George Romero almost directed Resident Evil | Zombie Book Club Ep 151

We finally watch George A. Romero's Resident Evil — the 2025 documentary unpacking one of horror's greatest what-ifs, and trace the whole messy story: Romero hired by Constantin Film in 1998, his meticulous approach to studying the game scene-by-scene, the commercial footage that proves he could have nailed the tone, and the moment "creative differences" quietly buried a zombie legend's game-faithful script. Along the way we get into the Biohazard origins, horror ratings pressure, and why studios keep chasing a PG-13 that imagined box office math demands instead of the movie the genre deserves.

Then we turn it into something bigger; the social critique running through Romero's entire Living Dead catalog, why zombies became cinema's sharpest tool for talking about race, consumerism, and survival, and why the horror community keeps attracting the most empathetic people in any room. This episode drops right before we head to Living Dead Weekend 2026 at the Monroeville Mall — the last year before the mall closes — and we're going in loaded with books from zombesties Sylvester Barzey, Rebecca Cuthbertson, Dia Van Gunten, and Laurie Calcaterra, bunking with Alice B. Sullivan, and looking forward to seeing Brandon Starocci of Avalon Comic.

LINKS & INFO

The Documentary

• George A. Romero's Resident Evil (2025) — Official Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fiIdvhCLMI
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21990960/
• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_A._Romero%27s_Resident_Evil

Living Dead Weekend 2026 — June 12–14, Monroeville Mall

• Official Site & Schedule: https://www.thelivingdeadweekend.com/
• Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/living-dead-weekend-june-2026-the-dead-will-walk-the-mall-tickets-1980534479944
• Living Dead Museum at Monroeville Mall: https://monroevillemall.com/store/living_dead_museum

GreenMan — Pittsburgh Artist

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grnnann/

Authors

• Alice B. Sullivan | Tomorrow Never Came + Elementary Undead | https://alicebsullivan.com/
• Sylvester Barzey | Intense BIPOC-centered zombie horror | https://sylvesterbarzey.com/
• Rebecca Cuthbertson | Waves of Undead | https://rcuthbertsonwrites.com/
• Dia VanGunten | Pink Zombie Rose graphic novel series | https://www.diavangunten.com/
• Laurie Calcaterra | Path of the Pale Rider comic (issues 1–4 trade paperback) | https://pathofthepalerider.wordpress.com/
• Brandon Starocci | Avalon zombie comic series | https://avaloncomic.com/

Transcript

Meta Welcome And Why We’re Here

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Welcome to Zombie Book Club, the only book club where the book is a movie about a game that's based on a movie, about the guy who almost made the movie based on the game that was based on his movie. And they say art isn't derivative. I'm Dan, and when I'm not watching movies based on games, I'm writing a book that is inspired by the movies that the game was based on, which was later adapted into a movie. And I'm Leah.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

And while I'm not watching a movie about a game I've never played or seen before, but have seen the movies, I'm getting ready to go to Living Dead weekend, which celebrates the guy who made the movies that the game was based on, which was later adapted into movies. Whoa, that's so meta. It is, yeah. If you're still here and you have guessed what we're talking about, or just read the description, that this had the title of this episode. We're chatting in the documentary from 2025, George A. Romero's Resident Evil. Yeah. I sure didn't know that there was a George A. Romero's Resident Evil, or even the thought of one.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

You know, we we decided on a whim to watch this. It's a documentary, and uh, and it's like um Resident Evil, George Romero, Resident Evil, the documentary. And I'm like, why do they call it Resident Evil? That seems weird to worry about George Romero and calling it Resident Evil. And then in the first five seconds of the movie, they're like, George Romero almost directed Resident Evil. And I'm like, oh, it all makes sense. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Almost wrote and directed Resident Evil. Actually, it's not totally random that we watched it.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

It's not.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

No, we've been playing um we're adults and we're all too fucking busy and can't find a time that works with Sylvester Barzi and his wife, Angel.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Yeah, we we almost had an episode a few weeks ago, but we got sick.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Yes. That one was gonna be a land of the dead. Yeah. But I think it was because I was feeling cheap and didn't want to rent it, which now I regret. And Sylvester, if you're listening, I'm sorry. Uh, but I was like, we have to watch this movie in advance of Living Dead Weekend.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

So Sylvester, we'll talk about something else. I'm not sure what. Probably not Land of the Dead either, because probably gonna make people turn this off who've just found Living Dead Weekend. It's not my favorite.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Yeah. I love a lot of other Romero films. I like it, but also like, you know, 20 years after, I'm like, it's okay. Yeah, it's not his best work. Yeah, it's fun. I like it. I'll I'd watch it again. Leah, would you watch it again?

SPEAKER_02 2:43

To talk about on an episode, yes. And I did enjoy the gore.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

It's the kind of movie that we could play on the background while I'm working, I could look up every once in a while and see somebody's head getting pulled off, and I'd be like, cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

But that's not the movie we're talking about. We're talking about Resident Evil by George Romero.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

And before we dive in, just want to say hi to any new fellow George Romero fans who I don't know, we talked to at Living Dead weekend. Yeah, did we meet you? Did we just meet you? Have you found us? Hello. I'm sure you were really cool. I'm obviously if you're listening to this podcast. Yeah. If you made it here, or you made it to the cool clubs. You were also the nerd in high school. And we relate by being weirdos together, which is amazing. And also just sending some undead affection to all of our longtime zombesties who I know are listening. Hello.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Yeah, sorry you couldn't make it to Living Dead Weekend where all the cool people were.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Well, some of them will be there. Green Man, who we've, I guess, has been a Zombesti for almost a year because he was at last year's Living Dead Weekend, and that's how we met him. Oh. So shout out to Green Man. Okay. I can almost see Green Man.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

You've seen a lot of Green Man's art on Instagram. Yeah, I know, I know on Instagram I didn't make I didn't make the connection.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

Yeah, he draws in You haven't? Really? No, I didn't know. He took a picture with my zombie crown that I made. Yeah. Yeah. And we chatted a bunch. He showed me some of his art, and I was like, oh my God, I love it. Please let me where can I follow you? And we've been uh connected ever since. And I think we're gonna eventually have him on the show to say hi.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Yeah, Green Man makes excellent art.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

Yeah. Uh his social handle for Instagram will be in the show notes, but just in case you're like, I gotta see this buddy's art, it's which you do, by the way. It's at G as in Goat, R as in Rats, N as in Nancy, N as in Nuts, A as in Anvil, and N as in Nub.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

That was excellent. Thank you. Excellent um phonetic alphabet. I don't know any of the I think I know Alpha, Bravo, Charlie. I know all of them because I had the uh I, you know, I went to school for the NATO alpha numeric alphabet.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

I just make people suffer when they're like, you know, I'm on a call with some customer service and they're like, what's your email? And I'm like, are you ready for this? Because it's about to be a bunch of random random words with a letter in front. So I'm not good at it. But in some ways I kind of embrace making it silly.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Yeah. You know, I gotta, you know, sidetrack. I I need to check out the alpha the NATO, the NATO alphabet again, because I think that some of them have been changed since I was in the army.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

Wait, we have an impromptu interrupter of our podcast. Oh, hello. Oh, hello. Have you ever watched a George A. Romero film? George A. Romero. Am I allowed to look that up? No. That's it. I'm hanging up on you now. Boo.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Boo, Nora. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

This is gonna wreck my sense of self.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Well, you can you can fix this.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

It's reparable.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

You can solve this problem.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Oh, they just hung up on me.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Okay, where were we before I did that random thing? Leah, why did we watch this movie? Oh, because we're going to Living Dead Weekend 2026. Yeah. Next weekend. Which is now when you're listening to it. Wait, no.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Yes. I'm editing this episode tomorrow.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

Yeah, and it's coming out on Sunday. Sunday. So Sunday. This will be the episode if you find us on Friday or Saturday.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

So the next one if you're listening to this when it came out, I edited this yesterday.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

After digging a hole in the backyard.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

This is what an episode sounds like after Dan has dug holes all week, drove a very long distance to go pick up our brand new camper, which I'm very excited about. Yeah. And I have been working all week and been very, very busy and had a few fires to put out today. So this is this is us.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Yeah. This is this is how this is what you're this is what you get. It's true. Chaos. You did the can't if you can't take us at our worst. I always hate that saying, actually.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

Because I'm like, does that mean I just have to accept that you're a total asshole sometimes?

