CINEMISSES! 28 Days Later

Join Matt and Tug for our latest episode (unfortunately our 29th vs our 28th – it was laying right there for us), as we explore the cult zombie classic 28 Days Later. We will delve into its impact on zombie content in early 2000s popular culture, as well as the film's themes, cast, and the creative minds behind this groundbreaking horror flick. A lot of shit comes up in this one – survival, levity vs horror, character arcs, how human nature sort of straight sucks. The film also possesses surprising philosophical underpinnings that the hosts really loved. Finally, Matt and Tug both agree that should the Earth plunge into any sort of apocalypse, they would both be dead within moments. #nodiscernibleskills

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Transcript

Tug McTighe (00:01)
you're listening to cinema misses a podcast about movies at one or the other of your two hosts just never got around to seeing I'm tug.

Matt Loehrer (00:08)
I'm Matt reminding you that anyone can make a podcast about movies they have seen. We're doing this because we haven't. Thanks for joining us on Cinemassage and action.

Tug McTighe (00:18)
Hey, this is episode 29.

Matt Loehrer (00:22)
It is, I know, I wish we'd done this for episode 28. It wasn't, I don't know.

Tug McTighe (00:25)
Right, me too. How do we screw that up?

Matt Loehrer (00:28)
So zombies seem to be everywhere.

Tug McTighe (00:30)
There's been a large resurgence over the past 20 years. It may be this, this movie we're gonna talk about, yeah.

Matt Loehrer (00:31)
But it wasn't always that way. Right. I think largely we're going to talk largely due to this to the movie we're going to talk about.

But what was your introduction to zombies.

Tug McTighe (00:46)
I think like the rest of us, was one of the, of the dead. See, you know, because they've been day of the dead, believe was that was the day that at or dawn of the dead, George Romero.

Matt Loehrer (00:57)
The first one I saw was Night of the Living Dead.

Tug McTighe (01:00)
Sorry, yes night of the living dead. So yeah night of living dead. Yeah, like 1969 or something like that like early and then then there were multiple sequels Then it would go dark for a while then in the 80s I remember dawn of the dead day of the dead night of the dead Then then Sam Raimi right got into it with Evil Dead that series which isn't really a zombie series But it has that it has that

Matt Loehrer (01:02)
And that was old school, but classic.

Ahem.

Tug McTighe (01:29)
⁓

It's tangentially connected, I'd say, to this genre.

Matt Loehrer (01:32)
I'd say

yeah too there were a lot of sci-fi movies that had elements of that if you if you remember. Sure or. Invasion of the body snatchers is a good one. We'll talk about day of the triphids which I'd like to talk some more about that because that was a huge influence on this movie.

Tug McTighe (01:38)
und undead characters

Yep. Yep. This

on this movie and

what you get is you get this.

I'm being chased by these insatiably hungry creatures that have they've been themselves killed and have risen from the dead and they want to eat brains or kill me or just want to destroy. Again, sometimes there's a hive mind. Sometimes they're kind of like a vampire, like in I am legend. They were kind of like a cross between vampires and zombies.

So so this is I would say fertile fertile fertile ground for decades But just like the popularity of pro wrestling it waxes and wanes it's popular for a while and then it just goes away Until to your point I think Danny Boyle and Alex Garland here like we got an idea. This hasn't been a thing for a while So we may have given up the ghost here Matt with some of our chatting, but it's never supposed to be a surprise

Matt Loehrer (02:43)
Yeah, it just... ⁓

Tug McTighe (02:49)
The movie we're going to talk about today is 28 Days Later, which inexplicably I had never seen.

Matt Loehrer (02:56)
Okay, so as usual, we asked the person who hadn't seen it, which in this case was both of us, but we'll start with you. What did you think you knew about this movie?

Tug McTighe (03:04)
Yet turns out almost nothing which turned into almost everything So I knew it was a zombie movie I knew it most likely I'm not an movie naming expert But I thought it might take place 28 days after the initial outbreak I also knew that Killian Murphy was in it Oppenheimer Peaky Blinders and of course, dr. Jonathan crane aka the scarecrow from the

the Nolan Batman's He was in it and really met after that zero idea of what else at well actually hold on I knew it was British. I Remember seeing the trailer so I knew There's likely gonna be a lot of we've had a couple British directors here so you you you you and I both are Anglophiles and we're like, I bet this is gonna have a whole host of Jim Broadbent's and Anybody that's been in a Harry Potter movie is probably gonna be in this

But I knew it took place in the UK. yeah, zombies, killing Murphy, and lionies.

Matt Loehrer (04:00)
Okay, let's see how you did the logline. Four weeks after a mysterious incurable virus spread through the United Kingdom, a handful of survivors try to find sanctuary.

Tug McTighe (04:08)
Well, you tell me how I did, professor.

Matt Loehrer (04:11)
You, I think you nailed it. ⁓ it's. ⁓ Right. And you mentioned British. It's very British. from the beginning, see Killy and Murphy stumbling around London after waking up from a coma or whatever he was in. he comes across souvenir beer, big bands. Right. There's like British pounds and you know, the Euro wasn't, I think invented yet. So there's British money everywhere. ⁓

Tug McTighe (04:13)
crushed it right on the right on the nail right on the head.

You boy yeah

Just, just pour it out of a cart. Yeah.

money for your ⁓ nickel

for a shine, Governor.

Matt Loehrer (04:39)
Right. There's a nice

there's a big Ferris wheel in the background. So no question. This is set in London. Again, I hadn't seen it and I knew as little about it as you did, which turned out to be a fair amount. My.

Tug McTighe (04:42)
Yeah, the eye of the, yeah.

Just enough

to wet our appetites.

Matt Loehrer (04:52)
Right, my awareness

of the passage of time I'm realizing with the last couple of movies is just very poor. So I could not have guessed this was 2002.

Tug McTighe (04:59)
Okay, so this is

No, so listen I am fascinated by this Just like our parents told us. Oh You think it's fast now buddy? Just wait because it just keeps careening downhill the speed of your life And if you'd have told me this movie is 24 years ago. I had told you you were crazy You know when that come out you're like when that come out like five years ago

Matt Loehrer (05:20)
Right? ⁓ yeah.

Yeah, 2015 maybe. Yeah. Good God. It's like my dad says, it's like your life's like the toilet paper. It runs out faster at the end, I guess. But this was 2002 Walking Dead, the comic, the Kirk Kirkman comic came out in 2003 and the shows were years after that Marvel zombies. Comic came out 2005 World War Z with Brad Pitt. That was 2013. So.

Tug McTighe (05:26)
25 years ago asshole God into something

There you go. We're all there you go.

Matt Loehrer (05:54)
This movie really did a lot to reinvigorate that idea of zombies in the culture.

Tug McTighe (06:00)
Okay, so again, I like that little rundown, Matt, because I'm also interested in when Nirvana broke, and I'll get, there's gonna be a point at the end of this, I promise. It may not be a good one, but it'll be one. When Nirvana broke and changed the the music world at that moment, remember in like two minutes, it's Bush, Stone Temple Pilots, like,

Pearl Jam, There's always something bubbling under the creative surface. I believe to where like It's happening we don't see it happening but clearly in this moment in time there was as they might say in the the TV show on Apple the studio which you should all should all watch with Seth Rogen if you haven't it's great if you like the making of movies and movie business, it's really fun, but at that moment

in the early aughts, Matt, there must have been some, hey, there's a lot of heat around zombies. There's a lot of heat, cause they all know what's happening. Boyle's making this movie, this comic's coming out soon, right? So there's just a little bit of a, like a snowball rolling downhill.

Matt Loehrer (07:06)
Yeah, cultural zeitgeist. would say too, regarding the studio, I'm not a big Seth Rogen fan and I really did enjoy that show quite a bit. even if you don't like Seth Rogen.

Tug McTighe (07:14)
Yeah, very funny. Martin

Scorsese crying in the first episode made me so happy. ⁓

Matt Loehrer (07:19)
Right.

So, Tug, what's this movie about?

Tug McTighe (07:24)
Okay, 28 days later, sometimes stylized with an ellipsis as 28 days later, dot, dot, dot. I myself as a copywriter do not like the dot, dot, dot, but we'll let it play here. Again, 2002 British post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Danny Boyle, we'll talk a little bit about, written by Alex Carlin, who we'll talk a little bit about, starts Killian Murphy as a bicycle courier who awakens from a coma to discover that the accidental release of a highly contagious aggression-inducing virus

has caused the total breakdown of society. There are lots of great supporting actors who we'll talk about in a little bit. And to your point earlier, Garland took inspiration, of course, from George Romero's Night of Living Dead film series. And John Wyndham is an author. He wrote a 1951 novel called Day of the Triffids. And to your earlier point, it took place in and around London.

in the UK in 2001. I'm always blown away by this when movies have to do this, because I know how hard it is to make a commercial in a day. They film for brief periods in early mornings and on temporary closed streets in London so it would be empty. But you could still see that it was London. So all those big bends falling. They're walking on the bridge. The Thames is right there.

