Thursday, October 30, Grand Rapids, Michigan. A seemingly average midwestern city. Until the zombies invade. A throng of at least 3,370 zombies flowed through the downtown streets (it’s very likely it was over 4,000) to try and break the world record for the largest zombie walk. The event, organized by college sophomore Rob Bliss, shattered the previous record of 1,375, set just a few days earlier in the Pittsburgh suburb of Monroeville. If Monroeville sounds familiar to zombie fans, it should. The Monroeville Mall was the setting of George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead.
While Grand Rapids may not have the zombie pedigree of Monroeville, it’s no less qualified for an invasion of the living dead. Annalee Newitz recently wrote a post on io9 charting the correlation between civil unrest and zombie movie production. The results are surprisingly revealing. Given the current economic downturn, it’s no surprise that struggling post-industrial areas like Pittsburgh, and the whole state of Michigan, would see an increase in zombie invasions. If Michigan’s unemployment rate cracks 10%, I predict a complete state-wide zombie apocalypse by Halloween 2009.
A new Val Kilmer film, The Steam Experiment, is currently filming in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I got a chance to visit the set the other night, and while I wasn’t able to talk to star Val Kilmer, I did happen to record a video of Armand Assante spilling a martini all over himself (see above).
In the film, Kilmer plays a disgraced science professor with an extreme theory about how global warming will turn the general public into homicidal maniacs. In an effort to get the local paper to publish a story about his theory, he imprisons six innocent people in a steam bath and slowly turns up the heat until his demands are met. Armand Assante plays the tough detective who’s trying to thwart the diabolical plan.
I’ve lived in Grand Rapids for most of my life, and the movie thing is a new development. The state recently passed some very attractive tax incentives in hopes of luring productions to the state. As the Michigan news site Mlive.com reports, “Productions that spend $50,000 or more in Michigan are eligible to receive up to a 40 percent refundable tax credit.” These are reportedly the best tax incentives in the country. It seems to be working, as 50 films have been approved to film here so far this year.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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