SPEAKER_00 6:55

That's how it works.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

I'm not a fan of that. You know, I think we should say for the new listeners, Dan and I are married. Um we're not just podcast co-hosts.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

We're married too.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

We live in Vermont. So we're road tripping to Pennsylvania this weekend to Monroville Mall, where Dawn of the Dead was filmed, for this sometimes twice a year Living Dead weekend.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Yeah, we've been once before last year. Last year, 2025, we met so many amazing people. We were there for the last ever Living Dead weekend, and then they decided to do it again.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

Well, Walmart, the ultimate sort of end for Monroeville Mall, which was the vocation of a place that was filmed for a movie about consumerism, is being eaten by the consumer zombie that is Walmart. Yeah. And it just turns out that it's 2027 instead of 2026. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Um, I I am curious to see what they're gonna do with it. I I'm sure they'll just level it and turn it into a warehouse, but uh I don't like what if what if Walmart actually just like no, this is now the Walmart Mall.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

What if what if they were like, we're gonna innovate if they changed it to Walmart Mall, they can't change the name. That is like there will be riots.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

It'll be hyphenated, the Walmart Monroville Mall. Oh my god. It's like a marriage.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

Then we're gonna, if that happens, okay, you know what? Even if it doesn't happen, I feel like there could be a really, a really great like spoof short or full-fledged movie that calls it Mall Mart. Malmart. Yeah, and it's like a reboot of Dawn of the Dead, but in the context of Malmart taking over the mall.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Yeah. You know, I feel like if Dawn of the Dead was like was like written in this era, it wouldn't be in a mall, but it might be in a Walmart. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

Um Amazon wouldn't an Amazon distribution center. Yeah, that would work. Yeah, because then Well, no, because pe regular people aren't gonna go to the Amazon distribution center.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

It's probably like an impulse. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

The workers are going to Amazon. Yeah. I'm so I'm so sorry for anybody listening who has to work at Amazon.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Yeah. I mean, it's not a perfect script yet,

What The Documentary Actually Covers

SPEAKER_00 9:05

much like the story about uh Resident Evil written by George Romero. Yeah, let's get into it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

Um I liked I like this documentary. First of all, I think we you gave us the basic synopsis, but like give me a summary of what is this movie about? All right. For folks who haven't watched it. Um which means we're gonna spoil it, but also it's the kind of movie that you can just it's a documentary.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

It's a pretty good documentary about George Romero. So like it starts off and it talks about George Romero and his early career and the movies that he made and the importance um of those movies and the impact that he had on a few people in uh in in the Pittsburgh area where he made movies. And um, and that part was really good. I I liked hearing about that stuff because they had uh some interviews from a number of people that were close to him or like just were very inspired by him. Um, and they it was pretty touching and heartfelt. Uh then it talks about Resident Evil, the games, and the cultural relevance that they had and how those games were made, um, and even interviewed the creator of the games and like its origin, it's like Super Nintendo origins um that I I had no idea about. I learned a lot about Resident Evil. First of all, I didn't know it was called Biohazard in Japan. Nor did I.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

In fact, I was confused. So you actually just I were probably zoned out at some point, and then I was like, why are we talking about biohazard?

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Yeah, in Japan it was called Biohazard.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Oh, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Um and then they were going to make Biohazard 2 slash Resident Evil 2, and they were like, We are going to do something that's never been done before, and we are going to hire a production studio to make a high-end live action commercial, and they hired George Romero to do that. I don't remember this commercial, I remember different commercials, but I do remember that like it was the first time that I'd seen commercials for a video game on TV, and it blew my mind. What year is this? This was 1997 or 98. Um solidly like the beginning of the internet. Yeah, like you didn't see Super Mario Bros. um advertisements on TV, like when a new game c uh came out. Uh they compared it to like other launches like Mario 64 um and various other things, and it's like it really made me think about how different Resident Evil was compared to the games of its of its generation. Uh other games were games, whereas Resident Evil was like a cinematic experience. Um even everything down to like the camera angles that you would that it would use like made it feel like you were inside of a movie that and it was very different for its time. I never really considered that until I watched this. Um so they talked a lot about that. Uh so they George Romero made this commercial, and it's only like a two-minute commercial. Um, and I I should have looked it up. We should have watched this commercial like its entirety.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

It's not too late.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

We can do a full episode on Resident Evil if we want to. But um, as it turns out, they there was also talk about making a live-action movie uh based on the franchise, is something that Capcom and uh and the studio involved wanted to do in a big, big way because they're like, we can turn this into something huge, especially if we get this George Romero fellow to do.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Who everybody knows is is the zombie guy.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Yeah, the grandfather of zombies.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

And again, what year is this happening? 98. That they're thinking about the movie.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Yeah, I th like the the documentary talks a lot about 1998, 1999, of as as like the years where things were happening for George Romero in this area. Um, so when he made this commercial, he they it only needed to be like two minutes long, and everybody saw the two minutes version then, but as it turns out, he actually made like a 30-minute short film instead. And that's something that he made as kind of like a proof of concept that he could do it. Uh so like it was one of those things that he would just kind of show people, it never made it to the public. Um, I wonder if we could find it.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

I think we're gonna have to look. Maybe somebody listening to this will message us and tell us where to find it.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Yeah. Um and from the footage that I saw, like it didn't it it it it didn't look like, you know, the Resident Evil movie that we got. Um it it looked pretty grainy, um pretty dark, but it also had like all the Romero elements, like the zombies looked like Romero zombies, and uh it was gritty. It looked honestly, there was probably probably a lot of gore in that commercial that had to be cut out because um, as we learned, people's sensibilities were very different back then. Yep. I didn't realize that okay, so something that we learned from the documentary, um, this might be going off on a tangent, but we're talking about the movie, so I don't think it's a tangent. I I didn't realize that move film ratings didn't exist until George Romero made Knight of the Living Dead, and they were like, we gotta do something about this guy. I didn't realize I didn't realize that there was such a a lack of tolerance for gore back then that like Congress needed to make rules about what was acceptable for movies. Um we have some screenshots of some of a pretty strongly worded letter about George Romero's movie and uh the perversion of violence. And it was fascinating to to uh to read. I should've I don't it's on my phone, I should have brought it down.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

Yeah, you should go get it because we took screen captions on purpose.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

All right, so this is the letter from uh from the documentary that was published in Variety on October 16th, 1968. Um I'm not sure who wrote the letter. I don't I'm not sure if it was clear in the documentary. They probably said who it was, but I wasn't paying attention. Until the Supreme Court establishes clear-cut guidance for the pornography of violence, Knight of the Living Dead will serve nicely as an outer limit definition by example. An outer limit.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Yeah, this film was 1968, just as a reminder, folks.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Yes, and of course, remains on the fringes of pornography of violence. Um uh we all reject this type of violence and would never watch such a film. Never again. No, I was I was scandalized, Dan. So it continues in a mere 90 minutes, this horror film, Pun intended, where's the pun? Pun intended casts serious aspersions on the integrity and social responsibility of its Pittsburgh-based makers, distributor Walter Reed, the film industry as a whole, and exhibitors who book the picture. As well as raising serious doubts about the future of the regional cinema movement and about the moral health of film goers who cheerfully opt for this unrelieved orgy of sadism.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Unrelieved orgy of sadism. I mean, I gotta give Cred that's a great line. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

You know, I w, I I wish I had the writing chocks. How did you miss the point of the movie? You know what? It was they they probably got really upset around the time they realized that the lead character was a black man and would shoot a white man. Probably. How dare they? And they were like, this is pornography. Um yeah, so they didn't have film ratings until 1968 when this movie came out.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

Ratings, you mean? I think you said writings.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Um, I Ratings. Uh I meant to say ratings, but if I said writings instead, I apologize to everyone who has ears, um, especially Leah.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

And I apologize if upon record listening to this back you realize you still said rating and I was incorrect.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

And if that is also true, I will take my place on Wright Mountain. Enjoy. I'm learning to just hang out on the side of the hill. Um, so that's something that was kind of talked about in the uh in the documentary about the script that he started writing for Resident Evil, um, which there was a lot of discussion about gore and whether or not he should be putting it into a movie. Um, because what he would have made would have been rated NC 17, and nobody would have been able to go see this movie in theaters. They wanted to capture the 13 to 18 demographic, and even an R rating would have been detrimental um to the box office. Absolutely. Um because you know, nobody over 18 years old goes to

Ratings Panic And The Gore Debate

SPEAKER_00 18:40

the movies. Never.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

I mean, to be honest though, we've seen I mean, we did go to see 28 years later, what, three times? Two times?

