Lunatics Radio Hour

Episode 63 - The History of Zombies

February 07, 2021 The Lunatics Project Season 1 Episode 63
Lunatics Radio Hour
Episode 63 - The History of Zombies
Show Notes Transcript

Alan and Abby talk through the history of zombies...and then phone a friend to explore some of the best (and worst) zombie films ever made. 

PBS Documentary on the History of Zombies: watch here.

Lunatics merch, available here!
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Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback.

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Speaker 1:

[inaudible]

Speaker 2:

Welcome to another episode of the lunatics radio hour. I'm Abby banker. I'm here with Alan KU, Dan. Hello. And Alan is wearing his zombie t-shirt because today's episode, as you know, from clicking on the title is all about zombies.

Speaker 3:

It's a complete coincidence that I'm wearing the shirt. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

It's like said Jessop for each

Speaker 3:

Episode. I do. Despite the fact that it's a podcast,

Speaker 2:

We are so excited about this episode. Obviously zombies are so important to the, his, what,

Speaker 3:

I'm just curious where your calling songs are just so important to society today.

Speaker 2:

You gave me such a look. Some of these are very important to the history of horror, right? There's such a huge sub genre.

Speaker 3:

Uh, yeah. Yeah. I mean

Speaker 2:

Loves them. I would say for use B movies are a top thing.

Speaker 3:

I, there, there was a chapter of my life where my friends and I were all about zombie movies. Speaking of which later in this program, this program, we have a very, very special guest that we'll be doing a bit of. Well, we'll be discussing some zombie films. Yes. And he'll also be doing a dramatic read of one of the best zombie stories ever written.

Speaker 2:

Yes. And we should actually take this moment, I think, to address the new format. We, yes. We have a new format I've been working on this new format for so long.

Speaker 3:

Oh, the bonus. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So what we're going to do, just because I don't know for us, this podcast actually started, you know, in the early days as just a way for us to read horror stories. Right. And

Speaker 3:

You say just, but like, no, it was a, that was the focus platform, uh, a Avenue to artistic expression. Exactly.

Speaker 2:

And that was the fun part. And so now we've evolved organically to doing the history of these things, which is also really, really fun and exciting, but we feel like sometimes the stories can get lost a little bit at the end of the episodes. Right. And so that we have this new new system.

Speaker 3:

Yes. I'm going to interject and say the stories aren't getting lost in the system. Okay. It's just that we have too many stories now. Right. There are so many episodes now where it's like, do we read this story for it or this story? I wrote all of these ones and they're all so great. And this person volunteered to read this and this celebrity voice actor wants to read this one, uh, you know, gosh, how do we pick? And so I think this is just a stronger format yeah. To present all.

Speaker 2:

And it's also a fun, cause it lets us have like themed week. So essentially here's the format Mondays as always late Sunday slash Monday morning, the history episodes will come out. Right? So the zombie history of zombies is coming out Monday. Then later in the week,

Speaker 3:

If you're Vincent in France, it might be coming out on Tuesday night

Speaker 2:

Would be coming out on Sunday. Oh, even better surprise Vinson. And then later in the week on Thursday, we're going to put out a shorter kind of bonus companion episode for these big history, deep dives. That's just going to be not again, not just, but it's going to be made up of short stories that have been written by me that have been written by other writers that have been written by Allen and voice acted by various people. So it'll be Monday deep dive into the history of this thing. Thursday, here are some really cool creepy pastas and short stories and whatever that go with that theme. So this week's theme is zombies. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. And as we know, and so come back on Thursday for some really haunting, creepy stories, read by some cool, awesome voice actor.

Speaker 3:

Or if you're like, most people don't follow a timetable and just listen whenever you want to. But because it's on demand, this is, yeah. You're not fricking tuning in at prime time.

Speaker 2:

Okay. You know, that's fine. That's fair. So anyway, that is, you know, every week is not going to follow that format because there's some weeks that we'll do an interview like we did last week and it just won't make sense. But when we do kind of like deep, deep dives into things, I think it's fun to have to break out sort of the exploratory side of it and the cold hard facts,

Speaker 3:

Which is also a great tool when speaking to people like Adam Bashin, who we talked about, you know, his business and all these fun horror things, but didn't really fall into a narrative scope. This still lets him contribute to the narrative aspect of this podcast, which I think is the most special part.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, exactly. Like we, we let you know before Adam and his girlfriend, Laura Royce acted some really exciting stories that are not going to be this week, but in a very soon upcoming week. So, and they're really good. They're really good. Yeah. So top easily top-notch easily.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Within the top-notch

Speaker 2:

Within the top notch. Yes. For sure. So speaking of this new format, one quick thing before we move on to the actual episode, just that if you are a writer and you're interested in writing for us, we have a whole system in place to try to open up the scope. We want people to get involved. We want this to be a collaborative community podcast that everyone can, you know, use as writing prompts and stuff. So if you want to be given kind of updates on what themes we're looking for in, in the future, send me an email or DME films about Luna at g-mail dot com or the lunatics project on Instagram. And we will get you added to that newsletter. One other quick notice for everybody, which is that what Dylan, one other DLN for everybody is that March 1st is the deadline for submissions to the spring issue of lunatics magazine. So if you are a photographer, a writer and illustrator, a comic book, artist, whatever, if you can take pictures of your fine art again, we want to put you in our magazine. We have a magazine that comes out a couple of times a year that features spooky, creepy art, but some of it's also not spooky. The theme is opposites and duality. Um, so totally different project. But if you are interested in being in Luna ticks magazine, get in touch with me as well, same channels. And, uh, we will talk about that. All right. Zombie time.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Z, Z T Z.

Speaker 2:

You're hearing to the abbreviations today. It

Speaker 3:

Will become crystal clear later.

Speaker 2:

All right. So today's sources his internet history.com article the history of zombies, PBS documentary with Emily. Zarqa the origins of the zombie from Haiti to the us, an article from the Atlantic by Mark Marini, a screen rant article by Michael Kennedy. And of course our dear friend Wikipedia, before we get into all of this rich history, Alan. Yeah. Let's define a zombie,

Speaker 3:

Uh, zombie. Well, that's a loaded question because it depends on what kind of pop cultures on be a pop culture, 20, 21 zombie. Yeah,

Speaker 2:

Exactly. Like I'm talking about what people will most be familiar with, not the origins.

Speaker 3:

Okay. Well, in my opinion, yes, a zombie is a reanimated corpse that is mindless mostly my lists if functions on basic animalistic instincts to feed, and that is it. Miriam web

Speaker 2:

Defines a zombie as a Wilis and speechless human held to have died. And Ben supernaturally, reanimated, reanimated, or a person held to resemble the so called walking dead, a person markedly strange and appearance or behavior or three, a mixed drink made of several kinds of rum liqour and fruit juice, not counting some of the historic ways that we're going to get into zombies are usually made in two ways, correct? They are either a reawakened or reanimated corpse, or they are a living human who was infected in some way by a zombie gene. Would you agree?

Speaker 3:

Som B gene? I wouldn't use the word gene.

Speaker 2:

Okay. Well that was me. So that's fine.

Speaker 3:

I would say the more pop culture reference would be virus.

Speaker 2:

Okay. But like what causes the virus?

Speaker 3:

So like it's always, you know, it's, it's bit of scifi because it makes no sense that kind of virus could survive at all in dead tissue. You know, let alone re animate said dead tissue, right? There's no energy source, you know, so regardless it is a virus that is usually transmitted from subject to subject via, uh, fluids. So bites, um, scratches. I dunno how scratches, uh, are fluid base, but in a lot of movies, if you get scratched, you also become a zombie. Um, my but very, very rarely is it airborne. Right. Um, and you know, it's, it's not unheard of there's no,

Speaker 2:

It'd be a bad mechanic. Cause then everyone would just instantly be a zombie. Right?

