The Dark Territory
A deep dive into unsettling, obscure, and often overlooked works in film, literature, and music. From body horror to haunted Americana, industrial noise to dystopian novels — it's about exploring the media that lingers in the shadows.
The Dark Territory
Our Autopsy of Return of the Living Dead
We tear into Return of the Living Dead (1985): a punk-fueled horror comedy that dares to say death hurts and backs it with running ghouls, a graveyard party, and a government solution that scorches the earth. We follow Frank, Freddy, and the punk crew from a botched cremation to a nuclear punchline—and find meaning in the mess.
• horror-comedy tone set by warehouse hijinks and Romero nods
• punk characters and a killer soundtrack as atmosphere engines
• Ernie’s Nazi-coded clues and mortuary craft details
• new zombie rules: speed, strategy, dismemberment fails
• Tarman’s entrance and Tina’s narrow escapes
• the half-corpse confession: “the pain of being dead”
• paramedic diagnostics, rigor mortis, and lividity
• Frank’s sacrifice and Freddie’s turn on Tina
• the basement call, military readiness, and the nuke loop
• cultural legacy across punk and death metal sampling
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Next week, we'll dive into the 1980s haunted house thriller, The Changeling
Welcome back to the Dark Territory Podcast. I'm Sean. I'm Brandon. Each week we dive into the films, music, and books that fuel our passion for everything dark, mysterious, and strange. Tonight we're digging into 1985 zombie classic, The Return of The Living Dead. The movie kicks off uh claiming it's based off of real events. Do you think anyone in their right mind believe this movie is based on real events?
Speaker 01:Oh yeah.
Speaker 00:There was probably a few that were like, no shit, knew there was zombies. Were they were they locking their doors and making sure that the zombies didn't get in after them? They're probably boarding up their windows. Next we meet Frank and Freddie at the Anita medical supply warehouse surrounded by cadavers and strange military drums. How effective do you think the film's opening uh was in setting the tone for the horror comedy blend?
Speaker 01:From the very minute the movie starts, these two are just idiots. They're bumbling buffoons, and you're like, What how can they function? You know? Yeah. And you know, Frank is always riffing on Freddy about this and that, and how an old guy in a warehouse would would act towards a young and that's just starting out, you know, you're gonna fuck with him a little bit and rib him and play jokes on him. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, and uh and and Bert the boss, he's he tries to keep everything together, and and later in the film you you you realize that Bert is just at the end of his rope with these two. It's like these fucking morons.
Speaker 00:Yeah, yeah. I like how there's uh a poster in Bert's office that says Bert is a slave driver. It's supposed to be uh oh, an eye test, yeah. An eye test, but it says Bert is a slave driver. Yeah, I thought that was a nice little Easter egg.
Speaker 01:Yeah, there's all sorts of weird information. If you look in this movie, you're gonna find out that hmm, things are not as as they seem. Right. Especially with the character Ernie later on.
Speaker 00:Yeah, interesting that a character's named Bert and a character's name Ernie. Yeah, I don't think that's a coincidence. No, no, I I think one of the great things about this movie is just the way it looks. I mean, I'm not one of those film snobs where it looks celluloid, it has to be film, you know, but there's something about the way the colors pop in this film right off the get-go, you know. It looks like it's from the 80s, yeah, it does in that in the best way possible. Frank shows Freddy the military canisters uh that supposedly contain real corpses, remnants from the Night of the Living Dead. He uh claims that this is all a true story. When I first saw it, it it kind of felt like you know, he's just fucking with the new guy. He's just telling him a story.
Speaker 01:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 00:You know, but then they you know, when he actually takes him down there and shows him, I I think first off, the canisters look great. Apparently, these were built by the the Corps of Engineers. Yeah. Uh you know. Wait, hell no.
Speaker 01:Right. US Army Corps of Engineers. Right, right, right.
Speaker 00:So I mean, what is what did you think? Do you think Dan O'Bannon was trying to do uh trying to tie the the original Romero zombie mythos, or is he just making something completely new?
Speaker 01:No, well, one of the uh one of the screenwriters for this movie was in Night of the Living Dead, Russell Striner. So I think it was a it was a not so subtle homage to Knight of the Living Dead. Because Knight of the Living Dead is such a uh a profound influence on zombie films. We should probably mention that you know this medical supply warehouse, it has all sorts of weird shit in it. It's got cadavers, it has what dogs, yeah, split dogs that Freddie is very privileged to see because apparently you don't see that a lot. Right. I've never seen a split dog, but I think it would be cool. All this stuff plays into the story later on. And uh after we meet the cadavers, we meet Freddie's friends, yes, his buddies, yes, which are some of the most hilarious uh uh examples of punk rockers you're ever gonna see.
