft, the good weather also dispersed the intimidating atmosphere that the zombies seemed to exhibit when I first arrived.
The ambiance seemed to return to its original state when whispers began to circulate concerning an appearance by David Cameron. This was probably the most exciting thing of the whole event, but it turned out to be mere speculation and the mood soon lessened once again. Before I left, the entire thing was falling apart, half of the zombies weren’t even demonstrating anymore and some, much to the dismay of the security, had decided to attempt to break away across the road. After being herded back, they proceeded to form a conga line engaging in various acts of merriment. This didn’t seem to be what you could call “zombie behaviour.”
Despite how it sort of fell apart, the event was fun and it definitely made a significant impact on tourists and passers-by. This was, after all, their goal. however, I fear that most of those people had no idea what it was for and such equals no publicity for Capcom — a bit of a wasted venture into politics for a leading producer of video games.