Ferris wheel's right there. They're walking past, you see Big Ben in the background, but nobody's around. So I don't know what time they shot it or how they colorized the film, but it looks awesome and bleak and desolate and like everybody's dad.

Matt Loehrer (08:59)
It was really early and to their credit. this, you know, credit them for being on task and doing exactly what they had to do with a very limited amount of time and resources. They were getting like a scene or they were getting like two minutes of B roll for this.

Tug McTighe (09:12)
You're getting what? Yeah,

you're only getting a couple things because it's London, man. It's a giant city.

Matt Loehrer (09:17)
It is and they've got you know their friends like we're to film on this corner so I've got my friends here to just hold people back and say give us a couple minutes so.

Tug McTighe (09:24)
Just give us a sec, yeah.

I also want to mention that there was an original score by a guy named John Murphy, but there were a bunch of instrumental songs by Brian Eno, who's a famous producer, in my mind, most notably with U2, but a giant in music and producing in his own right. And Godspeed, you black emperor and other artists. So there was an interesting music.

bed to this as well.

Matt Loehrer (09:53)
And you mentioned Day of the Triffids, which I have not seen. But having done a little quick deep dive on Wikipedia, it's a lot like this movie. I mean, he didn't just take a little inspiration from it. So yeah, just definitely interesting take. So I would say, you know, head over to Wikipedia and after you watch this movie and see what you think.

Tug McTighe (10:11)
Cool. All right, Matt, how did it do?

Matt Loehrer (10:13)
It did great. 87 % on tomato meter, 85 % on the popcorn meter. It was released in 2002, November 1st by Fox Searchlight Pictures and it grossed $82.8 million on an $8 million budget. That's amazing.

Tug McTighe (10:15)
Yeah.

And it's hard for us to remember in in in today's world where You know, they called solo a flop at 600 million and They're like well, we've got to make it. It's got to make back at least a billion or we won't make so this was 2002 money where a hundred million a hundred fifty million was big box office and when you you sub ten

million dollar budget and you're making 82, this did really, really well.

Matt Loehrer (11:04)
and spawn three sequels.

Tug McTighe (11:06)
Yeah, it's now its own IP. In fact, it's launched its own film series featuring three further installments, 28 weeks later, 28 years later, and then 28 years later, The Bone Temple, which I've seen some clips looks really cool and creepy with Ray Fiennes. And then there's a graphic novel from 2007 called The Aftermath. There's a comic book series that ran from 2009 to 2011. And if I'm not mistaken, when I was doing my

You know research such as it is I I noticed that there's maybe a new another trilogy being planned So yeah, so again, sorry fuck you Hollywood Let filmmakers make interesting new stuff eg this eg sinners and it may if it's good enough and if you let them

Matt Loehrer (11:43)
wow, I didn't know that.

Tug McTighe (11:59)
You know Achieve their creative vision you might turn it into a fucking franchise instead of recycling some old bullshit off the soapbox

Matt Loehrer (12:07)
absolutely. And not even confining it to zombie movies or that sub genre. I horror films in general. I mean, you had a huge explosion of horror films in the last 20 years, and this might have helped pave the way for that.

Tug McTighe (12:13)
No. Yeah.

100 % great great point Matt

Matt Loehrer (12:24)
Thanks,

Early influences on Alex Garland, you'll remember him from Dread, by the way, one of my favorites, included, as we mentioned, of the Living Dead by George Romero and Dawn of the Dead, that was 68 and 78. So there was a 10 year gap between those movies for George Romero. He claimed to have largely forgotten about it, the genre of zombies in general, until he played the game Resident Evil, which reminded him how much he loved them.

Tug McTighe (12:30)
You will remember him from dread.

Yeah, P.S.

We should in this discussion, we should not leave Resident Evil out of this because that video game was gigantically popular. And as you saw, as you just said, 1996 and Resident Evil has spawned dozens of sequels and further installments in both the video game world and in the movie world. Right. Mila Jovovich has been probably in fucking 10 Resident Evil movies. So that's.

Matt Loehrer (13:18)
Yeah. ⁓

Tug McTighe (13:19)
The Umbrella

Corp, you don't wanna work for them.

Matt Loehrer (13:21)
Yeah, worse noting to that inspiration can come from anywhere. It's not just other movies. It's not just books. It's video games. It's cartoons. It's conversations you have with somebody.

Tug McTighe (13:31)
That's right. That's right. That's right.

Matt Loehrer (13:34)
So the director, Danny Boyle, liked Garland's screenplay for a proposed zombie film. They had worked together on the 2000 film adaptation of Garland's novel, The Beach. So they were, he was glad to get back with him again.

Tug McTighe (13:47)
Well, I'm a giant Danny Boyle fan. I saw his movie Shallow Grave way back in 1994 and loved it. And then I saw Trainspotting, and then I saw Slumdog Millionaire, and then I saw 127 Hours, which is where James Franco plays that hiker who falls in the crevasse and has to his own arm off, the real guy. He also directed Steve Jobs in 2015, and then 28 years later is another

Matt Loehrer (14:06)
my god.

Tug McTighe (14:15)
One of his films so he got back into this but listen Danny Boyle Ah shit. I just realized he also directed yesterday which is the movie where the guy gets hit by the bus and wakes up to a world where the Beatles don't exist He's the only one who remembers the Beatles and he becomes a gigantic world music star by just playing Beatles songs Let's put it on the list. I'd love to cover it here

Matt Loehrer (14:26)
OK.

I did not see that was a good.

Tug McTighe (14:40)
It's great. ⁓ But yeah, so Danny Boyle is a very distinct, and you know it's funny, I promise our listeners, our dozens of listeners, that we don't plan this by director, but we seem to gravitate towards these directors with unique seminal styles like Edgar Wright, like Nolan, like Danny Boyle here. So very interesting character. You know who else is interesting is Alex Garland.

Matt Loehrer (14:40)
Okay.

Tug McTighe (15:07)
is another interesting writer.

Matt Loehrer (15:07)
absolutely.

Yes, he was English also English author filmmaker. He rose to prominence with his novel The Beach which we mentioned He received praise for this movie and he also wrote the sequel 28 years later and Sunshine as well as never let me go and dread which we mentioned He made his directorial debut with the sci-fi thriller ex machina well, which was I haven't either

Tug McTighe (15:30)
I never saw it.

People like it.

Matt Loehrer (15:33)
People like it. And he got an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and three independent film awards, British independent film awards. He did the film Annihilation in 2018. That was a critical success.

Tug McTighe (15:52)
⁓ Okay, ⁓

a lot of people really like annihilation. That might need to get added to the list.

Matt Loehrer (15:59)
Yeah, that's some people didn't some people didn't but I think that's worth checking out. ⁓

Tug McTighe (16:02)
Yeah, which is, and by the

way, that's my favorite kind of review for a movie worth checking out. Some people really liked it, some people didn't like it. So let's see what's about.

Matt Loehrer (16:07)
For sure. Right.

Let's do that. And he wrote and directed and executive produced devs on FX, which was really interesting. Yeah. So very cool. But anyway, that's Alex Garland.

Tug McTighe (16:15)
⁓ I didn't know that, okay. Yeah, you like that.

All right, so the critics liked it Matt Largely positive we talked about rotten tomatoes 87 I Love this little phrase they gave this little quote kinetically directed by Danny Boyle 28 years later is both a terrifying zombie movie and a sharp political allegory and again Metacritic which Metacritic just takes

All these reviews now rates and 73 out of 100 based on 39 reviews generally favorable and they the favorable spelled with the you because it's ⁓ And now why don't you talk about? Your favorite thing which is some fucking random website or magazine making a list of a hundred movies and where it ranks

Matt Loehrer (16:47)
Of course.

It actually made the list on Bravo's 100 scariest movie moments. It was number 100, but it doesn't. I don't know which exactly which moment it was. It is hard to know. Yeah, it it ended up on a lot of things. The New York Times put it at a number 156 on their 100 best movies.

Tug McTighe (17:06)
Coming right in at 100.

It's hard to know, but it was one of them.

This is you now becoming this can become a feature of our podcast when the rank is The top 10 movies of the year. This was 17 All right. I'm not an expert in math. I promise you but that may be you're not doing it,

Matt Loehrer (17:35)
Right.

I'm not going to go through this whole list. People liked it. They thought it was pretty great.

Tug McTighe (17:47)
No, it was very well

So speaking of doing something half-assed by you just ignoring your job, which is to go through those awards, I want to talk about where Matt doesn't go half-assed, and that's with Little Bear Graphics. And 28 days later, the real danger isn't just the infected or the idiotic animal rights activists that unleashed the rage infection on the UK. It's being unprepared.

