Zombie Book Club
Welcome to Zombie Book Club! We're a Podcast that's also a book club! We talk about Zombie / Apocalyptic horror novels, TV and movies.
Zombie Book Club
Undead Giraffes Can't Roar (but they do in this movie!) ZOOMBIES | Zombie Book Club Ep 98
In this delightfully unhinged episode, Dan and Leah dive into the 2016 cult classic Zoombies, where a wildlife sanctuary becomes ground zero for a zombie animal outbreak. From roaring giraffes (which, fun fact, don't have vocal cords) to a suspiciously taxidermied koala, the film's laughable CGI and plot holes provide endless entertainment. The hosts also share highlights from their community watch party, where snarky commentary enhanced every absurd moment.
The hosts also countdown their top five zombie animals in horror media, notably excluding any from Zoombies. From the iconic Church the cat in Pet Sematary to the terrifying sheep in New Zealand's Black Sheep, they explore what makes these undead creatures so memorable. Additionally, they touch on real-life zombie phenomena like "zombie deer" and cordyceps fungi.
Special Elevator pitch from Katheryn Breen with her zombie romance novel, Rod the Zombie, set to release on August 5th.
Relevant Links:
Katheryn Breen
- Instagram: @klb.writes
- Rod the Zombie: Coming August 5th
Living Dead Weekend
- Website: thelivingdeadweekend.com
- Instagram: @livingdeadweekend
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Welcome to the Zombie Book Club, the only book club where the book is a zoo and that zoo is poorly managed and has no visitors. I'm Dan, and when I'm out dealing with a zoo of roadside construction where the animals are covered in asphalt and chew tobacco, I'm writing a book about the collapse of our modern world, where the zoo might be a good place to stop for a quick snack.
Speaker 2:I hope you're talking about actual snacks and not animals. Sure.
Speaker 1:I'm Leah and I like animals better than most people, but maybe not zombie animals. Yeah, you know what I learned yesterday. I take it back. I'd rather not eat the the zoo animals and instead, um, I'm trying to think of a way to make these words work. Um, let's trade the zoo animals for the animals I work with you want to eat them yeah, and then I'll eat the. Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:It's a long way to go you want to eat the asphalt covered tobacco chewing humans?
Speaker 1:yeah, for a snack at the zoo yeah, I'd probably boil them just to be safe maybe you could do boiled peanuts as like a side to have a full boiled experience I never really liked boiled peanuts. I think they're delicious.
Speaker 2:I thought they were weird I mean they are weird they are and very salty. Uh curious, everybody out there loves boiled peanuts. Nobody's ever said a can of boiled peanuts in our question of shelf-stable food.
Speaker 1:They come in a can.
Speaker 2:When I had them, they came in a paper bag well, that's when you buy them from, like, the convenience store or the gas station.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a guy on the side of the road. Yeah, it was just some guy. That's authentic. You can get them in a can, like it was in the back of his pickup truck.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this was Georgia High quality boiled peanuts. Either you know what we're talking about or you're like. What in the ever-loving fuck is a boiled peanut?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I feel like it would be a popular thing in the apocalypse, because you can grow the peanuts and boil them yeah if you live in the right climate and you just need some salt. Go to the ocean, get some salt and you have a nice snack.
Speaker 1:We can't grow peanuts here, can we? I feel like that's definitely a down south thing, right? I don't know. We need to find this out.
Speaker 2:What zone can you grow peanuts? We're in zone four.
Speaker 1:Oh great, Now everybody knows where we we cannot.
Speaker 2:Hardiness zone is 8 to 11, so much further south than here. Yeah, that's what I thought that's what I thought that's why that's why you don't get well we do boiled walnuts yeah, let's do walnuts boiled, boiled walnuts this also sounds even more disgusting today we are dissociating for a casual dead episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm hardcore dissociating.
Speaker 2:Yes, we've got a book pitch from an awesome new author to us, catherine Breen, and we're going to review a movie called Zoombies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we watched this movie. Yeah, have you heard of a movie called Zoombies?
Speaker 2:I didn't know. I just knew that Ollie was hosting a watch party. I had no idea we were watching when we showed up Me either. I didn't know, I just knew that.
Speaker 1:Ollie was hosting a watch party. I had no idea we were watching when we showed up Me either. I had no idea. In fact, ads started playing. I thought the ads were the movie we were watching. It was for Eve Online. Yeah, I couldn't figure out what was going on.
Speaker 2:I was very confused Like this is in space. I mean space zombies. That'd be fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Today is really a break from all of the hardcore, depressing topics we've been doing lately. Yeah, we figured we need it. You probably need it too.
Speaker 1:Oh God, we need it, yeah, but we release episodes every Sunday. So subspiddle is what Leah wrote.
Speaker 2:I'm really struggling, yeah, with new subscribe words. Yeah, maybe we should just say subscribe one of these days I wonder if anybody, if we didn't talk about how it's actually subscribed, anyone would know what we're talking about yeah, they're like. They told me to subscramble or whatever subspittle yeah, I'm subspittling into the, into the microphone some subskittles or something but let's get to the elevator author pitch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this one I'm really excited about, because the book is named Rod the Zombie and I'm wondering if it's a biography or possibly an autobiography of our Rod Zombie, yeah, who lives on our front porch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well now Rod lives on the back porch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's taking a break, he's sitting down.
Speaker 1:He's on vacation he stood all winter.
Speaker 2:He's on vacation and now he's sitting in a chair. Yeah, he's taking a break before he goes to Living Dead weekend, where he's going to hold a sign for us.
Speaker 1:He's stood so much that his shoes exploded.
