“No Mere Mortal Can Resist the Evil of the Thriller” Flash Mob

At the hauntingly fun PVCC Halloween Party on Oct. 29 during the Silent Disco, a flash mob gave the audience a chance to see a horde of zombies thrilled to perform. The Thriller Flash Mob lived up to the undead excitement. In the words of PVCC student Owen Atwell, “Liz Reynolds and the whole Thriller Flash Mob put on a spectacularly spooky show which defined PVCC’s 2025 Halloween Silent Disco.”

I learned just how fun it was to participate in the Thriller Flash Mob while practicing for the six weeks leading up to the Halloween party performance. We added a little bit more to the dance each week in the beautiful autumn weather on the Main Building patio while rehearsing in our everyday clothes. The flash mob was led during the Halloween party by Liz Reynolds, creator of the Charlottesville Thriller Flash Mob and founder of Vari-Move, a program that teaches mindfulness and movement through yoga, Pilates, meditation, and more. The weekly on-campus rehearsals leading up to the flash mob were led by Marlon Proverbs, founder of Dancin Wit Proverbs, a dance company that teaches hip-hop choreography and other genres of dance. The campus rehearsals were a great experience of learning, creativity, and outside exercise. During the rehearsals, students were able to see previews of the performance on their walk past the patio. One student, Evelyn Miller, commented that it was awesome to see the progress between the campus rehearsals near the beginning and the performance during the Halloween party, and described the flash mob performance itself as an “awesome, synchronized performance.”

Reynolds shared on her Instagram about how she was inspired to create a flash mob in Charlottesville after seeing a video of the Thriller flash mob in New York City. She wrote, “It made me so happy. I wanted to dance with a bunch of beautiful people and do something fun in my community. I vowed to myself that next Halloween I would make it happen.”

On the day of the Halloween Party, we dressed up in our best and worst zombie costumes. The individual zombies donned varying levels of ghoulishness through makeup, costuming, and in the one case of Mary-Evelyn Sellers, intentionally burnt clothing. We shuffled in from each side of the room as the music began and proceeded to thrill a variety of costumed audience members with our flash mob performance.

A community member who attended, Mary Finley, described the Flash Mob participants as “a small but mighty crew. They came, they saw, they zombied. It was so fun.”