When Michelle Parsons was planning her wedding in 2007, she had only one honeymoon destination in mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy fianc\u00e9 asked, \u2018Where do you want to go?\u2019 And I said, \u2018The Monroeville Mall,\u2019\u201d Parsons recalled.<\/p>\n
The modest two-story shopping complex, 20 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh, might not seem like the most romantic choice. But to horror lovers like Parsons, the Monroeville Mall is \u201ca holy place\u201d \u2014 not to mention one of the largest and longest-standing movie sets in the country.<\/p>\n
In the late 1970s, George A. Romero, the creator of the modern zombie genre<\/a>, took over the building to shoot \u201cDawn of the Dead,\u201d a blood-soaked tale of four survivors who hide out in an abandoned mall as they try to fend off bloodthirsty creatures and greedy bikers. As Romero once told Rolling Stone<\/a>, the Monroeville Mall epitomized \u201cthe false security of the whole consumer America trip,\u201d making it the perfect backdrop for a gory allegory about 20th-century capitalism run amok.<\/p>\n Since the film\u2019s U.S. release in 1979, \u201cDawn of the Dead\u201d has attracted generations of fans to Monroeville, including Parsons, a 46-year-old X-ray technologist from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. When she finally arrived at the mall after her wedding, Parsons began to cry.<\/p>\n \u201cI was in heaven,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The marriage didn\u2019t last. But Parsons\u2019s love for the movie, and for the mall, has endured.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, she was back in Monroeville for the Living Dead Weekend. This year, it united an estimated 3,000 \u201cDawn of the Dead\u201d aficionados with more than 60 cast and crew members, its organizer, Kevin Kriess, said. Together, the \u201cDawn of the Dead\u201d faithful celebrated the building\u2019s history \u2014 and began the uneasy process of saying goodbye to the mall.<\/p>\n In October, Walmart announced it had teamed with Cypress Equities, a development company, to buy the property for $34 million<\/a>. According to a filing, there are plans to demolish the mall and build a multiuse center. The Living Dead Weekend, which has been held since 2015, will need to find a new home.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m in denial,\u201d Parsons said. \u201cYou just kind of hope there\u2019s a Hail Mary, that maybe they\u2019ll save some part of this.\u201d<\/p>\n Many Living Dead Weekend attendees expressed a similar disbelief. How could their beloved gathering space simply disappear?<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to fathom, because it\u2019s so iconic to so many people,\u201d said Greg Nicotero, a Pittsburgh native and an executive producer of \u201cThe Walking Dead\u201d who got his start as a special-effects makeup artist with help from Romero. \u201cI\u2019d equate visiting the mall to going to Georgetown and standing at the bottom of the steps where Father Karras lands in \u2018The Exorcist,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cOr going to Martha\u2019s Vineyard and seeing Quint\u2019s shack from \u2018Jaws.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Given the mall\u2019s imminent closure, the mood over the weekend was bittersweet. There were panel discussions, autograph sessions and V.I.P. parties where former zombies mingled with revelers. Fans, some of whom paid $50 for a three-day pass, re-created their favorite scenes \u2014 like a shootout on the mall\u2019s top floor \u2014 and met up with enthusiasts, including people from New Zealand, Sweden and Britain.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve told friends and family, \u2018If you love this movie, get down here as soon as possible,\u2019\u201d said Joseph Lilagan, a warehouse traffic-support specialist from Mesa, Ariz., who has visited the mall nearly a half-dozen times, and was attending this event for his 38th birthday. \u201cBeing here widens the fan vibe within you. Who wouldn\u2019t want to come and enjoy whatever\u2019s left?\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018A Zombie Apocalypse\u2019<\/p>\n As attendees overtook the mall, the building\u2019s declining health was hard to ignore.