Speaker 2:It's true, and his legs have slowly evaporated. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Disintegrated, yeah they've kind of turned into dust.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wonder if this rod also has leg and shoe problems. But I did when we got an email from Catherine Breen, the author, and I saw the name of the book and I was just like this is clearly meant to be written in the stars.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's written in the book.
Speaker 2:Yes, also that it's Catherine's debut novel. It's set to release August 5th and she's actually going to be on the show on August 3rd to talk about it. Yay, so we've got a pitch from her. You ready to listen to it? Yeah, I'm ready. Okay, which floor are we going to, dan?
Speaker 1:Oh, let's go to three Okay.
Speaker 2:Ding, ding ding.
Speaker 3:Hi Leah, hi Dan. Author from Syracuse, new York, my debut novel, rod the Zombie, is coming out this August. It's a paranormal romance that blends horror and humor in a story about love and what it really means to be alive. This story flips the horror trope on its head and invites the reader to reflect on identity, belonging and the value of every soul, living or otherwise.
Speaker 3:So Rod isn't your typical zombie. He's complex, conflicted and surprisingly tender. He's haunted by the memories of his past life and unsure of his place in the world. When he meets a human girl named Bethany, he's immediately intrigued by her fearless and unapologetic attitude in this post-apocalyptic world. When it turns out that Bethany's mysterious exterior is hiding dangerous secrets, rod is forced to choose between exploring his second chance at life or risking it all for his only shot at love. As Rod is faced with the sinister force that has brought him back, he's forced to ask himself questions about identity, free will and what really makes life worth living. Rod the Zombie is a love story and a horror comedy that helps remind the reader that even in the darkest, most unexpected places, like the decaying heart of a half-rotted corpse, there is still room for love, laughter and second chances.
Speaker 2:Aww, I didn't know Rod Zombie had such a backstory. He's never told us all of this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he keeps on trying to sell us some extended warranties through Walmart.
Speaker 2:It's true. Yeah, he's got a couple of buttons from Walmart. Yeah, he's got a Walmart hat. Catherine, does your Rod also work? Or did they work at Walmart before? They were a zombie? Very curious, I feel like I just had insight, though, into his real story. Yeah, I really hope. Insight though, into his, his real story, I really hope. Well, actually, if, if Rod living on our back porch is an indicator, I don't think the love story goes well with Bethany, but we're going to have to read the book to find out, and I can't wait to talk to Catherine soon.
Speaker 1:Also, I love that you're from Syracuse, New York. I used to work there, Kind of I spent a lot of time in Syracuse and I'm curious what about upstate New York is so inspiring to zombie apocalypse authors.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because Alice B Sullivan, also from upstate New York, epic zombie author. There's something there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's something going on.
Speaker 2:You know how Atlanta was the hotbed of hip hop for a while. Yeah, is upstate New York the new hotbed of the zombie apocalypse genre?
Speaker 1:It could be the town that I lived in. Any time of the day, you could walk out into the middle of the street and it felt like the apocalypse. There was just derelict cars on the sides of the roads, nobody out walking on the street. The occasional person would peek at you through the blinds of their, of their window and then like quickly close them. When you looked at them, um and uh. I mean, the Daryl cars were just the cars that people drove, but it looked. It looked like it was the end of the world every single day.
Speaker 2:It sounds like it could be and in the meantime, I just want to say that, since Catherine's book is not yet out, you can go follow her at klb, as in bob, not rod. Uh dot writes on instagram, uh, and I think you can sign up for her newsletter. Am I making that up right now?
Speaker 1:let's find out yeah, and also I'll have a link in the description for that, so you could just click on it or put your finger on it. You could. You could double tap with your, your fingy. Yeah, you could. You could finger the link you can't.
Speaker 2:There is a newsletter. I knew I'd signed up for something life updates leah, I forgot about those. What are? What are our life updates?
Speaker 2:uh, you've got some life updates about living dead weekend I feel like we talk about that every week because it's become my whole life. Uh, yeah, stickers have come in. They're really. I love all my little zombie cartoon buddies. I just made a special edition, one that I will only ever print once, which is the Hare Krishna zombie from Dawn of the dead. Um, dan, how would you describe my Hare Krishna zombie?
Speaker 1:Uh, it's like handsome Squidward, if you know. If you know handsome Squidward, um, then you know what I'm talking about. If you don't know, handsome squidward, then like um, the easter island heads, but as a zombie wearing orange robes and glasses and gluing a tambourine, yeah, yeah I mean, he looks fabulous, yeah well, it's a special edition one I'm gonna just have for living dead weekend.
Speaker 2:If there's any left, I'll sell them online after. Yeah, but, yeah, very excited about that event, also excited for it to be over so I can stop thinking about that event. But I will also be sad when it's over, because it'll be over. It feels like way more work than getting married to you. Getting married to you was so easy. We just eloped.
Speaker 1:yeah, this feels like a full-on wedding event we're planning yeah, yeah, I mean, when we got married, like they like the, the, uh, the place that we went for our marriage slash honeymoon covered everything. Um, we just paid them money and then they're like here's the ceremony, here's the cake, here's the place that you're gonna stay for a couple days here's the officiant.
Speaker 2:Yeah who by? The way also loves horses.
Speaker 1:She's great and forget her name easy, but living dead weekend, it's like uh, how do we do this?
Speaker 2:there's no rules yeah, also, like we're a podcast, I'm like I don't really. We don't have a lot to sell, hence the stickers.
Speaker 1:Yeah and a couple of posters. Really, we're just hoping that people come talk to us. Yeah, that's the goal, even if, even if they come talk to us to be like, what do you guys sell?
