The Mick & Pat Show
Hey, Kin! Welcome to "The Mick & Pat Show," your home for candid discussions that explore the many layers of life's tapestry. We're Mick and Pat, two guys who are a lot like you—balancing work, family, and the complexities of modern existence.
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Who Are We? We're two modest guys incredibly fortunate to have life partners who find our idiosyncrasies endearing. Mick enjoys the analytical side of things—like diving deep into data sets and puzzling out complex policies. Pat, on the other hand, revels in life's big questions and spiritual intricacies, often finding solace and wonder in philosophy and faith.
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What Do We Discuss? Our podcast serves up a rich menu of topics, from probing political debates and the latest in AI to crisp beer reviews and deep dives into pop culture. We're not shy about fatherhood, relationships, and the human experience either—expect the raw and the real.
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Why Listen to Us? Think of us as the friends you didn't know you needed. We deliver the goods: no-nonsense conversations laced with insight, debate, and of course, laughs by the barrelful.
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Got a burning question or a beer you want reviewed? Don't hesitate to reach out.
Pull up a chair, tap into our conversations, and let's make sense of this wild ride called life together.
The Mick & Pat Show
Brews N' Reviews - 28 Years Later; Zombie Ice
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What happens when expectations and reality collide? In this compelling episode of Brews and Reviews, Mick and Pat dive into the deceptively named "Zombie Ice" from Three Floyds Brewery and the surprisingly un-zombie-like film "28 Years Later."
The journey begins with skepticism as the hosts confront a beer whose name screams "gas station Four Loko" but delivers something entirely different. Founded in 1996, Three Floyds built its reputation on creating beers so bitter that tasters would spit them out—exactly what the brewers wanted.
But the real surprise comes with "28 Years Later," the long-awaited third installment in Danny Boyle's infected zombie saga. Rather than continuing the horror-action tradition of its predecessors, this film pivots dramatically into hero's journey territory. Mick and Pat decode how the film follows classic coming-of-age storytelling—complete with the metaphorical death of the father figure, nurturing a mother, encountering a wise mentor, and confronting the monster in the woods (both literal and figurative).
The hosts debate whether this artistic choice represents bold evolution or franchise betrayal, noting that the most haunting moments weren't the zombie attacks but deeply human horrors.
Whether you're a craft beer enthusiast, a horror cinema devotee, or simply curious about how expectations shape our experiences, this episode offers thought-provoking perspectives on how context influences enjoyment. Subscribe now and join the conversation about when artistic risks succeed and when they leave audiences feeling rug-pulled.
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Welcome to Brews and Reviews
Speaker 2Welcome welcome to brews and reviews. With mick and pat. I'm mick and I'm pat and each week we sit down with you degenerates to pretend we're certified cicerones and cinephiles that is right.
Speaker 1So let's grab a cold one and join us as we review zombie Ice by Three Floyds and the movie 28 Years Later.
Zombie Ice: A Gas Station Beer?
Speaker 2And if you've been with us before, you know what time it is. Release the Kraken. You're way early on that one. I don't know, I was earlier. You're late. I thought I suppose we crack it after the supposed to. We crack it after the crack. We crack it on the wolf. Oh, I've always cracked on after the crack.
Speaker 1Huh.
Speaker 2We have to listen to the previous episodes, all right, uh, yeah. So Billy Jean, god bless her soul. Um, while I was driving back from shooting today, um was, uh, while I was driving back from shooting today was being a wonderful spouse and supportive spouse, as she looked up at one of our local big liquor store warehouses and found this Three Floyds brewery and that they had a beer called Zombie Dust. So I was going there to pick up a six pack because they said it was in stock. Got there, they said they were sold out, but they had a beer called Zombie Dust. So I was going there to pick up a six pack because they said it was in stock. Got there, they said they were sold out but they had Zombie Ice. I was like, bro, zombie Ice man, zombie Ice sounds like the most. Pat, tell me if I'm wrong, this sounds like the most gas station beer, oh yeah.
Speaker 2This sounds like the most like four locos.
Speaker 1Gas station alcoholic beverage.
Speaker 2Yeah, and locos gas station alcohol like beverage, yeah, and I was like. I was like I don't know, I don't know if I want this, like uh, and I was like is this still beer? And he's like, yeah, it's still beer, but you just gotta buy them individually. As tall boys, I'm like this isn't helping the case. This is not helping the case at all. Um but, anyway. So we got him here. It's a. It's a undead double ipa or double pale ale maybe not indian pale ale but uh, yeah, I'm gonna take my first taste here.
Speaker 2And uh, I don't think undead means anything, does it pat?
Speaker 1I don't think so.
Speaker 2I think they ain't I think it's their own thing yeah on this can.
Speaker 1This says it's not normal. This is zombie ice. The undead double pale ale from three Floyds. On the front they got like this skull zombie creature. Is this zombie-y than just more like a? I don't know what's the guy from oh, this to me looks like.
Speaker 2if you look up on your computer there, Pat, it looks to me like the death horseman from the game darksiders?
Speaker 1yeah, if I remember correctly, see on their website, they got him like in a hood that doesn't even look like this dude no, but that's the.
Speaker 2It's kind of like a that looks more like uh, what's his name? Sub-zero from mortal combat, yeah exactly.
Speaker 1You should tell people what this website is. Oh, the Three Floyds website. It's pretty cool. When you go to their website it's like select your beer, but it's kind of like select your character From, like a Mortal Kombat game it looks pretty good.
Three Floyds Brewery History
Speaker 1You click it and they have characters for all their beers and they've got, like, all the stats on their beers and stuff. And so, yeah, this one it's 8.5 ABV, 55 on the IBU which, as we'll find out, is kind of weak for three Floyds, is it? Yeah, because while getting to the history of this place, I mean they started in 1996. Oh, wow, so, as it started, they made their first beer called the alpha king pale ale and uh to do a british pale ale, and they said it was so bitter that when they took it to local retailers and uh bars some people were spitting it out after sampling it. And then that's when they say we knew we were on the right track I've definitely had beer like that.
Speaker 2You know, like rando, here's the thing I feel bad like I'll go visit someone. I'm like, oh yeah, like you like beer man, like, come on, we'll go, we'll go try this local brewery in some nowhere town, indiana and I say indiana just because they're from muncie or munster. But like you go there and you try it and you're like this is god awful, this is such bad beer Rarely is a beer bad enough that I spit it out For sure. I think it's admirable that they saw that as a mark of honor, yep.
Speaker 1But hey, that's the whole thing is. They want to make not normal beer and so then they made the next one. It's coming in 85 ibus, getting even more bitter, and that's it was still getting spit out and they said they really knew they were on the right track. So ever since then they've been growing, trying to make kind of unique beers and stuff. I like their main logo. Their main logo kind of looks like the avenge sevenfold, like uh skull with wings, you know um, but uh, anyways, they have.
Speaker 1They have like a tap room. Uh, there looks like it's closed right now for remodeling, but they've got a tap room out in munster, indiana, and yeah, they, they've got kind of this. Uh, I'd say their website matches the mick and pack vibe of nostalgia and like like all their stuff's kind of looks like old video games or like old computers and like the whatever it's a, just a. That's their thing.
Speaker 2I mean that's a that's a point for them for me, but, dude, honestly, like zombie, ice is an awful name. I'm just gonna be that's an awful name. Like, if ice is in beer name, it immediately gets the stereotype of natty ice, which is the trashiest. Like I'm an alcoholic, I need to drink beer so I function, but I also need to roof a house today and that's like you know what I mean.
Speaker 1Like that is the contractor needs to work, but also needs to satiate their alcoholism but also needs to satiate their alcoholism. So in zombie age it seems like it came out of zombie dust, because they say this was crafted with an unholy amount of citra hops. This double undead pale ale heralds the zombie evolution after the dust has settled from the apocalypse.
Speaker 2Interesting.
Speaker 1So there it is.
Speaker 2I don't get how ice is a result of death dust, so yeah, I don't know either.
Speaker 1I think, and I think maybe they were, maybe they knew what they were doing. Like, even even like the, the font on it is a little like I think they were making fun of the name like that in cans like this.
Speaker 2I just that's the thing, though they may be making fun of it, but they might have done too good of a job, and I'll say this. If billy jean did not send me this, I would have passed this up immediately. I would be like no, no, thank you, not interested in garbage gas station beer. All that said, though, should we do the swish test?
Speaker 2I'm ready all right, I'm gonna explain it while pat does it. Uh, but you take a little bit of a tablespoon amount of beer into your mouth and you let it roll over the tip and back and sides of your tongue and you switch your tongue side to side to get the beer sloshing. Then you let it all get in front of the tongue behind your front teeth and then you push it through your front teeth. Yeah, just like that, and it aerates it a lot. It should bring out all the different flavors inside. According to this, can? I don't expect there to be more than citrus. I think that's the flavor they're going for, uh-huh.
