The recent uprising of zombie culture has been infecting the masses for the last several years. A mob reminiscent of a George Romero film is putting their weight behind films like Brad Pitt's World War Z ($539,551,611 worldwide gross sales) and AMC's The Walking Dead (the third season's finale had 12.4 million viewers). If you ever wanted to channel your inner Rick Grimes, zombie paintball is a great opportunity to sharpen your apocalypse survival skills.
Tore Briguglio, owner of Xtreme Paintball in Millstadt, Ill, claims to have been the first park in the metro area to offer zombie paintball, back in 2009. "You're on a trailer with blacklights, shooting glow-in-the-dark paintballs at actors dressed up like zombies—it's like a mobile target shoot," he says. "We found out real quick that the hayride is kind of the fun part, and then the haunted trail is the actual scary part, more like a traditional haunted house."
So just how does Xtreme Paintball convince people to dress up like zombies and get shot with paintballs? "The shooting portion [of the casting] always fills up first," Briguglio says. "You get guys that love to play paintball and are used to getting shot all the time. They kinda get a kick out of it—they're amused by the pain."
In addition to Xtreme Paintball, the following area-wide courses offer zombie paintball:
• Creepyworld in Fenton
• Zombie Paintball Apocalypse at Six Flags' Frightfest
• Eureka Fear Farm in Eureka
• Zombie Safari at FearFest in Columbia, Mo.
• Gateway Paintball's Zombie Hunt