Speaker 2:I I'm hoping that the crown I'm making just for living dead weekend attracts people, but it might not. It might scare them away, but I feel like this is the crowd, that they'll be attracted to it yeah, I think they'll be pulled in by the not sexually attracted to. I mean, I guess that's okay if they are no judgments um they might have some latent necrophilia going on. Yeah, I feel like this is my second necrophilia sex joke.
Speaker 1:I've made in as many weeks. I think it's okay to joke about necrophilia. Okay, for one, their victims are already dead. And two, I feel like it's a kink that we can shame.
Speaker 2:All right, that works for me. We do have a little bit of news that you wanted to share. That is real life depressing zombies in the news.
Speaker 1:Zombies in the news. Leah, the zombies, um, are in the government. So I found. I found this, um, this article. I'll leave a link for it in the description. Uh, it's called uh, the attack of the Sadistic Zombies. I first heard about this when they were discussing this sweeping budget bill that you might have heard about called the Big Beautiful Bill, which promises to take away our Medicaid, our Medicare, all kinds of stuff, snap benefits. Just send us into the dark ages where the people who are poor now will be even more poor and the people who are rich now will become even more rich. Yeah, and also fuck the climate. Nobel Prize winner and a former columnist of the New York Times wrote this Substack article on his Substack where he says that the bill that was just passed by Congress this week Just the House so far, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it still has to go through the Senate. Which fingers crossed. Maybe by the time this episode comes out, we're already in the dark ages, we don't know. Maybe by the time this episode comes out, uh, we're already in the dark ages, we don't know, um. But he, he says um, this is the work of sadistic zombies, and that's why I'm mentioning it, because zombies came up in the news and I thought it was really funny that somebody would say that. But what he's talking about are zombie ideas, um, and these ideas are, uh, things that keep on coming up in discussion, despite the fact that they've been proven false many, many times and are therefore undead ideas that continue to live even though they should be dead.
Speaker 2:This country is full of those and haven't for a long time.
Speaker 1:So really good examples of these would be that poor people are poor because they're just lazy, they're malingering and they're just draining the system, like if we, if we just have people on Social Security, they just don't want to work. It's not that they have a problem, they have an injury, it's just that they're trying to fool the system and get free money for doing nothing, and it's very important to know that.
Speaker 2:the underlying values here is that if you can't be a good worker and make a capitalist money, you have no value.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then another idea that he brings up is that tax cuts for the rich will spur some sort of economic miracle, the trickle-down effect. This has been proven wrong since probably before Reagan but Reagan was big in trickle-down economics which it was proved time and time again that rich people will only use trickle-down economics to enrich themselves and drain value from everything around them it doesn't trickle, no a lot of my undergrad education was on trickle-down economics and how it was yeah, so that's a zombie idea.
Speaker 2:You studied a zombie idea, wow, I have so many other zombie ideas. Uh, yeah, we. We went to war in Iraq for to get rid of weapons of mass destruction. Getting rid of trans people out of sports will save, will make trans people disappear, yeah.
Speaker 1:What else Also, that it's a problem At all? Yeah, like there's. There are fewer trans people in sports than there are felonies that the president has convicted of.
Speaker 2:Oh, I have another zombie idea. So many children are being forced into having gender reassignment surgeries before the age of 18.
Speaker 1:At the nurse's office. Yes, in school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's also not true. Yeah, and if any of those things we just said you're like, oh, that's not true, I got the resources to back it up, it's probably too many articles to put in the show notes, so come at me in the dms.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I just wanted to bring up this, uh, these sadistic zombies.
Speaker 2:We currently have sadistic zombies, um we do passing laws and uh, that's, that's my life update they're eating us, which is why we need to eat them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we need to eat. We need our own zombies, different kinds of zombies, we need different zombies to fight the old zombies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and much less depressing as we watch zombies on the zombie collective discord with a few of our zombies, including Megan Ollie and Captain Magenta, who I don't know your real name, Captain Magenta, but honestly, Captain Magenta is pretty great. Magenta is a good color, yeah.
Speaker 1:I agree, magenta is a great color yeah.
Speaker 2:Thanks for hosting Ollie, it was really fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, zoombies.
Speaker 2:It's a movie. We're going to do a rapid fire review of it, yeah.
Speaker 1:At the request of captain magenta. We're here for you, buddy, yeah, so um, let's, let's break down real quick what is?
Speaker 2:what is zombies? Well, I don't think it'll surprise anybody. That's a low budget film, is it? Yeah? Wow you fooled me, uh, may in 2016, so nine years old now and basically there's a virus outbreak at a wildlife safari park which is uh sort of talked about as like a rescue for rare animals, but unfortunately, this virus outbreak turns those animals, including lions, giraffes and a gorilla, and many other animals koalas, what else? Monkeys, lemurs, birds, birds uh yeah, so many things into fast, very fast, bloodthirsty also a taxidermied koala yes, but they only seem interested in eating up people.
Speaker 2:Yeah and the virus doesn't infect people, just animals yeah, that's very interesting and I think there's, like some maybe underlying themes of vengeance of the non-human animal type against people. I feel that, and the film follows the staff and interns of eden wildlife zoo because it hasn't been opened yet to the public. Convenient.
Speaker 2:Convenient because all those extras would cost a lot of money also the outbreak would have been worse and basically they have to navigate the zoo's dangers to prevent the outbreak from spreading. Particularly they're very concerned about crossing over to the birds and the birds getting out of the aviary yeah, yeah, that that's.
Speaker 1:That is a thing that they, that they bring up a lot in this movie.
Speaker 2:It's like we gotta get, get to get to the aviary, kill all those birds, yeah, um well, the birds are so cute, except for the one that's like help, help, help over and over. Didn't it eat somebody, or was it just sad that their person had been eaten? It's really unclear either the parrot ate somebody that they loved before they were a zombie, and then repeated the person's last word, which was help, over and over again, or the parrot witnessed it, yeah, and was saying help, help, help, help over again. Could, be Not clear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, If we're looking for a blurb, I would say imagine Jurassic Park with no dinosaurs.
