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Zombies, Part Two: The Movies! · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. It's a spooky time of year,
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Speaker 1: the most wonderful time of year here on Ridiculous History.
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Speaker 1: Let's give it up for a super producer, mister Max Williams.
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Speaker 2: Coming for you, Max, Max, Are you a halloweeny?
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Speaker 3: I actually am not?
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Speaker 2: What the heck? Yeah?
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Speaker 3: What kind of I mean? I mean, have fun recording
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Speaker 3: your own damn podcast?
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Speaker 2: What kind of costumes have you rocked in the past?
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Speaker 3: God, I'm guy shows us to the part of the
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Speaker 3: Halloween party intentionally very much in like, not a Halloween costume,
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Speaker 3: one of those. Yeah, I'm trying to get better about
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Speaker 3: it with it.
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Speaker 2: I'm not a costumer myself. I'm more of a costume watcher.
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Speaker 2: I was.
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Speaker 3: I was a curmudgeon for much of my life, and
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Speaker 3: as as I gain into my advanced age, I'm trying
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Speaker 3: to become less of a curmudgeon. So I don't know.
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Speaker 2: Maybe it is man, be yourself, dude, experience Halloween in
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Speaker 2: your own.
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Speaker 1: Way, and that is Doel Brown. I am Ben Bullen.
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Speaker 1: I am a huge fan of costumery and personas. I
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Speaker 1: don't just restrict it to Halloween. Sometimes you do have
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Speaker 1: to be a certain different person to get some stuff done.
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Speaker 1: That could be anything from the social hack of wearing
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Speaker 1: an orange construction vest to get backstage at places unethical,
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Speaker 1: but it does work, and it could be something as
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Speaker 1: ornate as a dragon can costume.
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Speaker 2: That's one of the.
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Speaker 1: Best opportunities for costume watch here in our fair metropolis
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Speaker 1: of Atlanta, Georgia. This is the follow up to our
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Speaker 1: earlier episode on the origins of the zombie myth.
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Speaker 2: Correct and it's a super good primer for this episode,
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Speaker 2: So do check that one out if you haven't already,
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Speaker 2: which I bet you have. So we're going to talk
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Speaker 2: about zombie films today courtesy of our wonderful and spooky
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Speaker 2: research associate Wren, and we're gonna start off talking about
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Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight Night of the Living Dead, the most
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Speaker 2: iconic zombie film, you know, creator of many of the
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Speaker 2: zombie tropes that we know and love today, of course
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Speaker 2: by the incredibly talented filmmaker George Romero. It was a
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Speaker 2: landmark achievement for not only the horror genre, but the
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Speaker 2: zombie genre, and that it really created the modern concept
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Speaker 2: of the zombie as we know it.
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Speaker 1: Similar to the story of Faust, kind of established the
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Speaker 1: modern rules for the trope of selling one's soul to
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Speaker 1: the devil. Night of the Living Dead is responsible for
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Speaker 1: so much stuff you see in modern zombie fiction and
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Speaker 1: film today.
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Speaker 2: Ooh, and if you want a little supplementary spooky episode,
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Speaker 2: do check out the episode of stuff they Don't Want
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Speaker 2: you to Know our sister pod about selling your soul.
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Speaker 2: Ben did some awesome research into that and it's a
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Speaker 2: lot more nuanced than you might think.
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Speaker 1: It's too, Kai Nol, I appreciate it. We do hope
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Speaker 1: you enjoy that episode as well. And I love the
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Speaker 1: points that you're raising about Night of the Living Dead
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Speaker 1: because it's one of those films now where even if
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Speaker 1: you don't consider yourself a film buff, even if you
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Speaker 1: don't like horror films, which not all people do, you're
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Speaker 1: still going to be aware of this. It's unnerving, it's haunting,
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Speaker 1: it's black and white, it's pretty unrelenting, and it's not
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Speaker 1: exactly you know, it's not at a frenetic pace. It
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Speaker 1: is a slower, non action packed horror film.
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Speaker 2: And that's true of a lot of older films. Of course,
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Speaker 2: a lot of younger people watching older films sometimes might
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Speaker 2: find themselves to be a little bored or just not
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Speaker 2: move as quickly as they're used to, and that is,
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Speaker 2: of course a product of the much more frenetic filmmaking
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Speaker 2: and editing style of today. But you can credit so
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Speaker 2: many of those old films with establishing those rules and
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Speaker 2: making some of the rules that were then able to
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Speaker 2: be broken in interesting ways. One thing that's cool about
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Speaker 2: Night of the Living Dead is I've been watching this.
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Speaker 2: You may have watched it as well. Been There's a
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Speaker 2: series on shutter and I can't remember the name. It's
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Speaker 2: not particularly compelling name, but it's essentially all of these
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Speaker 2: clips of the scariest moments from various horror films, and
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Speaker 2: with a lot of commentary from actors and filmmakers. Some
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Speaker 2: of the filmmakers whose works are actually featured are in there,
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Speaker 2: like Fada Alvarez and Andy Muschetti, who's responsible for the
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Speaker 2: Modern It franchise. But Tom Savini, who was a very,
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Speaker 2: very incredibly talented makeup affects artist, one of the most
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Speaker 2: revered in that industry. Maybe comment of when Night of
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Speaker 2: a Living Dead originally came out, a lot of people
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Speaker 2: just had black and white TVs, and so they were
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Speaker 2: used to seeing the news in that stark black and
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Speaker 2: white and the way Night of a Living Dead is
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Speaker 2: filmed takes a very cinema verite kind of slice of
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Speaker 2: life approach to the way it's depicting the action on screen.
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Speaker 2: And he said that really made it click with audiences
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Speaker 2: of the time because they felt as though they were
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Speaker 2: watching something very familiar, like the news, and yet on
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Speaker 2: screen we're seeing this horde of undead devouring the flesh
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Speaker 2: of the living.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it felt very real and not. People watching it
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Speaker 1: for the first time didn't see it as schlocky or
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Speaker 1: low budget. As a matter of fact, this film Night
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Speaker 1: of the Living Dead was quite controversial when it first released,
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Speaker 1: and it got stuck in a certain genre of theaters
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Speaker 1: called grind house theaters, the ones that showed really gnarly
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Speaker 1: stuff because it had gore violence, a lot of unrelenting sadism.
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Speaker 1: And most film critics who watch this, most of like
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Speaker 1: the established legit film critics who might have an article
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Speaker 1: in a trade magazine or a newspaper.