Speaker 3:

Well, no. Uh, so now we're getting into like walking dead territory, which is a really cool mechanic. And I love it a lot where it's just a virus that everyone has it's yeah. It's a, it's a virus that doesn't affect you when you're living. But when you die, the virus suddenly kicks into high gear and re animates you into a zombie. There's this great book series that for whatever crazy reason I decided to read during quarantine, and it is about a pandemic. I didn't know this at the time. I just thought it was zombie like a zombie universe, right. That also had superheroes and it's called X heroes. Oh yeah. And I read all the books and I love them very much. I love the author who, how many books are there on this series? Uh, five books. I think. So it's a big boy. Yeah. It's a big, it's a big boy. So this series written by Peter Klein's, uh, I picked it up because it just has a really fun premise. You have superheroes and you have a zombie outbreak and it just, it's like a little fan boy in a nutshell. Right? Yeah, totally. I don't want to give anything away, but everything is like really intermeshed and like the story gets very, it's it's a lot deeper than I was expecting it to be. Oh, I love that. Um, but what mythos exists there is like, yeah, everybody has the zombie virus. Right. So everybody will come back. Right. And the reason why people die from getting bit by a zombie is that the human mouth just has so, so much bacteria and disease, which is totally true. If you get bit by a person, it will absolutely get infected.

Speaker 2:

It's like this new trend on social media where people are like people with microscopes, like probably like biology students or something are like on Tik TOK and stuff like swabbing things. And then showing you like the Petri dishes. And it's like upsetting, like cans, you know, like, like aluminum cans that you drink soda out of our beer or whatever. Yup. Swabbing that like Walmart shopping cards, or even like your sink or your hairbrush. And now I'm like, but I've become a huge germaphobe because it's like a, a trend that's like very upsetting,

Speaker 3:

Well in ex heroes. So you have, you know, all these zombies walking around, biting more humans and these diseases pass on to the news armies. And because they're dead, they have no immune system to fight this off. And so everyone just becomes a conglomerate Petri dish. And so basically every horrible disease just keeps getting added together because there's it, normally these diseases would kill people and they would stay in the ground. But because these diseases keep walking around and keep getting spread from,

Speaker 2:

Wear your mask, everybody say home, wear your mask.

Speaker 3:

Basically when people get bit, I keep seeing basically. So when people get bit, they get infected with every disease known to man simultaneously, and that's why they die really fast.

Speaker 2:

God, stop going to indoor dining. Also do your experience. And we actually watched a movie last night that I know we're going to talk about later. But besides that movie, it's a very uncommon that zombie speak besides groaning or moaning. I won't

Speaker 3:

Say it's uncommon. I will say it is the minority. There are a number of zombie franchises that just changed the mythos. Right. There's one really famous series called the return of the living dead. And this was actually the sister series to Romero's night of the living dead.

Speaker 2:

Yep. Which we'll talk about extensively. Yep.

Speaker 3:

And in that, all of the zombies talk in ReAnimator all of the zombies talk. Yeah. You know? Yeah. It's, it's not rare. It's just less common than your Romero's zombie trope.

Speaker 2:

Right. So tons of recommendations. Right. I think everyone, there's going to be so many, so many things we'd talk about throughout this,

Speaker 3:

On a full list of the movies that we mentioned in this, just click the link.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's going to take me so long to put the Gary. So we're going to talk through this. Right. And there's two cultural things we're going to focus on that are totally different. Right? One is ancient Greece, which is sort of the earliest evidence of things that may be considered zombies and actually ties into a lot of the other main monster tropes that we see. Okay. So we're going to talk about it for that reason. Okay. But then we're going to spend the majority of time talking about Haiti because, and I want this to be very clear to everybody when we're talking about zombies, as we know them, 100%, they come from Haiti and the enslaved people who were brought there in the 15, 16 through 18 hundreds. So I just want that to be very clear because this is going to come up a lot throughout this episode, but my zombies were have become this huge pop cultural, iconic thing. It's been very appropriated and whitewash from. And like most people, I bet I didn't know the, the original roots of it. So I just want to make sure people know that. And just cause I'm starting with the Greek part. I don't want it to feel more important because it's not archeological digs have discovered human remains that were held down with rocks. Other heavy objects. It's believed that this practice was to keep the dead in the grave and stop them from coming to life. Can't blame them often placing millstones on their hands and chests. There are also Giles' Cory, there are also examples of this being done to children. Some of the earliest examples are from Cyprus dating back to 4,500 BCE. This practice is similar to what we saw in Eastern Europe with vampiric legend, right? Yup. Listen, back to our vampire episode, to hear all about this, the ancient Greeks helped develop the philosophy so to speak of the undead. So they were the first ones who had this, a philosophical idea of it's not living or dead. It's something different. Right.

Speaker 3:

Which is also very interesting because there's so many stories of people like fluidly dying, going to Hades and then coming back and then just like being a normal guy. Once you walk out of Hades and you're through the Gates, you're a normal guy, right?

Speaker 2:

One grave site was discovered dating back to Byzantine Greece. It held two dismembered bodies. One was a woman who had been severed horizontally completely in half. She was buried with a coin from the emperor Constantine JD and between 306 and 337, a D and a dismembered leg, belonging to a male evidence of a burial. So that's just showing right, this, the span of how many years, this, this kind of thing has evidence tied to evidence of a burial was also found attributed to Ottoman Greece, a Turkish cemetery with bones pinned down with spikes and nails. So this is just to say that this practice of pinning down bodies, which again, we also see in Eastern Europe with vampires and all over the globe, pretty much this fear of the dead coming back to life. And that could be vampires. In some cultures, it could be zombies and subcultures. You know, there's a lot of different commonalities that run through the superstition.

Speaker 3:

And if you, you know, are maybe 20 years old, you got married at 10 and in arranged marriage, you know, you hate the person and they're finally dead. You just want to make sure they're really bad. You just, you don't want them coming back. So you nail them down, walk away, live the rest of your five-year life.

Speaker 2:

There's actually new technology that has been discovered that keeps people alive longer. Yes, no. That turns bodies into soil. So like instead of being buried or being cremated, you could be turned into soil that could then plant new plants and sustain more life. So I think that I've decided that's what I wanted to happen to my body.

Speaker 3:

I wouldn't say that there is necessarily new technology.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm saying there's a facility in Oregon now that's doing it.

Speaker 3:

I, I don't know when this started becoming regular practice, but the whole idea of putting people into caskets that are airtight hermetically sealed, pumping them full of embalming fluid. So they don't decay. Yeah. You know, that just seems so ridiculously wasteful.

Speaker 2:

Totally. Yeah, of course not to like, think about all of the land that is used by cemeteries.

Speaker 3:

Uh, you know, uh, that's why I love the very traditional Jewish burial where they throw you into like a, a sack, like a burlap sack and they just throw you in the ground now that's it. And while this is not necessarily Jewish, I also love the idea of they then plant a tree with the body so that the nutrients from the body feed the tree and the body is literally living on as the tree.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I like that. I want to, like, I want you to plant like roses and Venus fly traps in my soil and then like food, of course.

Speaker 3:

I mean, anyway, we've already

Speaker 2:

Talked about this. I know, but I just want everyone to know so they can hold you accountable. We're going to just shoot you into the sun,

Speaker 3:

Forcing it to go supernova. There's going to be some extra mess, you know, attached, but it's going to take the earth with it. And the rest of the solar system. Got it. Got it. Okay. Cause there's no sense living without you. Oh, you're very sweet and all coming with us.

Speaker 2:

If we look at Greek folklore, we get further confirmation of this fear of zombies Ricola costs. And forgive us if you're, if you're Greek are undead creatures of ancient legend,

Speaker 3:

That's really cool. That's really cool. It is not every day that you completely surprise me with it. Mythical beast.