Speaker 00:D do you feel like interjecting the the the punk aspect was a way of the director to kind of retell the story in a at the time a more modern take? Because punk rock was kind of a big thing during this time period.
Speaker 01:I grew up listening to punk so and I hung around real punk rockers, and it seemed like every single movie, with maybe the exception of Suburbia, they never got punks right, you know. Maybe Scuzz, who was uh the guy that gets bitten by the the half zombie lady later in the movie, right? Um he reminded me of like uh what a real punk would be, right? But everybody else is just like so over the top suicide, apparently like with the chain hanging from his face.
Speaker 00:Yeah, you could easily take him down by just yanking on that thing and he's out for the count.
Speaker 01:I mean, and and uh every dude that I knew that wore leather pants was a major fucking douchebag. Yeah, so yeah I can never pull that look off. Neither could I uh you have to be either 60 pounds in a junkie like Stiv Baders or like you know, Ian Drury from fucking the from the cult. Yeah. Is that Ian Drury? I think so. Uh don't quote me on that. Yeah, fuck whatever the Ian Stewart. No, that's no, not Ian Stewart, never mind. Uh, folks in the comments, help us out. Yeah, who is the lead singer of the cult?
Speaker 00:Ian Ashbury, Ian Ashbury. There you go. Okay, well, speaking of punks, that's when we get to meet the whole group, Freddie's punk friends, basically uh just hanging out, waiting for him to get off work, and then they're spider, Casey, Chuck, Scuzz, Trash, which was uh uh Deed. Apparently, her name originally was Deed, but trash is a much better name for this character because God bless her, man. She is total trash. Yeah, she was.
Speaker 01:I think Tina, Freddy's girlfriend.
Speaker 00:Yes, yeah, we can't forget Tina. Um, she reminds me a lot of that girl from Donnie Darko. Uh, I don't know the actress's name, but man, she her face looks almost exactly like her. Like to the point where I thought, was this like her mom or something? Like, it was crazy.
Speaker 01:I don't know. Um, Donnie Darko sucks. Yeah, I know you don't like Donnie Darko. And you can fight me on that. Anybody can.
Speaker 00:We're gonna go out right after this podcast, man. We're gonna see. I don't think Donnie Darko's worth fighting over. Fuck no. It's not even worth watching. Hey. They're just hanging out outside of the uh you need a medical facility, and they see a cemetery, and they they basically make a beeline for it, thinking like this is a good place to hang out while they wait for their friend to get off work.
Speaker 01:Well, first we meet uh Colonel Glover. You're right. I totally skipped over. Colonel Glover is uh apparently there's a contingent of the military that is s actively searching for the the the the canisters of 245 Triox and that's what the gas is called. It's it has an actual name. Yeah, Colonel Colonel Glover. He lives in a really nice place.
Speaker 00:Yeah, that's guarded by uh he's got security outside, a full gate, and uh he's got some fancy little computer in a cupboard that he keeps uh it looks like in his office. It's got like a green screen, yeah, like something from an IBM from the 1980s.
Speaker 01:Kind of like he can make any strategic hit on any state in the country.
Speaker 00:Yeah, I mean he could fucking disappear anybody probably just by picking up that phone, including his wife, who apparently, you know, offers him the same thing he had for lunch, which was lamb chops. Yeah, and he wasn't too impressed. No, no, uh, Mrs. Glover, she's not doing so well today.
Speaker 01:Bad 0 for one.
Speaker 00:I love how you know welcoming and warm she is, and he's just like, fuck you, I'm going to my office. Yeah, you know, when I come back, you better have something other than lamb chops.
Speaker 01:How was your day?
Speaker 00:Usual crap. I hate my job.
Speaker 01:What's for dinner? Lamb chops. Had them for lunch. Right. He just fucking walks off.
Speaker 00:It's like, wow, dude, really? Such love. Cold hearted bastard. Yeah. Makes me wonder, you know, was he always a dick or did his job kind of turn him into this?
Speaker 01:Oh, you know, well, it was the height of the Cold War, so yeah, true.
Speaker 00:There were a lot of assholes in high positions. Yep. Alright, so meanwhile, Freddy's punk friends are hanging out in front of the graveyard, uh, waiting for him to get off work. What do you think? Uh, do you think that the the punk aesthetic and music like the cramps, T SOL, 45 Grave, uh, amplified the film's atmosphere?