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Speaker 2: They said, this was just trash. That's right, but it
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Speaker 2: also is controversial for some reasons that you may know about,
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Speaker 2: but if you don't, you might not expect some very
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Speaker 2: political reasons because of some casting choices. The question, though,
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Speaker 2: is from Aria's movie was so poorly received upon this
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Speaker 2: debut by critics, how did it rise to such an
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Speaker 2: important cult status? You know, in the canon of not
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Speaker 2: only horror but cinema. Really, I mean it truly is
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Speaker 2: held up there, and a lot of mega mega letterbox
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Speaker 2: e type film buffs will often cite nine a Living
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Speaker 2: Dead as an all time i'm favorites. The spoiler alert
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Speaker 2: here I already teased the reason largely that it was
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Speaker 2: elevated to that status is because of politics.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and to be clear, Night of the Living Dead
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Speaker 1: was by no means the first zombie film, as we
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Speaker 1: may have mentioned before, but it is the titular quintessential
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Speaker 1: zombie film. Peek behind the curtains. Our buddy George initially
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Speaker 1: didn't call the monsters in his film zombies.
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Speaker 2: He called them ghoules.
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Speaker 1: In his logic here was that, yes, he took inspiration
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Speaker 1: from earlier horror films, but he didn't think his particular
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Speaker 1: monsters fit into the same category of earlier zombies. Because
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Speaker 1: if you listen to our origin of zombie myths story.
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Speaker 1: You'll recall that originally zombies were depicted as creatures created
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Speaker 1: by dark magic by a baucour or a a shaman,
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Speaker 1: a practitioner of the.
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Speaker 2: Arts, who could wield control over them, right and employ
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Speaker 2: them as their sort of demonic minions, right exactly.
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Speaker 1: And romero zombies are different because although they are corpses,
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Speaker 1: they're re animated by radiation from outer space, not by
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Speaker 1: dark magic. They also can't be controlled, they can only
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Speaker 1: be killed, and they are all inherently catabals.
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Speaker 2: Which was not part of the more voodoo related zombie archetype.
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Speaker 1: Right, yeah, because the mythological zombies are not themselves undead.
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Speaker 1: They are living people who have been entranced, right, and
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Speaker 1: they have maybe been partially dead or mostly dead to
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Speaker 1: quote the Princess Bride in case they were buried. But
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Speaker 1: when they're back on the you know, on the right
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Speaker 1: side of the soil, they're not eating brains. A lot
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Speaker 1: of it is a metaphor for slavery, and we see
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Speaker 1: that there are still inherent social commentary pieces in these
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Speaker 1: zombie stories, especially one considered to be the first actual
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Speaker 1: zombie movie, Victor Halpern's White Zombie from nineteen thirty two,
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Speaker 1: even that has statements about American politics.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely, who are the real monsters? Right? It is almost
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Speaker 2: the kind of cliche trope that this established. White Zombie
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Speaker 2: you and may also recognize this as the name of
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Speaker 2: Rob Zombie's nineteen nineties kind of metal band was based
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Speaker 2: on William seabrooks bestselling novel The Magic Island, which sounds
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Speaker 2: fun not scary at all. The Magic Island the book
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Speaker 2: features a truly sensationalized account of Seabrooks's own explorations in
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Speaker 2: Haiti during the US's nearly twenty year occupation of that island.
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Speaker 2: This was spurred by the assassination of Haiti's president in
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Speaker 2: nineteen fifteen.
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Speaker 1: As you can tell, folks, this film is very heavy
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Speaker 1: on the voodoo angle, a mischaracterization of voodoo to be fair,
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Speaker 1: and it is light on cultural sensitivity. I like that
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Speaker 1: turn of phrase from our research associate Ren. If you
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Speaker 1: go to Jay Stop Daily and you read some articles
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Speaker 1: about this, you'll see the following description. The titular Zombie
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Speaker 1: is an American woman stolen from her husband on her
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Speaker 1: wedding night by a rival with the help of the
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Speaker 1: voodoo practicing European plantation owner.
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Speaker 2: Wait for the name. Oh boy, murder legendary murder legend
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Speaker 2: if you're nasty right, played by, of course, the iconic
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Speaker 2: and spooky and quite complex individual Bella Legosi. I'm sure
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Speaker 2: that you've seen ed Wood, the incredible Tim Burton film
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Speaker 2: where Martin Landau plays Bella Lugosi, and it depicts this
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Speaker 2: actor kind of in past his prime, sort of. He
11:06
Speaker 2: was most well known, I guess for playing Dracula and
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Speaker 2: he's talking about it. He's got the hand and the
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Speaker 2: voice and you must be hungarian and then also double
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Speaker 2: jointed but also struggles with heroin addiction to do. Highly
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Speaker 2: recommend that film if you haven't seen it, also in
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Speaker 2: black and white, which is a super hard cell at
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Speaker 2: the time for Tim Burton, you know. But I think
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Speaker 2: it's his best film, and it's very uncharacteristic for him
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Speaker 2: in a lot of ways. It's it's it's still got
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Speaker 2: his his touches though, for sure.
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Speaker 1: And I'd love to do an episode just on Bela Lagosi.
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Speaker 1: Ever at one point that's that will be an interesting
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Speaker 1: little biopic approach for us. Anyway, this this guy's played
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Speaker 1: murder has his literal first name. Yeah, he operates a
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Speaker 1: sugar cane mill, and the employees of the mill are
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Speaker 1: pretty much all victims he has turned into zombies. They
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Speaker 1: are created through a voodoo ritual. And here we get
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Speaker 1: to kind of the political subtext. Okay, so America's military
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Speaker 1: occupation of Haiti isn't directly addressed in the film, but
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Speaker 1: the lovebirds are romantic leads. They decide to get married
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Speaker 1: in Haiti because of the business opportunities available to people
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Speaker 1: who can invest in the sugarcane trade and sugar plantations.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and if we're thinking about the cultural context of
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Speaker 2: the time, Haitians were uprising up against their own colonial
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Speaker 2: occupiers and a forced labor system called the corvet wherein
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Speaker 2: a government mandates that benefited the US military allowed the
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Speaker 2: US military to conscript able bodied Haitians to build infrastructure
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Speaker 2: across the island without pay. Right. There's a word for that, right.
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Speaker 2: It's slavery, and it's similar.
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Speaker 1: It's slavery by another name, but it's it's also so
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Speaker 1: similar to the aftermath of the Thirteenth Amendment in the
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Speaker 1: United States, which created prison right modern prison labor, which
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Speaker 1: was essentially the same thing. For quite some time, voodoo
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Speaker 1: was also in the real world outlawed during the American occupation,
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Speaker 1: which is very strange given that the founding fathers of
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Speaker 1: our country made such a big deal about the government
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Speaker 1: staying out of religion.
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Speaker 2: Well, isn't that also historically interesting? At least we see
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Speaker 2: rhymes of this throughout history, where an occupying force quashes
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Speaker 2: the local belief systems, you know, and then of course
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Speaker 2: it goes underground, and then you start that's where you
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Speaker 2: start seeing some interesting commingling of cultures a lot of
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Speaker 2: times because of things being sort of tamped down and
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Speaker 2: then having to kind of, you know, peak their heads
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Speaker 2: up and sort of inject themselves back into culture sort
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Speaker 2: of in a covert.
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Speaker 1: Way, right through maybe religious syncretism or acquiring new symbols
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Speaker 1: and secret operations. Yeah, the government, the occupying government, authorized
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Speaker 1: raids on religious compounds and they would shut down voodoo ceremonies.