Speaker 2:With giraffes.
Speaker 1:And just regular zoo animals and also no budget. So if you've ever wanted to see that movie, but a feminist lens- is there. I think, so, I think a little bit, yeah, I guess yeah compared to zombie averse that true, that is true.
Speaker 2:It is more feminist than zombie there are a lot of characters like so many, it was hard to keep track of them all um, a lot of interns and workers. Many of them die, but I think the two characters that are probably worth naming is dr ellen rogers, who is the zoo manager and owner and veterinarian yeah, trying to control the chaos, and scientist and scientist yeah, and her well, veterinarian scientist. And her daughter, thea, who's like how old do you think? Eight.
Speaker 1:I think, actually I think they do say that she's eight.
Speaker 2:Okay, I was guesstimating by her size. Pretty good yeah.
Speaker 1:Thea is the comic relief. Also, the smartest person in the room Is she, she is. She is the one that figures everything out all the time. Never underestimate a child. Yeah, especially when they've like read the script. I guess They've read ahead in the scripts so they know what's going on.
Speaker 2:What do we love about this movie Dan?
Speaker 1:Oh well, we've got a bunch. I'm going to read some of the things that I liked. Okay, okay, I loved how completely fucking stupid this movie was. It was. You're not going to get deeper meanings or, like I tried Deep, I looked for it Character-driven storylines. You're not going to be like, wow, that really makes you think. You're going to be like, wow, that was fucking dumb. Yeah, and if you want something really dumb, then you're in luck, because you're going to be smiling ear to ear. Being like that is the dumbest thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 1:It's intentionally dumb and I appreciate intentionally dumb, going along with intentionally dumb. It's also an obvious Jurassic Park ripoff. But it's also aware of itself. It even says at some point like relax, guys, it's not like we're at jurassic park. And then they smile and look at the camera, break the fourth wall. That didn't actually happen, but I felt like they were breaking the fourth wall with the joke. I felt like they were saying it to me and I'm like I know, guys, I know you need to have a fucking Jurassic Park Jeep.
Speaker 1:It's pretty derivative. Yeah, Also there's a character who wears a business suit. He's a businessman.
Speaker 1:He's a blue on blue on blue business suit, which was a choice of whoever it was that did the costumes. When I first saw this guy and I saw how he was getting involved with the story, I'm like, oh, this guy's losing his sleeves, his sleeves are going to be gone. The pipes came out, yeah, and they did not let me down on that because immediately lost his sleeves, lost his coat. Not only that, lost the bottom part of his pants. So he has shorts, he has a sleeveless shirt, a tie and a vest. Sounds like a male stripper it does. But also it's like that's a look. You know, if you're going to be in a movie like Zoombies, I'd absolutely be like, look, I'm glad to be in this movie, but I want to look fucking ridiculous. I want sleeveless business suit.
Speaker 2:I will be in this movie if I get to be in a sleeveless business suit. I will be in this movie if I get to be in a sleeveless business suit and also it's 97 degrees out.
Speaker 1:Here I'm ripping the bottoms of my pants off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I need air flow up down there.
Speaker 1:What did you love about this movie?
Speaker 2:You know, I think what I love the most is watching other people and all the snarky comments in the chat. I'm trying to remember some of them. I'm not very good at that, but they were very good, good snark.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the fun part of it doing the live watch parties, yeah.
Speaker 2:Snark. I don't know if I would enjoy the movie without the snark comments from others Like that's kind of what makes it fun is hearing people's hot takes about.
Speaker 1:What they're describing is exactly what that show is, where they watch really stupid movies like this and they just make jokes over top of the dialogue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I want to be in it, I don't want to.
Speaker 1:I want to be immersed in it.
Speaker 2:I also. I also really loved Thea, because her character made no sense. Sometimes she loved the animals, sometimes she's ready to murder them, particularly when she went to cuddle a stuffed koala that ended up being a zombie yeah, that part was unclear.
Speaker 1:Like was the? Was there a live koala in the room that she was playing in the entire time? Was it a taxidermied koala? How did it get in? Was it a stuff? Was it actually a stuffed koala that turned into a zombie because it's a animal?
Speaker 2:and that's how the virus works. Is she barehanded? Fucked that thing up and to the point where, like literally, its fur was on one side of the room and its deferred body skin body was on the other.
Speaker 1:She beat it to death and skinned it apparently.
Speaker 2:And then got hit in the head somewhere and was still seemed totally fine, although I feel like that's when her personality changed and she was like, yeah, let's kill the animals it's okay it's okay, mom kill the animals maybe she got a concussion and then she's like fuck animals, yeah, animals suck I also like the double entendre of the name. Yeah, dogs get zoomies, zoomies. Yeah, do you think zoomies was a part of it? Well they, those animals, had zoomies for sure some of them did yeah uh, and zombies, zoomies, zombies, zoomies, zombies.
Speaker 1:Yeah smart um, let's talk about what we hated the thing that killed it for me it definitely.
Speaker 2:Uh, my disbelief was no longer suspended was when the giraffes made zombie noises yeah, like, like, really like snarling, like growling, snarling, zombie noises. And once I checked, they don't have vocal cords, they don't make sounds.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, If those giraffes were zombies they wouldn't be making zombie noises, not to mention all the people that were being picked up and eaten by the giraffe zombies and then thrown onto the ground Every time they landed on the ground. They thrown onto the ground Every time they landed on the ground. They were perfectly fine and just would like get back up. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they just fell 27 feet. They're fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was really not realistic. And also the CG was so bad. Yeah, it's like so bad.