Speaker 01:Oh, yeah. Felt like a big party. That's one of the greatest movie soundtracks ever. You know, it's it's just a good punk album, let alone uh soundtrack for a movie. And it's got like different stuff. It's got Rocky Erickson in it, which to me, you know, he wasn't punk, but he was like darker rock and roll. Kind of like reminded me of uh the Dead Boys. They weren't necessarily punk, but it was more rock. And you know, yeah, like the Flesh Eaters, and you had um the Jet Blackberries. Uh every song there is good, man.
Speaker 00:Yeah, they're all bangers.
Speaker 01:Oh, yeah. Yeah, some are just better than others. Like that Nothing for You. Uh T SOL, that's one of their greatest songs, and that's not even like Jack Grishamera T Sol, that's later like Joe Wood T Sol, which you know Change the Day was a good album, but I mean it's not Jack. So, but yeah, the cramp song on there. Fucking every every song on that album is good. Yeah. The 45 Grave song. That and that that band subsequently got me into Christian Death. So 45 Grave was a uh gateway drug, I think, for a lot of people to get into Death Rock, and that and that was because of that soundtrack.
Speaker 00:Hmm. Yeah, I I was never like hardcore into punk, probably like you were, but I remembered hanging out at this place called Grady's Cafe in Auburn, and I had a friend that owned the place that was uh he would play this movie on uh on his parties during Halloween, and oh yeah, it'd always be on in the background, and then he'd be like telling me about the bands and shit.
Speaker 01:This movie was a go-to if you were having a party or a sleepover or a birthday party or anything where you wanted to have a good time.
Speaker 00:All right, so now it's party time at the graveyard. Trash's famous uh dance scene. She strips in the graveyard while monologuing about her fantasy of being devoured by old men. Uh yeah, let's I love the I love the line. Let's get some light over here. Trash is taking her clothes off again. Yeah. Apparently, this is something she does quite often, so they already come prepared with uh, you know, what are they? Um Road flares. Yeah, yeah, they got some road flares to dance around uh while she's strip dancing on top of it. Well, that whole her whole spiel before that is funny.
Speaker 01:Is her and spiders in there, spiders lighting up a joint or whatever. And um, she's like, Do you ever fantasize about being killed? Yeah, he's like, Never. She's like, Hmm, well, I do. Fucking no shit. And um, yeah, and then she's like, like, what would be the most horrible way to die? And spiders, I don't I try not to think about dying too much. Just kind of amplifying that. Yeah, and then she changes it, and then she just keeps going. She's like, Oh, well, for me, the worst way be fucking for a bunch of dirty old men to surround me and eat me alive. I was like, I see, yeah. You know, she she just she's not shy about it. No, she just seems like a real fucking degenerate, actually. Yeah, because you know, like a uh a a chick that you would have hung out with back in the day that was down for anything, yes, you know, and we all knew him, yep, and dudes. I mean, it it it's a cool scene. My my adolescent lizard brain was I watched that scene on repeat over and over and over again. I would rewind it, watch it. That was the only like naked punk rock chick I was ever gonna see, if it seemed like so you had to take you had to take it where you could get it.
Speaker 00:And and she ended up basically being nude the entire film after from that point on. Yeah, you know. Did she ever do anything else after this?
Speaker 01:Oh, yeah. She was in uh I think she's in Night of the Demons, yeah, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers with Gunnar Hanson. Was that a B-rate? Oh, yeah, they're all B-rate. Yeah, okay. Yeah, she did the Linnea Quigley horror workout.
Speaker 00:Oh, yeah, you told me about that. I haven't seen it. Is it good? No, no, it's fucking garbage. Cringy. But it's worth watching it for her, you know. All right, you want to say anything more about trash and her strip teeth? Uh I think it was a I think it was a great scene. I mean, uh one out of ten, what would you give it?
Speaker 01:Ten, bro.
Speaker 00:Yeah, yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 01:Fucking ten times a thousand for sure. But nowadays, I think I would I would much rather be into a chick like Tina. Yeah. Or or Casey, because Casey, you know. And the funny thing is, the Jewel Shepherd, the girl that plays Casey, she was an actual stripper. Oh, really? Dan O'Bannon met her at a strip club. That's how he found her. And he and he's like, I think you should be in my movie. Yeah. Oh, interesting. That's exactly how it went down, too. That's interesting. Now apparently she tried out for trash, and then they found Linnea Quigley, and they were like, No, she's trash. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 00:I mean, there's nobody else that could play her like she could.