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Speaker 1: They also confiscated artifacts and religious objects, especially drums and drums.
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Speaker 1: This is a very interesting tangent. So drums in the
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Speaker 1: US and throughout different parts of the Caribbean could be
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Speaker 1: used as communicative tools, So it wasn't just a drum
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Speaker 1: circle for recreation or for spiritual practices. This was also
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Speaker 1: a way to shut down local resistance to the occupation.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely, and I highly recommend checking out a website Lecoubrooklyn
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Speaker 2: dot com and if you can just search for it,
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Speaker 2: there's an article on there on this blog by Marcus
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Speaker 2: Schwartz called Rhythm Without End Haitian voodoo drum music. A
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Speaker 2: little outside the scope of today's episode, but it's got
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Speaker 2: some incredible images of some of these drums that would
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Speaker 2: look sort of like you might picture a honga drum
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Speaker 2: looking with like a long, tubular wooden body and then
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Speaker 2: an animal skin of some kind stretched across the top
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Speaker 2: and held in place with rope that you know is
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Speaker 2: used to kind of tighten it from down the sides
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Speaker 2: of the drama underneath. And they are often emblazoned with
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Speaker 2: various symbols and sigils and things like that. So, dude,
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Speaker 2: do check that out. It's pretty cool. It really goes
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Speaker 2: into some detail about the history of voodoo drums.
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Speaker 1: And White Zombie had another interesting twist when it came
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Speaker 1: to the promotion of the film. It was trying to
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Speaker 1: justify Uncle Sam's occupation of Haiti by depicting Haitian people,
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Speaker 1: the locals as savages from an earlier time, people that
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Speaker 1: were maybe not quite fully human and could not exist
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Speaker 1: in the Western world without the help of you know,
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Speaker 1: oh these benevolent white overseers. So promoters would go to
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Speaker 1: the local guys having events for White Zombie and again
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Speaker 1: this is nineteen thirty two, and they would say higher
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Speaker 1: African American or hire black performers to dress and quote
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Speaker 1: tropical garments and beat Tom Tom's and just yell all
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Speaker 1: over the place.
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Speaker 2: Yikes.
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Speaker 1: However, if you get past that really problematic promotion and
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Speaker 1: you look at just the film itself, it does seem
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Speaker 1: to imply that it is pretty crappy to take away
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Speaker 1: a person or community sense of agency.
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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, murder Lesandre is the big bat. You know.
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Speaker 2: He has depicted as an absolute monster, abusing and taking
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Speaker 2: advantage of individuals. You know, through this magic. It has
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Speaker 2: not seen us like a heroic act in any way,
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Speaker 2: shape or form. It's tough right to straddle that line,
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Speaker 2: especially in nineteen thirty four. You got to I mean,
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Speaker 2: the promotion of the film, I would argue, is its
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Speaker 2: own thing, separate from the intent of the filmmakers. So
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Speaker 2: let's give that, you know, credit where credits due, But
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Speaker 2: I would argue that there's a little bit of subtext
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Speaker 2: that's hidden in the film that is very cleverly done.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you could even say they're sneaking it under the radar,
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Speaker 1: right of this, So if we're looking at the real
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Speaker 1: world occupation, which is a part of American history that
17:28
Speaker 1: a lot of textbooks don't care to talk about, the
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Speaker 1: real right, exactly, So, the real world Haitian people, the
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Speaker 1: locals at this time were always against the occupation. They
17:40
Speaker 1: were never fans of it, and they would have continual
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Speaker 1: protests and uprisings and mutinies and strikes. And eventually, in
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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty four, under Franklin Delano Roosevelt's good neighbor policy,
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Speaker 1: Uncle Sad Yeah, funny name, especially considering this next decision.
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Speaker 1: Because of that policy, Uncle Sam officially withdrew from Haiti
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Speaker 1: while retaining quote economic connections. So that's where private industry
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Speaker 1: and public policy get really sticky. They figured out a
18:14
Speaker 1: way for US corporate interests to continue making money, and
18:19
Speaker 1: then they said the best thing we can do as
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Speaker 1: a good neighbor.
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Speaker 2: Is to GTFO. And often is the case with these
18:25
Speaker 2: kind of withdrawals, it certainly led to a period of
18:29
Speaker 2: political upheaval and instability that lasted for quite a long time,
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Speaker 2: with a succession of coups and various problematic leaders. It
18:39
Speaker 2: is one of those things that colonialists tend to do
18:42
Speaker 2: when they're just kind of done with a place, They
18:44
Speaker 2: just sort of lead them to their own devices and
18:46
Speaker 2: don't really give them the tools to kind of pick
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Speaker 2: up the pieces and build themselves back up as an
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Speaker 2: autonomous nation one hundred percent.
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Speaker 1: And sometimes that's neglect or its a matter of incompetence
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Speaker 1: in the occupying force, but often as a pleasant as
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Speaker 1: it is to admit that is a purposeful that's a
19:04
Speaker 1: purposeful thing because they don't want a they don't want
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Speaker 1: this former vassal state to ever become fully independent.
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Speaker 2: Oh one hundred percent. And it was around thirteen years
19:15
Speaker 2: that the US kind of maintained that political hold over Haiti,
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Speaker 2: and that included a lot of those forced labor practices
19:24
Speaker 2: and suppression of you know, descents, as well as continuing
19:30
Speaker 2: to force this improved infrastructure that benefited the US much
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Speaker 2: more than it benefited the locals.
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Speaker 1: Oh one hundred percent. And make no mistake of the
19:39
Speaker 1: colonial power of France was also deeply involved in similar
19:43
Speaker 1: unclean Shenanigans, and it's it's to a point where the
19:50
Speaker 1: intergenerational consequences of those actions of that state craft reverberate today.
19:57
Speaker 1: You know, we recently when we were on when we
20:01
Speaker 1: were on our work crews at True Crime Cruise, some
20:04
Speaker 1: of us had the opportunity to visit the Dominican Republic
20:08
Speaker 1: and it was real eye opener, at least when I
20:10
Speaker 1: was talking with the locals who it was just an
20:14
Speaker 1: eye opener to hear them talk about the neighboring country
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Speaker 1: of Haiti because they're on the you know, they're on
20:19
Speaker 1: the same island, and the difference between the two countries
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Speaker 1: on almost every level is just stark and disturbing. I mean,
20:27
Speaker 1: the US created a real life horror story.
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Speaker 2: There one hundred percent, and a lot of historians this
20:32
Speaker 2: is a turn that I just stumbled upon, and looking
20:35
Speaker 2: up some of the history of the US occupation of
20:37
Speaker 2: Haiti refer to the legacy of this occupation and withdrawal
20:42
Speaker 2: as having left dealt rather a psychic blow to the
20:48
Speaker 2: concept of independence there in Haiti. And then the US
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Speaker 2: came back in in nineteen ninety four, not necessarily as
20:57
Speaker 2: an act of egalitarianism, but more so serving stuff again
21:01
Speaker 2: to restore a democratically elected president. Then, of course they we.