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Um, the first one twice, and the second one twice.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

We have, I guess we've seen more movies in the last year than we've seen in a long time at the theater. So maybe there's something to it.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

It is true that it's kind of been widely believed that an R-rated movie isn't going to be a box office hit. Um, and that's why so many movies tone themselves down, they tone police themselves to try to get a PG-13 rating because they want maximum exposure. They they want to hit the people that are um in their teens, but they also want to get the parents of the teens who want to go to the movies to shut up their kids.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

Very true.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

So the the lower rating you can get, the more box office you can hope to achieve. Um, and that was genuine generally believed by producers, and they would just avoid anything that might have an R-rating for like decades. And then the first movie that proved that theory wrong was Deadpool. They made Deadpool, Deadpool was R-rated, it was the first R-rated Marvel movie. When was that? I don't remember when. Isn't Deadpool a recent movie? Yeah, well, I mean, like in the last 10 years.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

It's that recent.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Yeah. Wow. Um Yeah, so before then, like an R rating was just considered Kryptonite. And horror movies typically are rated R or higher. Um this is very rare that we get a horror movie that's PG 13.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

I mean, I don't think I've ever seen a horror movie that's PG 13.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Yeah. Um, yeah, and in the documentary, there's a lot of talk about um from I I I don't know who this person is. I think they're like a producer of the film studio that had that held the rights to Resident Evil, and they wanted George Romero off the project because he wrote too much gore, and they believed that gore and violence didn't belong in this movie.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

Well, I mean, everybody loved it until the top guy saw it. Yeah. Which is so tragic, and like, I know you've been there, folks. The big boss, everybody's like, this is a good idea, we should do it, it makes sense for the company, whatever it is you're doing. And then Big Boss comes and is like, no. I don't like violence. I'm like, I'm just curious, like, did this person never watch a Romero film? Probably. Did they not understand what they were getting?

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Yeah. I I think in the documentary they mentioned that he he was he was the producer behind like movies like Das Boot. Um, so like art house films. Um movies that typically don't have violence, but rather have tension that's built through drama. Um I've actually never seen Das Boot, but it's in a sub. It's in a submarine. German U-boat, I think. Interesting. And it's uh it's supposed to be like cinematically um relevant. You know, it's it's like it's like Citizen Kane, but in a submarine.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

That I don't know who Citizen Kane is.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

I also never saw Citizen Kane. So I love how you just reference. Yeah. Well, you know, Citizen Kane is like the movie that people set compare other movies to. If if they're like, this was a bad movie, they're like, well, it's no Citizen Kane, meaning it's not a masterpiece. So like Daos Boot, I think, is considered a masterpiece.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

And that's the person who was like, I don't like this version from George Romero.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Yeah. And they were like, George Romero movies aren't masterpieces. I feel so triggered. Which uh, you know, those of us who have seen George Romero's movies would beg to differ.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Yeah. I feel very triggered by that statement. I felt triggered by the whole movie, where or not the whole movie, but the point where I was like, I cannot believe that they hired George Romero, had him suffer and write it, and spent a ton of time in it, told him he was gonna direct it, and then actually ghosted him. Yeah, that's it wasn't just like it wasn't just like they're like, hey, by the way, this isn't like a creative fit.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

They were just they just disappeared for a while, and people were asking George, like, are you directing this film? And George would have to be like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

Yeah. And then they gotta tell me. And then when they were in talks with, you know, getting people on board and like pitching this movie to various studio heads and everything, they were name-dropping George Romero, even though they already planned to not go with George Romero. Um, they were using they were using his his name. In other words, they cheated on George. They did, they cheated on him big time with Paul W.S. Anderson.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

This is unforgivable. This this like honestly kind of ruins Resident Evil for me. Like, if I had known this, I think it would have been like, I'm not watching it. That's how much I'm just like, and it's a good movie, but do I think it's a George A. Romero level good movie? No, not even close.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

So they they eventually like they went through like three different script writers. Um, George was the second one. The first one, I don't remember the name, but the what they describe the the script as is being like about 120 pages, but the first 60 pages just was following the the stars uh officers through training. And they were just like, This is fucking boring. This is so fucking boring. We have to get rid of this guy, and they did, and they went to George Romero, and we don't have the script, we don't have a movie, but what they what the people involved described as far as like what the movie would have been based on the very, very, very rough draft. Like he didn't get he didn't get to a final draft, he he had a plan of a plan. Um, but what he wrote actually sounded like really true to the game. Um what I found really interesting is that like he said that he ne he never really played the games. He tried playing video games um in the early 90s and got hooked on Legend of Zelda, and then when he beat that, he felt really good about himself and decided to quit while he was ahead. Um But being being tied to this project, he's like, I gotta play him. So he actually had his kids play the game, and he watched his kids play the game because he couldn't figure it out. Amazing. Which I feel I totally understand. Those games are hard. Um and then also I forget who it was, somebody that he was working with um in the writing room um really was into video games. So they set up a camera and recorded their screen playing the whole thing, and it took like three weeks of of them playing the game and sending the tapes to George Romero so he could see how it see everything involved and see how it ended, see it, see it completed. So George Romero also accidentally invented like um like a like a like gameplay videos.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

That's wild. This man has done so much for us culturally. He's over here watching Let's Plays, which literally another way George A. Romero inspired you without you even knowing it. Yeah. Because your entire career for a few years was gameplay videos and streams.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

I mean, I don't know if that was George Romero. I think he kept that a secret, but true. I never knew about that. But it's it's fascinating that like back in 1998, somebody was like, What if we record the screen and you can watch it as if you were playing it but not have to play it? And he would and he watched all of it, like he was he was enthralled, and so like a a lot of his script included all of the various different monsters that you encounter in this game, all the all the same characters, which if you've watched the Resident Evil movies, you know that like almost none of the characters from the games are in the movie. In fact, I think none of them.

SPEAKER_02 26:57

Yeah, I've never played it, so like that was my first experience of seeing the game.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Yeah. I think the only recognizable thing in the movies from the game were the monsters, and that is the zombies, the liquor, the nemesis, and the crows. Um, I haven't watched anything past uh the third third Resident Evil movie.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

Yeah, it was interesting to learn that that was a deliberate choice, that they weren't gonna follow the main beats of the story. I think about like The Last of Us, and I know it's not exact, but it follows pretty closely. Yeah. But you know what? I th I don't think you can ever fully satisfy game fans or all of them with with remakes as movies, because there's so many people I know who are so disappointed in the Last of Us series because they played the game and they're like the acting in the game was better, this, that, or the other was better. I don't know because I can't walk in a straight line in any kind of modern game. So I have not played this. Get off the controller, you're

Ghosting Romero And Studio Politics

SPEAKER_02 27:55

drunk. Yeah, the last time I played video games was Nintendo and a little bit of Super Nintendo. So that's about where my skill set stopped. And I wasn't very good at that either. Uh and then there will be people though with Resident Evil that apparently when they first saw the movie reacted negatively because it wasn't enough like what they expected. They wanted to see the movie version of the stories they'd already seen in the game.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

The the one of the people in the documentary said like he was very excited when the movie came out, and then you know, didn't hate it, but left feeling a bit disappointed because like it didn't feature the mansion, um, hardly at all. Um, and didn't feature the characters, um, and just didn't really feel like Resident Evil at all, other than it's a zombie movie.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

Yeah, and you all can go and find our Resident Evil episode. You will see, having not even known about the involvement of George A. Romero, it's not my favorite.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Yeah. It's never been my favorite either.

SPEAKER_02 28:54

It is for some people, and like I don't want to yuck anybody's yum, it's just not mine.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

But I think the message of like listening to this is at some point George A. Romero called the reason why he wasn't continuing on the project Creative Differences. And while I think that the way that the um company ghosted him and then used his name to promote the film continuously, even after knowing they weren't going to work with him anymore, super shady. But I do think creative differences are so real.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:23

And and it it demonstrates the subjective nature of some of these things. Because, Dan, would you be willing to describe the version of the movie that Jorge Romero uh? Do you remember the details?

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Yeah, I don't know if I could describe word for word, but like one one thing that I do remember that they were describing about what he initially wrote for the very beginning. Like um, he was going to keep the characters he he changed them a little bit so that instead of um stars officers, they were just going to be uh military soldiers or just like generic SWAT team. Um one of the characters instead of being a police officer was just going to be a random person from town. Uh and then another person was just was going to be um kind of an undercover agent that lived in the mansion. And I'm like, that sounds a lot like how the Resident Evil movie actually starts. And feels, but is still new people.