Speaker 2:

Th that's how I keep our relationships spicy. You're doing a good job. It's usually seen as a similar being to the vampire. However, it prefers human flesh and liver to blood.

Speaker 3:

Ah, the Promethease approach,

Speaker 2:

Its appearance is also very similar to the modern image of a zombie. The Greeks believe that one would turn into a Ricola cos after death, if they lived a SAC religious life, or if they were buried in unholy ground ate the meat of sheep that was wounded by Wolf or werewolf or were ex-communicated during life. If you haven't listened to our vampire episode, like I said, there's a lot of overlap between this folk monster and the Slavic version of a vampire.

Speaker 3:

Well, so I, so sidebar. Yeah. I was thinking about this. Yes. There's a lot of fun things about those like broad topics like vampires and werewolves and whatnot. I think we should revisit them totally. In some kind of pickup episode. Yeah. I don't know how to do it.

Speaker 2:

No, I think we should. Totally. I there's like so many things, especially now that we've, we've done the history and we know more about it like that. We're looking that we like connect, you know what I mean?

Speaker 3:

And furthermore, it's only after we do these episodes and I learned these fun things that I'm like browsing through what weird movie we're going watch, you know, like, ah, this would have been so cool to talk about it on this side.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Maybe we'll, we'll do some kind of like monster update episode, every Halloween or something. That'd be cool. Yeah. Uh, and a lot of the similarities between some of these monster lore is due to geography. So for example, the vampire who, and we talked about in the original vampire episode, we discovered that, you know, after you die, your body becomes really swollen. A lot of times dark fluid comes out of your lips and in your nose, your mouth and your nose, especially if they throw you in the river. Right. But even if you're in a coffin. And so if they see what we're digging around in graves, again, especially grave robbers and other people, they saw what looked like blood coming out of the mouth. Right. And the body has changed and fuller looking like they feasted, you know? So that was the connection to a lot of the early lore. And actually these places are not so far from each other. So it makes sense that these, the Greek culture would have a similar sort of story. Right. To explain some of this. Yeah. You may be wondering if there's a way for recall last to infect people and yes, there is. This is the fun part. The story goes that a very Cola costs may knock off.

Speaker 3:

That's right. We were now you have Ricola because it's the extra syllable in there. It gets you every time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Ricola, cos may knock on your door and call out the names of those who live there. So like for example, I could come to our door right now and it could knock once and it would say Alan and Abby, and if we answered it before the second knock, it's no good. Oh, if you don't answer it before then no problem. You just have to pretend you're not home. However, if you do come to the door, then you will become a zombie in a few days. So there's actually a tradition in some regions of Greece, still not to answer the door until the second knock because of this. Cool.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Well, so as soon as you said, uh, the whole, like you're going to hear a knock of like, from like the mists at night, you know, uh, they actually have this beast in the Witcher mythos, which is all based on, um, not based on, but sourced Mo mainly from Polish lore.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Which again, they're all, they're all very close to each other. Yeah. Some believe that Ricola costs can even cause epidemics or pandemics in the community. Another call back to a previous episode of ours, they said

Speaker 3:

COVID was caused by a bat.

Speaker 2:

This creature has some ties to sleep paralysis. It is thought that it can kill humans by sitting on them while they sleep. And as we know, right, like there's a lot of different cultural folklore, legends around being tied down while you sleep, not being able to move, being immobilized while you sleep, check out our sleep

Speaker 3:

Paralysis episode for more. And

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And that's like one of the very key symptoms of sleep process is this feeling of not being able to move your body, but being conscious. So there's also ties the here with that and know a lot of, I don't know a lot of the, maybe this is just because we're reading a book, that's on a theme, but we're reading Frankenstein right now. Frankenstein Frank KIS Stein, and our friends, our friends, Amber and Patrick gave you the book for the holidays and I stole it from you and we're both reading it.

Speaker 3:

And now we have to share the book, which has proved a very interesting experiment

Speaker 2:

Farther than me. But it's also interesting, like, you know, I was kind of had this like moment the other day when I was reading the book. So many of this is like about the reanimation of bodies, right? Like Frankenstein, vampires, zombies. They have a lot of really similar attributes, you know? Yeah. I was actually, so when

Speaker 3:

We were doing a bit of research for this episode, you know, I'm, I have a lot of familiar familiarity with zombie movies, but it's been awhile. So I wanted to brush up and I was just trying to look out, look into what's out there. And it's really hard to nail down. I guess you have your very traditional zombie movies, but what, where do you draw the line between a zombie and like a mummy?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly. They're all re animated creatures in different ways. Yup. It's you're right. It is very, that's a great point too. We also

Speaker 3:

Glance over one of the most famous zombie cases of all time. Tell me similarly, uh, the, the body was nailed in order to restrict movement and then three days later, bam, back up and walking around.

Speaker 2:

That's true. That's a good point. Jesus has just as zombie years ago though, the ancient Greeks had Laura, that was seemed similar to a modern day. Zombie understanding the main cultural driver behind zombies comes from Haiti. A lot of this research comes from a PBS documentary. That's also available on YouTube and I really urge everyone to go and watch it. I'm going to link it because it includes interviews with Voto experts and practitioners that can represent their own stories in a way that I, you know, in a better way than I ever could. That's awesome. A lot of this is totally outside of our wheelhouse. So I would direct you to the, to the experts to hear it firsthand. Very cool. The actual zombie myth has been totally whitewashed by American culture with the rise of the zombie movie, which of course we will talk about very soon with our special mystery guest Voda, which is an entirely different religion than boudou is where our story starts voting, who might have inspired the more commonly. And there may be some connection. Like there are definitely some connections between the two religions, but they're very different. The people of West Africa were enslaved by the Spanish and taken to the Island of Hispaniola and 1502, which of course is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic. By the end of the 16 hundreds, the French started to establish colonies on the Island specifically in the Western half, which is now known as Haiti. The region made up one third. I just want these facts to sink in. Okay. Okay. This region made up one third of the trans Atlantic slave trade and over 90% of the Island was populated by enslaved people. Haiti is so small, one third of the trans Atlantic slave trade.

Speaker 3:

So hang on. Yeah. As in it was a hub for the rest of North and South America, or that's just how many that's, how many bodies were in that area? Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2:

Over half of the enslaved people were worked to death within a few years, which only of course encouraged them to bring in more and more people. So it's horrific, right? It's, it's brutal and horrifying and terrible. Like the, you know, just like let that sink in for a minute. The enslaved people believed that dying would release their soul back to Africa where they could be free. The zombie really at its core. We have to look at the idea of being enslaved totally in a place that's not your home, separated from your loved ones, separated from everything. Talk about the worst

Speaker 3:

Curse imaginable, being

Speaker 2:

Exactly trapped after death and the feeling of not having control of your body of your life, uh, feeling soulless and empty of feeling like your soul belong somewhere where you're not there. There's so many ties when you think about it to this horrible thing that was happening. Suicide was common, but it was believed by people who believed in Vodou that the soul would be stuck in Haiti and would not be returned home. And after the Haitian revolution, the zombie belief turned into local folklore and mingled with the voter religion, because there are people on the Island from so many different regions who all held different religious and spiritual beliefs, a new religion developed, which encompassed these different backgrounds, right from, from all of these different regions of West Africa. Okay. Essentially voting is kind of like a combination of spiritual and religious beliefs from, from tons of different countries. One of the basis of ODU is that the body is a vehicle controlled by two elements of the soul. So one is a spiritual element that recalls memories, controls consciousness, and can contact spirits. It's essentially your personality. Right? Okay. And the other controls the body. So each of these elements can be taken from you and after death, it is believed that the soul kind of sticks around for a few days, which puts these spiritual elements at risk of being stolen or wandering too far away. And you can start to see some of the roots of zombies here, right. Of, of this soul that can be captured in this body that can be taken just a note about what I'm about to talk about, about voodoo and[inaudible], there are certain words tied to certain parts of these religions that can have negative connotations depending on like what region you're in and what religion you are. Do, do you have an example? Yeah. So the big one we're going to talk about is Bo Corp, which we've see in, in some of those army movies we watched in preparation for this is essentially sort of an evil voodoo practitioner, but it's, it can also be sort of a slang derogatory term in certain places. And so you'll see it in film, but I think people don't really realize that part of it. And so again, they talk about it in the PBS documentary they're interviewing actual practitioner. So I'll leave the link, please watch that. But I just want, I don't want people to go around freely using this word out of context and you shouldn't anyway, but you know, because it's not like a positive word, got it. It's commonly known that these malignant sourcers or priestesses are called

Speaker 3:

Book, malignant sorcerer.