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Speaker 1: You know, had a relationship with right, right, And then
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Speaker 1: we see this kind of interference throughout the US sphere
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Speaker 1: of influence at the time, in the Caribbean and Latin America.
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Speaker 1: And so what we're telling you here, folks, is that
21:23
Speaker 1: a lot of really good horror tells a different story
21:28
Speaker 1: right and tells it through metaphor. It makes you think
21:31
Speaker 1: it's not all just the final girl and gratuitous stabbing.
21:36
Speaker 1: Although that does have a place in these categories of horror.
21:40
Speaker 1: Zombie films are in particular ripe for this kind of commentary.
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Speaker 1: If we go just a few years later, in nineteen
21:49
Speaker 1: forty three, we'll see I Walked with a Zombie. In
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Speaker 1: this film, we're back in the Caribbean. There's a young
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Speaker 1: nurse who takes a job caring for a komat host
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Speaker 1: woman on a fictional island that is definitely not Haiti,
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Speaker 1: but definitely is Haiti, and she is all of a
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Speaker 1: sudden plunged into an underground, a cultural underground where the
22:17
Speaker 1: ghost of slavery haunts the present and voodoo priests are
22:22
Speaker 1: weaponizing their power to summon the Living Dead, so again commentary.
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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and because of her station as a nurse,
22:30
Speaker 2: you know, caring for folks in the working class, she
22:33
Speaker 2: is able to kind of mix in with a lot
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Speaker 2: of the locals and start to really be the stand
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Speaker 2: in for the audience and kind of being plunged into
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Speaker 2: that class divide.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, and she is there to help. So this
22:46
Speaker 1: is much more nuanced than.
22:48
Speaker 2: One could argue. Still a white savior trope a little bit,
22:51
Speaker 2: but I think it, you know what I mean, It's
22:53
Speaker 2: it's not egregious. I haven't seen the film though, but
22:56
Speaker 2: my understanding is that it's not her.
22:59
Speaker 1: Her intentions at least are pure, which makes her a
23:01
Speaker 1: better protagonist. So the couple in White Zombie goes to
23:07
Speaker 1: Haiti because they're getting married and they want to have
23:10
Speaker 1: an upper class, exploitative agrarian lifestyle. But the nurse and
23:15
Speaker 1: I walked with a Zombie our character is named Betsy.
23:18
Speaker 2: Here.
23:18
Speaker 1: She is positioned as someone who is yes, white, but
23:23
Speaker 1: is also working class. So she's there because she has
23:26
Speaker 1: a job. She's not an investor. She's taking care of
23:30
Speaker 1: the wife of a wealthy plantation owner. But she is
23:34
Speaker 1: interacting more directly with black workers with people who are
23:39
Speaker 1: locals who are descendants of those previously enslaved people, and
23:44
Speaker 1: that brings to the forefront this class and race divide
23:48
Speaker 1: running through the film.
23:49
Speaker 2: Not to mention and rend really Astutey points out that
23:52
Speaker 2: Betsy is Canadian, which obviously as a country has links
23:59
Speaker 2: to French colonialism as well.
24:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really good point there. Her history as
24:06
Speaker 1: a character is not tied to racial prejudice and slavery,
24:09
Speaker 1: which makes her unique amid most of the people she
24:12
Speaker 1: meets in Haiti, and so the film really puts her
24:16
Speaker 1: in an outsider position, kind of a class of one's own,
24:20
Speaker 1: making her a lens for the audience theoretically to more
24:26
Speaker 1: objectively view the cultural complications of the.
24:30
Speaker 2: Story, which are personified by two very important key symbols
24:35
Speaker 2: character named Kara four, who is a zombified guard you know,
24:40
Speaker 2: complete with like bulging eyes, who kind of lurks in
24:43
Speaker 2: the shadows waiting to be summoned by his master, as
24:47
Speaker 2: well as a statue known as t Misery, which was
24:52
Speaker 2: formerly the figurehead of the Holland Families slave ship and
24:56
Speaker 2: similar tonight of Living Dead. I Walked with a Zombie
24:59
Speaker 2: was super controversial when it came out. Similarly because of
25:04
Speaker 2: some of these slightly ahead of their time political critiques, Yeah, yeah,
25:09
Speaker 2: putting a critical lens up against the narrative that people
25:14
Speaker 2: were being taught in school and in the press.
25:17
Speaker 1: They were looking at colonialism, they were looking at the
25:20
Speaker 1: consequences of chattel slavery, and they were saying, Hey, I
25:25
Speaker 1: don't know if there's a hot take, but maybe this
25:27
Speaker 1: wasn't all on the up and up.
25:29
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe this wasn't on, Maybe this wasn't quite on.
25:32
Speaker 1: Maybe this was a swing and a miss historically, So
25:36
Speaker 1: they didn't gloss over the facts. For American audiences, and
25:41
Speaker 1: a lot of audiences in the early nineteen hundreds here
25:45
Speaker 1: on mainland America, they might not have had much of
25:49
Speaker 1: an opinion on the occupation of Haiti because it was
25:52
Speaker 1: making some people who were already very wealthy and powerful
25:56
Speaker 1: more powerful and more wealthy. But the average per in
26:00
Speaker 1: you know, Oklahoma or something just hears about it occasionally
26:04
Speaker 1: when they read the paper.
26:05
Speaker 2: Right, and it wasn't like the top story no either,
26:09
Speaker 2: no at all.
26:10
Speaker 1: And this this kind of one thing that's brilliant about
26:14
Speaker 1: these films, and it shows the power of film is
26:17
Speaker 1: that it cut through all that pr and all the
26:20
Speaker 1: propagandistic spins, and it made the local population, or it
26:25
Speaker 1: gave local populations of Americans the opportunity to really reassess
26:31
Speaker 1: their country's involvement in a brutal past.
26:34
Speaker 2: And it did it so.
26:37
Speaker 1: Experientially, experientially, and I'm thinking it did it in an
26:41
Speaker 1: elegant way that wasn't talking down to you.
26:44
Speaker 2: It was telling you a story. And it's interesting because,
26:47
Speaker 2: you know, because of the time and some of the
26:51
Speaker 2: attention that would have been paid, you know, by powers
26:54
Speaker 2: that be to films like this, some of that. The
26:57
Speaker 2: fact that it wasn't heavy handed or overt is probably
27:01
Speaker 2: a product of the time and them having to be
27:03
Speaker 2: a little bit crafty about it, you know, and not
27:04
Speaker 2: come right out and say the quiet part loud. Had
27:09
Speaker 2: to say the quiet part a little quiet. But it
27:10
Speaker 2: is clear that I walked with the Zombie did so
27:14
Speaker 2: a little more aggressively than White Zombie.
27:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And this all brings us back to the
27:21
Speaker 1: Knights of the Living Dead. Sort of fast forward in
27:23
Speaker 1: a few more decades. It's nineteen sixty eight. The United
27:29
Speaker 1: States of America has had a rough go for a
27:33
Speaker 1: couple of reasons. There were some really good things, there
27:35
Speaker 1: were some really terrible things. The Civil Rights Act was
27:39
Speaker 1: passed four years earlier, right in nineteen sixty four, but
27:43
Speaker 1: racial inequality was still very much a thing, even more
27:48
Speaker 1: so than today.
27:49
Speaker 2: All of this stuff is top of mind because I
27:51
Speaker 2: mean speaking of experiential this was lived, This was right
27:55
Speaker 2: in front. This was practically a new Civil War kind
27:59
Speaker 2: of moment to where there was a huge divide that
28:01
Speaker 2: was very clear in terms of the folks who were
28:05
Speaker 2: pro mistreatment of African Americans and the folks who were,
28:11
Speaker 2: you know, on in their corner. This also all was
28:15
Speaker 2: roiling around during the Vietnam War, which is its own
28:19
Speaker 2: you know, bag of badgers, as we say on stuff
28:21
Speaker 2: they don't want you to know. So what started as
28:23
Speaker 2: an anti Vietnam War protest at the National Democratic Invention
28:27
Speaker 2: in Chicago turned into an absolute sh show, all out riot. Yeah. Absolutely,
28:34
Speaker 2: thanks for the beet theorem X.
28:36
Speaker 1: We have we we have to emphasize this, we have
28:41
Speaker 1: to highlight it and put it in italics for anybody
28:43
Speaker 1: wasn't around during this time. There were serious questions about
28:48
Speaker 1: the viability of the United States as a thing. I
28:52
Speaker 1: think that's astute to point out a possible civil war movement,
28:56
Speaker 1: but people, for one reason or another, on all imaginable
29:00
Speaker 1: sides of political divides, A lot of people in different
29:04
Speaker 1: camps were convinced the US was going to fall. We
29:07
Speaker 1: saw public figures like doctor Martin Luther King Junior assassinated
29:11
Speaker 1: while delivering a speech at a hotel balcony in Memphis.
29:16
Speaker 1: JFK had already been assassinated. His brother, Robert F. Kennedy,
29:20
Speaker 1: is also assassinated by June of nineteen sixty eight.
29:24
Speaker 2: I can't help but feel reverberations with the present moment
29:28
Speaker 2: that we're living in right now too, and also the
29:31
Speaker 2: fact that zombies have had another big moment if they
29:35
Speaker 2: ever really went anywhere. But yeah, to your point, it
29:39
Speaker 2: is a great way of pointing out some of these
29:42
Speaker 2: inequalities and some of this like US versus Them mentality
29:46
Speaker 2: without having to be overtly political about it.
29:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just a year earlier, in nineteen sixty seven,
29:54
Speaker 1: one of the millions of people reading all this terrifying
29:57
Speaker 1: news is a young guy named George Romero. Now, George
30:01
Speaker 1: at the time is directing commercials, which is how a
30:05
Speaker 1: lot of filmmakers get their start. He scrapes and scrounges
30:10
Speaker 1: and saves to start a grassroots production company called Image ten.
30:15
Speaker 1: And he does this with a couple of his college buddies.
30:18
Speaker 1: They don't have a lot of money. They've got like
30:21
Speaker 1: six thousand bucks. When they decide to produce a horror
30:24
Speaker 1: movie outside of their hometown in Pittsburgh. They need more
30:30
Speaker 1: than six thousand dollars even back then, so they go
30:33
Speaker 1: around to beg and cajole friends and family and other
30:39
Speaker 1: anyone they can find, really, anyone they can get a
30:42
Speaker 1: pitch meeting with, and they ultimately raise one hundred and
30:45
Speaker 1: fourteen thousand dollars for the final film, which sounds like
30:49
Speaker 1: a lot of money maybe to an individual, but as
30:52
Speaker 1: we know, is very much not a lot of money
30:55
Speaker 1: when you're trying to make a whole ass film.
30:57
Speaker 2: Well, the funny thing, like, I guess it's time to
30:58
Speaker 2: do it. If we could get a boot inflation calculated
31:02
Speaker 2: that bad boy.
31:03
Speaker 4: Dude, it does add up to about what you would
31:08
Speaker 4: consider the most modest budget of an indie film today,
31:12
Speaker 4: which is one million, eighty five.
31:15
Speaker 2: And forty one dollars and sixty four cents boop.
31:19
Speaker 1: Great, Yes, And this here's the twist, here's how they
31:22
Speaker 1: get all this money, even though they're basically some kids
31:26
Speaker 1: just out of college. They go to their investors and
31:30
Speaker 1: they say, hey, if you invest in our film, will
31:35
Speaker 1: also put you in the movie. So they appealed to
31:39
Speaker 1: some vanity.
31:39
Speaker 2: Right.
31:40
Speaker 1: So even still with this consideration, the budget is tight
31:45
Speaker 1: and they blow a lot of it renting the rural
31:49
Speaker 1: farmhouse where they wanted the film to be set.
31:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny because originally they wanted this to be
31:55
Speaker 2: much more of an ed Wood Plan nine from Outer
31:58
Speaker 2: Space kind of fi Cold War era alien picture, you know,
32:03
Speaker 2: which was much more of a trope at the time,
32:06
Speaker 2: But because of limitations and constraints, they had to get
32:10
Speaker 2: a little more creative with it, and in doing that
32:13
Speaker 2: kind of made a new thing exactly.
32:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, because the makeup effects for aliens can add up
32:21
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. So here's what they end up with. In
32:24
Speaker 1: the final plot, the story follows a lady named Barbara.
32:29
Speaker 1: Barbara travels with her brother to visit her father's grave
32:34
Speaker 1: and when they get to the cemetery, they're attacked by
32:36
Speaker 1: a guy in the cemetery. He kills her brother. She
32:41
Speaker 1: runs in a panic of valid panic and arrives at
32:44
Speaker 1: a farmhouse, and then she and several other people that
32:47
Speaker 1: she doesn't know. They end up hiding from this horde
32:51
Speaker 1: of hungry zombies who continually lay siege to the house.
32:56
Speaker 1: The hero of the group, the guy kind of assumes
33:00
Speaker 1: the leadership position, is a dude named Ben and he
33:04
Speaker 1: is played by a black actor named Dwayne Jones. Everybody
33:08
Speaker 1: else inside the farmhouse, like the humans, they're all white actors.
33:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean you pointed out the whole thing
33:15
Speaker 2: about Okay, you invest in us, will give you a part.
33:18
Speaker 2: What a genius structure to be able to do that
33:20
Speaker 2: and not have to depend too much on people's acting chops.
33:24
Speaker 2: You just throw them in some pancake makeup and have
33:27
Speaker 2: them shamble around and go. Yeah. But to that point there,
33:33
Speaker 2: they had a friend who was of their close group,
33:37
Speaker 2: the best actor, the best guy for the job. The
33:41
Speaker 2: fact that he was black had nothing to do with it,
33:44
Speaker 2: but in the end it made that cultural impact even
33:48
Speaker 2: more stark.