Speaker 1So, uh, I'm gonna go ahead do it, but, pat, give us your thought yeah, I mean it's just citrus straight, but this is straight in the vein of the current IPAs that are very popular, I think, where it's kind of that juice force IPA flavor. I'm not sure if I had them side by side if I'd tell a major difference, besides the fact I've had a lot of juice forces over the years, I was going to say this tastes exactly like juice force.
Speaker 2This is one-to-one.
Speaker 1Juice Force. It's like notched back one, I think, because on the dial, because the Juice Force is also, it's pretty heavy at like 9.7. Is it Uh-huh? But I mean, I'd say, if I closed my eyes and was like there, guess this beer?
Speaker 2I'd say I think I'd say juice force. Yeah, this is gas station juice force uh-huh so juice force is often in many gas stations.
Speaker 1It's become a gas station beer as well yeah since we first reviewed on the show the first beer ever reviewed on the show.
Speaker 2Yeah um, it did taste better than I'm gonna be honest. I just I've had it. I just had a juice force not too long ago and I was like wow, this used to taste so much better.
Speaker 1I think they started making it for mass and sticking it in every. I mean I was in a gas station in Florida. They had it down there. It's everywhere For sure. So I think that this beer Tastes like these citrus IPAs that are coming out. It does.
Speaker 2And it's not, in my opinion, not bad. It's not bad beer, yeah, but it's also just another ipa. It's another citrus ipa uh and you know, uh, it's yeah. I mean, I guess I'll just say it does taste like a slightly less bitter juice force in my opinion.
Speaker 1And the main marketing on here is it's not normal.
Speaker 2I'm going to say this is kind of normal.
Speaker 1You know Kind of normal.
Speaker 2What if they were like yeah, but we were doing it long before juice force?
Speaker 1That's true. Maybe this did come out in 2023. Not long before, yeah, same time. Maybe this, this, did come out in 2023, so not long before.
Speaker 2Yeah, same time, same time. That's funny. Um, I mean, what do we give juice force? I think we give juice force a one thumb or no thumbs.
Beer Tasting and Rating
Speaker 1I think it's probably one thumb each. You know, was it one thumb each? Was it pre-established thumbery?
Speaker 2I mean, it was the first one the system might have not been locked in as much as true.
Speaker 1You're right we've truly locked in the thumb system these days yeah, the thumb system is pretty well established at this point.
Speaker 2Um, it's like the nest of beer. Well, I'll say this nowadays I'd give Juice Force no thumbs. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, it's just the, you know, most common palate IPA currently Mm-hmm. That doesn't mean it's bad, that just means it's not like above average great.
Speaker 1Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2And with this, I kind of want to give it one thumb. I kind of want to give it one thumb, and the reason I want to give it one thumb is because I expected it to be so much worse. Oh yeah, I expected it to be so bad.
Speaker 2And with a name like Zombie Ice, for it to taste this good. I'm kind of impressed. But maybe that's just the marketing getting at me. You know the the graphic design subtleties at work, so I don't know. I think I'm. I think I'm going to go no thumbs on this, pat. I think I'm going to go no thumbs on zombies. Certainly not a thumb down. Certainly a beer that I could drink and just like enjoy you know one or two at an event. But it's not going to be what I bring to the next event and it's I guarantee if I put it in a red solo cup with juice force, it's gonna look the exact same. Yep, so I don't know. I got no points against it, but it's just also no points for it tasting like juice force.
Speaker 1I think that's, I think that's fine and I think that's. I'm no-thumber on this too, because for the same reasons I was expecting something a little bit more, maybe out there, like even if it was bad, but it was out there.
Speaker 2Like something just strange, like the battery acid beer.
Speaker 1Yeah, just something that's like okay, this is, it knows what it is what was that beer? Again. Nightmare Fuel yeah, that was out there. It was out there, but we also think that got us some downed thumbs. It was pretty rough that was rough, but I'm going no thumbs, and that's a C, that's a C.
Speaker 2It's a C, it's an average.
Speaker 1You can't spill college degree without Cs and Ds. I would say it is normal I do. I think that we picked the right one for solely the fact of the movie that we're reviewing, which is, yeah, 28 years later, boom Zombies, and maybe not technically zombies. Technically, I don't think zombies.
Speaker 2They do say the word zombie in the movie, Like put down that zombie baby.
Speaker 1Spoiler alert. And it is zombie. The 28 series are zombie movies.
Speaker 2Yeah, they are for sure oriented and categorized as zombie films even though you might quote unquote, say well, they're not zombies, they're infected Technically. They're infected Technically, they're viruses. But the people don't die when they get infected and reanimate Right, and they can die from, not just like headshots. You know what I mean? There's never a rule in any of the films that's like you got to shoot them in the head, right it was like very much just like do mass damage to the point where the body shuts off.
Speaker 2Yep, although there is a scene in the second movie this is also not a spoiler because pat hasn't seen and I'm fine saying it there's definitely seen in the second movie, pat where, like a helicopter rotor goes through a crowd of these things and they're still crawling afterwards. Oh yeah, and it's like, yeah, that's just the viruses like increased adrenaline, uh, throughout the body, and it's like, yeah, I get it, but also like those are kind of zombies. Zombies keep crawling after helicopter rotors.
28 Years Later: Introduction
Speaker 2Go through them you know, For sure, but all right, well, yeah, let's. Uh, let's get into the movie here. Um, I'll do like just a little bit again the usual kind of recap of the plot. Um, this is the third movie in the series and it picks up 28 years after the first. Uh, a group of survivors of the rage virus live on a small island in england, the uk. When one of the group leaves the island on a mission into the mainland, he discovers secrets, wonders and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors um, which you know. I think the uh like summary of that's again pretty okay for imdb. Um, I would add on to it, especially post-watching this, that this is really a coming-of-age hero's journey movie more than it is an infected zombies movie. And I think I want to say that now, just so people are in the proper frame of reference when we're talking about the film and its themes and stuff and our opinions on it.
Speaker 2Because the other coming I mean the other 28 movies like 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, are not at all hero journeys or coming of age journeys. Hero journeys or coming of age journeys. They are purely like horror movie. Uh, horror action with like uh, as all horror movies usually are, a level of social commentary like the first movie really does have a thing of like, oh my gosh, like how awful is this after you know, waking up and seeing like the world's gone to hell in four weeks. But really the monsters, like the worst monsters in the movie are definitely like the uh, debased humans that justify immorality in a time where society's fallen. Um, and then the second movie. I don't even think the second movie really has much of like a social commentary, as much as maybe of just like the government can fail, even when it has the best intentions. The government can like do things poorly. But anyways, those social commentaries, you can watch the whole movie and not pick up on them at all and just be like, wow, this is a zombie horror movie, this is not a zombie horror movie. Like I would never explain to like, wow, this is a zombie horror movie. Um, this is not a zombie horror movie. Like I would never explain to someone that this is a horror movie. I I explained to billy jean on the way home uh, because pat and I actually for once saw a movie together. Um, and then our wives were hanging out and we drove back and I told billy jean I don't think he would have liked it.
Speaker 2Even though it wasn't really a horror movie, there were horrific things that occurred in it. There were horrific scenes. The overall vibe was not horror and it really did. Honestly, like I thought there was horrific scenes in Hamlet. I thought there was horrific scenes in some of these other more medieval Shakespearean fantasies. What's the big one? Not Hamlet, but Macbeth. Honestly, this feels like it could have been a Shakespeare movie, a movie adaption of a Shakespeare story, because there was just this weird level of fantasy, hero's journey, storytelling to it, which I I don't want to spoil more without getting like into the other things about it, but like I'm curious, pat, how you feel about it, because I didn't. I was not, I hadn't processed the film after we had seen it enough to understand. That's how I felt. But I knew when we walked out I was like I'm disappointed. It wasn't a zombie horror movie, but I don't know if I'm disappointed in the movie. I think the movie was.
Speaker 1It could have been a good movie, but I'm so rug pulled right now that I have to process what it was I think that with the first two movies that came out that was, which you haven't seen, which I haven't seen but they were horror movies. But in that moment, for those characters, they were living in a horror movie. The characters in this third movie are no longer living in a horror movie, they are living in their normal. It's been three decades, so therefore they're living in a horrific world that is now normal. So, like the, and the stage or the universe has been set for, just where they're living their lives out, I think is part of it too. We're like so the, in the same way that if a zombie outbreak happened right now, the level of horror and upheaval would be, you know so, um, psychologically devastating to it's like me and you right now if it happened right now, In 30 years from now.
Speaker 1that would just be the way it is.
Speaker 2Which we see very clearly on display. Society's moving on. In fact, it's kind of nice, kind of like what a lot of people I think would want nowadays is like a little agrarian private community where they get to all work together it was pretty.
Speaker 1It was pretty a communist utopia definitely, and so I think that that's a part of I don't know if that was intentional from them on that side of things or if they just wanted to make a more, uh, tell a different type of story around. I think they use the 28 days or 28 weeks or 28 years universe to just tell a story in that world and continue moving the story forward. I agree with that Because, yeah, it's almost even like the kind of like some of the later seasons of Walking Dead, versus like the first, like Well, the Walking Dead was always about the survivors.
