This Pumpkin Zombie Will Eat Your Squishy, Squishy Brains

By Brent McKnight | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

How do you get into the world of big-time pumpkin carving? Like most non-traditional career paths, it likely began as a childhood passion, one for creating new and interesting pieces of art out of various members of the squash family. This road less traveled has taken celebrated pumpkin carver Ray Villafane to places like the White House, and led to his rubbing elbows with the likes of Heidi Klum and Martha Stewart.

Luckily for us, the crew at his Villafane Studios has a predilection for the spooky and horrific that is especially appropriate this time of year. Check out this crazy-ass life-sized zombie piece they created. This is madness. That pumpkin zombie is six feet tall, and has an intricate system of intestines falling out of his abdomen as he yanks his undead brethren out of the ground. It’s like he’s harvesting a gourd army.

To accomplish this feat, Villafane and company used three of the largest pumpkins grown in the United States. One weighed more than 1800 pounds. They were going to use the biggest, but apparently it “sprung a leak.”

These close-up shots of the construction in progress show the true complexity of this piece. They give you a good idea of some of the methods and strategies used in the construction of this scene. Not to mention the fact that the teeth and the pumpkin-gut hairpiece are creepy and gross.

How many zombie movies have you watched where the creature effects couldn’t hold a candle to what these people do with pumpkins? On the plus side, if this guy bites you you’ll probably be okay, because those teeth don’t look like they’d be able to puncture the skin. He might gum on you for a while, but pumpkins are soft, so when you get bored you can just push your way through and be done with it.