33:56
Speaker 3: Yeah.
33:57
Speaker 1: This is interesting, right because it feels like, if we're
34:01
Speaker 1: trying to spin a narrative, we would say Romero and
34:05
Speaker 1: team were so progressive and ahead of the time. We're
34:08
Speaker 1: not saying they're not progressive people, and we're definitely not
34:11
Speaker 1: saying they're bad people, but we do think it's important
34:14
Speaker 1: to realize the reality of independent filmmaking, which is a
34:18
Speaker 1: lot of time you look a lot of times you
34:20
Speaker 1: look around at your friend group and you say, Okay, sorry, guys,
34:26
Speaker 1: Dwayne's the best actor, So now our movie is political.
34:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's also the thing that's so neat about
34:33
Speaker 2: art is it can often be a product of happenstance,
34:39
Speaker 2: those happy accidents that Bob Ross is always talking about.
34:42
Speaker 2: That's true for music and creating things with limitations, like
34:46
Speaker 2: if you have every tool in the arsenal, sometimes you
34:49
Speaker 2: get kind of stemied or a little bit overwhelmed. But
34:51
Speaker 2: when you're forced to make choices because of a lack
34:54
Speaker 2: of resources, oftentimes accidentally magic happens. And that's exactly what
35:00
Speaker 2: in here with Dwayne Jones, who is the guy we're
35:03
Speaker 2: talking about here, who played Ben, our hero Ben.
35:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this guy is this guy is the saving
35:12
Speaker 1: force a Knight of the Living Dead. And it's interesting
35:15
Speaker 1: because you know, like we mentioned, at this time, Hollywood
35:20
Speaker 1: had this thing that seemed almost like a calculated quota
35:25
Speaker 1: on who could or could not be a lead role actor,
35:29
Speaker 1: and Sidney Poitier was like the only black actor who
35:33
Speaker 1: was allowed to be the lead man. So we want
35:36
Speaker 1: to be clear it is never mentioned. The idea of
35:40
Speaker 1: race relations here is never explicitly mentioned. It's never a
35:43
Speaker 1: story point. Nobody gives the Ben character a tough time
35:49
Speaker 1: about being a quote unquote black guy trapped with these
35:53
Speaker 1: white folks. In this zombie flick. He plays the entire
35:57
Speaker 1: role as a unluck key stranger who was stuck in
36:02
Speaker 1: this house with other unlucky strangers, tried to survive the.
36:06
Speaker 2: Night, a ragtag band of yes strangers who will become
36:11
Speaker 2: the allies. I want to backtrack, just ever so slightly
36:15
Speaker 2: for a quick moment to mention the Hayes Code, which
36:19
Speaker 2: was you know, often just known as the Code. There's
36:23
Speaker 2: an era of Hollywood called pre code Hollywood, which is
36:27
Speaker 2: what the two films we talked about earlier, Fell Under
36:30
Speaker 2: White Zombie and I Walked with a Zombie. The Hayes
36:33
Speaker 2: Code was established in the later in the thirties and
36:39
Speaker 2: ended in nineteen sixty eight, which was kind of the
36:40
Speaker 2: precursor to the Motion Picture Association of America Ratings board,
36:44
Speaker 2: and you know, our rating et cetera. But it was
36:47
Speaker 2: essentially a form of censorship that imposed self regulated prohibition
36:54
Speaker 2: of topics like profanity, graphic violence, nudity, sexual relationships, proper
37:00
Speaker 2: sexual relationships aka probably interracial you know. So nineteen sixty
37:07
Speaker 2: eight is actually when that ends. And I'm just wondering
37:09
Speaker 2: if the lack of this kind of oversight was largely
37:14
Speaker 2: what led to this film being able to exist. Although
37:18
Speaker 2: we already mentioned that it was mainly underground when it
37:21
Speaker 2: came out, so this is probably It's not like when
37:23
Speaker 2: a thing ends all of a sudden, everything changes, So
37:26
Speaker 2: I'm sure there was still a sense of this kind
37:28
Speaker 2: of puritanical, you know, attitude from the audiences and critics.
37:31
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, And there's a reason Ben is the leader
37:35
Speaker 1: the character here, because look, if you rewatch the film,
37:39
Speaker 1: if you're a horror buff like us folks, you'll notice
37:42
Speaker 1: that pretty much all the other humans in the farmhouse
37:46
Speaker 1: are kind of useless and white. Bet is trustworthy. He's
37:50
Speaker 1: the smartest one. Barbara, our character that the story begins with.
37:56
Speaker 1: She is in a state of shock for most of
37:58
Speaker 1: the movie because her brother got killed in front of her.
38:01
Speaker 2: He got eaten. Yeah, not cool. It's interesting though, because
38:04
Speaker 2: the whole starkness of the medium, the black and white film,
38:07
Speaker 2: and then there's this like central character who's black, everybody
38:10
Speaker 2: else is white. All of this is not necessarily done
38:13
Speaker 2: on purpose, but it really makes it read even more
38:17
Speaker 2: kind of poignantly. You know, the whole thing just feels
38:19
Speaker 2: really intentional even if it wasn't. But yeah, Ben is
38:23
Speaker 2: our hero. He's the most competent one of the bunch.
38:25
Speaker 2: He's more or less single handedly keeping these dumb dumbs
38:29
Speaker 2: in line and making sure that they don't get eaten.
38:31
Speaker 1: So he will do things where he's trying to get
38:33
Speaker 1: to know other people, and he's asking Barbara questions about
38:38
Speaker 1: what's going on, What the heck is that outside?
38:41
Speaker 2: She's no help.
38:42
Speaker 1: Get a hold of yourself, right, slap, slap, But he hurries,
38:47
Speaker 1: He immediately assesses the situation. He tries to board up
38:51
Speaker 1: the house, he fires a rifle, he lights fires outside.
38:56
Speaker 1: He tries to keep back this trail of zombies who
39:00
Speaker 1: have started to discover them. And it's almost like ants
39:04
Speaker 1: will follow upon other ants. Maybe we talk a little
39:07
Speaker 1: bit about the other folks there, because right now we've
39:10
Speaker 1: just talked about Barbara and Bett.
39:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's also a middle aged couple who have found
39:16
Speaker 2: refuge in the house. Their young daughter named Karen, has
39:22
Speaker 2: been bitten by a zombie. We are, I guess, waiting
39:28
Speaker 2: to see at this point whether or not that's a
39:29
Speaker 2: thing where you turn, you get turned, because we talked
39:33
Speaker 2: about how there is a story point that this was
39:36
Speaker 2: caused by radiation or some sort of like you know,
39:39
Speaker 2: anomalists uap phenomenon, very love crafty and like the color
39:45
Speaker 2: out of space, right, that's another story point. Or probably
39:48
Speaker 2: he was aware of Romeiro or Knight of the Comet.