Speaker 2Or the Walking Dead, right, right.
Speaker 1That first season where it's like, oh my god, this is like Zombie apocalypse, yeah, but the apocalypse was over. Now you're just going Like by season four. It's just like this is what we're doing. This is post-apocalypse and it's, yeah, a post-apocalyptic world. That's probably the best way to describe it. They live in post-apocalyptic world versus living through an apocalypse.
Speaker 2Especially, which everyone just so knows. If you don't know if you're going to see the movie or not and don't want spoilers, bow out now, because now we're going to get into it, because I'm going to start referencing some other parts of the film that play into what Pat's discussing here. But I think the big thing that points to that is like the uh soldiers from uh finland or I think it was sweden sweden, yeah, but they get uh shipwrecked on uh the united kingdom and they're trying to survive while uh the zombies are there.
Speaker 2They uh they all have modern tech and equipment, um, and they have their cell phones and uh one of them, while stranded on here, is trying to communicate to the uh survivors on the island are one of our main characters, just the uh like the rules of the world around that outside of the island, and he pulls out his phone at one point and is looking through stuff and this kid is so confused by it and you could tell like this soldier has like no empathy for this kid's uh lack of experience or knowledge on like what he's showing him like he has.
Speaker 2He he's like just caught up with his own circumstances of being trapped and like the world is just like yeah, the uk's gone yeah, the uk is a is a quarantined island of infected.
Speaker 1That's just the way life is, and the rest of the world is is just like we are now yeah, the rest of the world is a modern 21st century.
Speaker 2Everything's moved forward and uk is just inaccessible or quarantined off but all right, um, getting into that point stuff, um, do you want to just go briefly over director top cast director danny boyle, who also directed the first?
Speaker 2Uh 28 days later and he only directed the introduction scene for 28 weeks later. Uh, alex garland wrote 28 days later and uh has worked with danny boyle a bunch of stuff. But alex garland wrote this film, danny directed it, mostly directed and filmed through the lens of iPhones, which is a kind of controversial thing, because I definitely think the quality of the film, just in regard to color picture contrast, all that was actually worse. Color picture contrast, all that was actually worse. It felt very art house, felt very um, it felt like I shouldn't have been pained to watch it in a movie theater. I'll be like like the quality I get, like it's cool because the first 28 days later was filmed and almost like you see it today and you're like dude, the quality of this is crazy low and it was like filmed on like old old, like hand-me-down uh network used, uh like used by the bbc film cinema cameras.
Speaker 2Yeah, old, old stuff like super low quality though, like not your, not your actual, true like 35 millimeter film cameras, like the film cameras used for filming the news and they were shit, but it had that look to it that made it look very nostalgic helps a horror film? It does help a horror film and it helps the post-apocalypse feel of like I'm watching something that's coming after the world has ended. Um, the iphone really I don't think is a good phone. I mean I don't think is a good phone. I mean I don't think it's a good medium for filming and capturing the kind of like the enjoyable aesthetic of, like a underground film. I think if you want to get the underground film thing, you just need to be willing to shell out for underground film cameras, like get a legit old film camera and pay the money to get some film and get it developed. If you want underground film stuff, the iphone looks too clean and its frame rate is too high that when it's recorded on all this and they're using like high contrast, low light scenes of like inside an abandoned house or at night by the ocean, uh, it looks fake to a really cheap way, like I thought the night scenes looked really cheap, like very, very cheap.
Speaker 2Um, unless it was like not actually a night, like there's the scene where they're in that kind of abandoned ruins of the castle and that felt to me like it was never actually really nighttime. It was like dusk, like filters and stuff, yeah, but then when they're crossing the causeway at night and there's the star expanse across the sky because there's no light pollution, you can see the Milky Way and all that. That. That looked so cheap and fake to me. That looked like it was made in a studio that they only had a little bit of time to rent.
Speaker 2I don't it looked really bad in my opinion. I thought especially with like how, like the contrast of the white frothy water looked compared to the dark water. It just didn't look very good. Um, anyways, so it's got that weird kind of attempt to be underground, but it's got the budget and production level of like a true hollywood film. So it feels like it's just not committed to one way or the other and I kind of just wish they would have committed to using, like real cameras, because I don't think this saved them that much money, like they're still using like eighty thousand dollar camera lenses and camera rigs.
Speaker 2They're just putting in an iphone in them, right, yeah, um, but it was so. That was a danny boyle, alex and their kind of direction focus here. And then the top cast was jody comer she was, she was Mama. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, he was Dada or Papa. And then Ralph Fiennes was this doctor in the woods. And then there's Alfie Williams who plays our main protagonist, spike, who is going on the hero's journey. Anything else there that you want to cover, pat, before we get into like the timeline of events in the film and kind of like our opinions on it yeah, I don't think so.
Speaker 1I'm curious now because I didn't know it was filmed on iPhones until just a little bit ago. Some of the first scenes. I think it probably only worked well when they used them for scenes trying to capture horror.
Speaker 2They're doing those weird jump cuts and coming back across like editing it with b-roll footage of like old timey black and white war footage.
Speaker 1Not that it was like it was, it was like remember the like. It's like the first time the mom and son are in the room and she's having like a manic episode and it kept like jumping around and jumping and like it was really jarring.
Speaker 1It was jarring but fitting for what was going on. Or, yeah, some of the up close, the way they did use them to scan across the faces and things and stuff. I the, I think it. There was a couple places it kind of worked, but on the big overall it just seems like probably not a good. Iphones have gone really good, but probably not cinematic, fully cinematic.
Speaker 2They're so good that at an amateur level you can use them to make stuff look professional. But they're too good in that it doesn't look underground artistic anymore. But they're too good in that it doesn't look underground artistic anymore, like I kind of was like why do that with iPhones? When you like you should just get a camcorder or like an old Motorola.
Speaker 1Just film it on an old Motorola at like 480p and get that like old underground art film, like going Blair Witch style.
Speaker 2Yeah, like, kind of like, that's what I'm talking about, you know exactly. All right, uh, hopping into it. So this is the hero's journey and we're I'm going to approach this and I've broken up the talking points as the way the hero goes on the journey, um, and so I got these few points for the intro right, and I say the intro is just like before our hero sets off. So, um, the opening is, uh, the day of the apocalypse, the day of the rage virus outbreak and society falling apart, and we see a room full of a bunch of young kids probably kids, mostly too old to be watching teletubbies. They're, like you know, probably middle school to mid-element elementary age, and they're sitting there watching tell tubbies. All of them look super stressed and a mom comes in to says, no matter what, don't open this door, and leaves. And they're watching tell tubbies as the world outside is descending to screaming and noise and ruckus of the infected attacking. And then, bro, infected come in to the room and start eating these kids, while one of them, like, hides behind the door and gets out. And that was on, that was a way to kick it off.
The Hero's Journey Begins
Speaker 2I was like, when that happened, I was like, oh yeah, we're back. We're so back to 28 days later. Like this is the brutality, the zombie shock factor I was expecting. And then we see this kid running out and his mom tells him again James, run away, run James. And he turns and starts running and it was kind of a little repetitive I thought with how many times she didn't die but got to tell him to run away. She got to tell him to run away like three separate times after getting bitten and then tackled and then bitten again, um, and then he runs to this church where his dad apparently is and his dad's the pastor or priest or whatever. Um, and he goes. He's total's, total, classic, crazy, mad priest thinking this is god's will in the end, times for people to be reborn into this new rage virus. Uh, and thankfully he doesn't force his son to like, he doesn't try to force his son to sit there and just get eaten with him.
Speaker 2He's like go and hide yeah while I enjoy the rapture or whatever, and the infected come in through the windows and eat him and turn him into an infected, while our what we assume to be the protagonist, james, is hiding uh out in the church and then runs off with his dad's cross nice big golden kind of cross on a chain for him to have remember his father and then he runs off and we cut to now, 28 years later, on the island. Um, before I go any further with spike's introduction, what do you think about that introduction to that whole, like this is this is the 28 days later, because, honestly, that that first part felt very 28 days later maybe not as much of like.
Speaker 2It was kind of on the nose corny about the mad pastor. But the rest of it I was like, oh yeah, this is, this is the right vibe, this is it?
Speaker 1yeah, but I thought it was as it kicked off. I that was intense. The children just got it and yeah, and it was like I too thought that we were, you know, getting set up with our main dude and he's like all his fathers are getting eaten in the grate above him. Did you hear him say Father, why have you forsaken me?
Speaker 2Did you hear him say Father, why have?
Speaker 1you forsaken me. Yeah, they do a lot of biblical references kind of throughout this as well, which are maybe sometimes that's useful.
Speaker 2Sometimes it's like Sometimes it's like oh my gosh, tell me you don't know the Bible without telling me you don't know the Bible.
Speaker 1Yeah, just kind of like just throwing it in for just because and so I did it went off with a bang and it was and I think it what it did do really well was set up for someone like me who hasn't seen the other two movies to go. It did make this movie stand alone in its own way. You didn't have to have seen the other ones to watch this movie in its entirety and to kind of understand what's going on.