Speaker 01:No. No.
Speaker 00:Okay, so next, Frank calls Bert to ask for help because the situation is quickly getting out of hand. Um what do what do we think of Bert? You know, he's the boss. He kind of takes control by essentially putting Frank and Freddie in front of the door where the the zombie is is sort of stored at.
Speaker 01:Yeah, it's kind of a dick move. Kind of a pussy move. It's like he he's trying to absolve himself of all this. It's like this is your building, you stored this shit in your basement for how long without you know calling the tank. You should have given it back to where it came from. Don't try and pass pass the buck on somebody else. Yeah, man. You know, and making making Freddie do the the combination lock and shit. It's like, I mean, yeah, you know, Bert tells him, it's like, haven't I always told you to stay away from those goddamn tanks? Dude should have listened. It's like just stay away from them. It's like opening Pandora's box.
Speaker 00:Yeah. I I kind of feel like Frank is one, he's not good at listening to instructions, but two, he he seems like one of those degenerates. He's probably worked there too long, and so he's just he's just doing things to entertain himself. He he really has no other reason for doing any of the stuff that he's done so far.
Speaker 01:Well, yeah, I mean, you work at a at a shit place long enough, you're gonna start talking shit and slacking.
Speaker 00:So the the zombie basically breaks free, uh, and it it's kind of comical the way this thing looks.
Speaker 01:Yeah, like he's got like liver, he died of like liver cancer, right? Right.
Speaker 00:Yeah, yeah. And then he he comes running at him, and then they uh they pin it down, and there's this funny scene where they take the uh the pickaxe and run it through its skull, but it's it's obvious the way it's shot, that it's just sort of it's on the side of the actor's head, it's not clearly in anything, and so that didn't kill it. This is the first time that we get to see just how resilient these new zombies are. Like they're not something that you can just you know shoot in the head and then it's gonna drop dead. You know, they actually dismember this entire thing by first removing the head and then going from there, and this thing just runs around like a chicken with its head cut off.
Speaker 01:And this was also the first zombie movie where they ran. Yeah.
Speaker 00:Runner zombies. Some of the other cases you see, like with a tar man, he's strategizing how to get his victims, not just mindlessly walking in the doors and shit like that.
Speaker 01:Oh, yeah. They want them brains, they're gonna get them.
Speaker 00:So next we get to meet Ernie. We we get the feeling right off the get-go that there's something, something's up with Ernie. He's got his uh Walkman on, you know, just enjoying some Wagner while he's uh embalming a dead body. That song was Pans are rolling in Africa.
Speaker 01:Do you know what year that one was uh composed? I'm pretty sure it's probably 1935. Yeah.
Speaker 00:Yeah, so uh, you know, Wagner, he's got the uh the Luger. The Luger. I was gonna say, yeah, the Luger.
Speaker 01:The the black leather overcoat. Yeah. I mean, just the fact that his name, Ernie Kaltenbrunner, there was a real Ernst Kaltenbrunner. He was convicted at Nuremberg. He was uh Reich Minister of Defense. So yeah, that and that was a subtle hint. And uh Don Kalfa, the guy that plays Ernie, he mentions it in passing. I mean, it's not it's just it's it's another Easter egg, but it's there if you see it. And if you if you if you notice it, like there's a picture of Ava Braun in the mortuary in the in his embalming room. If you look on the on the bulletin board behind his desk, it's like you can see it plain as day. It's like it's Ava Braun.
Speaker 00:Right. We see Bert, uh, Frank, and Freddie all in the mortuary with the bags. Yeah. When it when he uh explains, he treat uh I think Frank tries to play it off like these are uh rabid rabid weasels. Weasels, yeah.
Speaker 01:It's like what the hell is in those bags? Right rabid weasels, and he says it so convincingly. Right. And Ernie's like, What are you doing with a bunch of rabid weasels? Right.
Speaker 00:You know, it's and it's so it's so nonchalant, he's just like, it's rabid weasels, right? And and he sees that these bags are still moving, you know, implying that they're still alive. And then Frank is basically saying, Can you just incinerate these for us, please?
Speaker 01:And and Ernie's like, What the hell you want me to do? Yeah, he's like, Well, you have a crematorium. He's like, You want to burn them? Like alive? It's like, well, yeah. Yeah, you know, he's like, Well, at least let me take them out and put them out of their misery. Yeah. Again, reaching for his luger.
