Zombie Book Club

State Violence, Complex Grief and PTSD - Also We Talk About 'We Bury The Dead' | Zombie Book Club Ep 133

• Zombie Book Club • Season 4 • Episode 133

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In this emotionally charged episode of Zombie Book Club, Dan and Leah unpack We Bury The Dead; a quiet, haunting zombie film that prioritizes grief, moral ambiguity, and empathy over action - and use it as a springboard to examine the real-world toll of trauma. We explore how the film’s focus on loss, PTSD, and complex grief resonates with collective experiences of institutional brutality, and why facing sorrow is an act of radical care in a world that often demands we numb ourselves.

A significant portion of our conversation expands into the present moment: the recent fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renée Nicole Good by an ICE agent during immigration enforcement in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026, and the nationwide protests, public outcry, and political fallout that followed. We connect these events with PTSD, moral injury, and the psychological impacts of witnessing or surviving state violence, and we offer grounded ways to stay present, support community healing, and take meaningful action when systems (from law enforcement to immigration enforcement) fail those they claim to protect.


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SPEAKER_02:

The only book club where the book is not what some people thought it would be. I'm Dan, and when I'm not failing to live up to expectations, I'm writing a book that's sure to get a lot of bad reviews from people who thought it was going to be an action horror thrill ride starring Brad Pitt. It's not? It's not. There's no Brad Pitts in my book. I'm actually really happy about that.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm gonna write Brad Pitt into my book now. See our World War Z episode. I don't know why I'm happy about that. And I'm Leah. Welcome back, listeners. Today we're talking about the other zombie movie in theaters this month. The other one. The other one. Not Bone Temple. That's coming later.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Today we're talking about We Bury the Dead. Yeah. How many people knew this was a movie? I don't think very many because it was only released for like seven days. Yeah. You know who does know that this is a movie?

SPEAKER_02:

Who? Is anyone who got our calendar? That's true. Yeah. They looked, they looked on January and they were like, what the hell is We Bury the Dead? Yeah. I guess I'll go watch it. And then they went to their theater and they're like, we don't have that. That's uh very true.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We drove two hours to see it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, we we made a pilgrimage to see this movie.

SPEAKER_00:

Greg's birthday from the Good Words Book Club.

SPEAKER_02:

It was a limited release. So limited theaters, limited time. Some people were gonna go watch it so we could discuss it with them, and then they didn't. Yeah, we'll get it. And they were like, why isn't it playing still? Do we call them out? No. No, we'll do that to their faces.

SPEAKER_00:

Shame. Shame. Ring the bell of shame. Um I'm kidding. And also, Greg was not at We Bury the Dead, unfortunately, but we did make a reel wishing Greg a happy birthday. Yeah. When we were at We Bury the Dead. But it wasn't gonna be Greg. No. No. We just wanted to know from Greg, and we still don't know from Greg if it fucks or if it's ass. Greg. Greg, did you see it? Did you see it?

SPEAKER_02:

In the limited window and locations that it was available.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Tell us what you thought.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh, but first, before we get into We Bury the Dead, we're gonna share some casual dead life updates. It's been a while since Leah have been alone on the mic. Yeah. And also talk just a little bit about our own dystopic reality because I can't really pretend that that's not happening. It's been rough. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, life updates, Leah. Leah, do you have any life updates? We release episodes every Sunday. Is that an update? So sub from Publix. You missed it, Dan. I I was waiting for you to do it. Oh. I haven't had a sub from Publix. I you've never had a sub from Publix. You told me about them. I never had one. Okay. For the non-Americans in the virtual room with us, Publix is a grocery chain that to my knowledge is mostly in the Southeast. And there was one that was very close to my house when I lived in Georgia. And they have the best subs, and it's from Publix. Yeah. Are the subs a public good? No, you do have to pay for them. Yeah. It's private subs only. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

It's privately owned.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm here to say that subs should be public.

SPEAKER_02:

Publix subs.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Publix subs should be public. And that's why it's free to subscribe. You should do that. We release episodes every Sunday.

SPEAKER_02:

That was a really great way to get around beat around the bush on that one. When we say sub and then we say some other word, we mean subscribe to this podcast. Yeah. Not to publics.

SPEAKER_00:

I thought there was a word. The internet briefly told me there is a sub war as a word, but then when I actually tried to find definition, I couldn't find it. So it's sub from publics today.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Their bread is so good.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Does anybody know if subwar is a real word?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Google just kept changing it to subway. And then I was like, no, I don't like subway subs. I like public subs. Yeah. Hence sub from publics. I digress. We have some happy life updates before we get into the dark, despairing times that we're in in the United States. Life updates, Leah. Yeah, I got a job. Whoa. Congratulations, Leah. Thank you. I recently said to a friend that I'm tired of being unemployed, but I'm terrified of being employed. And that's how I feel about having a job.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I think that's how many of us feel about having jobs, especially when we don't have jobs, because like for a little while, it's wonderful. And you wish that you'd never had to go back. But then um the money starts to run out, the bills start to pile up, and you're like, God, I got I gotta have one of those job things. And then like the idea of having a job is like relieving.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

But the idea of doing the job is terrifying.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So I understand.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm just trying to remind myself, I'm a good jobber. I'm good at jobs.

SPEAKER_02:

You're you're a good job or Leah.

SPEAKER_00:

I'll be good at this job, and I'm gonna just try to be grateful for the last five months of unemployment and also that my unemployment was only five months because I know many people who have been looking for jobs for quite a while without success.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I don't know if I have any life updates. Do I? I don't remember the last time we did this. It's been a while. Yeah. I feel like all of my life updates are in our dystopian life updates section. I think so too. Which we're not at yet. No. Um, we have a Patreon.

SPEAKER_00:

It's free. It's free. It's a Freetreon. Free Treon. That's what Ollie Eats Brains is calling it. And I appreciate that. Yeah. It's been going really well. I'm really grateful to all the people who have already signed up. Nine of them won some goodies from us in the giveaway, which is pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

We already had some live streams on our way to and fro from movies we've watched like Bone Temple. Boner Temple. I apologize. Yeah. Wicked Words Book Club coined Boner Temple. And I should only ever call it that from now on.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. It's how we feel.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. When we think about the movie. It's true. Oh, that's how you that's how you feel?

SPEAKER_02:

We. That's how we feel.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm not anatomically prepared for that. All of us, including Wicked Words. Okay. Um, but we've made some live videos. People came and said hi. Thank you. That was super fun to chat with people. Uh, we've got a weekly, weekly ish periodic newsletter called the Campfire Dispatch. Yeah. And we're starting our 2026 book club reads there.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Going back to the newsletter thing, for a long time, I was like, join our newsletter. Um, I was running a newsletter through our website. We have a website, by the way. Uh, it was very complicated to run it that way. It wasn't like through a newsletter service or anything. Um and it didn't work. It kept on going to people's spam folders. And I don't have the time, the patience, or the know-how to make it work and also play the delicate life balance of am I going to do something that'll make somebody send it to the spam folder one day, and then I'm just totally fucked. Wasting time. Because now it's going to everyone's spam folder because one person's like, this is spam, and then Google is like, well, then I guess then spam for everyone. Because that's how it works. Um, at least to my uh understanding. Anyways, uh I feel like this is a much better way to do things like Patreon. Like it they they they they run they run a good website with lots of interesting ways to engage with people. And that's what we want to do, is we want to engage with people.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we want a place that's not Instagram. But if you sign up, you're gonna get that information from us. And also we were looking for a place where we could really build the book club community, which we had sort of set aside for the last year or so because we were so focused on author interviews. But we want to get back to it because there are some books we'd never get to because we'll never interview those authors.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh not because we don't want to, but sometimes, you know, sometimes they're dead. And that really throws a wrench in our ability to interview them. Um, and sometimes they're just too big for us.