The same goes for your business. If your brand looks like it was strung together in the middle of an outbreak, people notice and you end up getting your face eaten off by really fast zombies. But not if you work with Little Bear Graphics. They create everything from killer logos to scroll stopping social content to brand and merch that people actually want to wear. Think of them as your zombie outbreak survival kit, you know, for marketing. Look, when things get competitive, chaotic, or just plain brutal, the brands that plan ahead are the ones that make it out alive. Check out Little Bear's work at littlebear.graphics today.

Matt Loehrer (18:44)
Very nice, I love that. You know what else I loved? The cast on this movie.

Tug McTighe (18:47)
Talk about it, buddy. Preach.

Matt Loehrer (18:49)
So on the DVD commentary, Danny Boyle explains that to preserve the suspension of disbelief, he decided to avoid popular, well-known actors and went with relative unknowns. Killian Murphy had starred in some small independent films. Naomi Harris had been on British TV as a child. And Megan Burns had won previous film credits, so none of these people were really well-known. And it was a pretty tight cast anyway.

Tug McTighe (19:15)
There yeah, it's a little bit again like a like a play there's only probably 15 or 20 people in it

Matt Loehrer (19:21)
Right, Christopher Eccleston. I don't know if you know this, but I'm a big or was for a long time a big Doctor Who fan.

Tug McTighe (19:29)
I, okay, then I do know this and we have talked about this over beers, but I need to, I'm glad it's coming up today. I want to be a Doctor Who fan, but it is so overwhelming. I don't know where to start. Cause there's so many Doctor Who's.

Matt Loehrer (19:41)
Well, I can tell you

it start with season nine with Christopher Eccleston. He did one season, then go to tenant. He was number he was the 10th doctor and he did a few seasons. Matt Smith came on after that and he did a couple of seasons. And God, who was the next one? I know him. I can't remember his name, but he was good too. And then it kind of all went to shit. ⁓

Tug McTighe (19:54)
who I love, yeah.

Okay, well, let's

take it offline, but we can talk about it for sure.

Matt Loehrer (20:06)
We can but as so it's nice. I enjoyed seeing Christopher Eccleston in this. He was well known at that point and Brendan Gleason was too. But otherwise just people you didn't know like very every man type characters. And James McAvoy auditioned to be an infected. So right. Yeah right. I I'm assuming he hadn't had a real breakthrough yet. So. OK.

Tug McTighe (20:16)
Yeah. Yeah.

I love it. I want to just be a zombie, please. That's all I need. No lines.

I'm assuming he hadn't all

right so Killian Murphy the aforementioned is Jim a bicycle curry who was previously in a coma I think he got hit by a bus or a truck He had to your point he had done some theater and some small parts of movies and TV. This was his real breakout He went on a nice run after this girl with the pro-leering cold mountain Batman begins

Matt Loehrer (20:38)
Mm-hmm. He explained it.

Tug McTighe (20:49)
And then Inception, which cemented after Batman begins his partnership with Nolan. So he's done a lot of Nolan movies. Yeah. Me too.

Matt Loehrer (20:57)
I really liked him in I liked him in Oppenheimer quite a bit. So anybody

that hasn't listened to our episode on Oppenheimer, you should when you're done with this immediately go listen to that. ⁓ Naomi Harris as Selena, a survivor in London. I thought she was great.

Tug McTighe (21:04)
Please do, great movie. Yeah, immediately. Drive our views up.

I'd never seen her before. thought she was fantastic in this. Now I'm about to fanboy out.

Matt Loehrer (21:16)
Me too. And Brendan Gleason.

With Brendan Gleason.

Tug McTighe (21:21)
Brendan Gleeson is Frank the taxi driver. Absolute legend. Far and away, the snapper. If anybody has not seen the movie, the snapper with Brendan Gleeson, please go see it. about, it's an Irish movie and the daughter gets pregnant and it's all about the Catholicism and all that's beautiful. Now listen, Braveheart, Mission Impossible 2. That one made him a star, I think. Harry Potter, he was Matt I. Moody.

Please please please go watch the banshees of inna sheeran With him and colin farrell unbelievable movie and Just I love brendan gleason. my god. He and conferral and in bruge didn't even make the list, which is a great movie and Sometimes five minutes Sometimes 55 minutes. He was one of the

Generals in the Tom Cruise Emily blunt He was the general that he was the first guy to believe him edge of tomorrow God just great. Anyway

Matt Loehrer (22:13)
Yes, Edge of Tomorrow.

He absolutely was. Edge of Tomorrow, yes.

And I think he did voice work on The Secret of Kells. Did you ever see The Secret of Kells?

Tug McTighe (22:24)
No, I know it's on my list. Yeah, yeah, it's great.

Matt Loehrer (22:27)
Animated it was fantastic definitely worth watching. All

right, so make Megan Burns played his young daughter. You were not a fan Why Okay

Tug McTighe (22:33)
I thought she kinda sucked. We'll talk about the, we'll talk, I don't wanna get into it here, we'll talk about

it during the plot, but I got a thought.

Matt Loehrer (22:41)
Okay, very good. Eccleston, we mentioned as Major Henry West, I thought he was great.

Tug McTighe (22:46)
And Matt, I recognized him right away, but I couldn't place him. But he's busy.

Matt Loehrer (22:50)
⁓

busy enough. was in the Thor, the second Thor movie, which is widely regarded as one of the worst. ⁓ And I think it was a bad experience for him. He ended up not getting the role that he wanted. And he was speaking in like dark elvish the whole time. So he wasn't even speaking English. Noah Huntley is Mark survivor with Selena Stuart McCrory, Sergeant Feral.

Tug McTighe (22:57)
That might be it. The dark world. Yeah. It was not any good.

You

Matt Loehrer (23:16)
Luke Mabley's Private Clifton. They were just.

Tug McTighe (23:18)
and a series

of people that did a good job but aren't big stars. Again, he wanted to feel real.

Matt Loehrer (23:24)
Yeah, so like six

more soldiers and then they did not list the names of all the infected, but there were a bunch of those.

Tug McTighe (23:31)
Yeah. I don't want to, and I

don't want to just out of principle when we get to the plot here in a minute, I don't want to name the names of any people who played the animal rights activists. That's how much I hate those characters.

Matt Loehrer (23:41)
I know I hate them too. That's I didn't I didn't love that. But then let's why don't we just jump to the plot and talk about what this movie is about.

Tug McTighe (23:47)
Let's please.

All right, so I'll let you have the first punch here. A group of animal rights activists infiltrate a laboratory in Cambridge, which houses these really aggressive chimpanzees. And they're trying to break them free, which I'm all for. No testing on chimpanzees or animals. But the scientist is like, whoa, whoa, you can't do this. They are infected with this rage virus. And they're going to really fuck everything up.

So of course right at that moment she the one of the activists frees the chimp And it sprints down the glass cage. It's in and dives at her neck and murders her within 13 seconds then Just in case you're wondering if this virus is fast acting it is because she wakes up and blood vomits on the next guy We'll talk about blood vomiting in a moment And then he's infected. She's infected the whole thing falls apart

and that within moments, the entire country of England, the entire region of the UK, Great Britain is all fucked and everybody's got the virus or is dead. I would like your thoughts on these animal activists.

Matt Loehrer (24:57)
Right. So two things.

Okay. Well, first, was amused that you said it houses abnormally aggressive chimpanzees because chimpanzees are aggressive already.

Tug McTighe (25:07)
Not a

not a normally aggressive one abnormally Yeah, they're very and also as you know, they're they're very strong Yeah

Matt Loehrer (25:12)
I mean you expect them to be aggressive, but holy cow were these guys aggressive. for sure. It's from

throwing their own crap all day.

Tug McTighe (25:23)
The term they prefer is flinging.

Matt Loehrer (25:25)
Right, OK, so

the second thing I was really irritated by this. I would even call this a trope. Is it a trope? ⁓ It's like animal activists, right?

Tug McTighe (25:29)
So fucking... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Carry on. Yeah. Don't open that cage! Don't look in that

box! Don't go behind that curtain! I'm going. Well, you just unleashed the whole depth of the world. Well done.

Matt Loehrer (25:43)
Every single time when a guy in a lab coat says they're infected and they're going to it's going to kill us all. Don't be like I don't I don't buy it.

Tug McTighe (25:50)
Okay,

hold on when a guy in a lab coat says they're infected they're gonna kill us all it's true

Matt Loehrer (25:58)
They're like, you just want to keep them in there. I don't. What's worst that can happen? The thing he just said. So I was furious at those guys. I was so mad. I was like, God, these people, they're terrible. And the virus does spread that quick. So they tell you that that it's like 20 seconds and you're toast.

Tug McTighe (26:02)
So fucking annoying.

And by the way, we're 44 seconds into the movie and you're like, this is never going to work. I'm so pissed off. So I do want to.