Speaker 1:It's like they were just like let's get on TurboSquid and download a giraffe model. We'll go with the free one.
Speaker 2:We're not gonna pay 25 dollars, yeah for a giraffe model also, the, the, the elephants, them riding on the elephants. It really bothered me.
Speaker 1:I don't know why a lot of, a lot of the mixed cgs shots were like they just did like a close-up, while they're like riding on the top of a of an elephant. We're just like so badly done green screen style, like it was so clear that they're like we can't, we don't have the budget to show you on top of a an elephant, so we're just going to show you from like the waist up and you just pretend to ride that elephant. There's also a car crash scene where literally like the jeep goes off the road and you see it hit a tree, but then they hard cut to one of the characters, just kind of flying over the camera and then, as if it's an episode of the mighty morphin power rangers, they all just kind of like tuck and roll and fall on the ground.
Speaker 2:In the next shot they're just fine in front of some trees and they're like oh, we just got thrown out of the jeep, ouch yeah, megan had a very, uh, astute critique if I may put some big words in here for our zombies yeah review, which is that the people kept trying to escape the zombies by climbing into trees, but the original zombies were monkeys, yeah, who are always coming out of trees. Yeah, it's, yeah. What more is there to say about that?
Speaker 1:There's a lot of things, that there's a lot of plot holes. One of the things that I hated was the writing, and that kind of sums up everything, because the writing was bad, really really bad, full of plot holes, including so we that they're riding elephants at some point. The reason they're riding elephants after being attacked by giraffes is because, they say, elephants don't have any natural predators, therefore they didn't get turned into zombies, so they're riding on the elephants. Here's the thing. Neither do fucking giraffes also predators. Neither do lions, who became zombies yeah, but giraffes do have predators are they tiny monkeys?
Speaker 2:no, but when they have to drink, they've got to do this thing. Where they've got to like bend their front legs in this very vulnerable way, and that's when they're most likely to get preyed upon is when they're drinking. Yeah, I know this because I went on a safari once okay, well, you've got me an expert, but I feel like and baby elephants are at risk, but not adult elephants, and all of these were adult african elephants yeah, um, I'm just saying it doesn't make it their.
Speaker 1:Their own rules are inconsistent, because not only did they make this rule where elephants don't get infected because they're they don't have any natural predators, lions get infected somehow. Who the fuck attacks the lions, like the monkeys, I guess, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Then later, zombie elephants but also never zombie people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, never zombie people. But the, the, the elephants turned into zombies later and then, like no, everybody's standing there, it wasn't like, oh, I guess we were wrong about them having to have a natural predator for them to be infected. Now they just, they just go with it. They're just like, ah, zombie, elephant, zombie elephant zombie elephant. You know it just completely undid this thing that we told the audience was the reason that they were fine. They're not.
Speaker 2:Also the CDC, totally useless kind of like it is now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they never showed up. No, they're like we have to wait for the CDC to show up and they just didn't.
Speaker 2:It must have been. I know it was 2016. So yeah, Trump was elected, so that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:CDC also was defanged.
Speaker 1:Also, there's this hilarious scene where zombie lions come out of the woodwork and chase them down. They get in, they get in their Jeep and they drive away. They're being chased by a pride of zombie lions. However, every single one of them is a male lion, not a single female lion. So they all have manes. And we're watching this and we're all like are there only male lions at the zoo? And I think that it's a gay lion zoo.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 1:It's a gay preserve.
Speaker 2:I mean giraffes are one of the first animals to be observed and documented by a Western scientist as engaging in a lot of queer behavior, and the scientists that observed that and wrote about it nobody would publish their work back in the 60s because they're like no animals can't be gay. So I kind of like this side idea of like. Maybe that's what it is it's a sanctuary for gay animals. But then we end up up then the moral of the story is kill them all. So I'm taking this back. That's not good yeah, um yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure the takeaway of the of the whole movie is uh, animals are assholes and we need to kill all of them before they kill us.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It was. There's a sequel and I want to watch it, so I guess there's that.
Speaker 1:There is a sequel.
Speaker 2:And I want to watch it, but I only want to watch it with all the people. We watched the first one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's got to be the next one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're going to do a way back playback because we've done a lot of movie reviews lately sexist, capitalist, colonial, ableist misogyny of the living dead, of zombies, which, I'm pleased to say, it was actually very inclusive yeah, it was a good movie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the there's a lot of diversity in the cast. Yep, it's not a big cast either, so, like you know, you've only got like six or seven characters total yeah, there's racial diversity.
Speaker 2:Women are at the center of the narrative. They talk about something other than boys all the time. Yeah, they're not overtly objectified, they're not like I mean. All of them are conventionally attractive, but nobody is like hyper-sexualized in their role.
Speaker 1:You don't think the main security guard woman is somewhat Tomb Raider-ified? I didn't notice, but I don't have a male gaze, so I mean it wasn't, it wasn't like over, but I like the. The styling of her character was very like, reminiscent of like laura croft, tomb raider, and I feel like that was a choice yeah, probably okay.
Speaker 2:Well, it's again like it's okay for there to be sexuality in movies and also like people to be sexy. It's when it's all the time in every character that's a problem. Um, so it was good that way. However, I do think it had some colonial overtones of like rescuing the animals at first but then realizing they can't rescue them, so they're just gonna kill them all. I don't know. There was something weird there. I think it's because I think what's weird is that I don't like zoos. I'm gonna come out of the closet and say that I'm not a fan of zoos and this, quote unquote zoo is supposed to be like a rescue of exotic animals, but then we killed them all and I just was really struggling with what the point of this story was.