SPEAKER_00:

And sometimes they just don't like to be in the public eye.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, sometimes and sometimes they just don't like us. Like our faces, maybe. That's okay. That's okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Like I don't I try to avoid looking in the mirror, to be honest.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't agree, but you know, ever everyone has their own preferences, right?

SPEAKER_00:

They do. Yeah. But more importantly, our first book club read for 2026 is Zone One by Colson Whitehead, one that I've wanted to read for a long time. It was recommended by Naila King, one of our zombesties. And I would classify it as like a modern zombie classic. It still hits hard 15 years later. Uh, we chose it because it met all the criteria we need for a book club reads to be chosen that we can all read together because it's available at a library because it's been around long enough. It's got an audiobook. And it's not just zombie gore for the sake of zombie gore. There's actually some meaning behind this book. Uh, it was published during Obama's first term when the US was being called post-racial. I feel like you need to insert like that slide whistle, like the wah wah, wah, because let's look at where we are today in 2026.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, insert sad trombone here. Yes. It probably isn't in my sound effects database. So if it isn't, then put a different sound effect here. Great job, Dan.

SPEAKER_00:

You're doing a good job. Um kind of hilarious to go back to think about that time. Anybody was being like, we have a black president. Yeah, race doesn't matter. Race is over. Yeah. Everybody's equal now. Uh and so on the surface, the book is about a cleanup crew reclaiming Manhattan after the apocalypse. But what it's really about is asking the question of what does it mean when we say a crisis is over when it's not for some people? It's still going on, aka racism.

SPEAKER_02:

Do you think that uh that when they're going to clean up bodies, they're working under the assumption that um the zombie epidemic is over and maybe it's not?

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, I haven't read it yet. In fact, one of our Snowbook Club members has read it, read the first 90 minutes because they're listening, and I have read none. Yeah. So they would know more than I do. They need to get on it. Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_02:

We've been very busy. It's been rough.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't we had time. Yeah. Uh it's not coming out. The episode about zone one is not coming out till March 22nd. We are looking at potentially having a live book club discussion with y'all if you'd like. It would be unrecorded, totally just a chance to hang out, hear everybody's thoughts. You can join if you DNF'd it, because sometimes that's fun.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You get to hear how it went. If you're you really need to know how it went, but you don't want to invest the time anymore because you didn't like it. Dan and I have committed to reading this thing the whole way through. I've heard it's good. We'll see. Um, we also have spaces on Patreon just to talk about your thoughts as we go along.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And we're looking forward to an opportunity to really just get a chance to be a club. Yeah, we're a club now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, how are how are we gonna do the the the the the the thing where we're talking to each other?

SPEAKER_00:

The live discussion. Yes, that. Uh if people say yes, we're gonna pick a time uh that meets the most people's availability, and then we're going to use Google Meets because that's what we have available.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh the the Google Meet.

SPEAKER_00:

And what I'll say is you can show up and say nothing if that's your vibe, and Dan and I will just awkwardly carry on a conversation. Um you can pitch in when you want. You don't have to have video on, or you can have video on. Dan hates having video on. I do, but I'm I'm doing it more often.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, because our guests, it helps our guests when they can see your face. And I'm I I need to this is this is uh uh off topic. I'll probably just delete this, but um I need to update my Google profile image because it is a car that I owned 20 years ago. It's true. Dan had a very fancy car. I also have a signature on my email that is the um uh unclassified disclosure agreement from working in military intelligence saying that anything that I say in that email is not classified. Weird. Yeah, I need to get rid of that.

SPEAKER_00:

Dan's had this email so long that our email conversations might still be in there from like 2006. Yeah, but it's scary. I don't want to look. I kind of do. I'm scared. No, it's gonna be mostly me embarrassing myself, I'm sure. No, I'll be very embarrassed because I I was a different person back then, and I don't know who that person is. Let's just uh let's go with the assumption that we were both dumb and we've evolved and we can laugh and also be like, oh, little Dan and little Leah, y'all were doing your best. It's okay. Look at how far you've come.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, I was such a different person back then that like I feel like if what's happening now was happening back then, I might have signed up for ice, not because I believe in it, but because it was a thing to do that they would hire me for and I would be able to exercise my training as a soldier. Like I like I was so lost as a human being back then that like I was really desperate to find something that fit with me. And I feel like ICE might have been able to convince me and be like, yeah, you can be a really important person and work for the government again and wear body armor and carry a gun. And I'm like, I know how to do those things.

SPEAKER_00:

I can get paid lots of money to do that. I mean, that's why you went back to Afghanistan as a private contractor in 2006, 20 years ago. Yeah, it is. It's it literally is.

SPEAKER_02:

Like, I left the army, and as soon as I drove through the gates of Fort Gordon, Georgia on my path into civilianhood. I immediately said, Wow, I can't ever go back there again. And that's terrifying. And what have I done? What am I going to do now? I had no plan. No plan.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, this actually, I mean, it's both disturbing to realize that you might have been the person who like a person who signed up for ICE 20 years ago. Uh, but it also gives me some hope because maybe there's some people who uh were like you 20 years ago who have opted into this horrifying slave-catching style of um, I don't even know what to call what they're doing.

SPEAKER_02:

Kidnapping and murder.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. Uh based on race. Yeah or if you just happen to look at them funny. And even if you tell them that you're not mad at them, then that's still a justification. Yeah. Uh but it makes me think, yeah, maybe, maybe the shame campaign is gonna work win, and some people will realize they should get out. And I really hope that that's true. Some people are carrying it. Shame campaign. Do you think if you'd been in ice that you would feel the shame and have gotten out at this point?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, definitely. Um, so I feel like at the beginning, like the people who my friends were would have shaped my worldview of what I thought ICE was doing. I would have thought that um ice was this important law enforcement um group that was going out and getting dangerous people off the street and sending them back to their countries. Um, because I was very uninformed back then. I was I was uninformed, honestly, because being informed of what was going on was actually doing harm to me as a veteran. Like being a part of of that, I felt the harm the I felt the harm that our country was doing. And I didn't have the emotional intelligence to understand that in the moment. It took me until like honestly, like last year to realize that um that what our country had done, I felt shame for. And my actions in those wars I had deep regret over. And that's a source of a lot of my trauma is knowing that I was a part of something that was absolutely shameful. So whenever somebody's like, Thank you for your service, that reaction that I have inside of me where I'm like, I didn't do anything to help you, I shouldn't be thanked, or like I just don't know what to say. But I'm that's because deep down inside, even back then I knew that this is I'm feeling shame about my actions. Um not that I did anything appalling or anything, but I was a part of a big thing that was based around a lie, and that lie is very shameful. We're talking about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, Afghanistan's a little bit easier to justify because the existence of the Taliban, but the Taliban were just Afghan citizens who got caught up in a political movement in 1995 created by the intelligence agency of India because they wanted to have a far right group of militiamen to cause problems within Afghanistan. They wanted to disrupt Afghanistan, and they fucking did, like big time, because they went to Kandahar, which is a a province in Afghanistan. They got all these people, they were just they were just messing around. They were just like, hey, you know, we got this thing, it's called the Taliban. You want to join? And everyone's like, Yes! I love what you're saying. This is gonna spread like wildfire. And uh, and then you have the Taliban that we have today. Like it started in 1995, it hasn't been around very long. I'm getting off topic. Anyways, my point is that there are people from Afghanistan that are fighting for something that they believe in. Um, and I don't believe in my heart that they are truly terrorists or that they are truly evil. I don't believe that. I believe that they have the capacity to do evil things, and I don't agree with how they're running their country right now, now that they have regained control of Afghanistan. And I don't agree with how they ran it before, but it was still their country, and then we came in and were like, no, ours. And uh and it caused a lot of damage.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And now what the United States has been doing internationally that you participated in, uh, terrorizing families, regular people, in the name of power and control, uh we're doing within our own borders. And I think it's again worth reminding folks and ourselves that it's not new. Uh, it's just pretty extreme right now. Uh we've been doing this particularly to black and brown and indigenous folks since the literal formation of the country. And we're at a time again where that is at the forefront. That's why I really like the term slave catcher versus Gestapo. Um, I really want to credit the person that I heard that from first. There's a really great reel on Instagram from Ashley the Baroness. I'll tag a link to it in the show notes, that explains why Gestapo is uh a way of sort of separating ourselves from the evil that is this country, the evil that is has been this country and is this country in the actions of ICE, uh, in the actions of genocide and racism. So uh if that's new to you, then um you can check out that reel. But it really sat with me because I remember being a kid and there was a German um exchange student coming to my high school. And I remember thinking to myself, when I met this young person, like, wow, that must be so rough to come from a place that has done such terrible things. And I think about that thought all the time now because I also came from a place, Canada. I know everybody thinks Canada is great. No, we also did some terrible shit and continue to. Um Canada, that like had done tons of horrifying things. Um, and I just didn't even know about them. So I think it's important to remember that these what we're looking at today is homegrown and needs to be addressed at the roots here.

SPEAKER_02:

And you know, I I think that um especially white people, uh it's it's a matter of cultural relevance to them because I I I mean, until until the term started coming up recently, like I don't know anything about the the slave catchers. Like my understanding is that they rounded up black people who were freed in the South and then Brought them back. But I don't know much more than that. And it's something that I really need to learn about now because I mean I f I feel like I knew that this was a thing that existed, but it's not, it's not in the cultural zeitgeist. Like people aren't talking about this kind of thing all the time. They're, you know, they talked about slavery and they talked about the Civil War and Emancipation Proclamation, and everybody was happy and everything was fine.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. That's exactly how it happened. I mean, there were slave catchers in a nutshell are like ice agents. They were paid by the government to catch folks who had escaped from slavery. Because to be free is illegal in that time frame. Just like migration, unless you do it perfectly, isn't considered legal. And frankly, nowadays it doesn't matter if you've done everything right. You're still detained.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And detained, honestly, sounds like way too gentle of a term for what's happening to people.

SPEAKER_02:

Which I think the culturally relevant term that really hits is kidnapping. Yeah. Abduction. Yeah. Because that's what's happening. People are being abducted. And it's not even like they're being deported back to their home countries, uh, countries of birth, rather. They are being detained and put into concentration camps and being forced to work. Or sexually assaulted. Or sexually assaulted.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Um, or just killed. Costs they get paid a dollar a day and it costs five dollars to call a family member. It's also almost impossible to find somebody once they're in unless you know their A number, which is their alien number, which I had once upon a time before I was a U.S. citizen, and I couldn't even tell you what that number is. Yeah. Um, at one point I knew it, just like my social security number. But since 2026 has happened, uh it's it's been a mess here in the United States. We had the murder of Renee Good.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I think most people probably know about that, but you know, every now and then, and we uh we we we talk to people who are like, oh no, what's what is happening? Yeah, they took a break from the news and horrifying things just happened. Yeah, you just you just don't check the you don't check social media for five minutes and you miss out on a whole bunch of uh horrible shit.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, the other day my friend from Canada actually was like, Oh, I'm just like, I can't, this world is really rough. And I and I said to her, I was like, what specifically? Like something new happened. Um and she was like, Oh, there was another shooting in Minneapolis. And I was like, Oh, the person who was shot in the leg, and she's like, Yeah, and I'm like, okay, so there wasn't another another. I don't know about that one. Yeah. I mean, you can't keep that you can't keep up. At least four people have died in ice custody in the first 10 days of 2026. It's January 19th when we're recording this. Yeah, that's that's not even numbers that died in 2025, which I don't I don't even know. Uh, it's I've there's it's still there somewhere. It's not good. There's 1,500 active duty troops waiting on standby to come to Minnesota.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, from Alaska. Yeah, for the the extreme weather. These these people are the least serious people. They're like, we need people who are trained in extreme weather to come to Minnesota. Let's get people from Alaska. And I'm not saying that people in Alaska aren't trained for cold weather, but you have 10th Mountain Division in upstate New York that is literally their whole thing is we go to places with inclement weather.

SPEAKER_00:

I think you're missing the point, which is that we shouldn't have the US military coming into cities. Yeah. I'm not trying to give them better ideas.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm just saying, like, this is the level, the level of brain power these people making decisions have. Is they're like, we we'll just pick the coldest place.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Uh there's also been tens of thousands of protests. We've seen some really great clips of the Black Panthers showing up in strong numbers in Minneapolis.

SPEAKER_02:

I love the Black Panthers.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. They have a I mean, they have a history in Minneapolis. A friend of mine um has lineage in the Black Panthers who grew up in Minneapolis. I don't know if I should say that, even though I'm not saying their name.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, but they lots lots of Black Panthers are in the Minneapolis.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I love the Black Panthers. Love the White Panthers. That's the thing I learned about this late this year.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