Speaker 00:Yeah. So I I guess you know, they he takes a little convincing, but uh reluctantly he decides to go through with it and burn these bags.
Speaker 01:Well, they show him what's really in the bags. They're like, it's not weasels in the bag. Ernie's like, Well, okay, so what the hell's in the bags? Yeah, he's like, Can can you keep a secret, Ernie? So Bert opens up the bag and it's a hand twitching, and Ernie's instantly like, Oh shit. Yeah, nearly rips his pants off. Yeah, the the hand falls out of the bag and it grabs onto his leg and he's like, get it off, get it off.
Speaker 00:Yeah, that was hilarious. Oh, yeah. So he he he knows what he's dealing with now. He's not just uh these these aren't rabbit weasels. This is a dismembered zombie and and he has to deal with it.
Speaker 01:Yeah, and I think once he realizes the severity of the situation, he's like, Yeah, okay, maybe we should get rid of it.
Speaker 00:Yeah.
Speaker 01:And they probably, if they if they would have known what was gonna happen, they probably would have just, I don't know, dropped it in some acid or not burn it.
Speaker 00:Right. Which uh, you know, unbeknownst to them, is what triggers this next phase of disaster because apparently the burned remains flying into the sky now create a thunderstorm of toxic rain that rains over the the nearby cemetery, very conveniently located uh next to the crematorium.
Speaker 01:And if that's not some fucking plot armor, I don't know what is, dude.
Speaker 00:So now we cut back to the graveyard, we get the uh the toxic rain pouring down on all the uh the graves. It's kind of a foreshadowing of what's about to happen.
Speaker 01:They run to the car, yeah, the tops down. Yeah, suicide's like, put the fucking top up. Yeah, and then they're like, roll the windows up, and Suicide conveniently says, Oh, I don't have any windows, I busted them. Typical punk rock aggressiveness.
Speaker 00:And then one of them says, Do you hear that sound? And then we get this this slow-mo, kind of weird shot of like all the graves, yeah, and the rain coming down. And then I think that's when we start to see the bodies coming from out of the ground. All the all the zombies are awoken by this toxic rain. Yeah, yeah, that's a great shot.
Speaker 01:And some of those zombies, let's face it, the makeup sucked.
Speaker 00:Oh, dude. Some some were better than others.
Speaker 01:They just had like, and some of them had like just their normal faces with just a bunch of mud spread on it. Yes, it's like way to put in the effort there, Steve Johnson.
Speaker 00:Yeah, I I think they blew all their wad on Tarman as far as the look. Tarman was the obvious.
Speaker 01:And Linnea quickly is murkin' from when she's dancing naked.
Speaker 00:Yeah, I think I think trash even complains about uh her skin burning from the rain and uh yanking off a sweater or something from from Casey. From Casey, yeah.
Speaker 01:Give me that. That skin's really burning. Yeah, yeah, it's probably the 600 STDs you got, you fucking.
Speaker 00:Doesn't Tina go before they all leave, before the rain? She goes over to check on um Freddy. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And is that when we s that's when we see Tarman for the first time? Yep. Yeah, in all his glory and in the world.
Speaker 01:One of the most iconic 80s zombies ever. Tarman was uh he was pretty much a uh a a staple of 80s zombie iconography.
Speaker 00:Yeah, I I just I love the look and when he says brains and they get that close up, you see his tongue come out. Just another uh a nice touch. All right, so now we're uh we're introduced to Tarman, and Tina's screaming as uh Tarman chases after her and she's going up the stairs, and of course, uh earlier on uh when Frank and Freddie were going down the stairs, Frank very uh nonchalantly says, Watch out for that third step, and of course, it's foreshadowing for what happens to Tina and she falls through it, and then uh, you know, she scrambles to the uh to this closet where she locks herself in, and then I think this is the first time where we see the zombies, they actually have some sort of intelligence.
Speaker 01:Oh, yeah. He's has he has reasoning power. He's like, Oh, that's not gonna stop me. I'll bust in and fucking get you.
Speaker 00:Yeah, basically he wraps this chain around the door that she's barricaded herself in, and then he has that little ratcheting mechanism that he slowly turns and uh builds up tension to to bust the door off.
Speaker 01:And I think uh I think people, I mean, because zombies for the most part were always like just mindless, you know. You know, George Romero in the character of Bub in Day of the Dead, tried to give him some intelligence. So I think that was a that was a uh a conscious decision.
