ZOMBIE THRILLER
Flesh outlook for our man Alex
HAVING launched its Year Of The Walking Dead, Thorpe Park recently put out the call for zombies to come and scare its guest.
The calendar of events at the famous theme park for 2018 includes a terrifying live maze, latenight openings and a zombie hunt.
So despite not having acted since school, I set off to the Chertsey, Surrey, resort to try my luck.
The first part of the process was to make yourself ugly enough to scare your own mother.
This involved applying make-up and prosthetics to recreate the “undead” look from such films as Shaun Of The Dead and 28 Days Later.
Harness
I spent over an hour having ripped flesh and fake blood applied, with my pale skin made to look even worse.
Make-up done, I then selected an outfit from a range of tattered, bloody costumes just to get the dead-cool look.
Zombie appearance done, I joined three other hopefuls as we stumbled over to the Swarm rollercoaster.
Looking up at the mammoth ride, we had a harness attached and walked up to a platform 127ft in the air.
We were then asked to do our best zombie impression in front of interviewer Rob
Beggs, staying in character while being battered by the winds and cold.
I growled and lunged aggressively at Rob but unfortunately let myself down with watering eyes from the wind.
The first part of the audition complete, we headed back to ground for part two.
Here we were given a talk by Jamie Dowle, a Scare Actor trainer.
He explained that we had to play “walkers”, such as those made famous in the hit TV show The Walking Dead.
Jamie told us they walk with a pointed body part, gnash their teeth and lunge when they smell flesh.
Having had a quick and embarrassing practice, we put our new skills to the test in a daunting audition in front of Suzy Birch, Thorpe Park’s head of operations.
My turn came and I shuffled towards her, lunging and gnashing in her face. Despite nearly corpsing at the end, I was told I’d given a “strong audition” and was through to the next stage.
I ended the day as cold as death, but delighted to have a new career option.
Thorpe Park’s zombies are needed from Friday, March 23.