The Rainbow Coalition. Yeah, there's also Showing Up for Racial Justice. If you're a white person listening to this, you should Google Showing Up for Racial Justice. Don't Google it. I apologize. Search for it on the internet. Fuck Google. Uh, that is just a short list of all the horrifying things. Yeah, me too. All the horrifying things that we've uh encountered just in the last few days. There's more. There's things that are happening uh internationally that are horrible, like with Greenland. My mother told me that I live in an enemy country now. Yeah, we do. Um it's a mess. But we are here before we dive into We Bury the Dead, um, which feels like an appropriate film to review for this episode because it's about a zombie apocalypse that is caused by a US military uh act uh military action, I guess is the word.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh yeah, a weapons test. Yeah. I I wanted to just um you know kind of have a bit of a rant. Oh. If if that's okay. Um because, you know, talking a little bit about how I feel about being a veteran. I'm not really sure where to start because I, for the last few months, have been trying so hard to not be up to date on every single atrocity that happens. And it's not because I don't want to be in because I very much want to be informed. But um I have a PTSD, uh post-traumatic stress disorder, if you've never heard of it. And essentially, what happens when you have PTSD? You have various triggers. Um for me, a lot of it's violence or injustice. And when you're triggered, when your PTSD is triggered, your body and mind don't behave like a normal person's body and mind. So like when a person gets scared, their body is flooded with stress hormones and adrenaline, um, things that are going to make them either fight or flight or fawn. What's the fourth F? Freeze. Freeze. Um and uh then your body releases hormones that uh that dissolve the stress hormones and make them go away. Like after the danger is done, after the upsetting thing is over, you get these new hormones that are like, okay, everything's fine. I as a person with PTSD don't get the hormones that release you from the adrenaline and stress hormones. They don't happen. So I kind of just stay in this heightened state of hypervigilance where my body wants to do something. Um, and most of the time, the feeling that I have is fight. Um, I and maybe one day this will be used in my trial as evidence. But I feel like it's important to say, which is that like I very much want to not do anything drastic. I want things to go smoothly. I want to be able to reason with people and to de-escalate things in a peaceful way. I want to do those things. But these stress hormones and adrenaline make me want to do very drastic things in response to violence that I see. And I feel that way for weeks on end. And then as atrocity after atrocity keeps hitting me, it just continues. And it's just a months-long feeling like I am flying down a roller coaster and I just gotta stab everybody on the way down, you know. That's that's what it feels like. Um so I've been trying very hard to limit my exposure to a lot of this news. And in the last couple weeks, it's been impossible to ignore it. Um and it's it's very hard. Um, not just to not do something drastic, um, that honestly I don't know if it's the right response or not to do something drastic. That's that's how my mind is operating, is you know, I don't know if I should do something, if I should just let these feelings take over, or if I'm right to suppress them for my own safety. Um, I don't know if those feelings would make the situations worse, or if it's what is appropriate to the time that we're in. And I'm trying to force myself to freeze instead of fight, because flight isn't an option. Where do you flight to? I mean, we are currently safe in Vermont. Yeah. This is as flight as you can be. I can't get any further away.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we're hiding in our bunker in Vermont right now.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Um, but my point is that I I want to f I want to force myself to freeze until these things are over and that I can rationalize and uh and come down from that heightened level of stress and agitation. And they're not slowing down enough for that to happen. Um so it's a struggle. And it's not just a struggle to just not, you know, activate myself to do things, but it's also a struggle just to do everyday normal life. It's a struggle to not like lash out at people I love, like Leah and Ziggy. For the record, he doesn't. I don't. I do a very good job of trying to separate what's happening out there to what's going on inside of our house where it's safe. But it is still difficult.

SPEAKER_00:

Um You're doing a really good job, Dan. Oh, thanks. I didn't know that that was difficult.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh it's also difficult for me to be creative. Um part of part of PTSD, along with the stress hormones and everything, is that it redirects blood in your brain away from areas that are less important to areas that are more important. So it takes blood away from things like the center of your brain for speech and directs it to like uh motor control so that you can run and use your hands and do things more effectively and you know, kind of makes you on edge and makes you want to run like a psychopath uh or like Naruto. Um but it also makes it hard for you to communicate using words. It literally takes the words out of your mouth. Whenever like your Uncle Ted, who saw some stuff in Iraq, um, whenever you bring up and ask him like what the war was like, and he just kind of stares into the distance and says nothing, it's because all the blood in his brain is being directed away from the speech center of his brain, and he is now visualizing the things that were horrifying to him. Um and it's the same way for me. And when that happens, like you sit in front of a screen and you're looking at a cursor and you know the story that you want to tell, but your fingers cannot produce the words to do it. Um, so that's my very long way of saying I have not been very productive in writing the last couple weeks.

SPEAKER_00:

I think a lot of us are in freeze mode. Yeah. And uh well, your experience because of your PTSD, because of what you've been through, um, might I can't imagine what that feels like on the like in your body, although I do witness your agitation.

SPEAKER_02:

It's like a cold fire inside of your chest.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, like I I witness it. Um, but again, like I really want to just say thank you for the ways that you've been able to manage it because it doesn't, it doesn't slide out um or like slip out in other ways towards me, towards Ziggy, towards Simon. Um, but it sucks that you're suffering that way. And I just know that like for me, the last week and a half has been really hard to function too. I think a lot of us are probably there. Um, frankly, a lot of us are experiencing one of the precursors to P or causes of PTSD, which is moral injury.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I was looking for that word, but I couldn't come up with it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's well, well, it's you know, it's because I studied veter veteran suicide before.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I've been studying it too.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you are in it. So it's interesting, right? Because like you're you are you're I mean, you're not you're not currently doing that, but uh, you know, you have you are living PTSD, and then there's people like me who study PTSD and give names to things that you're experiencing. So moral injury is the name.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, but I think a lot of us are experiencing moral injury, and I think a lot of us are going to have forms of um, to varying degrees, PTSD just living through this time. Many of us have PTSD going through COVID. Uh, this is a whole other level because you are witnessing shit, and frankly, we have been, right? Like uh with the genocide in Palestine, I've seen things that I'll never unsee. Um, but we're watch, we're watching people who are supposed to be our leaders and protecting us, quote unquote, do the exact opposite. And that's one example of moral injury. Another example is like you were put in a position where you have to do things that you morally find abhorrent and live with that. So I think a lot of us are collectively there. Um if you're there, I just want to say that you know, it's okay to take a minute to be frozen and grieve. There are people who are doing the things that they need to be doing to fight back. And when you are able to do that, do it. But but be gentle with yourself in the meantime, because I know I certainly had a hard time, again, like with a fraction of what you might be feeling, Dan, in the last week functioning at all. Um, moving between panic and feeling completely unable to move or do anything.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, I feel like we are on the precipice of a revolution. And, you know, speaking of moral injury, I I spent I spent years um fighting against people that our government told us were terrorists. They told us that we were fighting for our freedom, um, that we were fighting for America, keeping America safe. And those are the things that people say when they thank me for my service. You know, they say that I fought for their freedoms and I protected this country, and I truly don't believe that in my heart. And in a strange, strange way, I feel I feel a little bit grateful that ICE exists because for once in my whole life there is an actual terrorist threat to America. A group of domestic terrorists who are tearing our country apart, terrorizing the people who live with live within our borders and making it truly unsafe and a nightmare for people who live here. And I'm grateful because for once I can say that I'm fighting terrorism and I'm protecting the country. And maybe I haven't done it yet, but I feel like that time is coming.

SPEAKER_00:

Anyways, let's talk about a movement. Wait, wait. Before we get into the movie, I just wanted to offer it to folks who are possibly feeling in the range of dance, um, of dan's PATSD, if you're feeling even a fraction of that, any of these episodes might be useful for you. This is not our first episode talking about the fuckery of this country. Um, so I've got a few here that I would recommend. We just did one a few weeks ago, maybe a couple months ago now, called The Ten Must Have Rolls for the Zombie Apocalypse. It's episode 124. So if you're unsure of where you fit in in this moment and you don't know how to take meaningful collective action, and you think the only option, Dan, is to be a disruptor and be on the front lines shouting and fighting with your uh guns, there are other things that you can do uh that are equally important. And that episode reviews Deepa Ayer's social change ecosystem model and looks at those 10 roles uh in the form of the iconic characters from The Walking Dead. So that's one that might be worth listening to. Um, I really like that one. Another Walking Dead one is we've got How the Walking Dead Taught Us to Resist Tyranny, episode 95, so it's from last year. Uh listen if you're looking for historical lessons on resisting tyranny. Uh, without the history lecture, it draws parallels to Timothy Snyder's book on tyranny, 20 lessons for the 20th century, but uses uh some arcs from The Walking Dead to do it. Last but not least, you might want to go all the way back to episode 90, How to Prepare for the Fall of an Empire, aka Revolution. Uh, listen if you want to build durable community systems and not just react to this moment. Um, these are all things we've previously talked about. Uh that one goes into sort of what it what are signs of collapse. A hint we're seeing a lot of them now. Uh, but it also debunks the lone survivalist myth and talks about how we can do better jobs at decentralized organizing and look to uh the indigenous folks of this continent and the ways that they have lived and resisted before we before white people got here and other immigrants got here uh and after. So that's a great one. Also, shout out to the General Strike US. That is one option. Yeah. Yeah, we've signed our strike cards.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Might want to do that. Um, yeah, you know, all of these things actually do make me feel better when when I uh when I think about them. And there's so much that I've forgotten from these episodes that I honestly I need to go back and listen to us talk about them.