Speaker 00:Yeah. Definitely made it more interesting in this movie. Yeah I mean, not just the reasoning power, but later on we learn a little bit more about what it feels like to be a zombie in this movie and and how that motivates them. As Tarman is continuing to to break into uh where Tina's at, we get the uh the punk friends show up. What one uh gets attacked next? Suicide. That's right, suicide, gets his brains eaten. Yep. I mean that big bald head was just waiting to get chomped.
Speaker 01:And they're like, oh fuck, and they all like take off, and you know, they're jumping over the third step, and yeah, they get split up, they run back towards the graveyard. That's when uh when trash uh gets her wish.
Speaker 00:Yep, her fantasy comes true in all its horror.
Speaker 01:Yeah. Uh Chuck and Casey run back to the medical supply warehouse, and spider, scus, and Tina run towards the embalming room, the mortuary.
Speaker 00:Yeah. Felt like it was kind of cold the way that they just abandoned trash.
Speaker 01:I mean, it's every man for himself, I think. And she's kind of a weak link, I think, in their friend group, probably. Yeah. They probably tolerated her because she was probably one of the only hot punk chicks in the whole town. I mean, they are in Louisville, Kentucky in 1985. That was probably a pretty fucking redneck town.
Speaker 00:So they're probably the only punk kids in the town.
Speaker 01:Yeah, they probably never even got shows in their town. They probably had to go to like Nashville.
Speaker 00:The paramedics show up at some point, and then they uh that's when they look over Frank and uh Freddie. We learn for the first time that they've been that they're actually dead. They're they've been infected, and they have no vital signs, and apparently their body temperature is room temperature. Do you feel like this was a good way of sort of explaining what's happening to them?
Speaker 01:Oh yeah. Yeah. And then a little bit later in the movie when their their bodies are all cramping up and you know they have headaches and they're sick, and their Ernie basically gives them a once over, and he's like, Yeah, uh, looks like Rick or Mortis is setting in. Right. Because they're bruising, their blood is pooling up in their backs from where they're laying and stuff. That was a great shot. That's lividity when when you have a corpse and it's laying there, the blood pools at the the lowest point because of gravity. So, yeah. Some nice little details there, and that's probably one of the most used uh death metal samples ever. Oh, it looks like uh rigor mortis is setting in. I don't know how many bands have used that. The band Rigor Mortis used it. Mortician has used it, I think, a couple times. This band Engorged from Portland, they used that sample. It was fucking crazy. So Ernie pulls his gun on these terrified kids that you know they don't have any guns. But um, he's like, Are you on drugs?
Speaker 00:Are you on PCP? One of my favorite lines.
Speaker 01:Yeah, like you know, punk rockers are all drug-addicted fiends or whatever. So, you know, and they're like, We ain't no fucking drugs, man, just let us in. And then uh, you know, you can hear all the zombies in the graveyard literally screaming, and they're trying to to board the thing back up, board the windows up, and the zombie this zombie lady attacks Scuzz and bites him in the head, eating his brain, and um they cut her in half, yeah, and she's still alive. So yeah, they take her and they put her on a table in the uh in the embalming room, and they tie her up and they're interrogating her.
Speaker 00:Yeah. This is the first time that we actually see a zombie uh kind of talking, yeah, coherently speaking, right?
Speaker 01:And Ernie proceeds to interrogate her and it's like, why do you eat people? She says, Not people, brains. He's like, brains only, and she's like, Yes. He's like, Why? Why do you eat brains? And she tells him the pain of being dead. Yeah, and Ernie, but particularly Ernie, he's looking at it like because he's a he's an embalmer, he's a mortician, and he you know, he's he's just realized the secret of death. It's like if we feel it, and he's like, it hurts, yeah, it hurts to be dead.
Speaker 00:Which which is is kind of revolutionary in in the whole zombie mythos because for the first time we're hearing what it feels like and why they're motivated to go after the living, yeah.
Speaker 01:Well, yeah, I mean, and and death is such a a profound mystery of life when nobody knows what it's gonna be like. Right. And to hear even in a movie, to hear it like, fuck, what if it is real? What if it actually does hurt to be dead? It's terrifying. And if you're young, yeah, a young person, you hear that, you know, that might fuck with you a little bit. You're like, well, fuck, maybe it does. Yeah. I mean, we don't know. Yeah, that DMT trip might last for years and years and years when we're in our grave. Who knows?
Speaker 00:Who knows? Uh that's what's great about movies, though, that you can kind of ponder some of these bigger questions.