SPEAKER_02 30:24

Yeah. New people. There were what I thought was interesting listening to the rendition that um was was talked over with visuals of the game, was there was enough there that fans would recognize the game. Yeah, I think more deeply. And like sp not that the storyline was the exact same, but that there were a lot of Easter eggs and moments that were direct from the game, even if they were in a different plot. Which I like, I feel like that was clear that he did his homework, one, and two, showed reference and respect for the game, which was also inspired by his movies, which inspired the game, which inspired the movie that he then wrote, then was rejected for.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

Yeah. Um Romero's movie was going to take place in the mansion and in the surrounding woods outside of the mansion. Um so he was going to keep like the what he wrote was actually very close to the core material. Um, without being exactly what happens in the game, but also just close enough that people are gonna look at it and be like, this is Resident Evil, that's that's the mansion, this is the first movie, uh the first the first game. Uh there's there's the tormentor, here's some zombie dogs. He was he even wanted to have like the the the giant snake, um, the zombie shark. There was gonna be a zombie shark scene, uh the even even the giant spider. Like there was room for everything in the script, and it was like the they describe it as like it it stepped on the gas and never let off. Like it was a fast-paced zombie horror movie with a lot of gore. Clearly that upset what was his name?

SPEAKER_02 32:04

Like Eichinger or something like that? I think that was his name, yeah. Just not a fan of the gore, which again, like you're making a zombie film.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

Yeah. Like he does the well, I mean, this was also 1998, and there weren't a whole lot of zombie movies back then. You know, it's something that I talk about sometimes where it's like before we had The Walking Dead, like you had to wait like a couple of years for a zombie movie to come out, and then the likelihood of it being a good zombie movie was very low. Yeah. Like your your your standards for what a zombie movie was was so much lower back then because you're just like, please just give me something with a zombie in it.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

That doesn't make sense to me. As someone who had not had any zombie craving at this point in my life, 1998, I'm basically a child. Uh didn't play video games, so that I don't even think I knew the words Resident Evil. Maybe somebody in my school was playing. I'm sure people were playing it in my school, but um, I did indeed not like most of the boys that I went to school with. So if they were, I didn't know about it. Um, I grew up in a very small town, so there's exactly 30 of us. So it's not like I had a lot of choice, so the the options were limited in terms of friends, and the the boys were not my favorite. Um you know what? Gonna say it. The girls weren't really either.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

I was a weirdo. I got the fuck out of there. Same. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Same.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

Uh, but that was a total sidebar. I just didn't, I don't think I even knew the word zombie. Like, would I have known the word zombie in 1998? Yeah, because of the cranberries. Right. That would have been my entire reference point and the basic understanding, like broad cultural understanding that zombies are undead people that eat you. But that was it. Yeah. Um, so I wasn't hungry for anything. And to think that people were hungry enough that they wouldn't have just been satisfied with the current George A. Romero quality, that they would eat dog shit, I'm confused by.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

Yeah. Uh this is something that um, you know, this is I especially realize it now after watching this documentary. Like, I I'd have I'd had some time to think about like what I love about George Romero. And imagine if George Romero never came on the scene. We would have zombies, you know. There were zombie movies before George Romero, but we wouldn't have what the zombie movie has become. We'd have fucking white zombie. We'd have we'd have like mummy movies, we'd have really stupid horseshit where like they reinvent the rules with every movie. And George Romero had like a vision for what a zombie is and reinvented it to the point where people could only imagine a zombie movie made by George Romero. Um you know, the whole flesh-eating, like you have to destroy the brain, living dead zombie was George Romero's, and we didn't have that before. Zombies were living people that were under a magical spell. Um he invented this genre, and he also showed everybody how it could tell a bigger story. It wasn't just like, hey, those things are scary, right? You better run away from 'em. If you run away, you win. Um, and he showed us how to do that in a farmhouse. He showed us how to do it uh in a mall, and he showed us how to do it in an underground bunker.

SPEAKER_02 35:27

IVave Day of the Dead.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

And what I what my experience was talking to other zombie fans in the before times was that they could only imagine zombies in those very specific scenarios. They weren't thinking about the stories involved in a zombie apocalypse. So the general idea was that zombies are boring. How could how could zombies be interesting if they don't evolve, if they don't change, if you can't make them into your you know, Jason um character who walks around with a machete and scares people when he steps out of a room. You know, they don't have any magical powers. They can't

Romero’s Script And Game Accuracy

SPEAKER_00 36:10

fly, they can't do any of that.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen a movie where zombies fly. That would be really surprising.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

We should add that into the Malmart. When zombies fly. Yeah. That's what it's called. That's the movie. Um so you know, in this in the in the before times, people could only imagine zombies in these very narrow ways. And it wasn't it was honestly, I feel like only George Romero and a handful of other people were like, no, the zombie apocalypse is this vast world of infinite possibility. Like, it is as like the the zombies are a blizzard or a typhoon or a volcano. And the movie is the story that happens around the volcano. It's not the volcano itself. The volcano doesn't get um a a a credit in the titles.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

You know, like well, the zombies get credits in their titles.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

You gotta give them more credit, literally. Um and and and I and I I saw this type of thinking all the way until The Walking Dead. And even still, you'll still talk to people that are like, yeah, but zombies have been done before. Zombies uh have uh aren't popular anymore. They've been done to death. You've told they've told the zombie story too many times. Too many times. And and you know, like the producer that couldn't understand why George Romero wanted to put gore in the movie could never see the zombie genre for the complexity that it is, and he could only understand that it was popular and it was going to make some money. Um, Leah, did this movie um make you realize anything about George Romero that you didn't know that you that you didn't know before?

SPEAKER_02 38:06

Well, I didn't know him personally, and I've only been to Living Dead weekend once, and I didn't get to listen to any of the panels where I'm sure this kind of stuff was discussed. But like hearing all of the people who knew him and spent time with him and like what a happy and kind man he was was really nice to hear. Yeah. Uh George Demek was on it a lot. He's also a filmmaker and a friend of our author, Bestie, uh Alice B. Sullivan. Um, and I know he goes to Living Dead Weekend every year. I didn't like a lot of these people, because I'm not immersed in the world, like I'm not a film buff like many folks who probably go to Living Dead Weekend, are I don't know who a lot of these people are. I just enjoy what they create. So seeing a little bit more of the behind the scenes and how they connected with him, and that like something that I feel I have felt over and over again since we've had this podcast, which is that uh a lot of folks, like the vast majority of people who really love zombies and horror are also some of the kindest and most compassionate people I know. Not all of them, but a lot of them. More than I expected.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:12

And I think that George sort of proves that as well. That like there's this idea, what did they call it? Like the moral. Can you read that quote again?

SPEAKER_00 39:20

Oh, hold on. Yeah, and this is that they just call it the moral health.

SPEAKER_02 39:24

Yeah, like this idea of moral health being, what did they say? Uh destroyed, ruined, decayed.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

The moral health of film goers who cheerfully opt for this unrelieved orgy of sadism.

SPEAKER_02 39:36

Right. That quote would lead you to believe that people like you and me, and more importantly, people who make these things, George Romero, George Demick, Greg Nicotero, Tom Savini, all the people. I'm sure there are others. I'm just, like I said, I don't know all the names because it's not really my focus. I just like reading and I like seeing the movies. But like you would think that they are just depraved people and sadists.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Like we see somebody get their head ripped off and we just have raging hard boners.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

Yeah, like we're like, yeah, that's what I really wish was happening in real life. It's the same thing as like this idea of the Marilyn Manson effect when Columbine, the Columbine tuning happened, which is like, it must be because they listen to scary music.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

Yeah, look at this guy. Look at this guy with his weird eyes and his white skin makeup, and he wears weird leather. Yeah. That's why this happened.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

Sidebar, his autobiography is pretty interesting, Marilyn Manson. I read it when I was a teenager. Yeah. And guess what? I didn't become a mass shooter. Maybe because the most thing, the biggest thing that mass shooters have in common is their race and gender. Wow. I have one of those. I am indeed white. Oh. But I'm not a dude.

unknown 40:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

Anyways, my point is like, I think it's really interesting that people can make that assumption when actually, like, what what is the phenomenon that it's actually the opposite? Like, one person we met last year is, you know, like his name's John. I won't say his last name, but like an awesome person, so kind, so gentle, so compassionate, a teacher. We met a lot of teachers, actually. It's true. A firefighter, first responders, people who are doing really cool things in like martial arts. Anyways, like really kind, thoughtful, compassionate people. I had so many, like surprisingly deep conversations for like a random meeting at a con.

