RICHMOND TOWN — They're coming to get you Staten Island.
Historic Richmond Town will screen George Romero's 1968 horror classic "Night of the Living Dead" next month and host a "zombie walk" throughout the old village beforehand.
Before the midnight showing on Aug. 16, organizers will fill the historic town with a fog they say causes the dead to leave their graves. Audience members will be encouraged to display their best zombie walks as they arrive, said Ed Wiseman, director of Historic Richmond Town.
"The dead live here all the time. This is a chance for the public to sort of re-live the dead," Wiseman said. "We're expecting people to come, act out and interpret their own zombie walk through the historic town."
To get people in the zombie spirit, the group posted a short story on their website on how Staten Island's dead rose from their grave and started to roam the village.
"As midnight approaches, a peculiar mist creeps up from Mill Pond," according to their website. "It's long willowy fingers crawl underneath the shadows cast by the old Mill and sweep over the banks into the consuming darkness. The mist has an appetite. Insatiable."
Wiseman said they plan to record the walk and make a short film to show before one of their other screenings. Walkers and spectators should expect surprises throughout the night.
After the free walk, people with tickets can head inside the center's Third County Courthouse at midnight to watch the movie about five people trapped in a farmhouse trying to survive an attack from flesh-eating ghouls.
"Night of the Living Dead" was the first in Romero's series of popular zombie flicks. It's credited with transforming the movie zombie from a person enslaved by a Voodoo witch-doctor to the human-eating living dead.
The screening is part of Historic Richmond Town's summer "All American Drive-In" outdoor film series. While it generally focuses on family-friendly movies, Wiseman said they decided to have a one-off "After, After Dark" indoor screening this year of a more adult movie.
"We thought we'd do something with a little bit of an edge to it, a little twist," he said.
The "After, After Dark" screening of "Night of the Living Dead" will be on August 16, starting at midnight. Tickets to the movie are $5 in advance and $10 at the door. The free "Zombie Walk" in the town will start at 11:30 p.m.