Speaker 2True, you know, because they set up here's what happened, you know, and they, they uh not retconned the second movie because the second movie spoiler alert ends with the infection having spread outside of england to, uh, france apparently, and uh, it's kind of a very gloomy ending to the second film because it's like, oh, it's out of control now and the whole world's going to fall. That's undone with like one black screen of text that says, like the infection was pushed back out of Europe and you know, the only place that has any infected now is the uk and the uk has just been accepted to be. I've been fallen. There's been no attempt to re-quarantine any areas and like rebuild civilization there. It's just accepted like, hey, no one who goes there can leave, no one who you know, uh, who's already there, can leave. It's just the way it is. Um, so yeah, it was pretty quick at establishing, summing up the first two movies and kind of what occurs.
Speaker 2I did like that it didn't have any weird like attempt to try to summarize Jim's story, because Jim is also the main, the name of the main protagonist in the first movie. Ironically, this movie opens up with the James, a young boy, james, on the day of the infection. The first movie opened up with the james, a young boy, james, on the day of the infection. The first movie opened up with jim, who was killian murphy's killer character. Um, but anyways, yeah, I didn't try to attempt to like sum up jim and who jim is and just be like, hey, in case you didn't see here's who jim is, and it really didn't do any effort to summarize the second movie, which I thought was okay, because then it really makes you feel like all right, right, this is standing alone.
Speaker 2I don't have to have the expectation that I'm going to encounter any of those other characters. This is a whole new story, which, that new story, we see after the introduction. 28 years later, our protagonist Spike is waking up and he's looking at a Power Ranger action figure he has and kind of briefly admires and like, plays around with and then puts back on his desk before heading downstairs to meet his father and his father's, played by Aaron Taylor Johnson, who's cooking breakfast and we can tell it's a big day because his father's making a meal with like pork, like actual bacon, which on this small, small island community, is clearly a very like expensive commodity yeah, um, so it's going to be an important day for for our boy, spike um, and it's at that time we also are introduced to his mother, played by jody comer um, where she is having this like manic, really tumultuous, like confusion episode.
Speaker 2Clearly some kind of like mental or even like I guess it's technically like could be a physical thing, but it seems like she's having.
Speaker 1It's a mental breakdown coming on from a physical ailment.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, it seems like she's sick with something that is actually causing her to have like hallucinations and confusion and severe brain pain. Um, and it's clear that spike and his dad are pretty used to this, but also there's they don't have anything in their power they can do to make her better. And so, um, spike and his dad tell her like yeah, it's spike's big day today. He's leaving the island for the first time. He has to go be a man this is his rite of passage to become a man and a proactive member of our community, and he's going to go to get his first kill and do some scouting, and then we're coming back. She loses her mind and starts calling her husband cunt over and over and over, like almost, uh, tourette's, like and uh, go ahead now during that scene.
Speaker 1When I first, when we first watched it, I was like this is, I did feel the it was a mirroring of the infection it wasn't the infection but they were. There was something. You didn't even understand what they were getting at yet, but it was. I was like, okay, they are showing this person going through something. That's the same thing as getting infected.
Speaker 2The rage virus turns infected people into mindless, angry, raging, cannibalistic maniacs.
Speaker 2Also, there's diseases today that turn us into raging, mindless, confused, angry people and that's clearly the, the parallel they're drawing there.
Speaker 2Um, we don't see her as, oh, she's infected, she's a zombie. We don't see that. But we do see is like, oh, this is an ill person and I think that's again like the first thing, the first parallel to your point, pat, is that, like, this movie does have a point within it where it's like, hey, maybe the infected aren't not human, maybe they are human and they're just as sick as she is, you know, and like there's this question of do you should, we have empathy for them or not? Um, but that they'll come down the line. Um and uh, we see the island and like everyone is celebrating Spike as he leaves the island with his father to go out and his father's testing him on the rules. Again, like you know, the causeway what's the rule with the causeway when it comes to like when we can use it, and it's like only at low tide, because high tide comes in and we can't make it across and the current of the ocean will pull you away and I was like oh that, oh, that's sick.
Speaker 2Rather than just being like, yeah, we can't swim it, it's like no, we legit can't swim it because there's an ocean current. Of course there is, and no matter how hard you try, you wouldn't be able to swim in a straight line across that gap of land. And everyone is celebrating like go on, spike, congratulations Spike. They are also, I should say this, dude I didn't know how thick their welsh or like cock, not even cockney. I don't know what the accent is.
Speaker 2It is like poor peasant english and it's like some of the most thick laid-on accent of english and like is there's a good chance you will miss dialogue if you are not familiar with that accent. Um, I don't know about you, but like pat, like how hard was it for you to like kind of track some of the things in the beginning?
Speaker 1yeah, yeah, it was, and I heard it was. I looked up because I heard it, but it's northumbrian dialect holy good lord. Northumbrian dialect and it was. It was like uh, it's a very uh thick. Whatever it is, it's thick. Well, it was authentic, it is it's thick.
Speaker 2Well, it was authentic, I guess. You know I thought it was really well done but it was pretty hard to understand at times. Yeah, and so we also see, like in this, as Spike leaves it's like the first time we see him like kind of almost not undermining his father but just demonstrating like he's he's not going to be his dad because his dad doesn't try to soften or shelter, um have like like in a mercy that he's taking spike to the mainland from his mom.
Speaker 2He just is honest and blunt with it, even if it hurts her feelings or causes her to get upset. But in her disease or, you know, fevered mind and hallucinations, she relapses and forgets what just happened. And she asked Spike where he's going, and he's going to school. He says yeah, mom, I'm going to school today.
Speaker 1He just lies to her.
Speaker 2for the sake of keeping the peace, Exactly, and we see like he only does that after his dad leaves the room. And then now he sets off on the journey, crossing the causeway to go to the mainland. And this is what I like to call in the hero's journey becoming the hero, becoming a man, and the journey of, like, killing the father, uh, which those of you who are familiar with your journey probably don't need explanation, but for those of you who aren't, uh, think of disney movies. Uh, disney movies do this pretty consistently in all like shapes and sizes, um, to some degree or another. But the protagonist's parents are almost always dead at the beginning of a movie. Or they are dying or they are going to soon die, um, and rarely were. I can't think of the last time a protagonist in a movie had a disney movie, had both parents all the way through.
Speaker 2Um, but essentially the, the killing of the father is the requirement that for the hero to develop into the hero, there must be a vacuum of the requirement to be a man or to be a woman, right, and we see this often with these journeys of.
Speaker 2Maybe the protagonist doesn't kill their dad, right, but they realize their dad is not a good man and they accept that, in order to be a hero, they need to stop idolizing their father and let their father die metaphorically, so they can then not be comparing themselves to their father and trying to be their father, but trying to be something separate and better, or, like the father actually does, die the father. The father dies, and now they must become. You know, they must fill those shoes and he'd become even greater and not die to father. The father dies and now they must become. You know, they must fill those shoes and he'd become even greater and not die to what their father died from. Um, and there's all these different metaphors for, you know, killing the father, but spike sets out with his dad in this hero's journey to become a man and part of his community. Um, and I got you know some things here that you know just goes off, but but he learns about risk and consequences the risk of leaving the city and the consequence of, if you don't time things right, you're going to be stuck on the other side and you won't be able to get
Speaker 2home, the fact that if you're out there and you don't come home, no one's coming to rescue you. It's against the rules of the community. He's told that he has to kill infected. And in killing infected, his father tells him you know, like the infected are soulless, they, since they have no mind and self-control. This means they have no soul, which means they're not human anymore, and so killing them is like almost a mercy and it's actually better to kill them than it is even like to kill an animal. Like cause, an animal has, still, has its soul and has value and value. These things have no value, they, they are only a danger, um to be cold.
Speaker 2And is that kind of mindset of like being cold and killing and killing the infected, um to survive, right, like they have a very close call before they get home, where an alpha almost kills them right on the doorstep of their community as they're running across the causeway and they barely survive by the skin of their teeth, and then, ultimately, they also learn to. He learns, like from the father figure, to tell lies, to be grandiose, to boast um to, even though they did something great and they succeeded and they lived, it's not enough for those who don't go out, yep. And his father lies about it and talks it up and makes it bigger than what it was. Whereas Spike is like realizing, he's like you know why lie about it, when what did happen is enough, that was crazy. And you know he realizes like his father justifies it Like well, they need this.
Speaker 1And it puts him, it puts spike in a position to now have to be what his father said he was. Yes, because spike was losing his crap, couldn't hit a shot and his father had to save him. When he get back, he's like spike was just taking them all out Like there's not one after another. He's a giant slayer. You know all these things, like you know, and so he he's. He's king david, exactly, and he's setting him up for now.
Speaker 2This like he has to fill these fake shoes right out the gate these big mythical shoes, um, and then of course, the death of the father, which is the rejection of the father in this film.
Speaker 2Uh, spike's father doesn't die but he catches him uh, going off to have an affair with another member of the community and that kills spike's uh admiration of his father, which he deeply admired his father before that event.
