Seattle Children's Theatre To Produce a Stage Version of Night of the Living Dead

Not a horror buff herself, Hartzell says she's adding camp that was absent from Romero's bleak original — which she's only seen once. She also drew inspiration from horror spoofs "Young Frankenstein" and "Shaun of the Dead." And this version is set in Seattle, with plenty of local references including some characters planning an escape from the carnage to Issaquah.

But, she also promises, "There will be blood." Not a great deal, but some realistic-looking severed limbs and a bit of intestine-munching, with gummy worms substituting for the real thing.

"When you're a kid, anything that's taboo is kind of hip and cool," Jackson says. "I feel it's kind of gone the crazy end of things now with all these kind of fast zombie movies where they're kind of super-speedy and the gore equation is ramped up. I don't really dig that, but I think they will really love the more suspenseful slow zombie thing. There is something inherently funny about something moving in super-slow motion."