39:51
Speaker 2: You remember that one man I loved The Night of
39:53
Speaker 2: the Comet. So we're waiting to see if she's gonna turn.
39:56
Speaker 2: I think it's implied that that is what's going to happen.
39:58
Speaker 2: We've also got Henry, who's a real till. He's got
40:02
Speaker 2: a bit of a temper. He's a bit of a misogynist,
40:05
Speaker 2: and this is really kind of mucking things up and
40:07
Speaker 2: just bringing bad vibes to the party. Yeah, exactly.
40:10
Speaker 1: He's one of those one of my least favorite people
40:14
Speaker 1: in an emergency or survival.
40:15
Speaker 2: Situation or an escape room or an escape room, he's.
40:19
Speaker 1: Just like blustering around, yelling, at people and being better,
40:24
Speaker 1: thinks he knows better, and all his ideas are terrible
40:27
Speaker 1: and he has no listening skills, right, And.
40:30
Speaker 2: So at one point Ben has to leave the farmhouse
40:32
Speaker 2: to help other stragglers outside, and Henry just takes it
40:37
Speaker 2: upon himself to lock him out. Yeah, classic Henry.
40:42
Speaker 1: And this is where we get to that point that
40:45
Speaker 1: I think we wanted to explore a little bit more.
40:48
Speaker 1: Keep in mind, this isn't the late nineteen sixties in
40:50
Speaker 1: the United States. When Henry doesn't let the black character
40:54
Speaker 1: Ben inside the house, they go back and forth. Ben
40:59
Speaker 1: finally gave entry and he just clocks the crap out
41:03
Speaker 1: of Henry. He's just had it.
41:05
Speaker 2: This did not happen very often at all in cinema
41:09
Speaker 2: at the time. No, And part of the reason that
41:12
Speaker 2: this did happen, I think we mentioned the idea that
41:16
Speaker 2: his race was not a story point, but it goes
41:18
Speaker 2: even further than that. Romero, talking to NPR, said that
41:21
Speaker 2: Jones was simply the best actor from among our friends,
41:23
Speaker 2: and we didn't change the script from when Dwayne agreed
41:27
Speaker 2: to play the role. Therefore, he plays the entire thing
41:30
Speaker 2: as a white actor would, and there is no implied
41:33
Speaker 2: racial limitations, and yet that act as depicted is such
41:38
Speaker 2: a powerful moment, like that first interracial on screen kiss
41:43
Speaker 2: in Star Trek.
41:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, and in nineteen sixties America, regardless of genre of film,
41:51
Speaker 1: you would not see a black actor punching a white
41:54
Speaker 1: actor on screen, especially not when the white guys depicted
41:57
Speaker 1: as a villain. Ben also gets fit with other characters
42:02
Speaker 1: in the story. When Barbara is having one of her
42:04
Speaker 1: freak out episodes, Ben does slap her to an attempt
42:08
Speaker 1: to get her back to life, back to reality. Oh yeah, yeah, a.
42:12
Speaker 2: Trope in and of itself. Snap out of it woman,
42:14
Speaker 2: you know, ye whomever.
42:17
Speaker 1: And we also know that due to the way race
42:22
Speaker 1: relations were depicted on screen at this time, black actors
42:26
Speaker 1: certainly didn't hit female white actors on screen in the sixties,
42:30
Speaker 1: not even in the context of hey, I'm quote helping you. Eventually, Shockingly,
42:36
Speaker 1: as we teased, Ben does have to kill the girl caring.
42:42
Speaker 2: Yep, she succumbs to her bite, and he does, you know,
42:46
Speaker 2: do her a kindness and put her down after she
42:49
Speaker 2: begins to It's not like he's just doing it in advance.
42:52
Speaker 2: She goes full zombie and begins to devour the flesh
42:57
Speaker 2: of her father, which you know, we don't love that guy.
43:00
Speaker 2: You kind of love to see it getting his come up.
43:01
Speaker 2: It's a little bit, yeah, but what a terrible way
43:05
Speaker 2: to go. Now we're dealing with the death of a
43:07
Speaker 2: child's which is also absolutely shocking for the time.
43:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, and now you're watching the young eat the old,
43:14
Speaker 1: which kind of feels like a symbol for generational upheaval
43:19
Speaker 1: in the US. And then despite again in the context,
43:24
Speaker 1: the audience is watching a white child's character being killed
43:29
Speaker 1: by a black character, and to some people in the
43:33
Speaker 1: audience that was indible, and to some film critics that
43:37
Speaker 1: was incredibly controversial, even though that's the nature of a
43:42
Speaker 1: good horror story. Right in the end, our character Ben
43:46
Speaker 1: is the last human left. He is never infected with
43:51
Speaker 1: the zombie bug, but when he's trying to finally reach
43:56
Speaker 1: the authorities, he is shot by a sheriff who they
44:00
Speaker 1: well Ben might be a member of the living dead.
44:03
Speaker 2: And again, it would have happened that way in the
44:05
Speaker 2: plot even if it had been played by a white actor.
44:08
Speaker 2: But the fact that it was a black actor and
44:10
Speaker 2: the police brutality of it all, and it's just, I mean,
44:14
Speaker 2: so much of this stuff was happenstance, and I don't know,
44:17
Speaker 2: It's like you have to move so quickly and be
44:18
Speaker 2: so nimble in an indie film production like this, you
44:21
Speaker 2: might not even have time to think about how this
44:23
Speaker 2: is going to have this kind of cultural impact. But
44:26
Speaker 2: boy did it ever, and it really still reads and
44:28
Speaker 2: hits today. I know that you're a fan of Jordan
44:31
Speaker 2: Peele's work, both his comedy work and his film work
44:35
Speaker 2: and the Breakout. You know, obviously the masterpiece of his
44:39
Speaker 2: in the horror genre and satire was get Out, which
44:43
Speaker 2: originally he had written the ending where the main character,
44:46
Speaker 2: as he's escaping the kind of creepy you know, murderous,
44:51
Speaker 2: zombifying white families, you know, nightmare home, he gets killed
44:57
Speaker 2: by police or arrested, but don't remember he gets killed
45:00
Speaker 2: but instead spoiler alert three two one, his buddy from
45:03
Speaker 2: the TSA swoops in and saves the day for a
45:06
Speaker 2: nice little comedic punch at the end. But that absolutely
45:09
Speaker 2: was a reference, and you're also even expecting that that's
45:12
Speaker 2: what's going to happen to him. Because of this.
45:15
Speaker 1: We should mention the sheriff, a knight of the living
45:17
Speaker 1: dead who shoots Ben.
45:18
Speaker 2: He is a white guy.
45:20
Speaker 1: Again, the argument is, as we said, that, it just
45:24
Speaker 1: happened that way because Dwayne who plays Ben, was literal
45:29
Speaker 1: was literally the best or the least worst actor they knew.