Speaker 2But like all that kind of built up and realizing, like his father probably has lied a lot over the years about his experiences, going crossing to the mainland um, and wonders you know how long has his father been having this affair while his mom's sick, and so the father figure dies. And we even see spike at one point draw a knife on his dad and threaten him and his father quickly, easily and without any violence disarms him. But it's enough metaphorical that like, oh, I've been severed and my son has killed the image of me in his mind and his heart and is kicking me out of the house Like I'm dead to them now. And I thought that was a very good tight. I felt tight. To me it didn't feel like there's really any wasted time in that first act right Of of killing the father of the hero's journey and interesting little thing I saw on there.
Speaker 1At one point he did the father did lose self-control and backhand his son.
Coming of Age: The Death of the Father
Speaker 1He did when he brought up the um, the the affair to him. But then he did like he snatched the hand out of his son's hand and for about a tenth of a second his hand shook and then he closed the knife and gave it back to him. Yeah, like he did, because I think the part of it too was like, not a, and I don't think they ever portrayed Jimmy as an evil man or a bad man just as like a Jimmy, uh, not Jimmy, sorry. Uh, uh the dad, what's the dad's name?
Speaker 2I think he's Jamie. His name is Jamie.
Speaker 1Sorry, the dad, jamie, you're right, they don't ever portray the dad as um bad or evil, just man.
Speaker 2yeah, you know, like, like and so like he's probably honestly, anyone would probably say he's a good man, right self sacrifices for the community and I think I even saw like, but he's flawed, yeah, like.
Speaker 1I saw myself in some of those things of like, just like, I like when you do lose control, but then also there's times when you like you do rain it or just, but like the struggle, the internal struggle in a man, you know too. And so, like we saw in those two instances, he slapped his son and then a few minutes later he like, obviously he's not gonna, well, not, maybe not obviously kill his son, but like and then also gave it back to him, gave the knife back to him, so he also restored something there, but then but it also the harm and hurt to the relationship was done at that point yep, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2um, something crazy, cool, like interesting, happens too. They find an infected strung up here with letters carved on the infected and you can't really tell what they are right when you see it, because the infected is upside down and the initials are carved into it and it's kind of hard to tell Because it's going vertical. If they're initials of letters or if they're symbolic like weird kind of like pagan symbols, um, but they'll come back in later. Uh, all right.
Speaker 2Next one is becoming a man nurture a mother, uh, which is again often we see in movies where, like, the mother becomes ill, the mother becomes incapable of self-care, and the hero must now become the nurturer, become the guardian that their mother once was to them. And Spike goes off on this journey after removing his father, telling his father to leave him and his mother alone. He sneaks out with his mom from the community, fully knowing no one's coming to rescue them once they find out they've left, knowing no one's coming to rescue them once they find out they've left, and, uh, he's searching for this enigmatic kind of, uh, myth of a doctor, a doctor that has survived in the post-apocalypse and has even been rumored to be like actually a madman a madman like perhaps perhaps another villain right, yeah, maybe you shouldn't go see him yeah, and but like the, the possibility that a doctor could cure uh, his mom's ailment is too great to like not you know set out to do.
Speaker 2And it's interesting because he realized spike has only lived in a world where there are no doctors. And this is again kind of like that medieval fantasy thing is like spike doesn't really comprehend what doctors can do. Just like you think about arthur. Arthur hears about like in the king arthur story. He hears about wizards but he has really no comprehension of like what merlin could do. Like what powers does merlin truly have?
Speaker 2it's all rumor, right, and there's almost no other wizards and he just knows, doctors make people not sick exactly, or they can't right, um, and so he sets out on this journey to find the wizard, the wise man in the woods, um, and he leads his mom and he finds, like you know, he has to become his mother's guardian because she's mentally unwell and can't keep track of what of events and she's kind of having events and memories in real time where she's thinks she's a younger girl and that spike is her dad.
Speaker 2Um, and he realized what is what it's like to be alone, I think, and when you're a guardian and caretaker, you don't, like you could be alone, like and I I'm not a parent, but I've heard this from parents is like, yeah, you have your kid, but sometimes, when you're the only person looking out for your kid, in this scenario it can be lonely, and because you're like your kid is not a, they're not an adult, they're not a person really, yeah, like they're, they're still becoming a person. Um, and I think he sees that with his mom, is that like there's a moment of, there's times of loneliness while looking after her, because she's not a true companion, because she requires his nurture and care, we see him fail and fall short, especially like when his mom has to save his life in the middle of the night and he's not aware of it.
Speaker 2Even he tries to do the big boy task of keeping watch keeping watch and falls asleep and his mom literally saves him inches from being eaten. And then, uh, we see him. They'll experience what it means to defend and protect. He's willing to get shot and killed in order to protect his mom. Um, and also like infected right, he's several times almost killed because he's trying to save his mom, whereas if he left her he would have been a non-issue Right. And then, lastly, he also quote unquote kills his mother, and usually we don't see the killing of the mother really in the hero's journey.
Speaker 1It's more of this shape of to let go to mourn, and or like you leave, you get off the nipple, you cleave, right yeah and he, he does let go.
Becoming a Man: Nurturing a Mother
Speaker 2He. He's informed by the wizard, the wise man, after they find him, that there is actually no cure for his mother's illness. Unfortunately, like he, the. But the journey has occurred and unfortunately, the reward is not your mother being healed. And he has to say goodbye to his mom and he also has to mourn her very, almost unrealistically quickly. It's wild, but he has to mourn her and accept. This is part of moving on in this world, and I get to say goodbye to her and she gets to have a peaceful death, and this is the best we could hope for in this world, but it is, without a doubt, the death of the mother, just like the death of the father. Um, and honestly, on that one note right there, that was the most horrific thing to me in the whole movie.
Speaker 1Uh, hands down, hands down. Most horrific thing. Second, I was going to back up a hair sure to the second most horrific thing in the movie because it, just because it plays into this piece of the mom, when we find a gnarly pregnant infected oh yeah, you know pushing, pushing a baby out on the train, yeah, and this scene where you know the, the mother comes up and she, she takes the hands of the infected. An unthinkable act, yeah, truly unthinkable, like she.
Speaker 2She puts her hands up and the infected takes her hand. Yeah, like the infected somehow processes in this moment I need someone to hold on to.
Speaker 1Yeah and uh, um, and you know, and then this baby comes out. It's wild. I was waiting for the baby to bite the mom. Because this whole movie I will say because I went into it expecting a horror movie You're waiting for the baby. The scariest thing the whole movie was all the things I expected to happen that weren't happening, like all of a sudden, that baby to be getter or whatever. And at any moment in a horror movie main character can just bite the dust At Dawn of the Dead.
Speaker 2We were all preconditioned. If you're pregnant in the apocalypse, you're zombies. I mean, your baby's gonna be a zombie, yeah yeah, exactly just like.
Speaker 1So, um, and really that didn't happen throughout the movie where like no, you know there was some side characters died, but there was never like that, like all of a sudden, out of nowhere, boom, main characters hit. It would be a standard zombie movie, things like that. The fact that they never did that kept me on the edge the whole time. But the and this goes back to the way the father treated the infected of like just kill them Like, and it's good if you do, and you have to and you must no remorseorse, no mercy. Then to the, the mother's side of things, where she actually like something in her, you know, drew her to like helping this other woman, well, have her baby.
Speaker 2She like echolocation in on this pregnant, infected, like she hears the wailing of it and it's like in her mind, at her core, like a woman, she's like oh, that's a woman giving birth, which I were. I really wish there was a pregnant woman with us there in the movie theater to let us know of like. Do you think you can tell the difference between like a woman, like, ah help me, I'm. I'm being eaten and and I'm giving birth? I do wonder if there's a weird core primal difference between the two.
Speaker 1Maybe they could, but I'd say that in most cases it sounds about the same.
Speaker 2To us right, but we don't give birth, right.
Speaker 1But just the fact that both things inflict the same utterance out of you right and um you know, and then we have big old samson, samson's samson and his baby.
Speaker 2Yeah, samson, baby arm of a cock. Good lord. I remember seeing that thing swinging around and and I had heard, I had heard like the alpha zombie has a big wing and I was like that's funny. And then like he jumps through down through this hole in this train. Yeah, and the train's not moving right.
Speaker 1It's a crash train. He jumps in dick first and then his feet come through, basically.
Speaker 2Yeah, he repels off his cock into the train. No, but honestly, think of a pig leg. Think of a full-grown pig and its leg that's attached to his pelvis. Just smacking around, and Samson's go-to move is ripping people's heads off predator style.
Speaker 1Spine and all.
Speaker 2Yeah, head and spine coming out of the body. I don't get why? He didn't just start smacking people with that thing. He could have just been braining people left and right with it like a bat. Anyways, giant penis insane not a real penis, it turns out total prosthetic but which makes me I was like, interesting design choice, I guess, like, but um, oh. So what part of that? Though? You say that was the second most horrific thing to the mom's death. What was the most horrific part of that? Like seeing the baby?
Speaker 1born just watching, watching that uh infected lady give birth?