SPEAKER_00:

To the to the past us.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, because I know that in those in those moments I was I was feeling the pain a lot like how I'm feeling it now. And making those episodes was a way to like find another way to to take control of our lives.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um and uh it helps it helps relieve some of that when when you act. And uh you know, it's when when you when you build community, that's a very non-violent way to react to the to the times, but also very helpful. Um I saw this video uh just real quick. I saw this video um and I it wasn't what I thought it was gonna be. I thought this guy was totally um a MAGA dude because he was could honestly just because he was old. He was old and he he had a he had a mean face. So I was like stupid MAGA guy coming over to somebody's house and putting a note on their window. It's a it's a like a cam uh uh hidden camera of this guy coming up to the door and putting a note on their window. But then um they revealed what the note said, and the guy said, Um, if you're hiding from ice and you need groceries, I'm gonna go to the grocery store and I can get you groceries. And uh and I'm like, that is such a a perfect thing to do in this time, is if you know somebody who might be uh who might be vulnerable to what's going on right now. Like maybe they just need you to pick up a few things, and maybe they don't have any money to do it, and maybe you do.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, there's a lot of grassroots organizing like that happening in Minneapolis, and we should be doing that. I mean, the thing is like we should be doing that because we do that. Like, you know, people might not be able to get groceries for any number of reasons, and the more that we stay connected with each other, the better.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, uh a hope that I have is that stuff like this becomes normalized, and maybe we don't see people struggling as a moral failing, and we see it more as an opportunity to to c to rise to the occasion and help people who need it.

SPEAKER_00:

The episode's not coming out till uh the second of February, but when we talk to ancestral habits, Andy will get into some of those facts that in reality, as humans, we are um made to survive through friendliness and through community. It's actually in our DNA, it's our heritage. So we need to return back to that time. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_02:

And that way of being that was such a good episode. I say was because I've already edited it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And we've already lived it, but like it's coming out soon, and it's not one that you want to miss. No. It's great.

SPEAKER_00:

And he's a very special person and Ancestral Habits is like an account that everyone should follow, especially in this time. Man, if you need just to feel a little more hopeful and be reminded of like who we are. Like what our birthright is as humans. Ancestral habits will make your day better. Uh card transition, because we've buried the lead on the thing that we thought we were going to talk about when we originally planned this episode, which is We Bury the Dead. We've got so many notes. Yeah. I think we're going to make it a short review today. But I have a summary that I wrote that I want to start with. Okay. We bury the dead as an Australian survivor. Okay, I don't know why I'm talking like a weirdo. Keep going with the weirdo. You know what it is? It's because I drank um a fresca and gin, and it's just now sort of hitting me a little bit, and I'm not I'm a lightweight with alcohol. Do you want me to read the summary? No, because you didn't write it and you'll have to read it like five times. I will.

unknown:

You're right.

SPEAKER_00:

So what is We Bury the Dead? For those of you who had no idea there was another zombie movie coming out in January because you didn't get the zombie book club calendar. We Bury the Dead is an Australian survival horror film written and directed by Zach Hilditch. It follows American physiotherapist Ava, played by Daisy Ridley, after an experimental U.S. weapons test devastates Tasmania and kills more than 500,000 people. Wow. I didn't know it was that much. Yeah. Except there's a catch. Some of the dead begin to reanimate, and some of those reanimated corpses turn violent. They also make a terrifying sound with teeth grinding and clacking that is uh in fact, I was sucking on a um recola the other day, and I was sort of like cough drop and Dan was like, You sound like the zombies when we bury the dead.

SPEAKER_02:

Like Leah was like rolling it around across their teeth, and it was making the clackley sound.

SPEAKER_00:

Should I get one right now so people can experience it?

SPEAKER_02:

I don't think we have any.

SPEAKER_00:

I have one in my my bedroom beside my bed. I'm getting it. Okay. Leah's going to reenact the teeth grinding sound. Okay, this is what the zombies sound like.

SPEAKER_02:

Pretty close. I bet there's anybody who saw the movie, they're like cringing right now. Joe is cringing. Joe is giving that like cringiness.

SPEAKER_00:

No, stop it, Leah. I'm gonna take it out of my mouth now because I won't be able to do the rest of the summary. Yeah. So Ava then travels to Tasmania to volunteer in a massive military body retrieval operation because she wants to find her husband, Mitch. She's played by Matt Whalen, uh, because he was attending a work retreat when this uh military test went very badly. And so she's hoping that he might be one of the ones that has reanimated. Yeah. But terrified that maybe he is because that could also be bad. Um, she's paired with fellow volunteer Clay, Brenton Thwaites, and convinces him to steal a motorcycle and ride across an island still on fire to search for her husband. The island's on fire, not the motorcycle. No, and there's some really great shots. I love the shots of the the uh Island on fire. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Let's not go too much further into what happens, because I feel like this is I think this is a movie that people should watch.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Bad reviews. Dan requested that I find bad reviews.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, because there there were some really mixed feelings about this movie. Yes. Um, and some people absolutely hated it, and some people loved it.

SPEAKER_00:

Including an anonymous zombie author friend of ours, yeah, who gave it a three out of ten. And it made me rethink my seven and a half.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I gave it an eight. I'm gonna give it a seven. I dropped it by half a point for you anonymous.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, you got your bullied into lowering your score.

SPEAKER_00:

They made really good points. Oh, okay. I feel like you had inflated my my score. Possibly. And they slightly deflated. I'm easily influenced, is basically that story.

SPEAKER_02:

All right, so let some one star reviews. We uh we edited these reviews to take out spoilers, um, because there was many direct directly talking about the spoilers of the movie, being like, and then this happened and I hated it. Yeah, so we got the got rid of that. Um, this the first one, I don't fully understand if this person watched the same movie as us. They supposedly did. It says that zombies hunt, but no one zombie hunted anyone. It was boring. Um I think that you could come to that conclusion if you only watched the first 10 minutes of the movie.

SPEAKER_00:

Maybe they fell asleep in the theater.

SPEAKER_02:

They might have. I get it if you fell asleep, but um no, there was plenty of zombies on the hunt for people. You know, we saw there's there's there's clearly hunt might be a strong word, but there's aggression for sure.