Speaker 2:

They were believed to control the undead to do their bidding. The zombie movie actually really has a pivotal role in defining zombie history, uh, which we're about to talk with, with our guests, but zombie movies really impacted pop culture and horror in a big way. Right. And we'll talk about this in a minute, but it's very interesting to see how the first zombie movies actually are a little bit aligned with, with this Haitian history and very quickly that is whitewashed and erase. Right. Okay. So my one more thing that I want to talk about before we bring on our special guest is a man named Claire obvious Narcy. And I could be saying that totally wrong, but we'll leave a link below. He was a Haitian man who claimed to have been turned into a zombie. And this is actually really similar to the plot of the rainbow and the serpent that we watched on the rainbow, the serpent and the rainbow. Yeah. But he was an actual person. He was born in 1922. He passed away in 1994. And people kind of largely think that he was given, he thought that he was given this, this powder, right. This, this drug that made him appear to be dead. And he sort of came back. They, they think that they, he was given something like paralyzing puffer fish venom, which

Speaker 3:

Is really, really awful.

Speaker 2:

Right. With the combination of other things that would, you know, kind of maybe like

Speaker 3:

What's the puffer fish delicacy called puffer fish. No, it's got a it's Fu maybe, maybe regardless, kudos to the guy that figured that one out that, that one 80 bitty piece of the puffer fish is not poisonous and everything else is deadly.

Speaker 2:

Hmm. Yeah. And, and actually similar to the movie, there was a Harvard like graduate student or graduate who went down and had like all of these dealings with this guy.

Speaker 3:

So one, I know we're going to get into movies in a second, but speaking about the serpent and the rainbow first off who's who directed that again? West Craven. Yeah. Thank you. So yeah, Wes Craven clearly a very famous horror director, this movie, which really seems deep seated in Haitian lore and history and everything,

Speaker 2:

Which is all mostly inaccurate. Well,

Speaker 3:

I read that it was very inaccurate. Yeah. But I just read that, but me watching the movie and hearing your descriptions, it seems,

Speaker 2:

Well, I think what you've read, if I remember what you read said that it wasn't a good depiction of the culture. So like some of the facts and plot points could have been taken from this thing that happened, but that the way they depicted like Haitian culture was not really accurate if you went there. Okay.

Speaker 3:

We're gonna, um, I'm just gonna softball this one in, but let's say the serpent in the rainbow is to Haiti. What Brahm Stoker's Dracula is to Transylvania.

Speaker 2:

Sure. Yeah. And you know, this guy claims that he was made to work as an enslaved person after he had become a zombie. So it relates back to this idea of the boat Corps, because what they would do was, uh, what they were known to do was to turn people into zombies so that they could sort of use them to do their bidding. Right.

Speaker 3:

But they, the important delineation is that they were living zombies. There was no re people would appear to come back from the dead, but it was all through drugs.

Speaker 2:

Well, that's, well, there's different things here, right? There's this one guy where this thing he claims actually happened to him, but predating all of that, there was this belief in this, this religion, that this is a possibility based on how they believe the soul worked. And so if you had, and you see this in, in the serpent and the rainbow, but if, if you had a soul that you could find this powerful sourcer could get a bit from, he could control your soul, he could control your body and make you do his work. Which again, obviously is so on the nose with what enslaved people went through, you know, in, in Haiti. And it makes a ton of sense that this became the folklore, right. That they were being controlled by these powerful whatever, but then comes along. So then comes Clairvia narcissi who believes that this happened to him and that he was forced to work as a slave in the, in the early mid, 19 hundreds. And a lot of people sort of believe he had been given this drug and had this crazy experience.

Speaker 3:

All right. So we'll let you guys decide for yourselves. Yes. But Haitians zombie is, um, is so bad-ass, it's such a weird occult fascinating topic.

Speaker 2:

Well, I will say, you know, when you look at, like, we just talked about vampires and werewolves and Frankenstein, some of these other, I guess, Frankenstein isn't really like a pop culture or like Frankenstein is only, I'm saying pregnancy is not like a, uh, was not like a folklore thing. But if you look at even just vampires, vampires were a reaction to people not understanding how decomposed sure. Zombies were a reaction to enslaved people being brutally tortured and their whole lives being taken from them. You know, so it's a much heavier and tragic and real thing. And, and so, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's, it's got such a important history to, to think about into honor. And I think that makes the zombie trope, especially when it stays true to the culture, so much more powerful for sure. And so, uh, w we have seen how zombies, which started as Haitian culture have exploded into something that has come very, very, not Haitian at all. Right. And I guess we shouldn't even say Haitian really it's West African, you know, it's, it's a combination of all of these cultures, but yeah, yeah. That said, I would love to see a return and resurgence of voodoo horror. There's not enough of it. There's a smattering. And a lot of it is pretty dated at this point. Yeah. I think it's such a cool horror topic. Yeah. That can definitely be explored further, but of course, you know, it has to be dealt with, with the appropriate hands. Right. The appropriate minds. I was just thinking like, not Kate Hudson and skeleton key. Absolutely. That's not what we're saying, but yeah. With we don't, we've seen so much cool black horror. Absolutely. In just the last few years, I would love to see one that's even more historically rooted. Totally. Yeah, absolutely. And again, this is, I mean, such a shortcoming on my part and probably all of our parts that, like I had no idea this was the history of zombies at all. I had no idea and it makes so much sense now, you know, it's. Yeah. Okay. Well, we've been tiptoeing around the fact that special guests, we're going to be talking about zombie movies with a special guest. So I think it is about time to welcome the special guest on. Okay. All right. So now we're here with the very mysterious, special guests that we have been teasing all episode Allen, big reveal. Welcome Kevin Murphy. Yay. Welcome. Kevin Murphy.

Speaker 4:

Oh, happy to be here. I, I hope that, uh, the, the illusions to the secret guests were very favorable, uh, incredibly favorable. Um,

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we we've been teasing, um, that, you know, we didn't know that they didn't know who was going to be on. We just said, imagine, you know, your favorite celebrity and it could be,

Speaker 4:

You are begging for disappointment. No, no, no.

Speaker 2:

Kevin Murphy is a good friend of mine. You know, we, we grew up together. We made a bunch of movies together and Kevin actually acted in the zombie feature that we made together. You made a zombie feature together. I don't know.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. I mean, there's a, there's a box set anthology of all of our movies that, uh, you know, it's, it's tough to pick just one out and hold it above the others. I mean, the, the, the quality was just so high for, for all of them really.

Speaker 6:

It's true. Um, so this movie never got, uh, officially released, but it was definitely

Speaker 2:

Quite the personal achievement. Okay. So shall we talk really quickly about some more famous movies, more famous on me movies, perhaps not that yours wasn't important in its own way, but

Speaker 5:

Are there, are there any, I mean, this is, I take some minor offense to that characterization.

