When it was announced late last year that the Monroeville Mall, just east of Pittsburgh, was sold to Walmart and would likely be demolished, horror fans everywhere let out a collective, disappointed sigh. You see, this was not just another loss of another suburban mall, wafting off the ever-rotting corpse of what used to pass for American culture during many of our formative years.
No, this mall in particular was a shrine to the birth and solidification of zombie cinema as we know it. This particular mall is where the granddaddy of the undead, George A. Romero, shot Dawn of the Dead 50 years ago.
Dawn of the Dead is the sequel to Romero’s singular Night of the Living Dead. Taking his tale of the dead coming to life from a farmhouse to a shopping mall a full decade later, Romero tapped into a simmering anxiety spreading throughout post-Vietnam America. The shrine to rampant consumerism in the film, which housed our four survivors, is, for the time being, the home of this horror convention.
Honoring that history and building new memories, the Monroeville Mall has been home to the Living Dead Weekend. A bi-annual gathering of international and local horror fans alike. For many years, this convention has brought together like-minded monster kids for community, a bit of blood, and heaps of affection for our beloved genre.
Year-round, the mall is also home to the Living Dead Museum, which was previously located in Evans City, Pennsylvania, right down the road from the graveyard featured in the opening of 1968’s Night of the Living Dead. It is hard to swing a gravedigger’s shovel around these parts of western Pennsylvania and not strike something or someone associated in some way with a Romero film.
And that is one of the things that consistently makes Living Dead Weekend a bit different than other horror conventions. It was not only that this year’s panels focused exclusively on Dawn of the Dead, but also the stories from all the people involved in the production of this particular film.
Sure, there’s special effects elder god Tom Savini posing with his weapons near a motorcycle, waiting for photos with paying fans, and Ken Foree on stage talking about being in a theater troupe in New York in the ‘70s, but plenty of other horror conventions have had that. Living Dead Weekend had an abundance of locals who played zombies, motorcycle raiders, and redneck hunters, all of whom got involved because they knew a guy who knew a guy.
The stories from all of these participants are incredible, but even more so when told in the very space where they took place nearly a half-century ago. You can watch their eyes light up when they point out the escalators where they rode up and dangerously fell on the claws of the belt, all to get the perfectly framed shot. They talk about how great the soup was at the crafts table or how many inches of snow accumulated on their cars after a long, overnight shoot (27 inches in one night).
And with near universal affection, they talk about their fearless director, Romero. From all accounts, his openness to collaboration and quick shooting style were indicative of a man who not only did not have a big studio to answer to, but also operated a film set with trust and without ego. Many said that films could not be made that way anymore.
That feeling of fleeting opportunity was not lost on the fans in the audience or the panel members on stage. Romero sadly passed away in 2017. Because zombies are still fictional creatures, he was unable to attend the weekend convention. However, the stage was set up in the atrium of the Monroeville Mall, which contains a memorial bronze bust of the great director. Gesturing towards the man who was present in every way but physically held weight for the crowd. This atrium and this mall are special.
Though the weekend was not treated as a full wake for the mall, the potential loss of the space was certainly top of mind. Many panels began with a reference to this being potentially the last Living Dead Weekend in the mall itself.
Moderators Jim Cirronella (Image Ten) and Brian Steward (Delirium magazine) each mentioned it in their own ways. Steward took a step beyond and highlighted the parallels between the abject consumerism in Dawn of the Dead and the insatiable appetite of new owners and the mega-corporation Walmart to consume the mall itself.
Given the rich possibilities for interpretation within Romero’s Rorschach test of a film, that is one apt version.
Another approach could be to observe the parallels between the zombies and the convention goers. Not in the sense that they are mindlessly returning to a place that was previously a part of their daily routine. Instead, we can view it as a visit to a place that was important to them.
This is the physical space that birthed a film, characters, and emotions that mean something in their lives. The experience of seeing Dawn of the Dead as a teen at a drive-in, on VHS at home in a wood-paneled basement, or as a budding horror fan who cannot get enough of these canon films, has a way of bringing people together.
Some panelists marveled at the fans’ passion. Even actor Richard France said the mall’s pull is “mind-boggling,” but that dedication does not surprise the fans. They know what it is like to spend the weekend with their fellow monster kids, and that magic is not lost on them.
Steward fittingly also pointed out that while the demolition of the mall would be sad, it is, in the end, just a building. The people, their passion, and the community they have formed defy a building and even a city, no matter how important those locations may be to them.
The future of this mall seems even more uncertain after spending the weekend there. Employees at the Living Dead Museum said there has been no formal communication from management regarding a demolition timeline.
This is likely due to the recent mention by Monroeville Mayor Dennis Biondo that no formal demolition plans have been filed yet. But looking at the mall with so many empty storefronts, coupled with overall trends away from massive indoor shopping destinations across the country, it is hard to think of this as anything more than a stay of execution.
Malls are not people, and malls are not communities. But for a long stretch in our cultural history, they held importance in people’s lives. Especially the Monroeville mall, which witnessed and participated in the origin of zombie cinema and the insatiable fandom that followed.
I asked Tina Romero, George’s daughter and a filmmaker in her own right (Queens of the Dead), what it would mean if the recent rumors of the mall sitting on architectural death row were true. She briefly and eloquently said, “It would be a celebration.” While it might be sad to think of the wrecking balls ripping their way across the carcass of a building steeped in horror history, it is warming to think of the celebrations and gathering that will happen when this group of fans meets again, wherever that might be.
