Fun fact: zombies like Dunkin’ – iced coffee, milk, and four sugars. Scott Bouve has a sweet tooth and a unique hobby. For the last 18 years, around October, he turns himself into a zombie for fun. Then, in the weeks after October 31st, he troves the Halloween costume stores for 50% off makeup and accessories. “I probably have over a thousand hours spent building haunted houses and dressing up,” says Bouve. He uses himself, willing friends, and family as a canvas to create ever more elaborate and creepy characters. “I’m all self-taught,” says Bouve. “I have no art background.” It’s time-consuming work, taking hours to apply. For Bouve, who grew up in East Haven and has his own masonry business, it can also mean retrofitting your work truck with an assortment of airbrushes, paint, prosthetics, and contact lenses that make your eyes look like white marbles. He finds it is fun to scare people, and he is not alone.
Generation after generation loves the gory mess of zombie movies, with its ever more sophisticated makeup and computer-generated imaging. Undead aficionados on the internet list 272 zombie pics dating back to 1932, starting with White Zombie starring Bela Lugosi. Our fascination with them never seems to wane. Why the fanbase for something so disturbing? Perhaps we view zombies like a toxic boyfriend who doesn’t talk much, then turns around and bites you in the end; something to be avoided but ubiquitous. Maybe it’s because unlike someone who buys the creepy mansion on the hill and is almost asking for a ghost encounter, zombies are thrust upon us without warning. In the morning, you’re cleaning the house and by afternoon you’re barricading yourself and killing zombies with a dull kitchen knife. Who knew?
For Bouve, the fascination began early. “I saw my first zombie movie—my father took us to the old Branford Drive-In—I was probably 5 or 6. It was Dawn of the Dead (1978), which scared the bejesus out of me for many years …The scare factor you get is fantastic.”
The allure of zombies may also be their familiarity. You could be eaten by your babysitter or your best friend. It’s so random. And zombies are taciturn; no great dialogue, no ability to reason with them. (Screenwriters must love zombie movies.) Fifty percent or more of the cast just groans—no character development necessary. This zombie trait appeals to Bouve. “I’m not a big talker. You don’t really have to do much,” he says. “Visual appearance and stature do the work.”
From September to October 31st, you can find Bouve building his own haunted backyard with homemade tombstones, scaring teenagers at one of many haunted houses in Connecticut, or in Milford, being a fast-moving zombie during the annual Walnut Beach Zombie 5K, this year scheduled for October 11th.
What do zombie lovers do in the off-season? Bouve likes B horror movies. “The worse they are, the better I like them,” he says. However, he loves the new generation of zombie cinema, finding its application of computer-generated imaging hard to beat. He particularly admires the zombie makeup in the never-ending Walking Dead series, with enough decaying actors to fill a stadium. What’s a zombie movie he really appreciates? He notes Shaun of the Dead (2004) for its “cheeky British humor with horror.”
If you wish to explore this vast genre, here are the top-grossing zombie movies of all time:
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Zombieland (2009)
Warm Bodies (2013)
Zombieland Double Tap (2019)
World War Z (2013)
The wait won’t be long for another one to scare and entertain us to death.
-S.G. Patrick