Speaker 2:

Fair enough. Listen. Fair enough. Perhaps more so than any other sub genre, early zombie movies play a huge role in melding and transforming culture and pop culture enter white zombie from 1932. And you've actually seen this happen. I have not that it's rare, but I haven't seen it. White zombie is the first zombie film ever made. The first feature-length stomping movie. The film tells the story of a woman who is transformed into a zombie at the hands of an evil voodoo practitioner. It's directed by Victor helper in screenplay, by Garnett Westin. And it's based on a book, the magic Island by William Seabrook and starring none other than Bela Lugosi.

Speaker 6:

Everyone loves a good Bela Lugosi

Speaker 2:

Though. It was mostly shot on the universal lot, utilizing common props and backdrops of pivotal horror movies, right. Of the same era. It opened to fairly poor reception, a sequel, the revolt of zombies opened in 1936. And both of these films get a lot of for bad acting.

Speaker 6:

It's not great. It's not great.

Speaker 5:

Is it bad acting in zombie movies? You know, it's kind of a, it's kind of a staple of the genre in a lot of ways.

Speaker 6:

They were really ahead of their time. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for me, that's, that's the crux like we had to watch white zombie in film school because yeah, it's a very important film for the zombie genre. When I was in film school, the zombie movie fad was in full swing. So naturally, uh, it was a hot topic in film school. And so we had to watch white zombie and is a really, really boring film.

Speaker 2:

Obviously it inspired. So the interesting thing about it though, is that it's the first full length zombie movie. And it's really the last zombie movie. Not really, but for the most part that touches on the, the Haitian roots of like how zombies actually evolved and became a thing. And so we see how quickly, right? Like it came out in one film, which was recepted poorly, and then that was it, right? It was kind of like everything became super whitewashed and appropriated. The next important milestone film to talk about is of course, the night of the living dead from 1968, directed by George A. Romero though, this film comes 30 something years after white zombie night of the living dead is seen as the first hit, like the first blockbuster zombie movie that really was super popular. Totally. It's this film that really brings popularity to the genre though. Fun fact, the monsters in night of the living dead are referred to as ghouls. It is not until the CQL Dawn of the dead that premieres 10 years later that we see the word zombie used again, interesting night of the living dead premiered with a bit of controversy, horror films often screened at matinee times and mostly teens and middle school kids went to theaters for this sort of movie, but young audiences were not expecting. And I'm saying this in quotes here, the extreme for the time nature of the movie, Robert HIPA actually scolded parents for letting their children see the film in the Chicago Sun-Times. And this is partially due to the fact that it was released before the motion picture association of America rating system. Oh, no way. Yeah. The film went onto gross,$12 million domestically and$18 million internationally. And it brought in 250 times its budget. And it was one of those profitable films ever made at that time.

Speaker 6:

Can I jump in with my one fun fact about this? Of course. Yeah. They made a bunch of money at the box office and then zero money after the fact. Yeah. Do you know why? Because of public domain that's right. But do you know?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I actually have it written right here. Oh, here we go. I'll let you explain. Night of the living dead is famous for many reasons. One of which being the great public domain, logistical error, the films, the films, original distributor, didn't put the notice of copyright on the films, theatrical prints, meaning that anyone who obtained a copy could reprint it and sell it freely out. Well, yeah. What a blunt.

Speaker 4:

You don't, you don't, you feel foolish.

Speaker 6:

I mean, I feel that the fact that he didn't copyright his film made it, so it was seen 10 million times more than otherwise. And that,

Speaker 4:

Oh, no, that's probably true. I know. I meant you sharing the fact that was just about to be read, interrupting and interrupting the flow of the factual. Kevin. I

Speaker 6:

Had to jump in otherwise I wouldn't get

Speaker 2:

To share my, he wouldn't get credit for knowing it. And that's really, I see. So if, yeah, if

Speaker 6:

You want to see the official scoreboard, just click

Speaker 2:

The link below, despite its Rocky initial reception, the film eventually received critical acclaim and it's often included on lists of the best films of all time with Dawn of the dead from 1978, the cultural relevance of zombies was all, but forgotten

Speaker 6:

Night of living dead. It's fine. It's a fine,

Speaker 2:

My mom's going to be mad at you for that. She loves night of living dead.

Speaker 6:

She also really loves classic war. Yeah. And it falls under the realm of classic or it does not fall under the genre of modern zombie films.

Speaker 2:

I mean, yeah, sure. You're a modern man. Right.

Speaker 6:

You have a short attention span. You can't handle the depth of a movie from 1968. Yeah. That's me. Well, bye.

Speaker 5:

I mean, by nature, the genre starting film would not be considered about part of the modern zombie film era.

Speaker 6:

So I, I feel that night living dead established zombie rules, right. So, you know, Romero made zombies, reanimated corpses that shamble around and they don't actually want brains. That's not Romero that they want. Right. Um, well th

Speaker 5:

They, they eat well. So that it was, that was eating flesh introduced in the original. And I love it.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. The whole like zombies wanting brains actually comes from return of the living dead.

Speaker 5:

You could, in theory, if you wanted to consider yourself a zombie movie, purist of so-and-so as, as we, we certainly did. And you know, I don't know if over time, either of us have really softened in our, our, uh, attitudes here, but, um, that exact storyline, the reanimated corpse, where they're infected with some kind of virus, but then again, then if you really want to tread the line of, you know, zombie purist, do you have to die from the virus and then become reanimated, as opposed to say a movie like 28 days later where you, the virus itself doesn't kill you, but you are no longer really in control of your own body. And it turns you into another, you know, but you could argue, it turns you into something. Yeah.

Speaker 6:

Well, this is, this was a really fun talking point as you were going through just like history of the zombie and how in Haitian culture, the zombie was somebody who was well, depends, you know, on the context. But oftentimes it was a type of medically induced spell on a living human being that was controlling their actions. And it wasn't, I would say it wasn't until modern cinema, but that's not true. As we did a deep dive into like Greek mythology where it's like, Oh, people are coming back from the dead. And that's why they had to put boulders on people so that they wouldn't do that. So just to finish the point earlier, the whole mythos of zombies wanting brains was not originally from Romero. It was from return of the living dead, which was directed by Dan O'Bannon, who was, uh, a bit of a competitor to Romero. And I actually forget the drama about their, um, rivalry, but it was, I remember it being fascinating how, like O'Bannon worked for Romero or something on night of living dead or something like that stole his ideas. Uh, no, like they co-wrote it or something like that. And then he didn't get credit. So he just went rogue and made his own movie. It's something like that. Interesting. But that's where you get zombies that talk for one, right. Um, then that's why you get[inaudible] and also they're invincible, which is kind of cool. Like you get the whole shooting them in the head from Romero. And, but with O'Bannon, it's just, Nope, they're reanimated. Why would sh killing them in the head, stop them. They're fully animate flesh. How do they, how do they become defeated then they kind of don't, which is a very interesting, yeah, I liked that very defeatist.

Speaker 5:

It's a problem. It's a problematic way, you know, to, to have to end a movie that way, you know, without having a real way to remedy the issue. But again, that goes back to that reminder, you know, reminds me, this was, you know, the, the, the zombie purist in me that, that bristles, when you hear, you know, somebody just casually mentioned zombies eating brains, and you just want to be like, Nope, that's just not, that's just not,

Speaker 6:

I feel like we put the cart before the horse a bit. Why are we so familiar with zombie movies?

Speaker 5:

The sides are blockbuster film exploits in this regard that are, or at least somewhat related design. These, we would, uh, have annually a zombie movie marathon that, uh, we affectionately referred to as ZM square.

Speaker 6:

I learned something new about you every day. I swear.