SPEAKER_00 41:25

I I remember one guy that I I thought was going to be like I may I passed judgment when I met this person. I thought that they were just gonna be very like, you know, like not we weren't I didn't think that we were gonna have like a deep conversation or that he was going to show how much humanity he had. Um, I wasn't expecting that. And then we started talking. I'm like, this person has a a depth of empathy that he does not wear on his on his sleeves.

SPEAKER_02 41:55

You can't judge people based on how they look or how they present, and you can't judge people based on what they enjoy. Like, you know what? Maybe the real psychopaths are the rom-com. Oh, yeah, definitely. Maybe they're the ones. I'm not serious. Maybe you like a rom com. But my point is, is like you just can't, there's some sort of Venn diagram that I can't really explain. Yeah. And maybe it's because, you know what? Okay, I'm gonna attempt. This is my hypothesis. Tell me what you think. Okay. Again, not all not everybody, but that there is a trend or a pattern that people who are deeply caring about others and the world are also the folks who are who deeply feel suffering. Yeah. And in some ways, horror is a sort of semi-safe because it's not real way to explore those feelings and to explore some of the like the most devastating topics of humanity in the ways that we've hurt each other, like George A. Romero did really brilliantly. And his daughter Tina Romero has done with Queens of the Dead, like really talking about the social ills through the lens of horror. And that's the whole point of this podcast, now that I think about it, for me, anyways, other than trying to get your book sales when you finally publish your book, Dan. Yeah. Um someday. But like that's what I enjoy. I enjoy talking about the zombie genre as a way of exploring other issues, but allowing me to dissociate a little bit and get some entertainment out of it. Instead of just being depressed that 250 years later, this country still fucking sucks. Still has intense racism, if not, you know, like a resurgence. Deeply transphobic. All the laws that have been like moving people forward are getting reversed. Like that shit's depressing, but you know it's not depressing, or it's kind of depressing, but it lets you think about it differently. Night of the living dead.

unknown 43:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:47

Like you get to see it from like it's just a different way of exploring it. So maybe that's where the compassion then diagram with horror is.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

Um, I I have a I have uh another theory. Okay. But I think it goes along with your Theory. I I I acknowledge that I think you're on to something. Um I think that maybe it's less about who is interested in these topics uh but more about who isn't interested. Um people who people who have a brain that develops in a way that uh I forget which which part of the brain it is, the the the fear center of the brain. Um people like this tend to be a lot more uh conservative. Um they they are motivated by fear, and as a result of this part of their brain growing, their frontal lobe doesn't grow as much and they're amygdala. Yeah. They're amygdala, yes. The amygdala is the fear, the fear center. Um and people who are amygdala-centered brains, um, they they tend not to be curious about things because their frontal lobe

Why Zombies Matter Beyond Scares

SPEAKER_00 44:55

is underdeveloped. Where's our zombie author friend Jill and Davies to check to fact-check us right now? Yeah, Jill, let us know. Um and when you have a lack of curiosity, you also have a lack of empathy. And when you have a lack of curiosity and a lack of empathy, you see a movie where zombies are wandering around tearing people apart, and you can only come to one conclusion, which is people are watching this because they just like watching people getting torn apart. Um, this is violence pornography, and I'm just gonna read the Bible because that's what people tell me I'm supposed to do.

SPEAKER_02 45:32

I mean, I think it's also important to say like that might be true for some people. What I said might be true for some people, and there's probably all kinds of reasons people are attracted, but there are trends and patterns. Because I think there's also people who just really can't handle, like my mom cannot watch, cannot watch what was the movie I keep The Jungle Book. Okay. Can't watch the jungle book. Can't watch the jungle book.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

I tried. Yeah, she was terrified. And I'm not saying that it's specifically a horror thing, I think it's a curiosity thing. So when you're curious about something, and it doesn't matter the topic, your brain is exploring new neural pathways, like your brain is growing. Have you met my mother?

SPEAKER_02 46:08

She asks questions that I can't answer every five seconds.

SPEAKER_00 46:11

Well, she's curious about a different thing. She's she avoids horror because it triggers something inside of her that she needs to talk to a therapist about. Um Hi, mom.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

Uh well, she doesn't have the ability to differentiate from reality. It's like she's living it. So she's got like a very she's caught technically a highly sensitive person. That's what they call it.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Yeah. But my point is that when when you're exploring these the deeper meanings of things, you're developing new neural pathways. You're growing your intelligence just by experiencing something in a fictional universe. So like in the case of rom-coms, there's uh two ways that people consume rom-coms. One is people that want to learn from the rom-coms because they feel like it might be instructional for them. And then others who look at it and think of it as a horror movie because they tend to be so if you just change the music.

SPEAKER_01 47:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:10

But the same thing, the same thing occurs where like they those two types of people that are enjoying rom-coms are exploring that experience kind of virtually and allowing their brain to develop new neural pathways as practice. They're practicing by experiencing the emotions and experiences of the character on screen. Uh, and somebody who doesn't have that level of curiosity isn't going to get the same type of experience from watching that movie. They're gonna just be like, yep, that was a movie and I'm done now.

SPEAKER_02 47:46

I mean, I think movies are feeding some emotional parts of ourselves. Uh, because you can also just enjoy a rom com because it might it might make you feel love feelings. Most of the time it doesn't because I'm always like, why do they have to hate each other first? Like, there's some of the tropes of a rom-com don't work for me.

SPEAKER_01 48:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:00

Um, so hey, if there's rom coms out there, you know what I do love? A romcom rom com. Yeah. Like Zombie Date Night. That's a great comic series. Yeah, Zombie Date Night. Yeah. Um by Steve Urena. Highly recommend. Steve again. We do.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

I really enjoyed talking to Steve.

SPEAKER_02 48:17

Yeah. Like, but that like that was that was great because the person who was the main character just kept fucking up and was honestly terrible as a date.

SPEAKER_01 48:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:27

And it wasn't like we hate each other first. It was just this person being an idiot.

SPEAKER_00 48:31

Yeah. Um I think that's a great twist on the rom com because like it's not like we're destined to be together, but we hate each other first. It was like, we're here on a date, you're all right. And then later it's like, we probably shouldn't be together.

SPEAKER_02 48:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:46

But now we're stuck together because it's the zombie apocalypse.

SPEAKER_02 48:48

And then we discover, spoiler alert, cover your ears, that the zombies are in pairs too. That's right. They were pairing off. They're in the great comic series. Highly recommend checking out Zombie Date. And also, I forget his sloth series, Killer Sloths. Something like that. Something like that. It's hard. That like shit like that makes me laugh. But, anyways, I like I I don't wanna I don't wanna paint everybody with the same brush. People have different reasons for things that they love. But you know, maybe that could be a question that we ask at Living Dead weekend, which is like, what is it about George A Romero films that like makes you love them? Like, if you're gonna get to the core, what is it like? How does it make you feel? Yeah. Why do you keep coming back to it? Maybe we'll get some answers.

SPEAKER_00 49:30

Yeah. Yeah. We we should we should come up with some some questions to ask.

SPEAKER_02 49:34

Yeah, for sure. So, Dan, I have a really important question for you getting back to the film.

SPEAKER_00 49:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:40

Even though we don't have George Romero's script for Resident Evil, and we only have this like verbal depiction of people new about it from this documentary. You've watched the actual Resident Evil and you've heard this one. Which one do you think is the better film? Or could potentially, like if if you could picture them both happening, which is the one that would have satisfied your craving for a zombie movie?

SPEAKER_00 50:02

Well, I think George Romero's would have satisfied my zombie movie craving a lot more. One of the reasons that I don't really go to Resident Evil as my comfort zombie movie is because it doesn't really satisfy my zombie cravings. Resident Evil do too does because it's out in the open world. It's in the city, they're actually surviving a zombie apocalypse. And I think if George Romero made the first movie, it might have been a little bit more like that. Um the same note though, I kind of appreciate that it did take its own route away from the games, because I feel like you can watch uh the Resident Evil movies and play the Resident Evil games and keep them separate. Like, you know, if if you're playing Resident Evil 5, you're not thinking, does this have anything to do with what happened in the third movie? Like you're not thinking that. You're like, no, this is a different universe. These are different people, this is a different zombie apocalypse. The movies, they're off on their own. They stand alone, they're by themselves. Um and I kind of appreciate that, especially since like I don't really love the series. Um so like I can But maybe you would have loved the series if it was done by George A. Romero. That's it's a possibility. Yeah. I don't know. It's really hard to tell. Because we don't have it. It would be weird though, to have two different zombie franchises written and directed by George Romero. Because like when you say, I'm gonna watch a George Romero movie, he made a lot of movies, but we all think the Living Dead series.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:41

But if you had to be like, oh, but which zombie series are you talking about? Resident Evil or The Living Dead, which one would have been more popular? That would have been weird too. Like if you said I like jud uh George Romero, and they're like, Yeah, I love those Resident Evil movies, and they like don't know anything about Knight of the Living Dead, that would be an uncomfortable conversation.

