Gifts from the crypt

This holiday season, do you wish you could give your friends and loved ones the gift of eternal, flesh-crawling putrescence? Do you pick up bathrobes and slippers and think to yourself, "Nope, just not zombie enough"? Do you struggle to find that one perfect present that says, I want you to live with me forever among the ranks of the living dead?

Time to end your search.

Artist Rob Sacchetto runs Zombie Portraits (www.zombieportraits.com), a web-based portrait service in which he transforms photographs of living subjects into paintings of decaying, reanimated corpses. Customers send Sacchetto a headshot photograph, and he returns an 8"x10" ink-and-paint illustration of the client as a brain-chewing zombie.

Based out of Ontario, Sacchetto has been working for years as a freelance artist, doing portraits, caricatures, and comic book illustrations. Less than a month ago, Sacchetto, a horror movie junkie, decided to zombify a picture of himself. He liked what he saw, so, on a lark, he started up the website. In just a few short weeks, the response has been overwhelming, thanks in part to plenty of Internet buzz. "I'm barely keeping up with orders right now," says Sacchetto. "It's just been amazing."

For $80, you receive the original Zombie Portrait painting, which you can mat and frame as you please (Sacchetto plans to expand into custom framing). Currently, the website only takes PayPal orders. After you order the portrait, you send Sacchetto a photo of you or the intended subject in the preferred zombie pose. Within two weeks of the order confirmation, Sacchetto ships out the finished product.

He also does couples portraits, and, with enough time and advance notice, larger group shots. "I've even done family portraits. I just saw a mother, a father and a baby," he says. "I'm getting such amazing photos. People are really getting into it. It's hilarious! I love it."