SPEAKER_00:

And there's dead, there's at least two that look pretty scary. Yeah. Uh this one I love because they make sure to give their lineage of zombie aficionado-ness. Yeah, quite possibly one of the lambest zombie flicks I've ever seen. And my standards are Romero, Savini, and Return of the Living Dead. They've they've seen those movies, which makes them an expert. And for context, this uh movie has 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 6.1 on IMDb, and 2.9 out of 5 on Letterboxd. So it's um you know, it's but you if you look at a lot of horror films, they usually have relatively low ratings, which I think is interesting.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, and I also want to give a shout-out again. I feel like this is the Wicked Words Book Club shout-out episode because they often do one-star reviews. So this is a direct thievery, Dan, that you have have requested us to do today.

SPEAKER_02:

I felt it was important for this movie, though, because it's so divided.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, let's hear some 10-star reviews. Uh, because you know what? I didn't give it 10 stars, but some people out there, they they felt like this was 10 stars worth of movie. Um, this is not your typical zombie movie by a long shot. You want to root for the zombies to come back to their humanity to say something, to show that they're still there. It's uh it has moments of incredible empathy and sorrow.

SPEAKER_00:

I think that's true. I mean, I I didn't give it a 10, but I think that that is a very accurate depiction of the film. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um Yeah, it's this this this is a movie that like it's about it's it's not action. It's not an action movie. It's it's about grief and sorrow and sadness. There's some fun moments in it for sure, but like if if you think that Brad Pitt's gonna show up and save the day, it's just not gonna happen. And maybe people thought that Brad Pitt was gonna show up and that he was gonna climb a tower of zombies, grab a helicopter, and fly away while he nukes everybody.

SPEAKER_00:

I think what we're learning is that some people want zombie action thriller, and when it doesn't meet that criteria, it's just not for them.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, and that's okay. Because again, anonymous zombie author is somebody I respect deeply who I think is brilliant, and they gave it a three. So I don't know if that's the reason. I think there were other reasons that they went into for why, but like it's just it's it might not meet all the things you're looking for in a zombie movie.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Hence why the person who's like, I'm a Savini and Romero person, it was not a Savini or Romero kind of film.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Um and you know, I get that too because I'm very rigid in what I want in a movie. Um, I think I enjoyed this because I went in with absolutely zero expectations. Like we hadn't even seen a trailer. Yeah, we knew nothing. Jumped in a car and drove two hours to work.

SPEAKER_00:

The only thing we knew was that it was coming out January 2nd because I had to look up dates for the calendar.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, last 10 10 star review. We bury the dead is a quiet, powerful horror film that stays with you. It's not about jump scares, it's about grief, loss, and what it means to keep going when everything is gone. Acting is raw, the mood is heavy, and the story feels honest. A slow burn that hits hard and deserves more attention. I agree with that. Yeah, I do too.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um I think I think we should talk about the zombies because they're not your typical zombie. Like they're not a viral zombie, they're not infectious. Um, they were they were the result of an EMP.

SPEAKER_00:

So is that the case? I don't think we know what the specific military test is that they were doing. We just know that everybody died and shit's on fire.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, they talk about the EMP. They do? Yeah. The EM basically the EMP basically rewired all of these people's brains, uh, basically fried their brains, and most people just died from it. So like um it went off off the coast of Tasmania, and it was way more powerful than anyone expected it to be. Um, and it took out like all of Tasmania, parts of Australia. Um, and most people just dropped dead, and then some people uh like woke up, like that's how they describe it is like some people just like everybody fell down, and then some people woke back up. And when they woke up, uh they weren't right, but they describe the at the very beginning, they're like, but they're not dangerous. Um they're very docile, they're very slow, um, but keep your distance and call the army when you encounter one because they're going there to retrieve corpses. Yeah, that's their whole job is to just take get the corpses out of people's houses.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and it's just like I don't even know how many hundred at least hundreds of volunteers are there to do this work, which they do a great job depicting how horrible it is to look for corpses and take them out. Uh and it actually reminded me of Z. Martin Brown's book, The Non-Essentials, and that character's experience with being uh corpse remover. The corpse remover, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

In fact, I think that's exactly what he calls it corpse remover.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, but yeah, shout out to Z. Martin Brown. Great, great book. But it's very visceral. I found that part disturbing. It, you know, it made it made me ask the question of like, would I do that? I don't think I could, to be completely honest. I can barely clean up my dog's vomit.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I mean, they see some pretty gross stuff.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, I I think the grossest one that I remember is the one who was in the shower. Um, they find somebody in the bottom of a bathtub that's full of water and they they're like waterlogged and rotted.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's very gross, and the zombies themselves are quite disturbing. Um, let's get into some of the things that we loved.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Um, up front and center is the world building. Like it's not it's not your typical zombie apocalypse because the world hasn't ended. It just ended for the 500,000 people in Southern Australia and Tasmania.

SPEAKER_00:

By the United States.

SPEAKER_02:

By the United States.

SPEAKER_00:

No shocker there.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, one tiny detail that I loved is how uh on the news clip that we're kind of learning all of these things, they they just mentioned that the US president has yet to take any responsibility.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, we've never taken responsibility for slavery.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. It just felt very of the moment though. Like, yeah, if this if this was real life, absolutely the uh the the Cheeto president would just completely deny any wrongdoing.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh yeah, it was uh I don't even know. What would they say? Let's take a minute and think about it. What would Cheeto man say if he did this?

SPEAKER_02:

He'd say it's fake news first.

SPEAKER_00:

Um But would he just blame somebody and is like I think he would just scapegoat somebody?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, he'd probably scapegoat Tasmania. He'd he'd scapegoat the Tasmanian devil. Yeah, that makes sense. It was it was the Tasmanian devil. He's down there with his weapons and he made everybody brain dead. You watch the Tasmanian devil, everybody goes brain dead. That's how it works. And he'd be waving his little tiny hands around. Definitely. Um, so yeah, world building is excellent. I loved when uh when they actually um go on their road trip.

SPEAKER_00:

Like you see a lot of the countryside and like it's beautiful, it's beautiful in its dystopia, like to see the fires while they're on the motorcycle driving by is pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_02:

And like a lot of movies, like it's it's hard to get like a spatial feeling for like where somebody is going, but like I I could I felt like I could see the map as they were traveling.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you could well they also showed the map, like they're like, here we are, and this is where we're going.