SPEAKER_02 52:02

Yeah, there was I forget who said it, but there was a conversation with George A. Romero when he was writing it where he was like, I'm feeling like this is derivative of my own stuff in a way that makes me uncomfortable for something that actually is not from me.

SPEAKER_01 52:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:15

Um, which is interesting because like on its face, it's an incredible opportunity. But yeah, I don't know. You know what? There's no there's no like should have been, could have been, because it is what it is. It's the most cliche statement, but it's true. How having however, having said that, if the script magically appeared and somebody wanted to make it, I would absolutely watch it.

SPEAKER_00 52:35

Yeah, definitely like it's it's hard to tell just by people's descriptions, and also it was like a really rough draft, so like there wasn't he hadn't really figured out the story.

SPEAKER_02 52:44

Like his apparently there were zombies with sunglasses, and that also upset us upset Eikinger. But like that's the point. Like, there's humor in his movies, too. And also, you're gonna find a zombie with sunglasses, and you know what annoys me? You know, I feel offended on behalf of George A. Romero with all this shit. Did Eikinger not watch his fucking movies before he hired him? I guess not. No, like I don't think George did his homework clearly based on his script. Yeah, and Paul WS Anderson did not, yeah. And you hired the man, he had at that point how many movies out? A fair volume, like enough to know what this man's style is, and that gore is central. Yeah, and then you're mad, and also humor, and then you're mad because those two things show up in your franchise movie. Like, what are you what the fuck? Yeah, I'm mad for George, and I know he's in the grave, but George A. Romero, I'm sorry, you were you were done dirty.

SPEAKER_00 53:36

Yeah, I think they just wanted his name. Yeah, they they knew that he was popular um in the zombie world, and they were like, maybe, maybe he'll write what we want him to write. And you know, George Romero was always an indie, indie guy. Yeah. And writing for a studio, like he was he was feeling boxed in. Like the thing that really blew me away was exactly how much red tape there was just trying to write a script. Yeah. Like half of the documentary was just being like, and then this person said no, and this other person wrote a strongly worded letter that we only have part of because it's ripped in half.

SPEAKER_02 54:16

And like literally Eikinger's response about it not being gore is you just might as well go back and read the quotes from 1968 when Night of the Living Dead came out. Like it's the same bullshit.

SPEAKER_01 54:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:26

So I'm Team Romero, which means I'm Team Romero's version, if it existed. Sadly, it does not.

SPEAKER_00 54:33

Yeah. Um, I I kind of have like a theory. Okay. Because like, you know, he by this time, you know, his at 1998, his last movie was of of the Living Dead tr uh series was Day of the Dead. He was done. He was done with that series. He didn't he had no plans to do anymore. That's a long time. That's like 13 years. 13 years of of being like, no, I'm done with the Living Dead series. I told my story. I did it. My my theory is like he he got hired on to do this, he played the game a little bit, he got excited. Got excited about zombies again. And e they they even said that there was a point where he was like, What, you know, if if uh if they don't like it, maybe I just make this my own movie.

SPEAKER_02 55:26

Might be interesting. I mean, we'll never know, but like I wonder what parts of it maybe showed up, probably a lot of the gore elements might have shown up in unique ways in future films.

SPEAKER_00 55:35

Yeah, and I I my my theory is that like he got he got a taste for it again. He's like, I'm back, baby. And then they ghosted him and gave him a sour taste in his mouth, and he's like, I got fucked. And then uh 2004-2005 roll around, and he's like, I'm doing it, I'm getting back in the saddle, guys. And he's and he made Land of the Dead, he made Diary of the Dead, he made Survival of the Dead, regardless of how you feel about those movies. He made three more zombie movies before he died.

SPEAKER_02 56:05

What year did he die?

SPEAKER_00 56:06

Uh, 2017, I want to say.

SPEAKER_02 56:09

Well, that's so recent. That's less than a decade ago. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:12

They talked about that in in the documentary as well, and the impact that it had on the people who really loved him.

SPEAKER_02 56:19

You know how I know George A. Romero was a good guy? Because his daughter made a rad fucking movie in Queens of the Dead.

SPEAKER_01 56:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:26

One of my favorites song movies I've ever seen. And that might be controversial because it's not gonna be everybody's thing, but like as a queer person, I thought the message was right on and it was truly an homage to his series while also being her own. Yeah. And like the values underneath it I'd like to believe were inspired by her dad. Oh, yeah. And then there was the there was the cameo from Tom Zavini. Like, it was just it's a really special. Yeah. So if you haven't watched Queens of the Dead, and like you're you're like, oh, I wish there was a new Jorge Romero film because all the other shit's bullshit. Go watch Queens of the Dead. It's really, it's really quite lovely. It's worth two watches, I would say. Because Dan watched it high the first time and had no idea what was going on and watched it again, could enjoy it.

SPEAKER_00 57:06

Well, watching it high was a mistake.

SPEAKER_02 57:08

And also, we have an episode on that one. If you're not a queer person, you don't know anything about drag queens, then like some of this might be hard for you to get, and that's okay. Not everything's for everybody. So, what would you rate the documentary out of 10? So 10 Zeds, 10 being the highest we could give. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:24

Um, I I really liked the information that was in the documentary. The documentary itself, I mean, because it was talking about things that happened in a in a time before digital media and like recording everything, it lacked a lot of video. So like a lot of times you were just like looking at Talking Heads. Yeah, you're just kind of like, I remember there was one part that they were just like looking at an old timey radio for like 25 minutes while somebody narrated. Um so I'd I'd say I'd give it like a six because I I feel like it really lacked a lot of visual, like behind the scenes um video. Like may like I don't think that they had really almost anything from Paul W. S. Anderson's behind the scenes.

Scoring The Doc And Reading Reviews

SPEAKER_00 58:10

Probably couldn't get it. Um yeah, it it lacked a lot of visual stimulus. Um, and that's okay, but I think it does affect my opinion of it. But as a listening experience, like eight out of ten. That's pretty solid.

SPEAKER_02 58:26

Uh IMDB gave it a six out of ten. I think I would also give it an eight. I think it's an eight for someone who loves George A. Romero.

SPEAKER_00 58:33

Yeah. Oh, that's why I love it. Right? Like if somebody I wanted to know all of this stuff. I wanted to learn.

SPEAKER_02 58:38

I wonder if we can see any uh reviews on IMDb. Hold on. I agree with that, yeah. Okay, here's some fun reviews. I gotta sign in to read a review. Fuck these people. Yeah, fuck them. Uh I'll just read you this whole. This person says eight out of ten. Romero dash, not a biohazard story. No pun intended. Anyone who is lucky enough to have met the man can and will tell you, like me, that he was the human sweetest human being out there. So I guess this person met them.

SPEAKER_00 59:06

Um, I found some reviews. All right, let's hear them. Um this is a two-star review from Ricardo D. Um documentario intersexante mastive que asetir m three semanas pues ecuado e evas do narado me davum um delicioso. What language is that? I assume Spanish. Um did you translate it at least? No. Uh I'm gonna read this one from Greg D, which is in English.

SPEAKER_02 59:42

Okay, thank you. I am unfortunately a unilingual person. I only know one language. I probably didn't pronounce any of that right. Yeah, so sorry for whoever is listening and actually knows that language.

