An oldie for sure. Ruined with a flash camera of course (thanks, mom). The late 80s were really the start of the cemetery/groundbreaker/zombie yard display layout that would follow for the next decade or so. I often try to remember what it was that made my brother and I go in the direction of zombies, as we never saw it in a book or magazine, and the internet didn’t exist as yet. And we never really saw a home haunt in our neighborhood that featured zombies. Though I guess the lawn cemetery was semi-common, with maybe a stuffed glove hand popping up here and there.
I do recall us just silently accumulating some plastic and ceramic skulls from mail catalogs knowing they would become the heads of a small zombie horde. We never even said the words “We’ll build a bunch of zombies.” We just moved forward in a direction without even communicating the plans to each other. Strange.
Feeling super grateful that those impulses were there, and that the undead were rising.