SPEAKER_02:

Which helped.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh there's a city that's like entirely on fire, which is why the the they need to go down south in the first place, is that like the the military won't let them go because the fires haven't been put out yet. But they're like, fuck that, we gotta go. Gotta go, gotta go do a thing that I'm not gonna say. And Clay really likes this motorcycle they find. So let's go for a ride. Clay was so easy to talk into it. She's just like, I wanna, I wanna go south. And he's like, Well, we probably shouldn't. And she's like, You can steal this motorcycle. He's like, Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

A special effects zombie makeup, epic. Yeah. Their eyes were so disturbing. Oh, uh, there's one part that I can't say because it'll spoil it, but um actually, you know what I will say? If you've watched We Bury the Dead and you've watched Boner Temple, you will know that there is a similar zombie situation in terms of how they're walking that is really um makes me shudder on the inside when I think about it. I thought that was actually very I was like, wow, two zombie movies a week and a half apart have the same kind of zombie. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And you know what other similarity there is between the two zombies is boners? Well, we we don't know that they have boners in this movie. True. Um, because they're still wearing pants, most of them. Um, some of them aren't. Um, because some of them were in the shower when they're gonna be returned. Yeah. Uh but the both films suggest that maybe there's a little bit of humanity still in there. Like maybe they can be saved.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Maybe there's something still inside of them, and if we just tried, maybe we could bring them back.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and the main character Ava seems to have a unique sense of empathy for them more than a lot of the others. Probably because she's hoping her husband is still alive-ish. That helps. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Um, there's a lot of people that show up to the to the volunteer force that are hoping to find their relatives. Um, they show us one right away, uh, who's like the person sitting next to Ava on the airplane, and when they find her son, she's just like screaming at him to wake up, um, but he doesn't wake up.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's it definitely uh explores complex grief and like what's better. Is it better that her husband's just dead, done, or in this weird zombie form where he's not human anymore? Well, that's not true. He is human, but he's not um functional.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Well, if he's a zombie, that that gives that gives hope that maybe they can be rebu rehabilitated. Like there's hope that maybe she can fix what's happened. Um, but if he's dead, then she gets closure that it's over. Yeah. So either way, like if you're in this Schrdringer's box of alive or dead, you can't know for sure. So like your loved one might be out there and reanimated, but you can't go to help them. Or they might be dead and you need to see their body to know they move on.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I did think about it. I was watching, I was like, if Dan, this wouldn't happen, but if Dan was on a work retreat in Tasmania, just like really far-fetched, and this happened, would I go and like retrieve bodies on the off chance that I might find you? And I guess you know what that might motivate me to do that. I also love how she's treated with disdain as an American by the Australian military. They're just like, I can't believe they're letting people like you here after what she did.

SPEAKER_02:

It happened, it happens a few times. Um, the Australian military, there's a few other people along the way that are just like they like the the person in the Australian military was just like, our country should have uh put a blanket ban on you people.

SPEAKER_00:

I think that's probably very much how a lot of places see Americans right now. I mean, they sure did back in like 2000 and what was this, 2006? I was in Namibia and South Africa, and like, no, Americans were not popular. I was very grateful to be like, oh no, I'm from Canada. But then people will be like, where's that? So there was that problem, especially in Namibia. They're like, Where? Um, Canada's not a very important country in the global scene.

SPEAKER_01:

Rude.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Uh there's a lot of themes here. I think we've talked a little bit or started to talk about complex grief. That was, I think, what made the movie for me, because um, I've had a lot of complex grief, and this movie does a great job of exploring that difficulty of like you are sad someone's dead, but you also have all of these mixed feelings about them in general and what happened. And it wasn't like everything was good while they were alive, and both of you made great choices while you were alive together. It's like this is this person's dead, and that means that like there's no chance for redemption anymore. Yeah. Uh, but I it's no chance to apologize. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

No, no hope to make it better, make it work.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, or have clarity about what's next for each of you. It's just so it did a really good job. Without spoiling anything, I really felt that and it brought back a lot of memories of my own complex grief with um my sister, with some other people, with my grandmother on my dad's side, um, and some others. That it's you don't get closure when it's complex like that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I feel like I feel like a lot of uh a lot of my familial relationships, I'm just gearing up for complex grief.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um because they are complex and uh and there's a lot of things that like aren't great. And I also don't really have any desire to fix it because it's just like it's been too long. Well, there's grief.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, with those kinds of relationships, there's grieving that happens while the person's still alive.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I guess that's what I'm feeling.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I mean, I've had a lot of that already with people that I but I know when they die, it's still gonna be like I don't really know how I'm gonna be. Like I'm thinking about my dad, for example. I don't know how I'm gonna be when he dies. Probably not well.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I don't know how I'm gonna feel when my bio dad dies because I'm I'm very not close to to him. Um, in fact, every now and then I just look for his obituary to see if he's gone, you know. Um I I feel like probably I won't feel anything other than like, well, that's somebody I don't have to worry about popping up into my life.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm still convinced you should take stick a claim to your inherent just a joke, people, just for the record. Yeah. Uh but I think, yeah, if you've experienced complex grief, this will feel very resonant for you. Um well, I shouldn't say that. Maybe it wouldn't. It did for me. Yeah. And it sounds like it did for you too, Dan. But that was for me the highlight of the movie. Like it's definitely an example of where like a zombie film is not really a zombie film, it's it's about grief.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Um, I mean, that's something that we've said a lot of times. It's like, you know, the the a zombie a good zombie story, usually the zombies aren't really the focus. It's uh it's a story that happens and there are zombies.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, so like this is a this I think this is a movie that like obviously it would be different if there were no zombies. I mean, it'd be really different if there was no catastrophe. But I think there could be no zombies and you would still have the same story if there was still like a weapon that exploded and killed a bunch of people.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

If they didn't reanimate, you'd still have the same experience.

SPEAKER_00:

You'd have a great story, yeah. Yeah. Uh although you wouldn't have the complexity of like, should we not be shooting these people who have reanimated in the head immediately? Like, maybe they're like I it's really interesting to me that there's just just no discussion about the possibility of rehabilitation for these folks. Um, it's an immediate shoot them and kill them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't know if that's a spoiler, but that's I think most people understand that that's how we I mean, that's how we treat zombies in all movies. So it's just like that's a zombie, you have to shoot it in the head.

SPEAKER_00:

But that moral dilemma is one that we've seen repeatedly too. Like it's definitely a zombie movie trope of like, are they human? Are they savable? Yeah. Should we be treating them this way?

SPEAKER_02:

But something that I've I don't think has been done very well is that in almost every circumstance where people are like, but should we shouldn't be shooting the zombies? Usually the only answer is shoot the zombies. Like that person's just being annoying. To the hero of the story, Brad Pitt, who's like, obviously, we kill the zombies. You're just being a liberal.

SPEAKER_00:

Let's talk about we hated. I'm gonna just like outright say that there is a plot hole. It's to me, it's a plot hole at the end, which is that there's something that happens with Clay that never gets explained. And I feel like for that movie to have a solid uh ending, it needed to be explained, unless they wanted to re-experience complex grief and not knowing what happened with Clay.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But that doesn't, I think that's a giant stretch. I think they just didn't have time or it got cut out or something, but it really annoyed me.

SPEAKER_02:

See, I actually liked it because um a character asked about what happened, and then the other character is like, huh, that was quite a story. Let me tell you all about it while we sit here, and then the camera cut to a different scene, and we didn't get that story. And I love that. I think that's an amazing way to be like, something happened, you don't need to know. I don't know. I felt like a cop-out. Maybe it was, but I thought it was an interesting cop-out.

SPEAKER_00:

The thing that happened with him that I can't say is like a pretty big moment in the movie that leads to what happens next with Riley, the military guy, which also I didn't fully believe that I can't say what I didn't fully believe, but it just it felt like Riley's behaviors were not um justifiable in the time frame of how long this had been going on for, uh, unless he already had an existing mental health condition.