Speaker 2yeah, they totally show it.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean it. I'll say like, if that's what it looks like, damn I mean that's like fucking crazy. I mean, that's what it looks like. It's just like oh, they're like, and so I mean they. It was just that, plus the fact of how scared I was during it, just like what is happening. This is so I.
Speaker 2I was with the soldier on that one yeah, I would have walked in and just well, the soldier says put this fucking zombie baby down, so I could shoot it or I'm gonna shoot you, and I think it's the only time the word zombie gets used, but it is good because I personally would.
Speaker 2I would kill both of them I see you know, all of a sudden I just disagree with you on that one. I really because I get. I get what you're saying and I also think that would have been the right call in the moment, based on the knowledge he had. You're right, but I also think the knowledge that the survivors have on the island of like well, these aren't just zombies, like they are animalistic and it's kind of like I don't think I would kill a wolf in the middle of giving birth.
Speaker 1Right, but if my mom like walked up to it, I'm going to kill that thing, bro. Yeah, I know, I get what you're saying. I get what you're saying.
Speaker 2But it was a very human moment and it was a huge moment for the hero's journey, where I think, without that, if spike had gone to the doctor and the doctor's, like the infected, are also humans. They have eyes that have cried, uh-huh, mouths that have spoken I'd be like, no, they have it. Yeah, they're eaters. They eat people, but after seeing them give birth and give birth to a non-infected baby.
Speaker 1That's the biggest thing being they give birth to a baby that's not infected A human.
Speaker 2Protected by the miracle of the placenta.
Speaker 1Exactly.
Speaker 2As Dr Klein says, or Kelson Dr Kelson, but yeah, so that was kind of horrific just in the tension. But, dude, tell us why it was so horrific. The mom's death.
Speaker 1Why is that the most horrific part of the movie? We got some foreshadowing where we watch this doctor they bring. This doctor finds them and saves them from old Samson.
Speaker 2Played by Ralph Fiennes.
Speaker 1Yeah, and he drugs him. He doesn't kill Samson, he drugs, samson drugs. Samson takes the head of the soldier that's now been ripped out who was helping the mom and son, and they go and then they throw the skull in an incinerator, burn off what they can a steamer, not even an incinerator, because an incinerator actually would have cooked it off. So they steam the skull, then they're washing it off. So they steam the skull, then they're washing it off. I mean that looked like what it looks like when you clean an animal's skull. They're flicking off pieces of flesh and hair and stuff.
Speaker 1He gets his skull all clean Because now they're in this skull tower, bone forest that the Doctor has created as a memorial to death. And so then, you know, spike goes and Sane, memento mori, yeah, and he takes the Spike, finds a place for the soldier's head and puts him in the pyramid. And then so now we've seen that happen, we know what the doctor does with dead people. And last we see the doctor is walking off with the mom who has accepted death Cut to him, handing the kid a freshly cleaned skull.
Speaker 2Yeah, like he walks her off and gives a little blow dart. Not sure how much time passes, because it's like clear that spike is underneath some insane lsd tripping stuff it comes.
Speaker 1Yeah, they morphined him and like I guess yeah, yeah, he's hallucinating the stars and stuff things coming around him. But then I mean, it's just a couple hours.
Speaker 2The film jumps quickly.
Speaker 1It's seconds yeah I'd say, you know, it could have been maybe three, four hours the middle of the night, but then morning's coming yeah and he walks up and hands the kid a skull.
Speaker 2Mom's skull.
Speaker 1Yeah, that was wild, and I was like I was wondering then for you, like you're very close to your mom, very close, so I was wondering, throughout this movie, the pieces of much behaviorally just like the mom in this film Because it turns out mom had brain cancer. It was incurable.
Speaker 2Turned out she had brain cancer and was probably going to die in a couple of days from it. But yeah, when my mom had her TBI which also my mom had breast cancer when I was really young and so, like at sixth grade, I was like cooking food for my mom and taking care of her while she was like recovering from chemo and stuff, so I had that like hero's journey arc, right Of nurturing the nurturer pretty early on. Um, and then when she had that TBI and I was in college, I had like a real big like gosh, like quote, unquote, like at least for over a year, and even nowadays I describe it as like my mom died, like my mom got in this car accident and the person that was on the other side of it was not at all my mother, like totally different human being in regards to like how they were processing emotions and stuff. Um and uh, there was just like that aspect of um, okay, I I need, I can, I can mourn my mom for who she was, but I also need to be grateful for like who this is right now and I I need, I'm like called to care or love like who this person is right now, cause they're still with me, even though, like I accept this isn't my mom and my mom has, like, really healed through that. But like to this day, I still say my mom is a different person.
Speaker 2Like, my mom used to be much more quick to anger, um and like she had like a temper and if you insulted her she would be much quicker to like, get mad at, like mad and defensive. Now, though, she's in a like her um response to that items and she lists as a podcast. So I'm curious to hear her perspective on this. But, like, if you, if I was to insult her with the same thing I said in high school that made her angry. Now I think that would make her cry. And it's like the, the anger pathway almost got completely erased when she had the tbi and it's like the way the brain is healed and reprocessed and learn how to handle those emotions is like sadness and um, it was, it was just, it was just very interesting.
Speaker 2But like I see that a lot and like this movie where, like, clearly, ma used to be someone else and uh, spike talks about that, he's like she wasn't always this way, she was very different.
Speaker 2It was only a few years ago she started becoming this way and getting confused and having these episodes, and even the way the mom describes it of like how there's a part of me that knows I'm confused and knows this episodes and even the way the mom describes it of like how there's a part of me that knows I'm confused and knows this isn't the right way of thinking or that this is the wrong memory. And my mom would say that stuff too. When she had her tbi really early on where, like she was, she heard with her tbi she couldn't even listen to music like the radio and stuff, because the frequencies would just give her like just blood-banging headaches. So we would like I bought her headphones one like uh, when she was in her tbi very expensive headphones to like block out certain sounds at frequencies so she could, like, maintain herself throughout the day.
Speaker 2Um, all I said it was it was really relatable to me to see that journey, um, and honestly like it. The reason I say the most horrific thing is because, like, I saw that and I was like I would not be okay. I would not be okay, yeah, like if I had, if I was told your mom's gonna die, the best thing that can we could do for her is kill her right now in a peaceful way. Oh, yeah, and I'm gonna come back with her skull and you got to put her skull on a pile of bones. I was telling Billy Jean this.
Speaker 2I was like that was the most horrific thing to me because I cannot mentally think about how I'd be okay doing that. I would have an insane meltdown. Um, and that was, I guess the best part of the horror movie, right, is like I was like I guess the best part of the horror movie, right, I was like, yeah, that's horrific, but that's not what I go into this movie thinking the horror is going to be, and when you realize that the true horror of this movie is the reality of life, the reality of your parents dying, the reality of your father no longer being your hero and your mom you're having to bury.
Speaker 2Your mother Did a good job at that, I guess I can deal with.
Speaker 1maybe a guy with a chainsaw hacks up a bunch of teenagers. Now it's like, hey, this is actually real life.
Speaker 2Hey, okay, I thought I was watching a zombie movie. This is just a Hallmark classic.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2So all that said, I thought that was, and it seems like you agreed too, I guess, like I don't know, do you feel like that was the most horrific kind of?
Speaker 1it was that there was no blood, there was no guts, there was no screaming, just the concept. It was just what they did, you know, with the storytelling, because before there'd been plenty of that, but that was.
Speaker 2That was the most horrific part of the movie, for sure yeah, um, lastly, you know the wizard, the sage new father figure, right, which is always in the hero's journey. You kill the father, you go out on the journey, you find the wizard. The wizard is a surrogate father. Um, we see that with ralph fiends is, uh, dr kelson, he shares this new wisdom, right, he's like oh, these pile of bones, these giant statues of bones are not meant to intimidate or cause fear. They're memorials, because, memento mori, remember you will die and you must die. Remember you, you have to die. There's no choice about it. And this is just to echo like both infected and non-infected die, and at the end of it, their bones look the same, indistinguishable. Um, and he also, though, imparts the other one, you know this like warm, empathetic thing, and he's like you know, and he says this when he has to say goodbye to his mother says but memento amoris, is it amoris or amoris?
Speaker 2it's latin not roman which I know a lot of people like oh no, it's Amora, but it's not, it's the Latin version of love. But you know, remember love. Remember you must also love, um, and you know, these are, these are very like non-traditional. Uh well, I guess he, he incorporates both the father's coldness remember death with the mother's warmth remember love and he's this perfect balance between the two right of like.
Speaker 2These are both parts of life. To be the hero, you must appreciate both um and uh. We also see like this character gives uh spike the opportunity to succeed because Spike saves him from Samson. Spike isn't simply just surviving, but Spike saves the doctor from being murdered by Samson without killing Samson, which is, I think, supposed to be. You know, a metaphor for like conquering the monster in the woods, right, like realizing like, oh, maybe I don't have to kill the dragon, maybe I just need to understand the dragon and understand that the dragon is just protecting its woods, protecting its pregnant dragon wives, and I don't have to kill it, and I can deal with it in a way that appreciates it, without getting murdered.