Speaker 1:Also, I think that there's a bit of human exceptionalism in the story, because all the zoo animals turn into zombies and it's unclear how it transfers. They don't even figure it out in the movie. Yeah, because sometimes it seems like it's airborne Just one animal being near another animal is enough to infect it, whereas, uh, humans don't get it the airborne way and in fact they're bitten multiple times by zombie giraffes, zombie monkeys, um they can die from injuries, but they don't seem to become zombies.
Speaker 2:It is, yeah, yeah, sort of an exceptionalism of like humans are not animals, but uh, yeah, I hate to tell everybody we are indeed and then they've.
Speaker 1:They've got to kill all the animals at the zoo to save the rest of the world's animals. Otherwise, the only solution then is to kill every last animal on earth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that humans may live it just the math is not mathing, as naela king might say. And also, like it's always interesting to me that zoo animals in this case they're all animals from the continent of africa, pretty much trying to think if there's any that aren't. Uh, I can't say for sure where the monkeys are from, what continent they're from, but why is it that the, the animals that are at risk and need rescuing, are always animals from a continent that has been exploited and pillaged and colonized?
Speaker 2:I don't know, I don't know, there were koalas and there's a white lady savior, but then the white lady savior is also like nope, we're gonna kill him. It's just weird, yeah, it's weird yeah, yeah, yeah, everything about this movie was weird, yeah yeah, I was really searching for a sequel or not a sequel, because there is one of those. Maybe our questions will be answered in the sequel. How many zeds would you give this movie, dan?
Speaker 1:um three, three, uh, as as a movie, I can't say I particularly enjoyed it. I didn't enjoy the story because it was not cohesive. I didn't enjoy the characters because, honestly, there wasn't a likable one. Even the kid um was unlikable, because suddenly she's just like, yeah, let's kill animals, I love killing animals. Uh, yeah, no, no likable characters.
Speaker 2:Um, the only, the only thing that I truly enjoyed was how not good it was I enjoyed making fun of it with other people, but I think so I give that a 10 out of 10. 10 out of 10 experience.
Speaker 2:3 out of 10 movie yeah, I agree I think that's a good way to put it. Also, there is a sequel to the sequel, aquarium of the Dead. That came out in 2021. I am kind of curious with that because I'm not going to pretend this didn't go through my mind where it's like what would an Aquarium of the Dead look like? And then I read it and I was like, oh, there's actually a movie. So I think the next two movie uh, parties watch parties need to be zombies too in aquarium of the dead.
Speaker 1:Yeah and you know what I will say. I've watched worse movies. Yes, um, bigfoot versus zombies is a worse movie than this.
Speaker 2:That was the movie I chose to watch with you and ollie. I'm sorry that I chose it it's very bad.
Speaker 1:I well, I want to see the end of it.
Speaker 2:We didn't watch the whole thing true, uh, I don't think I need to, it's okay it's exceptionally bad. Yeah uh, let's talk about our five favorite zombie animals yeah, this was like honestly the thing I really wanted to talk about inspired by zombies, but then we had to talk about zombies too, and none of our top five zombie animals are from zombies.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I kind of like the lions.
Speaker 2:I mean they're cool, but there's way better zombie animals and other things, yeah, like the zombie fish and blood quantum Speaking of Aquarium of the Dead.
Speaker 1:You know that was a cool moment for discovering that there was a virus that was bringing things back from the dead. Interesting way to do that in a movie, Because usually it's like, oh, what's up with this weird guy with the milky eyes that seems like he wants to eat me? Oh no, how do I kill it? Yeah, and you got to go through that. This was just like yeah, I removed all the guts from this fish and it's still alive. There were a whole bunch of them.
Speaker 2:I think there was like four or five in that bucket.
Speaker 1:Yeah, also there was a dog that came back, zombie dog. Yes, yep.
Speaker 2:But the fish was more unique. The fishies.
Speaker 1:It was, yeah, very unique.
Speaker 2:Zombfish which again plugging Aquarium of the Dead. I want to see it. I want to zombie fish better than blood quantum how's your fish? Number four big james the bear yeah, big james everybody loves big james.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you don't know big james is, go read path of the pale rider and you will learn very quickly that big james is an undead, very mad, grizzly bear. Yeah, and he's murderous, can never die. Yeah, and he's, of course, conveniently located on a path to a place that the only way to get to that place is to go by Big James the Bear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you got to put special sneakers on your horse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but then your horse still gets killed and their eye gets popped out. Spoilers, oh no, poor Prince.
Speaker 1:Yeah, shout out to Laurie Calcaterra.
Speaker 2:Yeah, tara, yeah, I think, uh, I really love both the art of big james the bear but also how big james the bear has become like a cult. Yeah, uh, following inside of the path of pale rider community, like everybody loves big james. Uh, this last kickstarter that laurie did for issue six had like a big james burger boy sticker. There's big james plushies. Like big james is famous in the world of path of pale rider.
Speaker 1:Yeah, excellent choice to go with the zombie bear that can't die and can only become more insane. Yeah, honorable mention to path of the pale riders. A swarm of undead, unkillable beetles. What kind of beetles were those? Oh, I forget, but they're crazy acid beetles yes, they yeah they blister beetles, blister beetles, yeah, yeah, those also sad.
Speaker 2:Pancake the dog yeah, there's a lot of great undead animals in path of pale rider, but I feel like big james, because of the cult following that he has deserve the number four slot yeah, uh, who deserves the number three slot? Um, have you seen both? Uh, how have you seen both movies pet cemetery, the original and the next one?
Speaker 1:you know um the, the original pet cemetery? I was not allowed to watch as a kid because my parents knew it would fuck me up. That's true.