SPEAKER_02:

See, I disagree because I believe that it it did make sense. Um, you know, I I see I see this person and I see a little bit of myself. Um I could Oh, you would do what Riley did? No. Okay, good. No, but I but I see I see where he is. Uh-huh. And I could only imagine if I was also thrown into that exact scenario and I was also faced with the same exact grief, but then also had to do the things that the military was doing, knowing that, you know, maybe somebody that you love is still out there, and your job is to just double tap zombies in the head when people pop a flare and say that there's a zombie in here. Um, we don't know exactly how much time has passed since the weapon went off, and I think that's something that should have been explained. And I mean, maybe it was and we just missed it. Um But I I know what can happen with people when their mind breaks, and it doesn't it's they don't make sense. I I think that Riley's state of mind is is erratic. He is having delusions. I mean, these might be spoiler territory, but I yeah, I think you should stop there.

SPEAKER_00:

Dan believes it, I don't believe it. It could again be an example of because of our own different lived experiences, it's more relatable for you. I really the thought of you everybody needs to watch We Bury the Dead, just so you can know what I'm imagining Dan doing right now because it's really messed up. Um, but I'm glad that it's understandable to you. It's not understandable for me. Um, and that's why these things are subjective. That's why we have a huge disparity in um scoring of the film and reviews.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I mean, that's I think that's exactly it. I think there's definitely a lot of people that showed up to this movie expecting something different. And I I mean, we never saw the the trailers for it. We didn't see the posters, we didn't see what like they were saying about the movie before it came out, that they, you know, like in interviews and stuff. So we don't know for sure, but I I have a feeling that it was probably just marketed in the US really badly. They were just like, you know, they had people out there probably being like, this is the next World War Z. It's a non-stop action thrill ride. Check out this guy on his motorcycle.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, no, it was a limited release that was like gone in a week and very hard to see. Uh, the people who we shall not name who were not able to see it, that we thought we'd be talking to about this movie, um, both couldn't see it because when they went to see it, it was already out of theaters and it had been a week. Yeah. Um, in their hometowns. Briefly, let's talk about the misogynist racist APList Nightmares of the Living Dead. We have a strong female lead, so it passes the Mako Mori test. There are no clearly queer characters, um, but not really the focus of the film. In fact, people who I thought would hook up are not depicted as hooking up in the movie. So it fails the Vito Russo LGBTQ test. Um, it does pass the race test, the Duvernay test, because you have an indigenous main character with their own narrative arc. That's Riley.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um and it also, unless Riley has a mental health, a pre-existing mental health disorder, it fails the Fry's test for disability representation.

SPEAKER_02:

I can think of a zombie that fits the Fry's test.

SPEAKER_00:

The one that we haven't mentioned, but is also in 28 years later, Bone Temple. Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Wait, what?

SPEAKER_00:

Are you not thinking about that one?

SPEAKER_02:

I don't know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, well, I can't say it now, Dan. Unless you're gonna bleep it out. Okay, tell me, and then I'll bleep it out. It's the one where they're no longer attached to the and they're walking on the s oh, and that's in there.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. I don't remember that.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, I remember seeing it and being like, oh my god, two in a row. What are the odds? Wow.

SPEAKER_02:

This is this never happens. Yeah. I missed something about a zombie movie, and you remember it. Shocking.

SPEAKER_00:

So we already gave our Zeds away, but just to restate it, I would give it a seven out of ten. Uh, I think I'd watch it again.

SPEAKER_02:

I would definitely watch it again. I I wanna I'd love to watch it again and look at it through the eyes of like knowing what happens and just like look for all the things and like maybe my score would decrease, but also maybe we'll find all the the little hidden gems in there that like answer all the questions. Maybe. Um I'd really like to see if there's like an extended cut that maybe puts more stuff in there because like that's that's what happens with the theatrical releases, is they cut a lot of stuff, and sometimes that stuff is really important for you to understand.

SPEAKER_00:

Like what happened with the one person that way that they cut that. I'm annoyed. I would have liked I felt I felt like I deserved to know, I was entitled to know.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I mean, we're watching the Lord of the Rings uh extended edition, which is very extended, adds like an additional like six to seven hours onto the trilogy. Um, and like the story is so much more complete with that. Yeah. And I think I feel like a little movie like this probably has just a lot of subtle things that they just cut out because they're like, we need to shave off seconds so that people will stick around for it. And uh I find a lot of times they do that and people are like they they watch it and they're like, Yeah, I don't, I I'm confused.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And maybe there's a reason that people are confused when they when they watch this movie. Maybe important things have been cut out of it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, like what happened to Clay.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. There in an extended cut, I imagine he tells that story.

SPEAKER_00:

Also, show me more time with Riley slowly getting to the point where he would do the things I can't say he did. Um, because I need to make that believable. I should also say content warning for the film. Uh, I don't I wouldn't call it sexual assault, but I would call it some very disturbing gender power dynamics that happened between Riley and Ava. That's all I'm gonna say.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I agree. There were times where I was feeling a little cringy, like, is something gonna happen that we're gonna have to sit here and watch?

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, we had to watch the thing that happened that wasn't quite that, and that was already really awkward.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and I thought I thought that was where it was going and so relieved when it didn't. Same. Same. Because I was over here just like, Riley, I'm I'm trying to connect with you, buddy. Please don't do what I think you're gonna do.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, this has been a strange episode because we're in strange times. I've said um so many times. I blame my fresca and gin for that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But it's been, I think, cleansing. It's good to talk about it. I don't know about you all. If you don't have somebody to talk to about this, I think it's important to do it. There's something about when Mike when Mike and I, I meant when Dan and I, I don't know who Mike is. Who's Mike? When Dan and I, my boyfriend Namibia, but sidebar. That was a long time ago. That's not who I meant. I meant when Dan and I are across from each other on the mic. Sometimes the conversations we have, um, because there's no distractions, are deeper than where we're just hanging out, driving around or doing things together. So I guess what I'm saying is start a podcast, talk to somebody across the table with a mic, and you'll be surprised where the conversation goes.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Yeah, you might be shocked to learn what's going on inside of their mind.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it's hard to express those things. So I appreciate your rant today, Dan. I think it was a good one. And I appreciate everybody listening. If you want to go deeper, our book club, as we've said, lives on Patreon. It's free. Free Treon. Yeah, and we're currently reading together Zone One by Colson Whitehead. The full book club episode will drop March 22nd. We would love to have your hot takes on the book before we record that episode in early March. So please read along. Come chat with us on Patreon. Let us know if you want to be a part of a live discussion.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Again, unrecorded, just for the people, not for the public. Yeah, for the people. It's not a public sub, it's a club sub.

SPEAKER_02:

Club sub, like a club sandwich sub. I guess so. It requires it to be cut into little triangles with toothpicks through it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. We also love ratings and reviews. Haven't gotten any new ones in a while. So if you're one of those people, hey, hey, I want to like knock on my mic, but I won't do that because it'll hurt your ears. Could you give us a little review? We'd appreciate it. You can also send us a voicemail up to three minutes at 614-699-30006. If you need to just say how you're feeling about this world that we're in, you just need three minutes of pure expression. We are here to hear you. Yeah, we're a safe space. Yeah, unless you are a Nazi, in which case, please don't.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

If you're a Nazi, or do and please leave us your name and address. Yeah. And phone number. Don't worry about it. Yeah. Um you can also follow us on Instagram as Linebook Club Podcast. But Patreon's the place to be.

SPEAKER_02:

It is. It's it's so the place to be.

SPEAKER_00:

It's lovely.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Also, the end is nigh.

SPEAKER_00:

So stay human. Stay human and don't die. Baby, bye-bye.

Contributor

Dan

Host
Contributor

Leah

Host