Speaker 2It is a beast, it is a wild animal, but it's not evil and soulless. Um, which goes into like the other part. I have here just the monster in the woods, which is the infected, and the infected really do to me like you could replace infected if this was an arthurian tale or a shakespeare tale. This is just the trolls, the goblins in the woods, it's the orcs and other things.
Speaker 2And you realize like, you're like oh, they're not like soulless, they're just, they're beasts, just like anything else, they just are. Also, they look like people and you know, he goes through the journey of like oh, I'm very afraid because I've never seen one, never encountered one, and now I have to encounter one To like okay, now I'm aware of them, I'm learning of them, I know what to look out for, to conquering them, killing them, outpacing them, surviving them and then, like at the end, to respecting them. And I think what we see by the end of the film, in the final like scene, is him, like he has no fear of them, he's aware of them, he sees them, he's like aware, while he's cooking his fish, he's like all right, I'm gonna have to deal with this one, probably gonna have to kill it, and there might be a couple others I have to kill. But even then, when there's more of them showing up than he can handle, he starts running.
Speaker 2It doesn't come off as like running for fear, just like tactical retreat tactical retreat I to give this up, but like an appreciation of like this is what I'm dealing with which leads to the final thing Jimmy, jimmy returns and I think Jimmy's a monster, I think Jimmy is a villain and I think that's the final thing is like the monsters aren't in the woods. The monsters are the other people. Things live in the woods, but they can be dealt with, they can be understood, but you can't understand some people.
Speaker 2Some people are monsters and they are beyond understanding. And when Jimmy appears, the flipping whiplash, the whole tonal whiplash of the film is unreal and it was the thing I hated the most is unreal and it was the thing I hated the most. I also understand kind of why they went that direction, because jimmy shows up king of his own crew who have to all dress like him in this. I found out they're, you know, they're dressing after that.
Speaker 2Uh, one celebrity, it's also named jimmy yeah it's like that famous english celebrity you him up, pat, because you got a computer my computer I left at home. But they're dressed as a celebrity with like track suits and cricket bats and they're doing front flips off of this, you know, short cliff edge onto the road where they are just not just killing the infected but they're harassing the infected, they're taunting and playing with them and torturing them in a very maniacal way, and spike seems to like be in awe because he's like oh my gosh, like these are like super humans the way they're flipping around and they're dressed in these track suits that kind of look like power r suits, like the my Action figure. Also, though this is excessive, they could just kill them instead of making a game out of them.
Speaker 1They're playing with them. Yeah, hanging them up. Who can kill them? The coolest, most wildest way.
Speaker 2Exactly.
Speaker 1His name was Jimmy Savile. Jimmy Savile, yeah, and he was famous, he was knighted. But he has also had big accusations of sexual abuse of children.
Speaker 2Yeah, he apparently was like one of the biggest predators of all time.
Speaker 1Yeah, he was probably kind of in that, potentially in that Epstein league, or at least knew the guy. But this whole scene, you know, really that scene was akin to post-credits Marvel scene. Yeah, it was, that's really what that was and that maybe would have played out a little better If it was post-credits. If it was post-credits they did do one thing to break it up and maybe they thought it would have broken it up more. Remember it said 28 days later yeah, so the movie ended, more or less the movie. Remember it said 28 days later. Yeah, so the movie ended, more or less the movie ended. And it said 28 days later. And then it showed this scene something a little, but but it still felt like the movie hadn't ended.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And the way it's, in the same way that a Marvel movie which is now, if they'd done it this way it's been so it's been done 48 million times. Yeah, where you know you set up maybe something to come or you know, tell more of the story, um, but yeah, and so the it. There was whiplash. It was totally outside of the of the this film the.
Speaker 2The cool thing I get about it now, though, is like this is definitely a british cultural thing. Like, yeah, um, like jimmy seville was revealed as a predator sometime in like the early 2000s, which no one in this world of this film would have learned because the world ended in 2002. So all these kids who were growing up and the world ended in 2002, for them jimmy seville was like still a culture. Jimmy seville to them was like is like what robert downey jr is to a bunch of kids today, or like you know, I don't know, mr beast right. And so the young kid we saw in the beginning of the film running from the zombies on the day of the apocalypse he is dressed like Jimmy Seville and all of his other Jimmys in his gang are dressed like Jimmy Seville. Because Jimmy Seville was a cultural icon they can recall from their childhood, and they probably saw a ton of magazines of them still across England, and they probably found tapes of him and radio broadcasts, whatever. And so he's he was never revealed to be a pedophile, so they never saw him as a villain, just as a hero. And so it makes sense that, like they maintained this hero image of him, and like that's the iconography they follow in their post-apocalyptic gang, which I think like a similar one today honestly would be like if the world ended to, not today maybe, um, I'm gonna say five years ago, at the peak of the rock rock celebrity thing, when he was in everything and it wasn't like burned out yet, and then like, let's say, we found out that the rock was a pedophile. Later on, or something like that ended though, and no one ever found out about it, and all this post-apocalypse media remained of just like what they could find in magazines and, you know, on old videos and vhs stuff. Man, they would find, like the rock in like fast five, insulting tyrese gibson and funny, and he's jacked as hell and he's also in moana, and they'd be like oh yeah, let's make a gang after the rock and let's all wear let's all wear turtleneck sweaters and jeans and fanny packs while we kill zombies. And so it's like I get that iconography and I think it's kind of cool.
Speaker 2It seems very aware, and we also see that Jimmy is, throughout the film, kind of graffitied over stuff that we don't really like. You kind of notice, you're like, well, that's obvious, it's there, but like what's the point of it? And then it now kind of comes home. Right is like there's the, the ruins or pagan things carved into that body. In the beginning, that uh spike finds on the infected hanging is actually jimmy, just upside down. Uh, they carved jimmy into the zombie and then we see jimmy scratch into walls, uh, next to like bible verses, um, revelation kind of stuff. And so it's clear that like, the jimmy gang is here on the mainland and they, they leave call signs to themselves all around. I don't know if you had any other final thoughts about that final scene or like, because everyone has said like the second movie is supposed to be following Jimmy's game.
Speaker 1Yeah, and I think that the it brings the movie full circle, where the kid we saw running off with the cross was not the protagonist, Right, Because we get into one of the stories and it circles all the way back to him showing up and at this point now Jimmy's got the same cross still. Now he's got it upside down. Yeah, you know, which I think really is a. I think it's could be a lot of different, mean a lot of different things, but I do think it is also a rejection of like his father's faith or whatever Rejection of killing his own father rejection of his own.
Speaker 1Yeah, that stuff, yeah and uh and a and evil sign, like and it upside down cross means a lot of different things. It's not always evil, but I think in this case it is like also, uh, it is like symbolic of a evil person. Evil, you know, and um, and so the I think that the next movie will just be very different.
Speaker 2I'm excited to see it, which I know may sound strange because of how betrayed I felt by this one going into it. But now having this expectation kind of adjusted and knowing more about how Jim from the first movie is supposed to return in the fourth one. And we have this Jimim who you know was a good figure in that movie and he was a hero figure and he'll be returning, and we have jimmy who's definitely appearing to be a villain. I'm excited to kind of see, like if they can pull it off tastefully and without it being cringy the the duality of these two heroes and it's kind of like the Jesus-Satan duality of Lucifer, who became Satan, was the most beautiful angel and was cast out for essentially betraying God. And then you have Christ, who is the perfect image of God in man's form, and there is that duality between the two and I do expect to see something similar to that. I don't know how they're going to do it without making Jim a Messiah figure.
Speaker 2I don't think he was. He wasn't a messianic figure in the first film. He was just a hero. And they also need to do that while making sure Spike progresses his hero journey, because Spike is still supposed to be the main character of the next movies. So we'll see what goes on. I don't know how they're going to do it. It'd be cool to see if they pull it off.
Speaker 1Well, Yep, yep. And is the next one supposed to come out kind of soon, yeah, like 2026.
Speaker 2Yeah, like they're apparently already almost done.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's already getting after it, so it should come out soon and we'll see what it does, and I think it'll be a lot different Different director, different writer. I think too.
Speaker 2The director I'm worried about. She has only made flops Like franchise-killing flops.
Speaker 1She's a woke director.
Speaker 2Yeah, like Marvel stuff. That sucked really bad yeah. I think actually she was the director for the movie the Marvels, which do you know what that was? I did not like it. Oh, you saw it? Uh-huh, okay, I haven't seen it. I don't know. Many people even know what it was. Yeah.
The Bone Forest and Memento Mori
Speaker 1Well, maybe she's going to decide to quit interjecting her own stuff and quit sucking, sure, and, like you, should actually address politics, but just don't throat cram it. Yeah, I agree. Keep it like there's timeless political commentary Timeless. Go back to any point in all history, commentate on it and go with human condition stuff versus just a hot topic of today and just getting it in there.