Speaker 5:

And we would, uh, and we'd, you know, we'd all pile into, usually it was in Ethan's basement, quick shout out to Ethan Collins, quick shout out. Yep. And then, uh, but that was right after we would usually like I, uh, and had mentioned, uh, before we started going to blockbuster and renting every movie that had the word zombie on the title or back of the case. And then we would have a debate as to how we, the, the real issue became structuring the evening, because we were up all night watching these movies and we needed to, you know, you need to pace them properly. It wasn't easy. You can't just go classic, pure zombie horror. You have to break that up with some lighter, you know, some lighter stuff, or, you know, later on like really late in the night, you have to break that up with some truly awful movies that we really just shouldn't have. They shouldn't have been in blockbuster anyway, but they got their dollar 99 off of us. So

Speaker 6:

Nancy, I mean, and you guys were renting from blockbuster. Meanwhile, all of my contributions were coming from the public library.

Speaker 5:

That's true. That is true. And you know, there were, there were, there were some real winners from that line.

Speaker 6:

I gotta say, we discovered some lifelong favorite films through our, the Z M squared. What made you decide, like we're going to do an annual zombie marathon of all things. It was, it started on a Halloween. I'm pretty sure where we were at that age where we're a little too old to go trick or treating comfortably. That sounds right. But we wanted to just have a movie marathon. And again, this was during the heyday of zombie films.

Speaker 5:

Cause the Dawn of the dead remake, I believe was, I want say, Oh four. Yeah, it was, it was early two thousands. And I think that was, I would argue that was really what, what kicked off the whole next, totally crack.

Speaker 6:

So yeah, the Dawn of the dead remake directed by Zach Snyder of all people, which is, it's always funny to see people's earlier works before they go on to make justice league. But that movie is a great zombie film. It really is. It hits all of the notes. It hits all of the tropes of Romero, but it kind of defines the modern zombie film of you're going to have a group of survivors. They're kind of, kind of be pitted against each other. There's going to be a bit of drama, but the whole time it's going to be fun. So that was early two thousands. And so when we started doing our zombie movie marathon, this was when the slew of especially low budget zombie films was full underway, but that said a bunch of the movies that we watched during this were from well before. So let's discuss some of the favorites. Is there one that really just stands out for you? Kevin?

Speaker 5:

I have always gravitated toward the, you know, it's like you said, the, the, the blend in Dawn of the dead between the, the classic zombie movie, but also the, the more, the moments of levity in the movie that they managed to work in. I have always found myself gravitating toward the zombie movies that don't take themselves too seriously and maybe even are outright made as you know, almost as comedies. So I would say the one that always sticks out and I still find myself going back to is army of darkness

Speaker 6:

Was going to say it, is that what we watched on Halloween? We, you have not seen army of darkness yet, but what did we watch on Halloween? We watched dead alive also on

Speaker 5:

Of, uh, of ones that we had watched, but, uh, army of darkness, technically being the third movie of the evil dead trilogy, where you can kind of between one and three kind of dials from a horror movie with some lighthearted elements to a comedy with some half-ass

Speaker 6:

Horror elements. No, it, it becomes, uh, a comedic action film with spooky elements. That's true. That's true. So, yeah, army of darkness for anyone that is not familiar, please just check out this film. I really don't want to spoil it for you. It is just such a treat to watch this movie,

Speaker 5:

Bruce Campbell, honestly, the entire evil dead trilogy. Top-notch, uh, you know, I highly recommend all three movies, but if you watch them back to back to back, you will end on a, on a high note in terms of, uh, just overall mood. Uh, it's just a great, just a great ending, uh, to that trilogy. But, uh, you can't, you can't really beat Bruce Campbell in that regard.

Speaker 6:

Important note, if you're going to watch the whole trilogy evil, evil dead one and evil dead two are the same movie. There is no difference between the two. So Sam Raimi director of many huge films, including the Spider-Man trilogy directed the whole evil dead franchise. And he loved the idea behind evil dead, but the first one didn't have a huge budget and the execution was good, but it could be better. And he acknowledged this ad instead of remaking the film, he just calls it evil dead two, and it's the same exact plot, same exact characters, everything it's the same exact script. They just call it evil dead too. But it's the same movie with a bigger budget and practice making the first one. So it's just a better version of the first film. Well, that's very weird. It is, but it's great. There's like a very brief script patch where it's like, Oh, we're here again. And that's it. And back back to it.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. The Sam Raimi, you know, not being afraid of the, the campy or elements, uh, of the genre is very helpful, uh, in, in, in moving the story along, which is something I think it's tough. If I learned anything from watching these movies, it's tough to make a zombie movie that takes itself entirely seriously. There are very few of them that do it exceptionally well. It's true.

Speaker 6:

But when they pull it off, it's phenomenal. So, um, I'm thinking specifically of 20 days later. Oh, that's exactly where I was going. I was thinking of train to Busan. Sure. Uh, one of my fate, one of those emotional movies ever made. Okay, good. We can talk about that later. Okay. We're just, we're just going to make a coup we got a lot to talk about. So, uh, 20 days later for many years was my absolute favorite film. And I think Kevin's going to back me up on this. It's just a phenomenal movie overall, that just you buckle up and you just,

Speaker 5:

I will back you up both. It is a fantastic movie and that it was your favorite movie for a long time. I can back that up.

Speaker 6:

Great storytelling. It uses. So it's interesting. I love that you brought this up earlier that they're not technically zombies. They are people with the rage virus, but they behave very similar to zombies. So it makes it close enough for the zombie genre.

Speaker 5:

It also treads the line very well that I think a lot of zombie movies get lost in, which is trying too hard to explain the outbreak, which a lot of, a lot of movies get caught up in. I think some of them, you know, like in, in the Dawn of the dead remake, especially, I mean, it just is something that's happening, you know? And then the, the protagonist there at the beginning, it, she realizes what's happening, you know, a little too late obviously, but, uh, 20 days later they explained that whole thing in opening couple of minutes and do it very well in a way that doesn't get bogged down in you. You know, it's not a, uh, either I forgot which one were, if it was either return or revenge of the living dead with the, uh, the government, you know, contained substance. And then it infects the guy who dies and they burned the body to dispose of the evidence, which goes up in the atmosphere and creates acid rain that falls on a cemetery. And it just it's too, too much, too much. Yeah.

Speaker 6:

I mean, you're kind of hitting the nail on the head. It's the science behind things is not what people are terribly interested in because they're breaking a lot of convention. They're breaking a lot of the rules of physics to make this possible. Don't try to sell it too hard. People are here to see the surviving slash zombie killing action or in 20 days later case it's just the character development. And I feel like zombies are the perfect foil to really put characters in a situation that brings out their inner worth. They are in Sur heavy survival situations that they just have to really decide what is truly important in order to progress. I will say Emory watching, um, all of the seasons of survivor right now, and I can attest to the fact that putting people in survival, you know, I mean, no matter how fake survivor is like, it really does bring out an interesting side. And it's a very easy mechanic for this kind of movie. You know,

Speaker 5:

There's a show that could've used some more zone.

Speaker 6:

I agree. I actually, I love that you also brought up train to Busan because it just sounds, it, that that for me is the very next film. Since 20 days later, we're actually cared about the characters. I cared about the character I sobbed and like I'm prone to sobbing. So it's not, I guess like that telling, but I sobbed at the end of train to Busan. It is you get so connected to the characters. It's so perfectly well done. It's a Korean film. If you're not familiar with it and you can find it it's fairly modern, so you can find it very easily on streaming apps. It's I can't recommend it enough. I know we've talked about it on this podcast, but it's, to me, one of the most effective zombie movies in that way. And I do think there's a place for like comical zombie movies. Absolutely. Like we watched cemetery man last night and it was incredibly fun. But if you're talking about like a, a zombie movie, like you said, Kevin, that takes itself seriously, train to Busan is like such an effective example of that. Yeah.

Speaker 5:

And, and it's, it's tough. And I think that, but that would became, I think 28 days later in a lot of ways kind of showed that that was an angle you could take with that, with that movie and do it well. And I mean, there's something to be said to say that a zombie movie has what I think are some of the more striking shots of, of movies in a long time. He wakes up and is wandering through the empty streets. Absolutely. To have a movie like that, be something that you remember shots like that from is, is pretty astounding.