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You

wake back up and you're fast. Um, so I do want to mention something that occurred to me while we were watching, while I was watching that poor chimp who was being subjected to all that super violent imagery. Cause they had this chimpanzee and he's tied down and it was a nice trick. You see these, footage of, of riots and buildings burning and people fighting. And you think it's, my God, that's the

That's the aftermath of the zombies. No, they were testing all this violent imagery on a on a chimp And and I I do not believe it to be a coincidence That is almost exactly what was happening to Alex in a clockwork orange when they were trying to desensitize him Malcolm McDowell when they were trying to make him Violently ill at seeing violent images. I it was not unintentional on Boyle's part. I promise ⁓

Matt Loehrer (26:59)
Right.

You Malcolm McDowell.

So is

that all they did or did they also give them some kind of disease? They didn't just show them. They didn't make them watch the news because otherwise everyone in this country would be going crazy. wait a minute.

Tug McTighe (27:15)
No more stuff. Yeah, they they Know no, don't know Yeah, right you'd be be dog. hold on

Yeah, they're clearly doing something really heinous and then that's just part of it But I do remember thinking at that moment. Wait a sec. She turned in

12 seconds. How did this take over the world? Because there's not enough time for it to take over the world. If you just die and then wake up and kill anyway, but I wrote in my notes that may pose a problem for me later. It turns out they solve the problem. So well done filmmakers.

Matt Loehrer (27:44)
Great.

That's fair.

If you've seen the show Firefly in the movie Serenity probably right. ⁓ So the Reavers in that show are kind of people that have been subjected to a drug that made them hyper violent like to the point of being insane but also still able to like fix their spaceships and fix meals for each other. And I'm like wait a minute. So I do you do kind of have to.

Tug McTighe (27:57)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yep.

Right, right, wait a sec.

Matt Loehrer (28:18)
They talked, we talked about suspension of disbelief. You do have to do a little bit of that here.

Tug McTighe (28:20)
Of course

of course But they then at least they said it later. They told you later, which we'll get to So 28 days later, we see a title card Bicycle courier Jim who had a traffic accident was in a coma Wakes up in the hospital in London. It's deserted. It's been ransacked he leaves the hospital in his gown and Wonders the empty streets of London that we talked about

He sees a newspaper headlining a mass evacuation. He, he sees some dead folks. He sees some new stories on the, on the telly that are telling us something bad happened. And then of course he goes into a church. and sees this giant massacre, hundreds of dead bodies. Yeah. ⁓ again, presumably caused by the infected. he goes.

Matt Loehrer (29:00)
Yeah, like a pile of corpses, yes.

Tug McTighe (29:07)
Hello, which we'll talk about later. But he goes, hello. And then, of course, a couple of infected wake up and start to track him. Big question. He didn't smell any of that? Because later on in the movie, they're doing this.

Matt Loehrer (29:17)
Yes.

Right.

Yeah, I don't, you know, I've watched enough episodes of The Mentalist that I should know how long it takes for a body to start smelling.

Tug McTighe (29:32)
Far, far fewer than 28 days. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matt Loehrer (29:35)
Yeah, quit like a week maybe. Alright, fair enough. I was impressed

he was able to get up and run after being in a coma for a month. I like he didn't stretch or nothing, right?

Tug McTighe (29:43)
Incredible in incredible trope Yeah, no

incredible trope where none of your muscles atrophy? During your during your convalescence ⁓ Same thing in one of the three word title Steven Seagal movies mark for death hard to kill easy to kill kill the man killed a boy killed a dog ⁓ He's in a coma. He's in a coma and he wakes up and he just starts immediately breaking people's arms within three seconds ⁓ but

Matt Loehrer (29:55)
Yeah.

I guess I'll take one.

That's a whole other

show

Tug McTighe (30:12)
Talk to me about these zombies and their abilities.

Matt Loehrer (30:16)
Yeah, this was our first taste of them. So it went from a very kind of he's alone. He's walking around. He's one, you know, he's screaming what the hell's going on, but it's all very slowly paced. And all of a sudden we kick it into high gear when these infected they call them start coming after him. I would call them zombies, but they're not your standard night of the living dead zombies, which I thought was cool.

Tug McTighe (30:39)
This is not your shambolic

walking. These are like Olympians.

Matt Loehrer (30:42)
brain-eating zombies.

Yes, they're hyped up extremely mobile, super aggressive, strong. They're not, I don't know if they're super strong, but they're at least as strong as a person. You you think of Sean and the dead and they were able to take those zombies out with a cricket bat. And I think in throwing CDs, throwing CDs at them. So ⁓ now these are like World War Z zombies or a reverse from firefly. So a different take on the George Romero's.

Tug McTighe (30:59)
shovel or a yeah yeah right I don't think this is yeah quite that

Yeah,

and in my mind, as bad as it is to get eaten by a George Romero zombie, at least I can run and they're walking. These zombies are faster than me. I think you can tell I'm built for comfort and not for speed. So, but at least I could run away from those lurching zombies. But these are scary because and he does a great job of like

Matt Loehrer (31:31)
Right. These are.

Tug McTighe (31:34)
They'll go and I know we're not making this a video but maybe we'll put this clip up where they're like they go like this across the screen And you're like, fuck Jumpscare there. So then they are luckily Jim is also is at this point rescued By two survivors. We learned that that's Selena and mark Who take them take him to their refuge in a tube stations shop and within five seconds of them talking I go

Selena is the tough survivalist while mark is the dreamer that we can bring it back to normal so it is like there's no normal anymore marks like I think we can save the world within two seconds you're like there we go yeah Paul mark ⁓ mark got killed

Matt Loehrer (32:04)
Yeah.

What happened to Mark?

Art got killed right away and she was like,

he got turned and she had to kill him.

Tug McTighe (32:17)
One second she killed him Yeah at Jim's house So again, we learned there we learned they're fast zombies we learned we learned a lot from Selena and Mark She says there were reports from who I don't know Of it going as far as New York and Paris again, like I said with people turning in seconds. Not sure how this would be possible, but We'll talk about it later because it gets resolved

Matt Loehrer (32:19)
she whacked the hell out of him. She had a baseball bat or something. So she was hardcore.

Tug McTighe (32:40)
And at Jim's request he says my god, I gotta see my parents She's like they're dead And Mark's like Mark's like Let's let the guy go to his house right? So they go to his parents house in Deptford. Can I speak about British town names, please? ⁓ I will continue to love UK town names like Sanford they were from the village of Sanford in

Matt Loehrer (32:57)
Yes.

Tug McTighe (33:07)
in in Gosh, hang it in hot fuzz and you know, I watched so much soccer. So it's like Birmingham Shire upon Tyne Like wow, that is outstanding Brim Brim Brimford City, right? So anyway great So really as we're laughing we're about to not be laughing He goes to his house. Everything's undisturbed. He goes up to his parents room

Matt Loehrer (33:09)
Hot fuzz.

Tug McTighe (33:32)
And we see that they have committed suicide together in the bed. You see the pills on the table. And it's really sad and tender. Mom was clutching a picture of 10-year-old, Jim. And on the back, it was a note said, if you find this, please come join us. I hope you never wake up.

Matt Loehrer (33:48)
Right.

Tug McTighe (33:54)
because he was still in the coma. Really sad. Really. And I actually just got the chills. Yeah, because like you said, it's slow and methodical and then it ramps up. And then this is a real human moment here in the middle of all this shit.

Matt Loehrer (33:55)
That was sin. That was when he walked in the room. Go ahead.

And they took their time with that shot, which I thought was really great. He's standing in the door and he can see them, but the camera doesn't see them yet. And it gradually pans over to show them in the bed, dead together. That was powerful.

Tug McTighe (34:13)
Wow, yeah, really tender.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Very powerful. Why don't you take the

Matt Loehrer (34:28)
So dusk comes, the group decides to stay the night there. Jim stays up and reminisces over family memories and lights a candle, which in retrospect was not the best idea. So it the infected neighbors to the house and Mark's bitten and that forces the dreamer Mark didn't make it and Selena had, she didn't really hesitate. She had to kill him.

Tug McTighe (34:45)
Dreamer Mark.

She

saw the bite on his arm and she cut him to pieces with her machete in 13 seconds.

Matt Loehrer (34:58)
She's like, did you get bit? And he's like, hang on a second. And she's like, nope.

Tug McTighe (35:00)
WACK WACK WACK

Matt Loehrer (35:02)
That was. He's like wait a minute we can talk we can talk this out. She's like nope so she just hacked it and with a machete to your point yes it wasn't like a bludgeoning it was a slicing and. ⁓

Tug McTighe (35:02)
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, waiting.

Tough, tough,

tough go.

Matt Loehrer (35:15)
Yeah. So Jim and Selena are now together, but I kind of get the impression if anything happened to Jim, she'd whack him. She had a heartbeat. She knows him even less than she knew Mark. So they make their way up a tower, which one of my favorite songs by Frost, my modern Prague, British Prague rock band, they have a they have a song called Tower Block.

Tug McTighe (35:24)
Jesus fuck off stab him right through the throat. Yeah, doesn't care Yeah, right

Do you like Frost?