SPEAKER_00 59:53

Let us know how I did. Uh terribly. Greg D gave it one and a half stars. He says, Um, I am a mark for all things Resident Evil. Having played all the mainline games multiple times, watched all the films, animated and live action. I didn't know they had animated. Oh, yeah, that's right. It's CG animation. Um, and read several of the S. D. Perry novels.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:17

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:18

Wow, this person's really in deep on the Resident Evil. And yet I can't recommend this documentary to even die hard fans. I found it to be an overly long, boring slog of a documentary that seemed to have not much at all to do with Joro J. Romero's unmade Resident Evil film. They patted the documentary with some history of the first two games, which was fine in the context of the narrative, but then was spent uh but then spent what seemed to me equal measures talking about the Paul W. S. Anderson films as they did the Unmade Romero film. I'm gonna I'm gonna I mean, obviously, buddy, it's called George A.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:58

Romero's Resident Evil.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:59

You just described how movies are made. I like what he says isn't true that it it does describe those things, and that's that's that's what made it a good documentary. You have to you have to set the scene. You can't just be like, so everybody's read every book and seen every movie and played every game. Now let's just talk about this script.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:22

And uh yeah. So my now I have a hypothesis. People who love Resident Evil don't love this movie. Yeah, and that's why it has low reviews, and people who love George A. Romero love this movie. I mean, that tracks. But you know what? Resident Evil fans, I know I mean I feel like I'm not talking to people who love Resident Evil more than George A. Romero films on this podcast, but maybe, maybe I am. Well, here's a three star.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:48

Here's a three-star from Bradster69. What a number choice. Um, very short and to the point. He says, uh, an informative but imperfect documentary. This documentary will likely appeal to diehard Romero fans. Yes, and we anyone else can safely take a pass.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:06

I mean, it's it's so clearly a documentary about George A. Romero. It's the t it's the first words.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:12

Yeah. The title is George A. Romero's Resident Evil, a documentary.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:20

Yeah. And honestly, like it's not just, I mean, it's primarily about Resident Evil, but it's also about who he was as a person and the story of his work and like why it was meaningful and why it was so shattering for the the film industry. Like Resident Evil, that was kind of like the hook and certainly the main tofu of the of the movie, but it certain it wasn't like its entire purpose.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:41

Yeah. I mean, that's that's what I liked about it. I liked learning about George Romero.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:47

And I mean, really, the only time where it kind of lost me is when they got into deeply into the weeds of describing all of the things that George's script would have had. Oh, that's interesting. That was when I was most interested. Like I liked it for a little while, but it seemed to go on for a long time. And also I was staring at like a uh a video of an old timey radio for a really long time.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:10

You know what though? Maybe because I've never seen the games, so I was processed. A lot of it was like, I'm like, sharks, spiders.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:18

I mean, I liked when they were showing the video game footage. There was a lot of footage from the video games.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:23

I really enjoyed the description. That's why I'm like, I think I want to see that film. It sounded great to me. So just again, more evidence that we are all unique in the way we experience things. Yeah. I you know, one of my favorite moments, honestly, was listening to George Demick's story about how when he met him when he was a kid. He basically cornered him at a hotel or something like that. Sounds inappropriate. It was like a hallway and started asking a million questions of the movie. And then George A. Romero offered to be his letter writing buddy, and they wrote letters back and forth. That's so sweet.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:53

Yeah. Also, a great way to get people off your back when they corner you is just be like, write me a letter. Well, you know, you don't have to do that though.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:02

No, you don't. He could have just been like, fuck off, kid. I got I'm an important person. Get out of my way.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:07

He George Demek made his own films and like as recently as last summer. Yeah. Um, worked on something, which I probably um Alice was in. Yes, and I know nothing else, and I don't know if we're allowed to talk about it. Yeah. So we're gonna just be vague and move on.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:21

Yeah. Uh George, you're cool. Yeah. Um, but yeah, like I I I think it's a super diplomatic way to deal with a 14-year-old who has a million questions is be like, I'll be your pen pal.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:35

But then he actually did it.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:36

He actually did it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:37

And he was a mentor to Demek. And like that, that fundamentally, I'm certain changed that man's life and trajectory.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:45

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:46

That that's really even says so in the documentary. Yeah, like it's so that is like the stuff that you know, somebody who loves Resident Evil and doesn't know much about George Romero is probably not gonna like care about. Um, so you know, but I gotta say it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna hot take it right now. It's my hot subway take for anybody who watches those reels. Resident Evil series is maybe just okay. George Romero's films, at least the first three, I can't speak for Day or not Day the Dead, I can't speak for Land of the Dead as much, although still decent, just not as good as the first three, in my opinion, is like iconic. And the only other iconic franchise that I think deserves the same level of credibility as Jorge Romero is the 28 Days Later franchise. Yes. And Resident Evil, like, I know it's beloved by many people. That's awesome that you enjoy it. I do not think it is the same quality, nor is it really a zombie film in the way that Jorge Romero's is and 28 Days Later franchise is. Fight me. What do you think, Dan?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:47

No, I agree. I think that the at as at least the the first um Resident Evil movie is just an action movie with zombies in it. Um, there's not really a whole lot of deeper meaning behind it. Which is what we love about George Romero's movies, is that you know, you you go into this being like, ah, it'll be a fun zombie massacre movie. It's gonna be blood and guts and gore, and then you end up learning something about racism. You know, there's there's a there's a human story there that you weren't expecting. I mean, we do now because we know George, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:24

Uh sorry, I got distracted, my brain went away. What did you just say?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:28

I don't know. Uh Leah, yes, we're going to Living Dead weekend.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:32

We are.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:33

You might have mentioned that.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:34

Yeah.

Living Dead Weekend Plans And Book Haul

SPEAKER_02 1:06:35

Um and when you're listening to this, if it's Thursday, Friday, or Saturday, we're already there.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:40

Yeah, we're already there. Or we already came back from it. It depends. Time is a weird thing. Well, no, we wouldn't. I guess that's true because people can listen to it after it's the week that it's aired. And they will. I'm sure they will. That's true. Um we're doing something a little bit different than what we did last year. Last year we we bit off a lot last year. It was not only the first time we'd ever been to a convention. Vending. The first time that we have ever been to Living Dead weekend, but we were like, let's get a table and vend. Vend what? We don't know. So, like, we had we had our podcast set up there, like to interview people, which was cool, but I don't think that we have the energy for it. This year. This year. We didn't have it last year. We didn't have the energy for that. We were dead. We're we were zombies.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:29

Well, it was a different time. I hadn't been through my unemployment trauma.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:34

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:35

Um, I was I was in a job I'd been in for many years, so it wasn't like the growth learning curve that I had. So I had the energy to be like, let's do this insane thing. And I'm the one who organized it. I want to point out, I organized, we did like a whole author crawl because there were five of us that knew each other. None of us had met each other.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:54

Um, and so we had a crawl where people could come to each of our tables and they would get a little star on their card, and then they were entered into a raffle. We're not doing that this year. First of all, because it's just us, Alice B. Sullivan and Brandon Staraki. Go check out Alice's table and Brandon Staraki's table if you haven't, um, both amazing zombie creators. And there was Joe Salazar, who has a book that is coming back out as a fully published book. Go pre-order it if we survive the night. There was Courtney Constantine with her book series, the Sundown series, which is like a seven-book series, if you really listen like that. I still need to read the Sundown series. And then she has a uh she's about to come out with book three of the babysitters of the apocalypse, which is like my personal favorite. So like there were people that we got to meet up with for the first time and like co-vended together, and that made it really fun. This year there'll be three of us, and I don't have the energy to like organize uh something like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:50

Also, it was kind of odd because like we we went in, we went in last year with this author crawl because we're like, we're gonna send people to our friends. Um, and then we we met so many other authors. Yeah, and people were like going around to those authors being like, Are you on this crawl? I'm on my stick.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:07

So that's another reason because I was like, I like who knows who'll be there. Who knows what other awesome zombie authors were? We met a lot of zombie authors there that were new to us.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:16

We we met uh Joseph Pescevento, yeah, who we just had on the show a few weeks ago, and um the the the person who gave you a hoodie.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:24

Oh, the wither novel series. Yes, Carl and it's co-written by two friends.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:31

And I met Carl, and now I'm forgetting the other person's name, so I'm so sorry, but it's the Wither novel series, you should check it out.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:37

You wear that hoodie like all the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:38

I love that hoodie. It's literally the back of it is the American flag, but in bones, which like resonates with my feeling about the current state of this country. Uh definitely we're an undead country.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:51

Yeah. I think um, I think we will like send people to other authors this year. Yeah. Um, but like it's gonna be more free form. Like if somebody comes up and they're like, Yeah, I love reading zombie books, we're gonna be like, Oh, you need to check out this person across the way.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:06

Yeah, and we're hoping that we're all in the same area this year would be really great. That would be great. But in case we're not, and you're listening and you found us at Living Dead Weekend, you should go check out Alice B. Sullivan's booth. I don't know where she is because it's the future when I'm saying this. I'm not there yet. But she has a a variety of series that she'll be selling, and she actually wrote and published two books this year, which is like a feat that I can't even imagine.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:33

I think it's three.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:34

Oh, right. Well, I wasn't counting the Choose Your Own Adventure series. You're right. She's published three books this year.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:41

So she has a number of like series if you want to dig into. The Aftermath series is her primary series, but it has a duology companion called Destination. So now that is a complete series now, or you can read both the Destination series books. Um, and I love the tagline for it. In this daring thriller, the will to survive is pushed to its limits because the end of the world doesn't mean there's nothing left to live for. Also, if you love uh sapphic romance, it's like the slowest, most painful burn you'll read.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:11