Speaker 6:

Also. I, I don't know the last time you revisited this film, so Abby had never seen it. We watched it last year, maybe two years ago. So that was the first time that I had watched it in many years. That movie was filmed in standard definition on DV tape, which is mindblowing too. Cause like, again, you're talking about, I know exactly every shot you're talking about of him walking through an empty London and it's so iconic. Yeah. It's insane to think that they could even have done it like so well on DV tape because it's so to your point, Kevin, it's so incredibly beautiful and stunning, but it was done on like crazy outdated technology. Everyone's cell phone has so much more horsepower than the cinema cameras that they use for this film. Even watching it. Now, it doesn't feel like that you're like it looks stylized. Right. And it works. Yeah. It was just like a very happy collision of things enough. About 20 days later, it's a great film. Everyone loves it. If you don't, I'm sorry. You're wrong. What are some of the more obscure movies that we watched during the Z M squared that stuck with you over the years?

Speaker 5:

It's funny. I don't know. It depends on how you want to define obscure because actually it's funny, one of the ones, I don't know if it would be offensive to call it obscure, but you just mentioned one of the ones on my list was, was cemetery man that we had washed. And I think a lot of people would not be too super, super familiar with that film outside of thinking about this genre. But that was, that was definitely one

Speaker 6:

Also when's the last time you've seen cemetery, man.

Speaker 5:

No, if I've seen it since we watched it in the movie merits,

Speaker 6:

I definitively had not until last I'm so glad we watched it. It was so fun. It was like, it started off as kind of like a serious Sammy film. And then it like devolved into like an absurdist. Absolutely ridiculous. But it was so fun and like clever, but it's not campy it's I would say it's campy. I would just say it's it's like a, more of a surrealist art film. There's like one point where one of the characters is like dating just the head of someone. I would say it's, I mean, there's comedic elements for sure. So I remember when Kevin, when we first watched this film, we did not love it. I think the reason was we just saw it when we were too young.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. I would agree with that. I think it was not to be all stereotypical about kids in high school. Don't understand. We don't understand what love is, but, uh, it, you know, I, I would agree. I mean, we were all, we were all there to watch, uh, you know, to watch Dawn of the dead and watch some zombies, get their heads blown off with shotguns and stuff. And it just, you know, it's, it's not really quite along those same lines. Uh, but I, now that we're talking about it, definitely, I think it definitely deserves, uh, deserves another look

Speaker 6:

We weren't expecting or capable of appreciating a non linear escapade of one. Man's love affection for the reincarnated soul of this woman that just keeps entering his life. But you can watch it in a very version on YouTube for free. Oh,

Speaker 5:

Well, there you go. Um,

Speaker 6:

It's, it's, it's a great, it's honestly a great movie and I wish more movies were bold enough to just say, the plot. This is how you should feel watching these images. Yeah. It's, it's a poetic zombie movie, I'd say. Yup. Very much. So

Speaker 5:

He also mentioned, like we said, we mentioned dead alive that one over that one, that one went over pretty well. Right.

Speaker 6:

Because we're teenagers and we love Gore dead alive Friday. We're not familiar holds the record for most violent movie of all time for sorry, most bloodshed in a single film. Interestingly enough, most of that comes from a single scene, which is not as bad as you think it's not, but it means the amount of blood is copious.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. So go watch it. This is what we're. Yeah. Uh, obviously all the movies we're mentioning. Well, the ones we've mentioned so far, there's obviously we're going to get into territory of ones that you can probably

Speaker 6:

Also, it's interesting that we, we keep talking about these zombie films that are early works, a very famous directors and dead alive was directed by no, none other than Peter Jackson. So that's right. He got some practice making a zombie movie and then it goes on to make a lot of the ring. He also made the Frighteners, which is very, very good, scary movie. I have not

Speaker 5:

Remember. We were watching both of them or if I'm just remembering one or the other, there was zombie without the E it was either zombie two or zombie three. And I can't remember which one it was, it was actually zombie for sound before. And I, so maybe I'm confusing it. Cause I believe the zombie two and three didn't have the E but zombie four sounds like it might've had the E

Speaker 6:

Well, the, the problem is that all these movies were foreign. They were released under different titles, depending on which country it was released in. So zombie one through three, never made it to America, but zombie Ford did I see? And they added the right. And I forget what that movie was about. What country was it shot in? I want to say Italy. And also speaking of, I actually haven't had the chance to watch it yet, but, um, in preparation for this episode a while ago, I posted it on Instagram and asked a bunch of people to, you know, what their favorite zombie films are. And a bunch of them were foreign zombie films I'd never heard of. And one is called the horde, which is really high on our list to watch. Just if anyone's looking for a recommendation, that one comes highly recommended from a good, good source. We'll probably do a deep dive into it on one of the horror movie club episodes. Yeah, we should. That would be great. Yeah. But zombie, for getting back to the, you know, the really good stuff, sorry, if you want, if you want to see something truly unique when you're going to watch a super zombie battle with a shark

Speaker 5:

And that's the only, that's actually the only part that I feel like I remember now that you say that, and I'll tell you what a 90 plus minute movie to remember the fact that a zombie fought a shark is not, is not a good sign.

Speaker 6:

How does the zombie fight a shark only one way to find out, check out zoom before one of the most memorable movies from the ZM squared outside of the more famous ones was zombie strippers. Oh, I seen that you've seen zombie circles.

Speaker 5:

I have that on my list as well. We, uh, you know, that was, uh, that, that was, uh, I don't want to say classic because it wasn't, uh, didn't really didn't really join the, the, the list of zombie classics, but it certainly is worthy of note.

Speaker 6:

So in this, you have a very success successful exotic dancer, right. And then she gets bitten by a zombie and then once zombified becomes an even better dancer. So all the other dancers become very jealous, jealous, and become zombified themselves to try to compete. Uh, I think that was a very interesting spin on the genre because it's still mixed with hunger, for flesh and biting and all those things. Yeah. But, you know, I'm sure that there's some deep dives into capitalism or male hunger or something in there. Yeah.

Speaker 5:

And Robert England is in it. So no Freddy Krueger that's w that's you know, what more, what more could you want?

Speaker 6:

Yeah, I think, I think nightmare on Elm street was his big break debatable. So, you know, I'm thinking of the last of us series, which I don't know if you've ever played a great series that started on PlayStation three. They got later continued on PlayStation four and five is all about the real life Zomba vacation that happens with ants and fungus that this type of fungus controls these insects to basically become real, real worlds. Zombies is a real thing and they repurposed it as if the fungus mutated and started affecting human beings. And it's a very cool spin and adds a lot of just real life human notes to it, which getting back to 20 days later, that's what makes a truly great zombie film that isn't just fun. Or in this case, it's a game, but it feels like you're playing a movie. Did you ever play left for dead? I did. I played a lot of LeFort in college. Shout

Speaker 2:

Out to Matt last and Owen O'Neil. We used to play in our dorm rooms and then Owen would hide outside and like scary. You know, it was, it was literally a majority time waster for us was playing left for dead,

Speaker 6:

Which gets back to like, what is fun about zombies? It's just shameless killing of other people.

