McCormick ’01 Combines Hollywood, Culinary Careers into Halloween Zombie Experience

Benjamin McCormick ’01 couldn’t have foretold that working as a casting director and talent manager in Hollywood would come in handy years later in directing actors to play zombies in the woods.

Nor did he know attending the Culinary School of California would educate him on the viscosity of liquids, so he could create fake blood at a Halloween experience centered around a zombie compound.

But like a good horror movie, life is full of unexpected twists. As creative director for the annual Halloween attraction, Zombies of the Corn, McCormick uses skills he learned at Emerson College as a film major, and from working on reality television series like Gordan Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares.

“Working with actors being zombies is remarkably similar to working with theatrical clients in Hollywood,” said McCormick, who is in his third year working on Zombies of the Corn at Three Rivers Paintball in Freedom, Pennsylvania.

Most of the actors are in the Zombie Compound area, but others are scattered throughout attraction, which includes a funhouse, maze, and ghost stories.

“The entrance to the compound is a Deliverance-style backwoods cabin,” said McCormick. “There’s a fridge that implies they’re cannibals. You go through the house, and there’s a demon nursery with a demon baby in a crib. We have scarecrows, a jilted bride.”

McCormick works with actors ranging in age from 16 to 70. He casts them to play to their strengths and use costumes the actors enjoy, he said, because it helps them get more into their performances.

As creative director, McCormick plays multiple roles. He positions the zombie actors in the correct location, helps with makeup, makes sure props (many of which he built) are working, makes sure lighting is right, and constantly walks through the attractions to make tweaks to create the best experience for visitors. McCormick stresses there’s also a great team who help throughout planning, installation, breakdown, and more.

In the attraction’s main event, participants ride on a cart lined on both sides with paintball guns and shoot at live “zombies.”

“What makes it scary is that where we have the most dreadful atmosphere and most intense actors,” said McCormick.

This year, McCormick created three new larger additions. He gutted an old refrigerator and installed mirrors in it, making it look empty.

“The freezer is dark, but a person actually has their head in the freezer, which you wouldn’t know until she lights it up,” said McCormick. “It scares a ton of people. She screams and her head is on a platter with a bed of lettuce and there’s a fake rat.”

A talking skull called Skletar The Wise also debuted this year, utilizing artificial intelligence.

“Skletar … divines answers to guest questions by utilizing ChatGPT,” said McCormick. “He’s been given a surly attitude and his assumed background as an arbiter of terror for generations informs his answers. He’s quite the comedian, and a big hit this season.”

He also installed a huge infinity mirror into the ground and when people walk over it, it looks like a never-ending mineshaft.

McCormick dreams (or has nightmares) all year long about how to make Zombies of the Corn better. He and his team come up with concepts starting in January.

While the Zombies of the Corn runs through the first weekend of November, he’s simultaneously working on a holiday event, Enchanted Lights, a 2-mile hike in the woods featuring 19 light vignettes, which debuted last winter.

“I’m working on them simultaneously. We have to switch everything over after Halloween to have Enchanted Lights open after Thanksgiving,” said McCormick. “We switch from horror to beautiful and glittery. I’ll spend three weeks putting lights up in trees, and putting away Halloween stuff is a huge undertaking.”