Speaker 01:Well, especially horror films, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 00:And that's what's kind of unique about this film is even though it is kind of a fun party film, uh, you get moments like that that are a little bit more profound that make you think a little bit more about the characters and the the villains in this.
Speaker 01:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and uh in scholarly writers like David J. Skall, who wrote predominantly about horror films, he always said it was like it was uh horror movies were a fun way to thumb our nose at death.
Speaker 00:Yeah.
Speaker 01:Which is, you know, it's an important part of especially as you as you get older. You know, you realize your mortality more, and it's just a fun way to be like, not today.
Speaker 00:Not gonna give me this time.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:Okay, so now we're uh we're at the point where they're trying to figure out what to do with Frank and Freddie, uh, and they know what's gonna happen to them uh if they don't lock them up or put them somewhere. So there's a little bit of a debate on where where they should put them, and they all decide on uh moving them to the chapel.
Speaker 01:Yeah, so you know, there's this big to do about where they're gonna go. They should go talk to the cops, go somewhere else, go somewhere anywhere safer than where they're at. So, like you said, they decide to put them in the chapel. So they pick them up and it's obviously very painful.
Speaker 00:Frank is is screaming his head off the entire way down the hall.
Speaker 01:Yeah. And you know, I can't even imagine what it would be like. It'd probably be like having the most because they're going through rigor mortis.
Speaker 00:Right.
Speaker 01:It was probably it'd probably be like the biggest mat most massive cramp you've ever had times a thousand. Right. So they put him in the chapel and they lock him in there, and Tina decides she's gonna stay with Freddie because, you know.
Speaker 00:Love.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:He's my boyfriend. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 01:So they go and they decide, you know, and they they have to lock him in. So they put him in there about 10-15 minutes later, uh, they reawaken and she's screaming and freaking out, and Freddie's like, I'm gonna eat you. He's you know, he's trying to he's trying to attack her, and you know, it's kind of disturbing because this is the first time where we see him turning on her. Oh yeah. And then um Bert and Ernie and Spider come back and they bust through the door, you know, they hit him in the head with a sledgehammer, you know, they and he goes down and and you see you see Frank, he's kind of like looking around and shit, and then he he takes off. So they throw acid in Freddie's face because they're trying to figure out how to kill the zombies, and so far nothing's worked, yeah. Nothing's worked. So Ernie has this it's like a glass of nitric acid, which is pretty corrosive, and he throws it in Freddy's face, and Freddy's blind, and his eyes are all red and messed up looking. And um, they lock him in. Well, they put a uh they put on one of the pews against the door and they drop it on on Ernie's foot, and he can't run. They break his foot basically. So they go back to the embalming room with Tina, and they decide that they're gonna make a run for the cop cars. So, and Ernie can't run, and Ernie can't run, so he's just standing there and he's like, you know, watch your ass out there. Yeah, so they run for the cop cars, and Tina's freaking out because you know they think she thinks that they've abandoned her, and you know, Ernie. So, and he's like, they had to, and Ernie's like, they had to leave. So they're making a beeline for the the medical supply warehouse because there's a phone. And um Ernie and Tina decide that they're gonna barricade themselves in this little crawl space in the in the embalming room, and Freddy's busting through the door, and he you know, he is intent on eating Tina's brains. Yeah, there's no stopping it. Yeah, he's he's got it in his mind, he's going for it. And then we cut to uh the uh the crematorium, and Frank is getting ready to take himself out, yeah, basically.
Speaker 00:Going out like a hero.
Speaker 01:Yeah, he uh takes his wedding ring off and he pulls out the the little mesh fence thing, uh uh table, whatever, yeah. And uh cremates himself basically.
Speaker 00:It's hardcore, man. That's a that's a hard way to go. Yeah, even if you are a zombie, yeah.