Speaker 2:

Well, it also, I think left her dead Marceau relates to me about what's fun about horror because a lot of it is being scared because you're walking through really dark, creepy, abandoned places, and there's different types of zombies, but a lot of time it's like a jump scare and left for dead where they come out or you're dealing with this witch character. Who's like a impossible zombie to defeat. And a lot of it is, and there's actually this key in left for dead. When you play that, if you don't know what to do, you have to follow the light part of the screen. And so to me, there's a lot of like what we talk about when we talk about why do we love horror? And I actually just was on, um, Jollyville radio, a friend podcast of ours and talk to Michael Crow, SSA and uncle Asar I'll cable on about the adrenaline and the reasons that people are attracted to horror because you feel safe, you're home, you're in a theater, but you get to go on a rollercoaster experience and it releases emotions and it's catharsis and you're experiencing something. Right? So I think like zombie films and these kinds of games are very relevant to that type of horror because it's whether it's fun and crazy and zany or whether it's like actually scary, like it's a really great tool to kind of tap into that like side of the survival thing. It's usually like everything that could've gone wrong has gone wrong. You're in an abandoned place, right. Or it's this topian future or whatever. And it's like this survival fear, like this primitive thing that, that is engaged when you watch it, you know, like what would you do in that situation? It's like adrenaline rush.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. I mean, left for dead was wonderful for just throwing you into it. It was definitely a horror game. Yeah. It just happened to have a lot of very fun action mechanics that tied it all together. Like the boomers, like the boomers, but then yeah, the witch or the tank shows up and you're just like, well, we're. What are you going to do either? You guys play call of duty zombies. I have not. Yes, of course. For me, that really commonize is the genre of what is appealing about zombies and that you have enemies, right? Blatant enemies. They are humanoid. They have a human body and you can just shoot them. Guiltlessly you can just mow down hoards and it's fun. And you are doing a service to humanity.

Speaker 2:

Speaking of which it's call of duty actually has a free iPhone or a free, like a phone app now. And you can just play online. Like you can play like all of the classic

Speaker 6:

Maps on your phone. Neat. Yeah. So, sorry, just as just a sidebar. Are they, are they a sponsor? Actually? No, but it's funny because I only learned about it from listening to another podcast where they were a sponsor.

Speaker 5:

I was going to say, I think I I've heard, I've heard that ad as well. So the, the thing that I found myself thinking about was really an, uh, another aspect of the genre that I like is that you can kind of combine, it's kind of like you could do. There's always a movie that fits, if you like create kind of a, an equation of zombie plus blank equals, and then there's always going to be a movie that like fits the other side of that equation. So like, if you have other things that you really are looking for, so like, you know, you could even go, you know, with, if you wanted to watch like dead snow, you guys zombie plus Nazi equals dead snow, you know, and we've talked about, you know, if you want, you could really classify army of darkness as a time-travel movie, if you're really into time travel. Right. Zombie plus love story. We talked about cemetery, man, already evil, dead, I guess, would be what zombie plus chainsaws.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. Zombie plus like black magic witches,

Speaker 5:

You know, zombie plus comedy. There's a million entries in that whole thing. And I think that has really been a gray area that they've gone in the last few years, especially, you know, we have zombie land. There really was just a really well polished, very remarkably short movie, really good movie in that regard. And then I would classify it as more as a dark comedy, but I really enjoyed cabin in the woods. If you want to kind of classify that as a sub genre, I think as much as you can call Dawn of the dead, the S the, the spur of the more modern era. And that way, I think it'd be pretty easy to say Shaun of the dead ended up kind of kick-starting the comedy zombie era. Think that's very fair to say, which obviously a terrific

Speaker 6:

Yeah, yeah. A classic movie. Yeah. Everyone loves Shaun of the dead. It's just a very fun everything. When it comes to cinema, it does all the things right. Where you have survivors killing zombies, getting really good action. So many funny moments, but you still actually care about the characters, which makes it kind of unique film in the genre. I mean, you definitely get that again in zombie land, but there's so many movies that have zombies they're comedic. They don't take themselves seriously, but they're also, don't build up the heartstrings with drama. Like Shaun of the den does well, another British zombie movie, which I don't know that you guys would have seen Anna and the apocalypse from only a few years ago. I actually saw it in a theater before COVID have not seen it. It came out around the holidays one year, it's a musical zombie movie. It's definitely a parody, but it also has like tons of real emotions. I definitely cried during that one too. And the soundtrack is amazing. And I will just say her fashion is also amazing. So Anna and the apocalypse, it's probably on streaming apps now. Cause it was in theaters. It defensively as I was searching through, I think HBO, max, and there was, there you go. And it's, it's very fun. I recommend it a lot. It's one of those movies that's clever and funny, but also has, you know, like real fear and real human connection. I'm excited to check it out, check it out, check her out.

Speaker 5:

It was one, I actually wasn't, I wasn't ready for in the, uh, the equation zombie plus musical, but that one I was not familiar with. So I'll definitely have to definitely have to,

Speaker 6:

But if it further proves, proves the hypothesis of you can take anything, throw it with zombies. And it's probably been done

Speaker 5:

Least be of super low budget version of whatever you're trying to combine with zombies somewhere. That's, that's definitely for sure

Speaker 6:

Have either you seen the dead don't die. So Jim Dharmesh, a very famous director and a bunch of people worked on this film, uh, simply to work with him and, you know, uh, bill Murray's in this film. So many huge, huge celebrities have very small roles just because they wanted to be in the film. Uh, Tom, Tom waits is in the film. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah. Um, everyone just like came together to make this happen and it's just a celebrity zombie, Rob it's so, so fun. And it's great storytelling. I love that. So I, I guess that would be my modern zombie movie recommendation for the night. Anything with bill Murray, Mariam and Abby what's yours. Well, I gave my recommendation of Anna and the apocalypse, but again, train to moose on is one of my favorite films of all time. So would you recommend that over cemetery man? Yes. I mean, cemetery man is incredible, but yeah. Train to Busan is like a cinematic masterpiece. So yeah, I would point all right, Kevin, what's yours.

Speaker 5:

So, I mean, I think I'm still, I'm going to have to stick pretty hard on army of darkness. Um, but at the same, but for, but if you want to go the entire opposite direction, I'm surprised we haven't brought this one up yet and perhaps see one of the worst movies that we saw in the entire history of the zombie movie marathon, uh, highly recommended. You try to get your hands on a copy of vampires versus zombies.

Speaker 6:

Oh, that was, it might be on Amazon. They have a lunch,

Speaker 5:

Which truly might be the worst movie I've ever seen in my life.

Speaker 6:

I thought you were going to say, redneck, Sandy's

Speaker 5:

See, that was good, but the problem, but that would have been a contender, if not for the best line it was rescued. The entire movie was rescued that one line that we would repeat for years afterwards,

Speaker 6:

What was the line that was swine? Well, so when the zombies finally show up, you know, they're always just kind of like in the background, killing people, you knew there was going to be some kind of crescendo. When the main characters finally realized what's going on and the zombies finally show up and the line is

Speaker 5:

See, they they've come across the zombies and the guy looks and he takes us hat in his hands and takes it off and he goes zombies and he throws the hat on the ground and just goes, it.

Speaker 6:

Okay.

Speaker 5:

And it's just, it's just delivered in such, in such a horrible B movie way, but also he's just so it just begs, it begged so many questions.

Speaker 6:

Well, Kevin, Oh my gosh, we can't thank you enough for being a guest. And it was so wonderful to have a little peek inside. Allen's adolescents, you know, this was, this was groundbreaking for me. I mean, I know what you're talking about.

Speaker 5:

I mean, I'm glad, I'm glad it was enjoyable for you. I don't think any of us really enjoy taking that deep of a peak into our adolescents, but uh, somebody else's, I guess I can see where that would be entertaining.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. Well, thank you guys so much for listening. This episode was so fun for us. We learned so much about zombies and I hope everybody goes out and watches tens army movies now because you should have a long list of recommendations as always. You can follow us at the lunatics project on Instagram, and remember to DME there, or email me at films about lunatics at g-mail dot com. If you ever want to submit a story for the podcast and stay tuned for later this week, because like we said, we're going to have a shorter companion episode to this deep dive, which is going to be full of zombie stories. So thank you guys so much for listening and until next time. Bye. Bye everyone. You can you say bye to, Oh me. Oh, hi, bye everybody.