Speaker 2The best political commentary in movies is not the director's politics, it's the audience's. When the director knows, hey, these are the political beliefs of my audience, I'm going to bring those in so they can experience them and see them dynamically, those are usually the best political commentary. Horror or action films, whatever Right. But when the director is like this is my political opinion and it's going to be shoehorned in all the way, they don't realize that that is not the majority or even a large minority of the people who are going to view the film.
Speaker 1Or even like if someone completely pandered to my own political beliefs, it wouldn't get to me. Hey how many.
Speaker 2Christian movies are good.
Speaker 1No, I'm kidding, but then like it, just like, or either way it's like, if you're narrowing down to such a narrow thing as a current two-party system in a country that's been around for 200 years, like just back out a little to like in general, what's it been like for a long time, and that's why you know kind of like, I don't know. There's countless examples of good, good movies that do talk about relationships between government and people or people's roles and whatever. Yeah, but we'll see what they do with it.
Speaker 2We'll see what they do but anyways, uh, trivia goofs regarding those, we've pretty much hit everything here that we kind of had notes on already throughout talking about the film. So, um, I think, pat, it's time for just final ratings, yeah, our thumbs and any kind of closing thoughts or opinions. Um, I'm gonna let you go first because I don't want my opinion to try to like sway your for sure.
Speaker 1I think that I think it was a good movie, well done movie. I think some of the it probably in some ways needed like another 30 minutes to kind of wrap up some storylines or kind of let the end of the movie develop in some ways. But the or kind of let the end of the movie develop in some ways, but having not seen the other ones, I think it does stand alone and it is helpful to have the other context to build off of and at the same time, really the hero's tale journey story. They told this, really the hero's tale journey story. They told um, while it was there was some of like the because they had to stick to like the quote-unquote franchise they sort of have like some of these like gruesome horror elements that maybe almost could retract from a larger audience. It was a story that could be told more broadly and a lot of people aren't going to go see this because they're like I don't watch those movies.
Speaker 2Oh, I don't watch horrors.
Speaker 1I don't watch that stuff right, but it could appeal to a lot of audiences. But at the same time, I think in some ways it's like I went to an Asian-Mexican fusion restaurant.
Speaker 2Oh yeah. So it's like what was that?
Speaker 1The tamales were good and I had a good crab wonton.
Speaker 2Together they're not great, they're not gestating.
Speaker 1The General Tao enchiladas. I don't know what that's about to do to my butthole. So it kind of like it felt in that sense right and so to like where you spoke, to feeling rug pulled or things like that, like I feel kind of like what was the movie and I guess movie doesn't have to just fall into a genre but per se but at the same time I'm getting a little bit X a Mexican Asian fusion going on as far as like, yeah, what, what happened in that movie?
Speaker 2Yeah, I can totally see that too. Um, but what do you give it, I think, at the end of the day?
Speaker 1I think I'm kind of like a no thumb, okay, end of the day. I think I'm kind of like a no thumb, okay, it's a uh, if you, if you're, if you're, 28 days fan, obviously you got to see it, if you're a big time 28 days fan, you're probably gonna hate it yeah um, if you're not a 28 days fan, you don't like those type of movies, but you can still deal with violence.
Speaker 1Might be worth a saturday night. Um, but like, well, I, I won't watch it again. I'm not, I'm not gonna tell my wife to watch it. Yeah, um and um, so it's just I I don't think it was a big stinker like, or a bad movie yeah I just think it was, um, maybe it, it. It just was a little bit weird in that sense yeah, no, I get you.
Speaker 2I think that's totally fair. Um, I think the part that was, I think the worst parts of the movie were the decision in its soundtracks I think the soundtracks used often swung between, like uh, ambient, avant-garde and then British punk rock that fell out of place, uh-huh, um, and I think that, like even for scenes that weren't like supposed to be punky, I think like in the beginning when we're getting the montage of what this island life is and how it's like medieval it was a british like punk rock weird song.
Speaker 2Uh-huh, I was like this doesn't fit to me and it doesn't feel like. It feels like they're almost they were almost trying to make us feel like, yeah, this is spike's first day of high school and I'm like that's not what I feel, like I should be framing this as this is like a rite of passage, hero's journey kind of thing, right. So I really hated the music. I hated the music an insane amount and I never even got the 28 Days Later song, which everyone knows it, even if you don't know what it is Like. When I say that, when you hear the 28 Days Later theme song, I can't remember who the original musician was that made it, but like it is one of the most famous horror songs of all time.
Final Thoughts and Rating
Speaker 2It's been used in like comedy stuff because of how like well known it is and like it's kind of causing that vibe of like the zombie apocalypse and they didn't use it once in the film, which made me feel very jerked around. I was pretty pissed. So and I I do think it is a decent heroes story, a decent coming of age heroes journey. I think it is a terrible zombie film. I think it is a absolutely atrocious, terrible, 28 Days Later genre film. The first two, for sure, were way more aligned than this one is with either of those, and even though I appreciate it for what it ended up being, tell me how you feel about this Pat. Even though I appreciate it for what it ended up being, tell me how you feel about this, pat. I think this movie is more fun to talk about than it is to watch.
Speaker 1Right. Do you feel like that's fair? It brings up a lot of big topics. There's a lot of big things you can talk about it with, but then even going to like it didn't stick to a certain theme throughout either, where they did have those scenes of uh, it was very similar to the that that trailer first trailer that came out that got tons of play time in the first couple hours, the boots marching, and it feels like that shouldn't have even been in the movie that should not have been a movie.
Speaker 2That trailer tell me that trailer was. It had anything to do with the movie?
Speaker 1right it. Just it got you amped for it, right yeah?
Speaker 2but it had.
Speaker 1It had no relation to the film, but that like where they're, they're, I don't know the artistic decision to cut in the scenes from the past of uh it's, it's showing like old movies of like arrows flying and stuff it was like yeah, men go marching into war the war machine keeps on turning and the and the, the arrows flying and, but it was scenes from old movies and stuff, which was fine, but that to me at the beginning felt like we were setting up, for it was all set up for a horror movie.
Speaker 1The beginning, the first 20 minutes, set us up for a horror movie that never came.
Speaker 2Yeah, I you know what I really thought that trailer was telling us. I thought it was saying, yep, there is going to be, like, due to the pride and arrogance of man, there is going to be this uh, you know, great, uh, manifest destiny of like, it's our destiny to take back england, and it's going to be from two perspectives it's going to be the perspective of the people living this medieval society and there to be the perspective of the people living in this medieval society.
Speaker 2And the world and the world with the military units and we really didn't get.
Speaker 1this wasn't a worldwide movie. The first two I'm sure were. They were Right. They were worldwide eyes on versus. We only briefly got the outside world's perspective from a 20-something-year-old soldier. Yeah, and that's it.
Speaker 2The world doesn't care about it anymore either way. They just patrol it like there's no in the boots song made me think like oh, so what we're gonna get is the like. It's our destiny to do this and no matter how many people die, that's worth. Look that, that cost is worth the, the victory, the pride of taking back england, taking back our home and going back to the trailer, I thought I was going to see bow and arrows shooting at bullets.
Speaker 1You know like some medieval versus soldier stuff right, just meaning, like, meaning like there's people, like there's like the, the wild, the wildings now versus people yeah or the cannibal people or just the tribal people here, versus like I thought it's going to be.
Speaker 2I listened to that episode where we talked about the trailer not too long ago. I think that would have been a better movie. Yeah, because we were like yeah, it seems like you know that there's going to be this cannibal faction that uses the infected to find other people and they eat the people, just like the zombies do. But yeah, I was like that would have been scary yeah yeah, uh, anyways, all right.
Speaker 2So, all that said, I feel cock teased. Um, even even more now when I find out samson's penis isn't real. Um, which, honestly, we all are relieved by. Um, I give it a thumb down, man, yeah, like there are better coming of age stories, there are better arthurian tales, there are better Arthurian tales.
Speaker 2And even if it had, telegraphed hey, this is actually an Arthurian tale wrapped up in the post-apocalypse story. I don't think it would have succeeded in being like a thumb up or there, Because it just it didn't it hit all the right beats, Just not good enough.
Speaker 1So I'm going to give it a thumb down.
Speaker 2I think that that's fair. I'm both friends. Yeah, I do enjoy talking about it. I don't ever want to watch it again, yeah, uh. So all right, there we go, all right. So from the mickey pat show, there's brews and reviews. Uh, the beer gets no thumbs up, just a nice average c plus beer. Zombie ice by three floyds. It will satisfy your ipa desires, but it's not gonna like knock your socks off. And then, uh, 28 years later, it tells an average coming of age hero's journey. It does not tell a good zombie story, uh, and the most horrific part of it is not the zombies eating people, it's the. Oh, my god, I gotta take my mother's skull and put it on top of another pile of skulls. So take that with what you will Love to hear your feedback. I'd love to know that we're wrong. Tell us why we're wrong. If you can Leave your comments or whatever, we'd love to hear your thoughts on the film. But thanks for listening, thanks for joining us. Uh, pat, do you got anything you want to sign off with?
Speaker 1till next time.
