zombie house party

Zombie House Party Celebrates 15th Anniversary of ’28 Days Later’

In celebration of the 15th-anniversary screening of the zombie classic film 28 Days Later, True Blood star Ryan Kwanten and former Fandango Editor-in-Chief Chuck Walton are throwing a Throwback Thursday Zombie House Party on Nov. 30 at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills.  From Director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting), 28 Days Later stars Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris as two survivors of a zombie apocalypse in London.

The pre-show runs from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. There will be live electronic music from DJ Joe Balboa and bassist David Wright, a photo booth, a fan art gallery in the lobby, as well as free zombie face painting done by professional makeup artists.

In the past, their events were thrown in very intimate and cozy settings in West Hollywood. This year, for the first time, the film of the night will be played on the Saban Theatre’s massive movie palace screen. With its extraordinary state-of-the-art sound system, the viewing experience is guaranteed to blow minds.

As someone who worked at Fandango for 13 years, Walton says the idea of throwing an event like this has been brewing: “We have been thinking about it for quite some time now. Ryan, who is one of the acting leads in True Blood … we both love films and we love doing music festival pop-ups. But we wanted to have something more than just an event. And that’s why we incorporated many multimedia elements into this party.”

Walton also explains his reasoning behind throwing a horror-themed event after Halloween:

“During the Halloween season there is an over-saturation of horror events and it is easy to get overwhelmed … and to be frank, we considered hosting it during Halloween, but at the time Ryan was shooting in Puerto Rico and he got stuck there because of the hurricane. So after that, we decided to do it in November, since it also happens to be the screening anniversary of 28 Days Later.”

Walton notes that horror films have made a transition from relying on jump-scares to utilizing psychological tactics.

“I am a huge fan of classic horror such as John Carpenter, Hitchcock, etc… But after the success of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, many film directors started emulating that and used a lot of shock effects. But recently the trend of shock effects is wearing off, and we are seeing more and more subtle horrors, such as Get Out. It is not your typical slasher, but its smart use of gore is really sophisticated and I think that is more effective sometimes than old-fashioned shock effects.”

For tickets: hoodihoo.com