<\/p>\n A handful of prominent businesses were shuttered, including a vast Forever 21 store that sat in darkness. Some smaller stores looked as though they\u2019d been abandoned in a hurry: In one hollowed-out location, all that remained were a few skeletal fixtures and a lone red hat; in another store, a limp \u201cGrand Opening\u201d sign sat on the floor.<\/p>\n Such images of retail decay would no doubt feel familiar to dead mall scholars<\/a> \u2014 as well to viewers of \u201cBackrooms<\/a>,\u201d the industrial-space horror film playing at the Monroeville Mall\u2019s movie theater.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve gone from deindustrialization to de-mallization,\u201d noted Tony Buba, the 82-year-old documentarian who\u2019s spent decades chronicling the plight of working-class Pennsylvania<\/a>. Buba, who had a small role in \u201cDawn of the Dead,\u201d admitted he was no fan of malls, having watched them put mom-and-pop stores out of business. But even he was feeling sanguine about the Monroeville Mall\u2019s current state. \u201cI think someone should buy it and turn it into an indoor zombie amusement park,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n During the convention\u2019s first two days, the number of shoppers trickling in was notably low. \u201cIt looks like a zombie apocalypse happened here, which is kind of spot-on,\u201d said Scott Yesh, 52, a regional manager for AAMCO Transmissions from Houston who was posing next to a bust of Romero in the courtyard.<\/p>\n Dennis Biondo, the mayor of Monroeville, said that while the sale of the building is complete, no plans for its development had been submitted to the municipality. No closing date has been announced.<\/p>\n In a statement, Walmart said it had no new information, noting only that, \u201cWe believe this transformation will create a vibrant, community-centered destination that helps shape a strong, exciting future for the Monroeville area.\u201d<\/p>\n But given that some tenants have been told to vacate by April 2027, the building\u2019s end seems near.<\/p>\n A few of the storefronts, including a giant-size former Party City, had been converted into halls for the weekend. On the Saturday afternoon, Tom Savini, the makeup effects wiz on \u201cDawn of the Dead\u201d and other classic movies like \u201cFriday the 13th\u201d \u2014 and who acted in \u201cDawn\u201d \u2014 signed autographs close to where he\u2019d executed a daring stunt.<\/p>\n \u201cI dove off this balcony into cardboard boxes,\u201d Savini, who played a machete-wielding biker in the film, said. \u201cI can\u2019t even look at it now without my knees getting weird.\u201d<\/p>\n Savini, 79, said he was taking a stoic approach to the building\u2019s demise. \u201cWhat can you do?\u201d asked Savini, who directed the 1990 remake of \u201cNight of the Living Dead.\u201d \u201cThere are petitions out there, but they\u2019re not going to do a bit of good.\u201d<\/p>\n Stumbling on Escalators<\/p>\n Such a fate seemed impossible when the mall opened its doors in 1969. Hailed by its founders as \u201cthe U.S.\u2019s largest enclosed shopping center,\u201d the building featured an ice-skating rink, a $125,000 clock tower that hosted puppet shows, and more than 100 stores and businesses.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was busy all the time,\u201d remembered Beverly Galando, 76, a longtime Monroeville resident who had stopped by the celebration to do some people-watching. \u201cI used to meet my mom here for walks, and now my sister and my friends walk here. This place is a gem.\u201d<\/p>\n Romero felt the same way when he toured the mall in 1974. By that point, the Pittsburgh-based filmmaker had been running from zombies for years. Following the success of his 1968 thriller \u201cNight of the Living Dead\u201d Romero was inundated with requests for a sequel. \u201cI was just resisting completely,\u201d he recalled in the 2004 documentary \u201cThe Dead Will Walk.\u201d \u201cI didn\u2019t want to get typecast.\u201d<\/p>\n Romero\u2019s visit helped inspire the screenplay for \u201cDawn of the Dead,\u201d which filmed between late 1977 and early 1978. The movie\u2019s cast and crew members shot in the evening and wrapped by 7:05 a.m. the next day. That\u2019s when the mall\u2019s automatic Muzak system switched on, and local cardiac patients arrived for their morning exercise, passing blood-splattered zombies on their way in.<\/p>\n