Matt Loehrer (35:41)
And I think that's what they call their apartment high rises that people live in. It's a tower block. So.

Tug McTighe (35:44)
their apartments. And

you see these, it's a wide shot of a, I don't know, make, let's call it a 20th floor balcony that has Christmas lights blinking. And they're like, Oh, maybe that's a, maybe that's a survivor.

Matt Loehrer (36:01)
Yeah, let's go up there. Again, it sounds like a terrible idea, but they make it up there. Getting some help from Frank, played by Brenna Gleason and his daughter Hannah. As we mentioned, any British film, you can always count on seeing at least one character from the Harry Potter franchise. So there's, as you said.

Tug McTighe (36:10)
Yes, Frank! Fuck yes!

That ought

to be can we add that so we're gonna add to this to this pod a Did we see a Harry Potter character in it That's gonna be one question. It's either yes or no and then if it's yes It was you know, Brendan Gleason had five minutes as whatever and then it's gonna be your what did it rank in the top 100? If it was if it but it has to be below It can't ever be 73. Yeah. Yeah

Matt Loehrer (36:30)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

It has to be above the actual number. It's got to be a hundred and

fifty five. So, yes, in Hot Fuzz, had Inspector. Yes, we had Frank Buttermann played by Jim Broadbent, and now we have Brendan Gleason. I thought the scene on the roof with all that they were trying to collect rainwater. There had been no rain, but they had a hundred buckets on the roof that were all dry. And it just.

Tug McTighe (36:49)
Jim Broadbent.

I adored that shot. It might be my favorite shot in the movie that high look down at it. And he's really resourceful. is right. He's like, I saw it on TV one time and they had these plastic sheets where they were capturing do and I just, but I haven't got it to work. But, remember he brought all these carts in shopping carts from wherever he brought them in and stacked them up as a barricade. he's, you know, he's making it. Yeah. I liked that character a bit.

Matt Loehrer (37:06)
occurred to me. I loved it.

But the average person,

the average, like me? I'd be hosed. I would just, I'd be like zombies, bring it.

Tug McTighe (37:37)
We'd both already be dead in 13 seconds.

Yeah, no art our story is called zombies first wave and in the first five minutes we both get eaten and it's like the end

Matt Loehrer (37:48)
It's all about what we do after that. It's like now what do you want to do? I don't know. Eat brains, I guess. But yeah, basic survival even for random like regular people. It shows like this where they're carefully thought out. Drive home. The practicality or impracticality of living in a post apocalyptic situation. Yeah, what would you do?

Tug McTighe (37:50)
Yeah, now what? Again, so.

in post-electricity world, literally. electric, we just,

look, if the power went out, and you know there's a whole sub-genre of apocalyptic films, post-apocalyptic films and books and novels where, hey, for whatever reason a singularity happens and the lights go out, I would just lay down on the ground. If the power went out, I would just go in my yard and lay down on the ground and wait for sweet death to come. I don't know, I don't know.

Matt Loehrer (38:32)
Yeah, my survival

would largely be predicated on me finding things that I can use, but not making things I can use. No.

Tug McTighe (38:37)
Yeah, Right. Not no, I don't have any swords. Right.

OK, so I want to talk about the character, Frank, real quick, because I want to praise the screenplay and the film.

Because we have a I don't think he's lawful good. He's neutral good. Okay, so this is the alignment in Dungeons and Dragons There's nine boxes and it's lawful good To neutral good right chaotic good. Okay, not chaotic good chaotic, right? He's he's neutral good He does the best a person can do In the circumstances that they're in they're devoted to helping others. They work they work with kings

Matt Loehrer (39:02)
You don't have to explain that to our audience, but okay.

Tug McTighe (39:19)
and the soldiers and Matt, trying to do, they realize the world has fallen apart and they're trying to put it back together. And we don't always have these characters in these movies. We actually have a bunch of rapers and, and murderers and, and, killers. We get those too, but we, usually only get them.

Matt Loehrer (39:35)
Well, we get those too.

No, that's a good point. It gives you a...

Tug McTighe (39:42)
But at least there's one

person he wants them to, he wants to bring them in and help them live. And I love that about this character.

Matt Loehrer (39:48)
And he's

and he's a realistic character too. He's not the idealistic Mark who's just like, I think everything will work out for the best. He's realistic about the situation, but he still is doing the right thing. I agree.

Tug McTighe (39:54)
No, he's just, yeah. Right, right.

And really important character detail. Jim and Selena are having a conversation. Jim says, I think they're good people. We need good people. Selena doesn't believe in good people, just people that will get us killed. So Selena will murder Frank and throw Hannah off the balcony in 13 seconds. Absolutely.

Matt Loehrer (40:23)
Absolutely. At

this point in the story anyway. ⁓ So Frank plays a radio broadcast. He has a hand crank radio.

Tug McTighe (40:27)
Correct.

He has that. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (40:35)
I'm offering protection and salvation from infection at a blockade outside Manchester. And that's where Frank and Hannah are going to go and they all agree to travel together at one point. So he's got cab driver, so they take his taxi and it's. You know, it's interesting to me about this movie as I think about it right now as we're talking about it, how many emotional ups and downs there were like this was a really.

Tug McTighe (40:48)
Yeah, yeah, the black, the beautiful black London camp.

ton.

Matt Loehrer (41:01)
optimistic upbeat part of the show like.

Tug McTighe (41:04)
Yeah, because Jim goes, well, how are we going to get there? Cut, because they haven't told you he's a cab driver. Cut, the cab's coming out of the garage. It's great. Yeah, it's great. It's got gas cans on it. Yeah, it's really, really good.

Matt Loehrer (41:09)
Great.

Yeah, and they've got it all loaded up and everybody's smiling. And you know

it's not it's it's you know it's not always going to be like this, but.

Tug McTighe (41:21)
We're

pretty sure it's gonna fall to pieces, but what a great but again to your point When I went to the story seminar Robert McKee story seminar in San Francisco He's like I did Yeah, did yeah burn But every scene should end with a plus or a minus

Matt Loehrer (41:31)
you went to that? wow, I didn't see you there at the Robert McKee Story Seminar. Sorry.

Tug McTighe (41:42)
And if you have a plus, the next one should be a minus. that right? So but yeah, I agree with you. It's great. And it calls to mind, if you recall, I only ever saw the trailer, obviously, of 28 years later maybe, where they had that broadcast. So this was like a repeating recorded broadcast that he could hear. Come to these coordinates. We have the answer to the infection. Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Matt Loehrer (41:43)
That makes sense.

Right. Well, maybe Alex Garland went to the same seminar you did because he nailed it. So he decide they've got an option of taking the tunnel. This reminded me of the Lord of the Fellowship of the Rings. You had to go through the mines of Maria. You're to go the hard way. And they're like, oh, let's go through the mines. So they could they could go through the tunnel, which is a terrible idea, or they could not go through the tunnel.

Tug McTighe (42:07)
I bet he did, it's a famous seminar.

The easy way, yeah.

So they they just come to the and you see

the long shot of it it looks pitch black And you're just like you're watching the movie just shake your head like no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no

Matt Loehrer (42:32)
⁓ my god.

And they're like, yep, let's go this way. There's no reason to think that would not be blocked and or full of zombies, but, or infected. So of course they get a flat tire because he drives. This was fun too. He drives his cab right over a bunch of cars, but they get a flat. They make a ton of noise. And then there's this sound and it's terrifying. And it turns out to be a deluge of rats.

Tug McTighe (42:43)
Correct.

He's fucking good!

Don't care.

yeah.

thousands of rats.

Matt Loehrer (43:01)
And we're like,

thank goodness there are only rats. then one of them says, the rats are running from something. And it turns out it's infected. But then you get a, they manage to get that tire changed and they get out of there. And it's another upbeat moment. It was pretty exciting.

Tug McTighe (43:08)
Yeah

another upbeat so

okay so I have a bit of stuff here to go through. Frank's first thing Frank says in the cab Gleason he looks back just so you know I don't take checks or credit cards.

Matt Loehrer (43:26)
That was funny Yeah

Tug McTighe (43:28)
Right a little bit of levity and then that

the the plot summary On wikipedia and on internet data movie database, we're severely lacking here. So this is all all from my notes Okay, the joseph campbell's the hero's journey alert When they drive into the tunnel, they're entering the underworld They will have to go through a series of trials and tribulations before they can come back to the surface world being changed

Matt Loehrer (43:37)
Agree.

Tug McTighe (43:53)
It's not quite the midpoint more like the end of act one key plot point here to wit first trial. We got a flat tire next trial rats. Holy shit. and then holy double shit, the infected a holy shit. Frank lifted the cab up when the Jack fell, like it was a, like he was the Hulk. Okay. Like I'm like, he's Hercules. Then they have this great, they get through the, through the tunnel into the bright world again.

Matt Loehrer (44:10)
Right. Right.