Speaker 01:Can't feel good burning yourself alive. No. Bert and spider, they get to the cop cars and they decide they're gonna make a beeline for the medical supply warehouse. And um they get back there, and Casey and Chuck were hiding out, and they're like, hey man, what's going on? You know, they're so happy to see each other. And then they ask who uh who Bert is, and he's like, He owns this place, and there's zombies everywhere. There's like whole crowds of them chasing them. And they uh they wreck the cop car, the cop car blows up, so they're basically stuck there now. So there's a they can't use the phone in the office because there's a zombie in it. So they decide that they're gonna go, there's a phone in the basement. And uh fucking uh Chuck says probably one of the funniest deliveries and lines in this movie is like the basement fuck, you know what's in the basement? One of them fucking corpses, man, a real ugly one, all black and slimy. Yeah, and he's like, Well, I don't care what's in the basement, we gotta get to that phone, man. So Bert decides that he's gonna knock his goddamn block off. Yeah, and that he says it just like that. It's like, I'm gonna knock his goddamn block off. Which he does. Yeah. So they open the door and Tarman slithers out, and Frank just bam. Yeah, straight off his fucking body gives him a Mickey mantle right on the head. And then they get down, they get down to the basement and they decide that they're gonna call the number on the side of the tanks, which they probably should have at the very beginning, right? But then we wouldn't have had a movie, and they're instantly uh forwarded to a uh to Colonel Glover. And Colonel Glover wakes up from a sound sleep and he instantly is awake and knows what's going on. So it's like he's been waiting for this his whole life. Yeah, and he's like, fuck, finally I can get rid of all this stuff in my house, and I'm gonna get a congressional medal of honor. Right. So he uh asks uh Bert a bunch of questions about what what what transpired, how long did it take, where, how many are there, how many zombies are there, uh where and what what city is it located in, and blah blah blah. So they ask what's going on. Uh spider and Chuck ask what's going on, and Bert says, Yeah, it's kind of weird. It's like they knew this was gonna happen, and they have a contingency plan to deal with, and we finally see what that contingency plan would be. A nuke. Yeah. We meet Sergeant Jefferson of the 42nd Mobile Artillery Unit, yeah, which is basically a giant howitzer. Yeah.
Speaker 00:Just hanging out, yeah, waiting for this order.
Speaker 01:Yeah. As if it was uh, you know, the plan all along. So they get the bearings and they get the coordinates for Louisville, Kentucky, and they proceed to nuke it off the face of the earth.
Speaker 00:And then, of course, when the explosion goes off, you just see the big, you know, iconic mushroom cloud that you've seen in a hundred other films.
Speaker 01:Oh, yeah. Um the funny thing is, it's like that thing, it looked like just a 38 cartridge. That's not what a nuke looks like.
Speaker 00:Yeah, you know. Basically, they took care of the problem.
Speaker 01:Colonel Glover is uh he's talking to somebody on the phone about finding out, you know, like how many died, how many, how many square miles were damaged.
Speaker 00:And and they they downplay it like, oh, well, it's only what 4,000, I think.
Speaker 01:It's only 4,000 dead. Yeah, you know, and then uh he's talking, you know, apparently the guy on the other line asks, you know, says, Well, was there any any problems? And Colonel Glover says, Well, only some minor skin irritation. Uh but the rain's gonna take care of that. Right. It's like, okay.
Speaker 00:We've seen this before, we know where it's going.
Speaker 01:Yeah, exactly. It's just it's perpetrating itself again. It's like the 245 trioxin. There's no way that that should be should have been left just out in the public somewhere. What about the legacy and the impact of this film? This movie has m made a big impact on uh the music scene, music scenes, especially punk and death metal. So many bands have to cited this movie as an influence, you know. And like I said, you know, bands like Rigor Mortis and Mortician have sampled this movie.
Speaker 00:A lot of the dialogue, especially with the punk kids, a lot of it was kind of ad-libbed.
Speaker 01:Even though none of them were punks.
unknown:Right.
Speaker 00:Yeah, they just not one of them. Yeah. Did did any of those actors go on to do anything else?
Speaker 01:No. Well, Tom Matthews, Clue Gallagher, who plays Burt, James Karen. James Carron was in a bunch of horror films. Don Kalfa, Linnea Quigley, we already know about her. Yeah. Um, Brian Venturini, the guy that plays Suicide, he passed away. Uh, we're not gonna talk about Brian Peck. Yeah, he doesn't deserve to be talked about. Yeah, look him up if you want. Yeah. Google it. Um, but uh yeah, the three uh like the three or four main like Bert, Frank, those actors were well known in Hollywood. Kluge Gallagher was a very famous actor back in the 60s and 70s.
Speaker 00:Do you feel like the ending uh was supposed to set up a sequel?
Speaker 01:No, I don't know why they made a second one, the second one sucked. Yeah. The third one was okay, but I don't know. I'm not a big proponent of sequels.
Speaker 00:Yeah. Especially for like a film like this. Yeah, it doesn't need to be a franchise. For real. Well, that wraps up this episode of the Dark Territory podcast. If you enjoyed the discussion, be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Next week, we'll dive into the 1980s haunted house thriller, The Changeling. Until then, I'm Sean. I'm Brandon. See you next week.