Speaker 2:I mean you weren't really, though, you played around with a rabbit's dead head, and that's why they didn't want me to watch a movie about dead animals coming back to life Got it.
Speaker 1:However, I hadn't the audio experience because I was sitting in the in front of my family's computer, the Tandy T2000, probably writing my first book at eight years old, which is still. I'm still working on it, and I listened to the entire movie and it scared the shit out of me.
Speaker 2:I feel like that's. I wonder if that's an experience that kids still get, because it feels very 80s to me that I would also. I was not like writing a book or anything. I was just hiding around the corner of the living room, yeah, and like peeking around to see things like the gremlins, which absolutely maybe not want to go to the bathroom or use the toilet for years, yeah I would.
Speaker 2:I was not washing my hands, I'll tell you that much. I would flush the toilet and fucking run, yeah, in terror yeah, I, I was.
Speaker 1:I was scared of all kinds of monsters. I used to run all like the hallway in our house. My bedroom was at the very end, the kitchen and living room was at the other end and I would run as fast as I could to get from one end to the other and it wasn't fast enough. So by the end I would just jump and dive Because I'm like there's a monster right behind me and maybe if I'm just like in the air, flying through the air, even if it catches me, the momentum will just carry us through to safety, where my family is, and they'll kill the monster. Um, so yeah, totally makes sense.
Speaker 2:That's very logical. Yeah, kid logic. Um, so the cat yes, pet cemetery winston churchill the cat. I haven't looked into why they decided to call this cat Winston Churchill I feel like there's something there as the prime minister during World War II. That's correct. Right, I'm not making that up. Yeah, my little memory is remembering correctly Winston Churchill.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Oh maybe yes, let's just be yes. Prime minister of Great Britain from 1940 to 45.
Speaker 1:Glad that my memory did not fail me there Also the reason that large cigars are called Churchill's, because he famously smoked very large cigars.
Speaker 2:Things I didn't know. I needed to know that. Now I know Well. Church, the cat, also called Winston Churchill, is the pet cat of young Ellie Creed in Pet Sematary. They had a different name in the 1989 version. I'm pretty sure it's Ellie in the 2019 version. Don't quote me on that. But basically Church gets hit by a truck while Ellie is away and Ellie's dad, louis, is a doctor and he is afraid of how devastated his daughter is going to be when she finds out that her cat is dead. So he decides to bury church in a cursed burial ground, with help from their neighbor judd yeah, the pet cemetery, yes, the pet cemetery.
Speaker 2:And uh, he comes back, church comes back church comes back. He looks like. He looks like a really old, stinky, feral cat.
Speaker 1:When he comes back, he comes from, he starts like off as like the sleek, very cute kitty he comes back as a it looks like a poorly taxidermied cat yes, had never groomed itself like just a total mess and, honestly, even though it like becomes an evil cat, um, I didn't really notice much of a difference between evil cat and regular cat.
Speaker 2:Well, the biggest thing is that he starts killing animals and leaving their bodies around the house, but also that's what cats do, yeah, and obviously he's very scary. We got to watch the rest of the movie. We should do Pet Sematary because it is technically a zombie. It is technically a zombie. I give that number three because it's a classic. Yeah, they're magical zombies, yes, and also it's not just church the cat.
Speaker 1:There's so many zombie animals in the pet cemetery zombie people, yes, yeah, um, love it. Number two is something that leah hasn't seen but I have, and it's something that I think we need to talk about in the future Black Sheep. The Sheeps from Black Sheep Like the song by Metric. Exactly, that's why Metric made the song Black Sheep it's because of this movie from 2006. It is a New Zealand zombie movie where sheep turn into zombies zombie movie where sheep turn into zombies and it's really it's. It's weird because I feel like I went into it expecting it to be a comedy and then it took itself a little bit more seriously than I thought it was going to, but still had moments that were fucking hilarious.
Speaker 2:So is well, just quickly, how many zeds would you give black sheep?
Speaker 1:Five, Okay so better than zombies, but hence why it makes its way into this list of top five zombie animals. It's black sheep is like zombies. If zombies was written by people who know knew how to write and filmed by people who knew how to make a movie.
Speaker 2:I really just like the idea of a sheep, because there's all the sayings of like, like leading a sheep to slaughter, yeah, don't be a sheep, you'll just fall. Like there's this zombie idea that sheep are just helpless yeah, so I love a sheep revenge story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is very much a sheep revenge story. Yeah, it is very much a sheep revenge story. Um, there is also, uh, an interspecies relationship, oh, um and oh wow, you should see dan's face.
Speaker 1:I'm concerned it's in the trailer, so this isn't a spoiler, okay, it's. It's kind of the the thing that made me think it was a comedy, because one of the one of the main characters in the story is kind of just like losing his mind and uh, he opens up the door for another main character to come in and uh, and it's clear that he's sharing his bedroom with a sheep. Um, and they're having an inappropriate human and sheep relationship.
Speaker 2:And he just says you wouldn't understand what did the sheep say? I asked that question just so you would do that. Did the sheep appear to have consented to this relationship?
Speaker 1:It's unclear, but you know what? That guy I'm pretty sure dies a horrible death.
Speaker 2:This is bringing back for me a disturbing childhood memory. A couple this episode's getting into necrophilia, bestiality, you know what I think I'm not going to share that story. I'm just going to say that I lived around a lot of farmers and there was some weird stuff happening at this one barn. So they put a camera up up and they found a farmhand doing things that are not okay because animals can't consent, even if they look, even if they're saying bah yeah it's not yes it's.
Speaker 1:This is getting weird, it's not? Yes, yeah let's move on to number one. Number one, you know what? Another movie that includes an animal that you would not expect to be fighting back? Zombieverse, zombieverse. Yeah, this is your favorite, for sure.