Tug McTighe (44:20)
there's a grocery store that's untouched. I love it. So we get this beautiful music. They all get carts or trolleys as they would say in England and they start shopping.

Matt Loehrer (44:23)
I love that.

There was

the scene where Jim grabs a bottle of scotch and Frank says, we can't just take anything. And he puts it back and he gets a better bottle of scotch. Right, that was so great.

Tug McTighe (44:40)
He gets a better bottle. He goes no not that take this and then and then and then

remember he goes like this he goes Jim leaves this exits a scene and he looks at it and he goes puts it in he goes He puts about six. Yeah. Yeah, really great ⁓ and again just the right amount of Just the right amount of levity interspersed with the doom and again to your point It's this great fun scene Jim there. They're siphoning gas out of a wrecked giant gas tanker

Matt Loehrer (44:50)
Yeah, he gets like four more. That was great.

Right.

Tug McTighe (45:08)
Jim walks into this cheeseburger place and they're like, here we go and And he ends up killing. I don't know a ten or twelve year old kid and infected and That's Jim's first first person he killed so he's changing He needed to do that. Yeah, this was all part of the arc he has a big giant arc which I'll talk about Selena has a big giant arc So really really

Matt Loehrer (45:23)
But he needed to do that too.

Tug McTighe (45:33)
Really awesome again. He so again. It's that it's that back and forth The fun of the scotch scene. He kills the kid they get gas there. They're getting supplies They have a picnic They see these wild horses right theme alert in almost every zombie movie is that nature is unaffected by these human derived bullshit problems So they see these wild horses

Selena then sort of opines that human civilization can never come back. She's like, I've read every book that was ever written. It will have been written, every movie that's ever been made will never see anything new. Then she realizes as part of her growth, I was wrong when I told you staying alive is as good as it gets. So she's getting a little bit of humanity back as Jim is actually losing his humanity from the murder. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (46:22)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was interesting where he said she says. You know, you're thinking that you'll never read another new book again, and he says, no, that's what you're thinking.

Tug McTighe (46:34)
right. See? Right, really good. So again, they get back on the road, they're feeling some sense of normalcy, right? This is a found family, that classic trope. They reach Manchester because they want to see Oasis or Morrissey, and they feel like they've won. Unfortunately for them, this is in fact the midpoint. This is their false victory because what happens now?

Matt Loehrer (46:35)
I like that.

Mm-hmm.

they get to Manchester and the blockade's deserted. There's nobody there. They thought there'd be an encampment and tons of healthy people. Frank is frustrated because he pinned all his hopes on this and he kicks a gate and it turns out there's an infected body at the top of it and a drop of blood from the corpse falls into his eye.

Tug McTighe (47:02)
walls and yeah.

hanging on the top.

it.

Great shot. Great effect.

Matt Loehrer (47:21)
and he warns them to stay away. He screams at them to get away from him. And he turns. He's infected. I bet as an actor though, that would be super fun to get to do that from, okay, now you're a normal person and you're transforming into an infected rage monster. Go.

Tug McTighe (47:30)
Awful.

100 %!

And it doesn't

tell you what to do in the script. It's like, just turn into it. That's the act. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (47:46)
Just yeah, hey, be an actor and act, pretty cool.

What did you think about that scene?

Tug McTighe (47:52)
A fucking great scene. Horrible tragedy. I love Frank. It's awful. It's terrible. So the soldiers come out and kill Frank, and it's a terrible tragedy.

And the girl who played Hannah goes, dad.

Matt Loehrer (48:10)
you

Tug McTighe (48:10)
That was

her fucking performance. That's it. She'd be She'd be distraught dad Dad, well, he's gone. Nothing we can do there. fuck So terrible

Matt Loehrer (48:13)
That was it.

He's your whole world. You okay over there? That's too bad, because

you loved, because we loved Frank so much. He was the heart of.

Tug McTighe (48:26)
We love in

the ten minutes that he was on screen, right? So So there with the soldiers, there's a nice scene between Selena and Jim Selena's like I can't she can't be a part of this Hannah. She's innocent Right. Now. This is her becoming more like mark. I can't she can't continue to be subjected to this world You know Her her humanity is now back and then they kissed of course Jim and her kiss and she

Panics and storms out Soldiers then bring Jim Salina handed a heavily fortified country house under the command of Major Henry West Also a time-traveling doctor who yep He gives them a banquet, but the chef is terrible and he's using these rotten eggs And yeah, they're like did you ever try to smell them? Sorry, I thought if I use the right amount of spices, which is exactly what happened to Frankistan's a

Matt Loehrer (49:00)
Aka Christopher Ecclestone, the ninth doctor. I love that guy.

yeah!

Tug McTighe (49:16)
When he tried to use the rotten meat when he was in Korea and he sent 20 of his men to the latrine that day so then major Henry West shows them private mailer Who is an infected soldier? That they are now keeping chained up for observation in this courtyard, and he says we want to learn how

Matt Loehrer (49:23)
That's horrible.

Tug McTighe (49:40)
We want to learn about them, but what we really want to know is how long does it take them to starve to death?

We also get a little soldier philosophy from feral about how man is the infection that the earth doesn't even know exists, right? So we get a little bit of that sort of stuff and West West turns out to be the cynic We've been waiting for because we haven't really had a real cynic Frank wasn't a cynic Selena's changed from a cynic And then the effect that of course attacked during dinner

Matt Loehrer (50:00)
Mm-hmm.

Tug McTighe (50:04)
And we see just how abnormal this new normal is. They're like, we're going to create a new normal. going to create a society and then attack. They have to go kill all these infected. So no, it's not. It's not normal.

Matt Loehrer (50:19)
Right, yeah, the soldiers were awful. ⁓ And I think we knew...

Tug McTighe (50:21)
Yeah,

we knew, but we hoped for 12 seconds that they were going to be awesome. And they turned into douchebags, obviously.

Matt Loehrer (50:31)
Yeah, except for Feral. Feral's alright and that's prob- you know he's- that's not gonna serve him well in the end.

Tug McTighe (50:33)
He's the philosopher soldier. Yeah.

No, but you're gonna he's

gonna be revealed to a good he I wrote down. he'll be revealed to be a good guy in the end

Matt Loehrer (50:43)
Right. But West, you know, we we hope that their leadership at least is, you know, in the form of Major West is going to lead them in the right direction. Right.

Tug McTighe (50:53)
Right, so he comes

to save the day and what do we learn about him?

Matt Loehrer (50:57)
It turns out this was terrible. I actually had to rewind to understand exactly what it was saying. There was no sanctuary ever and it was just a ruse to lure females there so they could maintain the troops morale. So basically his guys, he's like, well, they, mean, they can't just, you got to give them something and that something is, yeah, that's terrible.

Tug McTighe (51:06)
No. Yes. Yes.

⁓ This

I've seen a lot of movies and I've read a lot of books. This is in the top ten of Horrific character motivations. He says I promised them women because women mean a future it's

Horrifying.

Matt Loehrer (51:41)
It's a horrible justification and the fact that he plays it's he's so deadpan about it like.

Tug McTighe (51:43)
Damn.

Yeah, and he's fucking drinking

Frank's bottles of scotch, the way. At the same time. Fucking dick.

Matt Loehrer (51:50)
Right. Which is which is

uncool. Yeah, that was that was really terrifying in the way that he rationalized that as.

Tug McTighe (52:00)
how,

how, how, what depths he will go to it, to try to maintain some semblance of again, normalcy. Oh, make you want to drink a beer and get that terrible taste out of your mouth.

Matt Loehrer (52:09)
For sure.

So.

So Jim doesn't go along with this and our philosopher Sergeant Farrell doesn't go along with it either. they get you thrown in jail.

Tug McTighe (52:20)
No, he refuses, yeah. I told you he was a good guy, didn't I?

So Wes put the chains into a radiator.

Matt Loehrer (52:27)
Yeah, I felt like there was a Lord of the Flies vibe on this. Like when there's nobody in charge and when the people in charge are amoral monsters, this is what you get. So they're chained up and Farrell tells Jim that the infection actually is not spread across the Atlantic and that Britain is just quarantined.

Tug McTighe (52:30)
100 %

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Right, so maybe I was right in the first two minutes when I'm like, hold on, that fantasy trope doesn't play. Again, and I really thought to myself, maybe I've consumed too much of this kind of content. But again, it's done in dialogue. We get it from an authority figure. So we're learning what's really going on. So I thought that was great.

Matt Loehrer (52:55)
Right.

Yeah.

Absolutely,

for sure. So two soldiers enter, they take Jim and Farrell into the woods to kill him, basically.

Tug McTighe (53:15)
Yeah, there's a

giant pile of bodies and it's hard to know if it's just people they murdered or zombies they murdered Nor do they tell you but you're pretty sure it's either way Yeah

Matt Loehrer (53:23)
No, but they'll murder anybody they want to. Right.