Boy, do I.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:12

But it is so good, the emotional development that happens. Uh, and then she's got now three books out for her primary aftermath series, Book Zero, The Collapse, Book Two, Yesterday's Gone, and or sorry, book one, Yesterday's gone, and book two, tomorrow never came, just came out. And it's a heart-shattering tale of the battle between who someone is and who they're forced to become in order to survive. Really excellent. Go check her out. You can also go find Brandon Staraki, the creator of an excellent comic series called Avalon. It's like a family drama in set in the zombie apocalypse with really gorgeous art and gore. Uh, there's six issues of that, so you can binge it. Highly recommend. He's somewhere in the halls too. I don't know where he is.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:54

I hope he's with us. Go find him. Unlike last year, where they put him off by himself. Yeah, that was sad. Yeah, he was he was buried between some giant penis plushies, and uh I don't know what was on the other side. Last year. He was hard to find though.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:08

Last year we got a picture of the three of us together and we're all holding hands. Yeah. And I'm wearing my zombie crown. This year, my vision is that Brandon's in the middle and we're each kissing him on the cheek. That's what I want.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:20

Okay. We're gonna make this happen.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:23

And maybe Alice is there. It's all platonic, to be clear. Brandon is married. And so are Dan and I, and Alice is doing her own thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:31

Alice is doing her own thing. Yeah. Um we're also gonna be bringing some books with us.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:37

Yeah, I'm really excited about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:38

Not not my book, because that's not finished yet. But uh some some of our zombesties uh sent us some of their books so that we could sell them for them. Um so this is kind of a uh a new idea of ours to be like, hey, why don't we just sell somebody else's books and see what happens?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:58

Yeah, because we only asked authors that we like, first of all, have a very close relationship with, and second of all, love their books. And it's one of my favorite things is to talk up these books, and like what better place to do that than where somebody loves books, like maybe they may not all love books, but they'll at least love zombies. And they also couldn't make the trip.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:17

They wanted to, but they can't.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:19

Yeah, not everybody can sacrifice a whole weekend and travel across the country to go to Living Dead weekend because they have kids or they're really far away. Like we can drive there in a day from where we are. So we're gonna have Sylvester Barzi, a couple of books from him, uh, some of the most intense gore I've ever read, and uh primarily black women protagonists as final girls, and like really speaking of like somebody who who gets to the heart of George Romero's work, all of his stories also have like really powerful social critique. Yeah. As much as they are like a fantastic, can't stop reading it zombie story.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:54

Uh also we're gonna have uh um Waves of the Undead by Rebecca Cuthbertson, um, which is a zombie tsunami.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:03

I mean, it's not a tsunami of zombies, but it's not, but it is a terrifying world in which a tsunami outbreak happens at the same time a zombie outbreak happens.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:12

Uh it's a tale about siblings, it's a tale about surfing, but it is fundamentally a tale that will rip your fucking heart out and have you rooting for and hating some of the characters as you read it. I'm not gonna spoil it for you, but I'll just say that there is a twist in there that I did not see coming, and I it lives rent-free in my head forever.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:32

Uh a very devastating twist. Very, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:37

Um brilliantly done.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:38

Is kind of a defining moment of the story.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:42

Uh we're also gonna have some books from via uh Dia Van Gunten, um, who wrote Pink Zombie Rose, which is a graphic novel, gorgeously um illustrated, I might say. By Beppy. By Beast. Um where the zombie the in this one, the zombies are people with Cotard's delusion. Which basically means they think they're dead. They think they're dead. Um, I've met people like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:08

It's really like one of it completely changed my idea of what's possible in the zombie genre. It's beautifully illustrated, and uh the episode where we have Dia on, I would recommend go listening to because she reads part of her books or reads part of a story, and it is so beautiful. Like reading it out loud is an experience. So I'm excited for people to see that. And then we also have Lori Calcatera, one of our most common guests on the show, blessed us with some Path of the Pale Rider trade paperbacks for issue one to four of her comic series.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:40

Also, we got an episode coming out next week. Next week.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:43

So Sunday of Living Dead weekend will be Lori's episode. Lori. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:46

And it's great.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:47

I've already great with Lori. It's already done. Yeah. You can't go wrong. This person is a genius, possibly a prophet. Oh, yes. The yeah, the parallels between Path of the Pale Rider that she wrote in 2018 and what has happened since it came out. And the timing in which she releases issues and then what's happening when this has been written for a long time is really creepy.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:12

But more important than that, it's a super fun western zombie story. I mean, I wouldn't call it a classic zombie. They're undead. Death is broken. So essentially the story is about the quest to figure out why death is broken and to save some people who were taken away to the undead retirement homes, which aren't as nice as that might sound.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:32

Yeah. Also, in the episode, um, Lori gives us some uh some prophetic wisdom about what might happen in 2029.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:40

Yeah, very scary.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:41

Yeah. So um start building your rocket ships, people.

unknown 1:16:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:45

And that tree paperback is for issues one to four. And I think she said in July, issues five through eight will be coming out. So very quickly, you could binge her entire comic series. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:57

And also, and I recommend that you do.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:59

Yeah. It's the it is the comic series Path of Pale Rider and Avalon are the two comic series that made me like comics.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:07

Yeah. So really excited that we get to rep them and just talk about how wonderful they are. That's gonna be fun. And also to like figure out what kind of story the person we're talking to loves. Because we really like nobody's to be really blunt, nobody's gonna make a ton of cash on this. We're not. It might help cover some of our like table fee. It's not gonna make a lot of money for the authors because we only got a few books from each of them because we don't know how much we'll be able to sell.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:31

But the opportunity to connect and like talk to people about these people, the these authors and the stories that we love is gonna bring so much joy to me, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:39

Also, I get to pretend like I have a bookstore for a day.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:44

Or two days rather.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:45

Um and if you're listening to this in the future, that's Long Past Living Dead weekend, there will be uh links to each of these authors in the show notes.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:52

Yeah. Um yeah, I'm I'm excited. Um, I don't have the same amount of uh nervous anticipation that I did last year, because last year I went perfectly fine. I didn't have any problems. Um, I do have social anxiety, so I was worried last year, but this year I'm like, nope, we're gonna go see our friends.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:12

So you're not worried about getting uh some CBD in advance? I mean it's probably gonna. Yeah, Dan has some some historical trauma around large spaces and crowds. That's very fair as an army veteran.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:25

Yeah, uh identifying the safe spots and the exits. That was key. I went to the back room, I found my my uh my safe space, um, and I figured I found out where all the doors were, and uh that was that was key.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:38

I just had a flashback on walking to the back room, to the bathroom, and there was a man in the dark with his dick out.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:45

That's where my safe space was.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:47

That's hilarious. I was visually accosted. Why are you why are you peeing in the dark with the door open? Why? That's the true that's a true horror story. Well, uh, hope we get to see it Living Dead Weekend. And if we don't, we still love you. Maybe one day we'll get to meet up in some other kind of function or possibility. You never know.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:08

Yeah, I really hope that there's something that takes the place of Living Dead Weekend when it's no longer available.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:16

I'm sure maybe there'll be a different version because they used to have an event where the night of the Living Dead farm is.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:22

Yeah. Um, there is something about like the owner of that farm doesn't like the people.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:27

It's a lot of people coming to a farm. They're like, no, fuck off.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:31

This is a farm. It's not your movie place. Yeah. It's not your movie fun time house.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:37

I'm gonna put it out there in case anybody hears it. I think they should do it in the Bushwick warehouse where Queens of the Dead was filmed.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:44

Yeah, there we go.

Farewell And Final Reminders

SPEAKER_00 1:19:45

Um, ooh, or the underground bunker from uh Day of the Dead.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:49

Where is that though?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:50

I think I think we looked it up at some point. I think it is actually in Pennsylvania somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:54

Yeah, they claim it's in Florida in the movie, which that was my one moment where I'm like, my belief is not suspended. There's there's no bunkers that far down. Florida's basically gonna be taken over by the ocean. I don't believe this.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:05

Oh, but Leah, it's it's the government. The government doesn't care about the ocean. The government just puts a bunker wherever it needs to. I guess that's true. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:15

Well, for now, I think it's time to say the end is nigh. Bye bye bye. Bye bye bye, everybody. Bye bye. Don't forget to subscribe and give us five stars.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:24

Don't die.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:25

Don't die. Yeah, bye bye. Bye bye.