Zombies Invade Highland Mall During Mondo 'Dawn of the Dead' Event

On Saturday night, as you slept, the dead walked the earth here in Austin. Highland Mall experienced a zombie outbreak. Was there a full moon? Was there a chemical release from a freight train? Did a voodoo ceremony go awry? Nope, nope and nope. What there was, was an yet another epic event created by the evil geniuses at the Alamo Drafthouse and Mondo Tees. Last night was MMMIX: Mondo Mystery Movie #9, which turned out to be the 1978 Dawn of the Dead.

Mondo Mystery Movie is an event where people buy tickets to see an un-named mystery film, and receive a poster related to that movie. The first two events in Austin (six others took place in Los Angeles) were Akira and Jurassic Park. Each of these events sold out almost immediately. MMMIX, as it's being called, topped all of them.

MMMIX was executed as an epic bait-and-switch that would make William Castle proud. The instructions for the event were pretty simple. The location was Austin's Riverbend Church on Loop 360. The directions stated, "Please be there no later than 8:30 pm. We are closing and LOCKING the doors at 9:30 pm. If you're not there by then, you will miss the show." Wow, that's pretty cool, I thought -- they are going to be locking the doors. Interesting. Wonder what film we are going to see in a church? Rampant speculation was that it would be The Exorcist. Wow, did they actually talk a church into showing The Exorcist?

Nope! What they did arrange was for a dozen or so buses to transport us to a secret location. Oh ... did I tell you we had a police escort? Yes! We had a police escort! Members of the Austin Police Department blocked traffic for our convoy from from Riverbend Church to the then-undisclosed location, which we all now know was Highland Mall.

As we pulled into the parking lot of Highland Mall, we saw what looked like a disturbance. Wait, what the heck are those? Are those ... zombies!?!?!? Oh my god, the parking lot was taken over by a full-fledged zombie outbreak. As our bus slowed down, we were attacked by a horde of zombies. The crew from Mondo orchestrated a zombie outbreak at a MALL. OMG, we were going to see Dawn of the Dead, in a MALL, TONIGHT! Freaking awesome!

We left the bus as quickly as possible, all the while dodging a horde of walking dead trying to eat our brains. Luckily there were some military helping us ... as food!

We made our way into Highland Mall, where the Alamo Drafthouse crew had set up a giant screen and and folding chairs for a crowd of zombie fans numbering more than 700.

After a brief wait, we were greeted by our fearless leader, our El Jefe, the one the only Justin Ishmael. Justin is the creative mind behind Mondo Tees and is responsible for creating what is now an international phenomenon. Movie posters from Mondo sell out in minutes and are coveted by movie fans worldwide. Justin then proceeded to introduce the man of the hour, our zombie father: George Romero! Check out my video of Romero embedded below.

Before the screening started, Justin "fed" the audience "zombie snacks." Remember this is the Alamo Drafthouse and these snacks were edible body parts. We were treated to eyeballs, hands, fingers ... and to top it all off, a zombie baby. I enjoyed a nice helping of eyeball. I had a hand writing this event report, as you can see in the photo on the right.

Then we were treated to what we later learned was a rare public exhibition of the 1978 film Dawn of the Dead. (During the poster announcement, Justin let us know the owners of Dawn of the Dead don't normally allow public screenings.)

It was amazing seeing this movie in all its glory. It was made that much better better by the fact that my wife was with me, and this was the first time she had seen Dawn of the Dead.

After the screening, Justin Ishmael took the stage again for the unveiling of the new Dawn of the Dead posters, which all attendees received as part of their ticket price. Check out the poster's awesomeness for yourself in the photo below. I've also included a great photo of Romero at the event.

For more awesome and gruesome pictures from the Mondo event, check out Heather Leah Kennedy's Flickr photostream. Mondo has also released their own video from the evening. If anyone else has photos or video, feel free to share links in the comments.

[Photo credit: Zombie/military photo by Ann Enders, audience and Romero photos by Heather Leah Kennedy, used with permission (and thanks). All other photos and video by Rod Paddock, all rights reserved.]