So they they end up orchestrating an escape. Farrell goes one direction. Jim goes another. He I was impressed. Like like when he he put his he put his shirt on a on a zombie and then he jumped over the fence. ⁓ So, yeah, he kind of tricked him. So they ended up shooting the body that wasn't him.

Tug McTighe (53:32)
Right. They shoot feral. Me too. They gym that they gym that he's like you

Yes. Yes.

Matt Loehrer (53:50)
thinking it was him.

Tug McTighe (53:50)
Yeah, so this is

a great another another example of showing the soldiers as morons. These two guys couldn't couldn't fucking fight out of a paper bag. These two morons, they shoot the zombie. They're yelling at each other. Jim and they just and Jim and Jim just runs away. Right. So. No, no, we'll get to it. We'll get to it. Yeah, we'll get to it.

Matt Loehrer (54:01)
Yeah, they're pretty stupid.

Yeah, but I thought he was pretty resourceful, you know, from he's. Yeah, from

the bike from the bike delivery guy that we met at the beginning, so. There's a nice scene where he's playing dead and he looks up and framed by some leaves in a tree. He sees a contrail from a jet in the sky.

Tug McTighe (54:14)
Yeah,

Right. That tells us that it's not gotten everybody right. And he's there's a beautiful shot of him where he just sort of smile. It's not really a smile Matt. But it's just the that again this is a good actor. There's a little bit of hope and a little bit of joy on his face. ⁓ So really good. There's a really rapey scene coming up.

Matt Loehrer (54:24)
So he knows that there's somebody out there.

Hope. For sure.

Yep.

Tug McTighe (54:49)
Because

these guys are right. The whole thing was a ruse to rape women. Where they're trying to get Selena and Hannah to dress up in the lady of the house's clothes because they're in this giant chalet. And like the lady of the house has an extensive wardrobe. Why don't we take you up there and dress you up? I'm just like, I'm literally getting the willies.

Matt Loehrer (55:07)
And Hannah, worth mentioning, is a child. Like a young teen, right? Right.

Tug McTighe (55:10)
Is a child, correct. She can't be 14. Yeah, yeah.

So again, double yikes. So, um, so we hear a siren and the West and the soldiers like, what's that? And then we cut to Jim. He's, he's out there near the gates right now. He's got his shirt off and just in his pants and he's that's important. I didn't just bring it up for to see killing Murphy with his shirt off, but

Matt Loehrer (55:25)
That's good.

Tug McTighe (55:39)
He brings the siren so they go out there like fuck we got to go get this guy So Jim has lost his shirt. Remember he put it on zombie. He's skinny He's bloodied and he's now being photographed by boil the way that they photograph the infected he jumps across the scene he's shambling a little bit, so you're not sure if You're not sure if that's an effect or it's Jim. You're pretty sure it's Jim. The soldiers don't know so that's really fucking

Matt Loehrer (56:05)
and it's raining.

Tug McTighe (56:06)
And it's raining, right? Which is always a baptism. He's being reborn. He's being reborn into something else. He'll never be the same. So Jim drags draws them out. He returns and frees Mailer, the infected soldier, hoping to cause a distraction and possibly infect or kill the rest of the bad guys so we can rescue Hannah. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (56:23)
That was interesting when he,

I think he shot his chains to release him, right? And then they locked eyes and there was a moment of understanding.

Tug McTighe (56:27)
Yeah. Yeah.

100 % and I'm gonna Talk about that in a moment too, cuz there's another one. There is humanity left in these infected They he looks mailer looks at him and Jim looks at mailer and Then mailer turns around and because he's only on the top of a wall. He's only eight feet away from him He turns around and goes in the house to wreak havoc really fucking important distinction, man So then Jim is now

Matt Loehrer (56:38)
Okay.

I love that.

Tug McTighe (57:02)
Terrorizing the soldiers as well. He frees mailer. He's gonna go in and rescue Hannah and Selena Mailer bursts with the door and just starts murdering everyone This is where we get more blood vomiting where he just looks at a guy's face and his vomit's blood on him Which is a power these zombies have that never made it. I never knew of an ex-man. It's just blood vomit man ⁓ Probably but whoo Jim kills one of the soldiers. He's continuing his transformation into something else

Matt Loehrer (57:21)
There probably is one.

Tug McTighe (57:29)
And at this point West comes back. She's what's going cause you remember he went out to the gate sees what's going on. Hannah escapes an infected soldier by hiding behind this mirror and the soldier sees him sees himself in the mirror and kind of to your point earlier he's like. And then he turns around and leaves the room so there's something still in these infected. I don't know if it can be brought back. I can't wait to watch rest movies. But.

Matt Loehrer (57:39)
that was cool.

Yeah.

Tug McTighe (57:55)
They're not fully gone yet So anyway, I'll stop talking you go. I had a lot. I had lot of thoughts about this part

Matt Loehrer (57:59)
So I love.

No, absolutely. And this was the climax of the film. All this was really great, but he Jim does realize that that Hannah and Selena are still out there, right? It's like. Right. It's like it's like sending the velociraptors into the kitchen, knowing the kids are in there like they'll probably be fine if they if they can work it out.

Tug McTighe (58:13)
He's released a ravenous wolverine who doesn't care. Yeah.

mean they're the main

stars of the movie so probably fine yeah

Matt Loehrer (58:28)
Right. So the Wikipedia entry says one soldier corporate Mitchell attempts to abduct Selena but Jim kills him. I have never read something that more underwhelming in terms of what actually happened in the movie. We got to talk about that scene.

Tug McTighe (58:43)
Yeah, yeah,

so so this guy Mitchell is a dick we learned he's he's had three or four scenes where you're like, he's ⁓ He's ace Yeah, you're like, he's ace from stand by me. He's got a he's got to get shot by the end of this And just yeah, there's a there's a big fight where Jim eventually and Correct me if I'm wrong

Matt Loehrer (58:52)
Like you really want him to die.

Tug McTighe (59:10)
uses his two thumbs to gouge out his eyes, thereby penetrating his thumb bones into the guy's brain.

Matt Loehrer (59:19)
Yeah, he murdered the guy by stabbing him through the eyeballs, but the corporate Mitchell was like begging him like, hey, we can share them. We can share the women. Right? So you saw him at his worst and it was you needed to see this because Selena doesn't know if he's infected because he's acting so monstrous to kill this guy, right?

Tug McTighe (59:22)
Yeah, yeah.

We can share them! God bless America! ⁓ my!

That's correct.

Really important.

Matt Loehrer (59:43)
Like to her, Jim's

covered in blood. He's fully enraged.

Tug McTighe (59:47)
He's cut up, beat up like they are, and he just ruthlessly murders this guy. And then, of course, they get up and kiss.

Matt Loehrer (59:56)
Yeah, kind of. She's like, she's got her, she's got a weapon. And he's like, hey, hey, what's the problem? I just saved you. She's like, oh, okay. I thought you were... That's the problem.

Tug McTighe (59:59)
Well, she had a machete. Yeah.

It's me. What's up? You look like a fucking lunatic, bro. That's the problem. ⁓

So, hey, don't forget that Selena was a chemist and that's a pharmacist. And she's got Hannah looped up on Valium.

Matt Loehrer (1:00:17)
right.

Yes.

Tug McTighe (1:00:21)
So Hannah doesn't have to suffer this, right? Hannah's like, I think things are going to be great. She's like, she high? little.

Matt Loehrer (1:00:25)
Okay, so now they're gonna escape. Right?

100%.

So now they're going to escape in the cab, but West is in the cab. Major West is like, you're like, ⁓ finally we're going to get out of here. No, he's right there. ⁓ And he's got a gun on them. He shoots Jim and Hannah backs the cab.

Tug McTighe (1:00:36)
Yes, because we never saw right.

West.

He shoots Jim.

who we, but

we know that can drive the car because we, Frank showed us, Frank showed her driving it. Yep.

Matt Loehrer (1:00:53)
Yeah, because she was driving it earlier.

So she puts it in reverse, backs it up. goes flying through the back window into a pile of, into, what's his name? Mailer. That's the end of him.

Tug McTighe (1:01:01)
Into Who?

Mailer. Right into Mailer.

Trouble Denny. And by the way, by the way, hold on. Good for you. Fucking West. Look, fucker.

Matt Loehrer (1:01:09)
That was satisfying.

Right.

But he did a great job

of being awful and it was satisfying to see him get eaten.

Tug McTighe (1:01:17)
Well, and he was a little

bit that calm, calculating, really evil person. Yeah, but good. I'm glad he died. All right, so bring us home, Matt.

Matt Loehrer (1:01:23)
For sure. Yeah. ⁓

All right, so now. ⁓

Tug McTighe (1:01:31)
We'll get another

title card.

Matt Loehrer (1:01:34)
yeah, we get the title card. Another 28 days later, we get a flash cut or two of Selena bringing Jim Medicine and chest compression.

Tug McTighe (1:01:41)
right,

because she was, again, a pharmacist or a medic or something like that.

