Melbourne Wants To Eat Your Brain: Get Your Zombie On

Pop culture has been infected by the zombie virus and Melbourne, with its hunger for subcultural edginess, is emerging as the zombie capital of Australia.

Melburnians aren't alone – the world has been conquered by zombies. The dystopian US TV hit The Walking Dead, based on the graphic novels by Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore, has done much to feed global zombie mania. The show is now approaching its seventh season and has even spawned a spin-off (Fear The Walking Dead). More comic, yet equally cult, is The CW's iZOMBiE - a largely female fandom recently welcoming stars Rose McIver and David Anders at Melbourne's Oz Comic-Con. Movie-makers have leapt on the zombie trend, too, with 2013's Brad Pitt vehicle World War Z a box office smash.

"We get a lot of families - people who bring their babies out all zombified - which is just crazy, but a lot of fun."

Zombie-hybrids have given rise to some bizarre but brilliant narrative mixes. The 2004 zom-rom-com Shaun Of The Dead used the typical zombie apocalypse model to tell a cute, oddball love story. Irreverent parody Pride & Prejudice & Zombies offered a mash-up of Jane Austen and living dead mythology. Currently in development is an adaptation of Carrie Ryan's creepy young adult zom-com novel The Forest Of Hands And Teeth, set to star Game Of Thrones' Maisie Williams. Australia also has a surging zombie-stry. There are two indie films in production - one being Leigh Ormsby's The Last Hope, allegorising border control.

The 'zombie' originated in Haitian lore as a corpse reanimated by sorcery. In (post-)colonial Western narratives, the zombie symbolised the Other - cue Victor Halperin's '30s horror classic White Zombie with a voodoo Bela Lugosi. However, even as early as Mary Shelley's 1818 gothic novel Frankenstein, the zombie figure represented a growing cultural unease about scientific progress. George A Romero's influential 1968 flick Night Of The Living Dead, the beginning of an enduring franchise, introduced the zombie apocalypse sub-genre, manifesting collective anxieties about humanity's self-destruction. Later, Romero's living dead would feast on brains, and thus a trope was born.

In the 2000s, starting in North America, the zombie cosplay event became a grassroots phenom that soon spread Down Under. This spring Melbourne will experience a zombie epidemic. The Melbourne Zombie Shuffle - a free annual parade run by volunteers - is back in Treasury Gardens on 22 October for ("officially") its 11th edition. Once "underground", it now attracts up to 10,000 zombies, says event manager Matt Jowett. A former participant, his involvement began when he suggested a costume competition. On Facebook, shufflers are discouraged from coming as "witches, wizards, werewolves and Warner Bros characters". Jowett explains, "Sometimes people go, 'Oh, it's a Halloween event!' It's not a Halloween event at all - it is very specifically a zombie shuffle." BYO (fake) gore.

Jowett is surprised at the day's demographics. "It's a really mixed bunch - there's a lot of cosplay enthusiasts and gaming enthusiasts and horror and zombie film enthusiasts. Then there's a whole lot of people who've seen it in past years and been like, 'That just looks like a whole lot of fun' and they're just out for a day of dress-up kinda thing. We get a lot of families - people who bring their babies out all zombified - which is just crazy, but a lot of fun."

A week later, the inaugural Melbourne Zombie Walk will happen in Birrarung Marr - with live music. It's sponsored by those behind the long-running Brisbane chapter, raising money for (ironically) the Brain Foundation.

But, first, the Zombie APORCalypse is returning for a second year on Saturday at Moorooduc's seven-kilometre Peninsula Obstacle Racing Course. The mission for "runners" is to retrieve vaccine vials from the "wastelands" without being turned by zombies. Organiser James Witika considers it more of "a zombie-themed obstacle challenge" than a "race". Numbers are limited - with strict guidelines ensuring public safety. In fact, the Zombie APORCalypse could be a realistic Hollywood set. "We're trying to sort of create a Walking Dead episode, basically, so it gives you that survival feeling."