Speaker 2:I love this movie yes.
Speaker 1:Zombieverse was way better than I thought it was going to be.
Speaker 2:Same. I mean, especially the first 20 minutes I was like this is fucking bad. And then I remember realizing no, no, no, it's. They know exactly what they're doing. And then it was wonderful yeah, there's.
Speaker 1:There's so many movies that we've watched lately that are like that, where it's just like like what, what the fuck are we watching? What is this? The dead don't die, the dead don't die. And then like what? Like the closer we get to the end, the more we we're like is this secretly genius?
Speaker 2:Zombie versus definitely secretly genius. I forget what I gave it in Zeds, but very high. We have an episode about it from the fall of 2024. I forget exactly when would have been like November, december timeframe, should I actually?
Speaker 1:find the episode number. No, I think it was November, because it was right after I got off of work.
Speaker 2:Also, we on the episode number oh, no, I think it was November, because it was right after I got off of work. Plus, we watched it, but when did we have the review come out? Oh, I don't know. Let me look it up real quick. We can put a link in the show notes if you want to hear more of our thoughts on Zombieverse. Because I love it I think my personal theme is episode 72, because I just love animal vengeance. I, as a vegan, I love when other non-human animals fuck up people. I really do. That's why Zoombees was disappointing. In that sense it needed to be better.
Speaker 1:They're going to do it. You know what? The giraffes got theirs. That's true. The giraffes did get theirs. The giraffes did the most damage, except maybe the gorilla. Kifo Kifo. Yeah, Kifo Kifo, yeah Kifo messed somebody up in a very bad way, but the giraffes have a pretty high kill count at this point.
Speaker 2:And it was fun seeing them swing people around with their giant long necks. Yeah, I'll give them that.
Speaker 1:While they're snarling and roaring.
Speaker 2:So there you have it, those are our top five zombie animals. Yeah, so there you have it, those are our top five zombie animals.
Speaker 1:Yeah, honorable mention, the zombie deer. From Train to Busan, definitely, but I think that the zombie deer just gets hit by a car, if I remember right.
Speaker 2:Or I thought it got hit by a car and then got back up and that's why people knew it was a zombie. Maybe, I don't know, there's so many good zombie animals. I'd love to hear your number one zombie animal. Let us know. Yeah, what do?
Speaker 1:you think?
Speaker 2:Did we get it right or what did we miss?
Speaker 1:Yeah, send us an email.
Speaker 2:Yeah or no, send me an unhinged voicemail at 614-699-0006 about which zombie animal we neglected to give its due credit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, also, are there zombie animals that we don't even know about yet? There's got to be.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, there are real life ones which I guess we could have woven in here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like real life zombie deer, yeah, yeah, yeah. And zombie ants, which is now apparently? Now there's zombie spiders. That's terrifying. Yeah, cordyceps has infected zombie spiders.
Speaker 2:The Last of Us is not that far away, yeah, which I can't wait till we do a review of season two of the Last of Us, which we might be doing a juxtaposition between season two of the Last of Us and season two of Dead City, because, boy, they could not be more different, yeah.
Speaker 1:We were watching season two of the Last of Us and I'm just like and meanwhile they're making a third season of Daryl Dixon.
Speaker 2:But that's actually to give context for how bad Zoombies is. Daryl Dixon is better than Zoombies.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:And I'm so sorry, if you love Daryl Dixon, I know there's a few people who listen who are offended by our hatred for that show, so forgive us, it's less hatred and more disappointment. Yeah, I'm disappointed in you, Norman Reedus. Yeah.
Speaker 1:The fuck Norman.
Speaker 2:I am. He phoned it in. He just wants his money.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Where's your artistic integrity, Norman? We should tag him in this episode and I should just make the name of this episode when is your artistic integrity, Norman?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that'll be really helpful for people who want to hear about our zombie animal opinions.
Speaker 2:Makes complete sense for this episode. Thanks everybody for joining us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, be sure to help us out by leaving us a rating or a review. Join the newsletter. I sent out the first newsletter today.
Speaker 2:it went to everyone's spam folder and he shit talked me in this newsletter too I did check your spam folders.
Speaker 1:I gotta, I gotta figure out why it goes to spam folders. There's a whole science behind it that I now need to understand. On top of everything else we have to do, like understanding the algorithm for social media, knowing how to promote ourselves, figuring out how to make graphics and sell t-shirts. Now I got to figure out why everybody's fucking newsletter goes to their spam folder.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm the one who said to you, dan, don't make a newsletter right now. He's like, no, I want one to go out every Saturday. I'm like, okay, you add that to your to-do list, buddy, I love you Not every Saturday?
Speaker 1:Just the ones that I feel like doing it.
Speaker 2:Oh Well, hey, at least we can promise that the emails will be sporadic and not annoyingly constant.
Speaker 1:They will be very sporadic, at the whims of myself. In fact, it's entirely possible that I'll send a newsletter, forget that I sent it and send one the day after, yeah.
Speaker 2:Last but not least, if you want to join us for our watch party, come join All. He Eats Brains, brain Munchers, zombie Collective. Discord Links are in the description. Yeah, that's where the watch party happens. The links are in the description for everything.
Speaker 3:Instagram.
Speaker 2:Yeah the newsletter. Yeah, come find us. Yeah, yeah the newsletter. Yeah, come find us. Yeah, there's there's so much down there, come check it out. So are we gonna get a second time?
Speaker 1:of you singing uh, the end of no, I would never sing that song you did last episode.
Speaker 2:I'm staring them down right now to see if he'll do it. No, okay, zombie verse, bye-bye, I don't know, that was bad. I don't know what happens after that word in the song awkward ending, isn't it? Always, the end is nigh.