Matt Loehrer (1:01:45)
Right, because that was a pretty serious, serious injury. ⁓ He's recovering at a remote cottage in Cumbria, wherever that is. The infected are shown lying in the roads dying. just, they can't.

Tug McTighe (1:01:48)
Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you.

Right, so

West knew he had an idea that he could have used for good, but he didn't.

Matt Loehrer (1:02:02)
Yeah, eventually,

eventually they are going to starve to death. jet flies overhead, which was supposed to be a finished jet, by the way. Actually, it supposed to be CGI and the cost of getting an actual jet was cheaper than doing the CGI. Yeah, it was supposed to be a finished, a finished jet, but they could not get that. So it's an RAF jet, which I don't know what the difference is or why it matters.

Tug McTighe (1:02:16)
See, welcome filmmakers. There you go. Learn something.

Matt Loehrer (1:02:28)
Jim and Selena and Hannah have a huge banner that spells the word hello. It's enormous. They unfurl that.

Tug McTighe (1:02:34)
Hello, which is what got

Jim in trouble in the first place at the church. Hello. Right.

Matt Loehrer (1:02:39)
Right.

yeah, full circle. I never caught that. That makes sense. And they all wave at the jet and they wonder if the pilot spotted them.

Tug McTighe (1:02:42)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they say something like, don't they say, I hope he saw us this time or something. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (1:02:54)
Right. ⁓

It's a I forget the closing line, but it's a good one. And it's very optimistic. I got to wonder where the sequel picks up. I love movies like this. And Shaun of the Dead. I don't always like okay, I'll take that back. I don't always like movies where they say 10 years later, and it's like, they got married like Animal House did that. Animal House is like, you know, afterward, you know, john blue Tarski was a Yeah.

Tug McTighe (1:03:12)
It's a button. Yeah.

They all became super successful. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (1:03:20)
But I like this where it's you. Shaun of the Dead was that way too, where you see the aftermath a little bit. ⁓

Tug McTighe (1:03:26)
Yeah, you like

a little bit of uncertainty. You like a little bit of hope, but it's still a mess. But you like to make your own decision.

Matt Loehrer (1:03:37)
And I like closure too. So I like that you get a little closure here. It ends like all things end. I mean, it's a fever that runs its course, right? And then...

Tug McTighe (1:03:45)
It ends the

way that real life ends. It's we, still, you know, a tornado burns through a town and everybody wakes up and the tornado is gone and there's a bunch of aftermath. It's not perfect, but we're also here and the sun came up, right? And the zombies are dying. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (1:03:57)
Yeah, there's a

there has to be a morning after so anyway.

Tug McTighe (1:04:01)
Yeah, I

loved it. There's got to be a morning after speaking about morning afters You're gonna love working with little bear graphics because the morning after is fantastic Imagine this you wake up from a bicycle crash induced coma 28 days later. The world is quite literally falling apart Everything is quiet. Everybody's dead. The only thing left standing is you and a bunch of billboards and advertisements Why because these brands were prepared for the Zompocalypse they actually invested in good marketing

which is precisely what you should do with Little Bear Graphics. Invest some amazing marketing and advertising materials from them. While everyone else is scrimming for scraps in survival mode, they've already built the kind of brand that cuts through the chaos. Logos that stick, websites that actually work, and content that keeps people coming back for more. And if you need extra clothing that isn't stained with tainted zombie blood, Little Bear can provide you with that too. Don't wait until it's too late. Check out littlebear.graphics and create something that survives day one, day 28.

and beyond.

Matt Loehrer (1:05:00)
That's amazing. It is so good. I wanna do a show that's just these, just the bits. my God. I think we will. All right, so closing thoughts. I know I have thoughts. What are your thoughts?

Tug McTighe (1:05:04)
That'll be our 100th episode if we ever get there.

Go!

No, because I know what mine are. So you go.

Matt Loehrer (1:05:16)
Okay, I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.

Tug McTighe (1:05:19)
110%.

Matt Loehrer (1:05:21)
It was more thoughtful, more philosophical than I expected. was smarter than I expected. And I had done, so full disclosure, I've had a crazy couple weeks. Yeah. So I didn't do as much in a good way, but I didn't do as much research on this as I would have. So I didn't know this, that Alex Garland wrote this. I didn't know that Boyle directed it. didn't know any of that stuff.

Tug McTighe (1:05:32)
You've been swamped. Yeah. In a good way.

Yeah, you just push

play on a movie.

Matt Loehrer (1:05:49)
I thought it was going to be standard zombie fare, standard zombie horror film, but it was more like the infected were almost a secondary part of it, like a plot device.

Tug McTighe (1:06:01)
The interesting part about zombie movies and post-apocalyptic movies is not what got us to the apocalypse. It's what happens after. That's what's interesting.

Matt Loehrer (1:06:11)
Right.

And as in so many things it's not about what's happening to us it's how what it's how we respond to what's happening to us. So yes. It was really about a lot of things about man's inhumanity to man about man's capacity for evil about savagery versus civilization of who's the real monster in this story. ⁓ I thought Killian's Murphy killing Murphy's character arc was.

Tug McTighe (1:06:19)
how we react. That's correct.

100%. All the above.

Matt Loehrer (1:06:39)
great and I thought his acting showing that was really impressive. It was very satisfying. I would 100 % watch the sequel and I never thought I would.

Tug McTighe (1:06:46)
I'm in. No, I'm in. gonna,

so I gotta watch more Wix and I gotta watch more of this. I'm in. So no notes for you. I fully agree. I'm gonna start watching. I really like this.

Matt Loehrer (1:06:57)
Okay.

I'm gonna see the next one.

Absolutely. All right. So it's in a hit. Yeah, I will say this. Wait until it's streaming free somewhere. I'm pretty sure my home Alexa is connected directly to the one guy who decides how much what movies are available. And when he hears me say, Hey, Robin, I think I want to see 28 days later. He's like, Hey, we got to put we got to make sure that's not streaming free anywhere. Yeah. Take it down.

Tug McTighe (1:07:05)
Sin a hit, yeah. Bring on the rest. Numbers 2 through 40.

S-S-S-S-

Take it offline quick. Take it offline. Get it off of Tubi.

Sarah goes, OK, because I said we're watching 28 days later. I got to rent it on Amazon. She goes, is that what those charges are? I go, The 399, the 499.

Matt Loehrer (1:07:41)
Right.

I feel like Amazon's profits for the year, it's like $4 or $8. They're like, yeah, we would have gone negative, but you know, Matt and Tug got those movies.

Tug McTighe (1:07:47)
Right, right.

We've been listening

to the we've been listening illicitly even though we said we wouldn't in the terms and agree in terms of conditions to these guys Alexis So every time they mentioned a movie we take it down everywhere and put it up on only on prime fuckers Yeah

Matt Loehrer (1:08:05)
Right? Ninja Turtles, take it down.

Speed Racer, take it down.

Tug McTighe (1:08:10)
Alright, thank you for listening to Cinemisses. If you like what we're doing here, please help us grow the show by subscribing, sharing some episodes, or writing a review. It really does help and even better, tell somebody you think might like it to give us a try. And we want to hear from you. As always, follow and comment on socials and please drop us a line at cinemisses at gmail.com with ideas to make the show better and recos for movies we may want to cover. And also please visit our fancy new website, cinemisses.com.

Matt Loehrer (1:08:37)
Yeah, for sure.

Tug McTighe (1:08:37)
Matt,

All right, Matt, what is our next Cinemass and what's is our Cinemass or think he knows? This is a great one. All right, for the 10th and final episode of Cinemass's season three, we're going to try something new. We're going to watch the recently rebooted Running Man, which we've been talking about for a while. And then we're going to get together to record the show.

As we suck down some ice cold brews Neither one of us has seen this version, but both hold the original movie in high regard It should be fun depending on how much beer we ingest but Riverside who we use to record the pod plug Riverside. It's great plug buzzsprout. They're great. We're gonna they've just added a I Can start a recording and click record with someone you're with

Matt Loehrer (1:09:00)
⁓

Awesome.

Tug McTighe (1:09:24)
So we're gonna do that and we're gonna watch the new running man with Glenn Powell. I mean, I think we both know the same things about running man. There's a lot of running. He has to get on a game show to make some money to escape the poverty he and his family are in. And he's gonna fight a bunch of guys that wanna kill him along the way, including maybe the whole world.

Matt Loehrer (1:09:43)
This is based on a Richard Bachman, aka Stephen King novella, which you've read, correct? And I've read it too. So very different from the Schwarzenegger version. I'm excited. I can't wait. This is going to be a lot of fun.

Tug McTighe (1:09:45)
Yep. Correct. David K. Stephen King. Yep. I have read. Yep.

Very different, yeah.

Yeah, I can't wait. Alright!

Matt Loehrer (1:10:03)
Well, this has been CinemaSys. Thanks for joining us. I'm Matt.

Tug McTighe (1:10:06)
I'm Tug, that's a wrap.