45:33
Speaker 1: So the film closes with Ben's body being burned on
45:38
Speaker 1: top of a pile of the living dead, of the
45:41
Speaker 1: zombies that he had spent the entirety of the story fighting.
45:46
Speaker 2: Stragic. Yes, so, during the sixties, black Americans were obviously
45:51
Speaker 2: struggling to prove their worth and rise up in you know,
45:55
Speaker 2: economically bettering their lot in life in a system that
45:58
Speaker 2: was kind of designed to prevent them from doing so.
46:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, well said, and we know that. Look, we know
46:07
Speaker 1: that that was true. Then it's true. Now there's a
46:10
Speaker 1: reason that final scene of Night of the Living Dead,
46:13
Speaker 1: with Ben's body atop this pile of zombies, is the
46:17
Speaker 1: reason it hit so profoundly. Zombie films essentially function as
46:24
Speaker 1: a time capsule of the audience's greatest political fears. They're
46:28
Speaker 1: deeper the more you think about them, and you know,
46:32
Speaker 1: spoiler alert for American history. The US did survive the
46:35
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties and went on to have other shenanigans in
46:39
Speaker 1: the seventies, the eighties, and even now in the twenty twenties.
46:43
Speaker 1: The seventies were a little bit calmer to in some
46:47
Speaker 1: degrees because yuppies were leading in charge for consumerism. The
46:51
Speaker 1: country was no longer technically at war. And then you
46:55
Speaker 1: see zombie movies start to evolve and step with that.
46:58
Speaker 1: Now you get re Animator, Romero goes back to the
47:02
Speaker 1: well of the Undead with a Day of the Dead,
47:05
Speaker 1: which is literally a shopping mall.
47:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, and it's excellence. It's it's in color. Obviously,
47:12
Speaker 2: it is his like really blank check kind of version
47:17
Speaker 2: of the zombie movie, and it's it's excellent. It is
47:19
Speaker 2: schlocky as I'll get out. The gore effects are bonkers,
47:23
Speaker 2: but it does also still have this underlying kind of
47:26
Speaker 2: commentary social commentary. Then you also have just the utter
47:30
Speaker 2: shlock of things like Reanimator like you mentioned, and you
47:34
Speaker 2: know Peter Jackson's Dead Alive for example, the Evil Dead films.
47:39
Speaker 2: You start to really see this kind of flurry of
47:42
Speaker 2: spins and twists on that iconic genre that that Romero
47:47
Speaker 2: created with Don of the Dead, even himself doing a
47:50
Speaker 2: spin on his own thing with Day of the Dead,
47:53
Speaker 2: kind of taking it to the next level. Then you
47:54
Speaker 2: also see Michael Jackson's iconic music video for Thriller directed
47:59
Speaker 2: by by John Landis I think is his name of
48:02
Speaker 2: the guy that made American Werewolf in London, which incredible effects,
48:07
Speaker 2: and again taking some of these tropes and this genre
48:12
Speaker 2: from the underground squarely into the kind of you know, zeitgeist.
48:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we also see the evolution of things that
48:19
Speaker 1: are zombie like but are a world away from voodoo,
48:24
Speaker 1: because in the nineteen thirties, one of the fears that
48:26
Speaker 1: filmmakers were really drawing from is the fear of other cultures,
48:31
Speaker 1: right xenophobia, the fear of unfamiliar magic or spiritual practices.
48:35
Speaker 2: Which is built into the thing from the earliest days,
48:38
Speaker 2: the whole us versus them mental.
48:40
Speaker 1: But as as a scientific progress continues and as society
48:45
Speaker 1: overall evolves, we see zombies taking an increasingly secular approach
48:51
Speaker 1: to their origin stories, and we see things that are
48:53
Speaker 1: you know, not quite zombies, like the villains of Charlton
48:56
Speaker 1: Heston's Omega Man from nineteen seventy one that's very post apocalyptic,
49:02
Speaker 1: but the monsters are zombie an all but name, and
49:06
Speaker 1: of course Night of the Comet Absolute Banger nineteen eighty
49:10
Speaker 1: four sci fi comedy horror film about I think it's
49:15
Speaker 1: like a Lady and the main character ends up safe
49:20
Speaker 1: from a dangerous comet because she falls asleep in a
49:25
Speaker 1: projectionist booth, but everybody else goes outside to watch the
49:29
Speaker 1: comet and it turns them into monsters.
49:31
Speaker 2: Oh man. Yeah, and it also reminds me of just
49:33
Speaker 2: I mean a lot of this is Frankenstein base. You know,
49:37
Speaker 2: we've got the Gleam littletro Frankenstein adaptation coming out soon.
49:42
Speaker 2: But just this idea of an abomination, you know, an
49:46
Speaker 2: unstoppable other, right that maybe even is of of who
49:52
Speaker 2: we are in some way, this kind of bastardization of
49:55
Speaker 2: like what it means to be human. And that also
49:57
Speaker 2: is a trope that you see in all kinds of
49:59
Speaker 2: alien invasion movies, like The Body Snatchers and The Blob.
50:03
Speaker 2: Just this unstoppable force that is going to subsume and
50:08
Speaker 2: devour us, all right.
50:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then we see kind of a Venn diagram
50:12
Speaker 1: when we get to other types of undead creatures, like vampires,
50:17
Speaker 1: who are sort of the honor students of the zombie.
50:20
Speaker 2: World, much sexier, much better dressed.
50:23
Speaker 1: I've started to get back into the more gritty, the
50:29
Speaker 1: more gritty depictions of vampirism, like the Strain or the Yeah,
50:34
Speaker 1: or let the Right One in Love.
50:37
Speaker 2: Let the Right One in the American version is a banger, actually,
50:40
Speaker 2: but the original is where it's at.
50:43
Speaker 1: And then we also see weird zombie films like Fido
50:46
Speaker 1: where the zombies are domesticated pets.
50:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, and of course, you know, with twenty eight Days
50:53
Speaker 2: Later by Danny Boyle, you start to see this evolution
50:57
Speaker 2: of zombies into these more raging kind of like not
51:01
Speaker 2: shambling anymore, but like hauling asks, you know, and they're
51:04
Speaker 2: incredibly muscular and deadly. And of course we just had
51:09
Speaker 2: the third installment in that franchise come out this year,
51:13
Speaker 2: twenty eight years later, which I really loved a lot,
51:16
Speaker 2: and it has a lot of COVID kind of themes,
51:19
Speaker 2: and again this sort of like what does it mean
51:22
Speaker 2: to exist in a world like this? How do you
51:25
Speaker 2: survive like taking that not just from like on the day,
51:28
Speaker 2: but like much further down the line, and what does
51:30
Speaker 2: it look like? And how does that then become part
51:33
Speaker 2: of your culture and part of your traditions? Right?
51:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there are so many other great zombie films
51:41
Speaker 1: to name. There's a lot of really good comedy horror
51:44
Speaker 1: like Zombie Land, Shot of the Dead, and so on,
51:48
Speaker 1: So we can't wait to explore some of these because,
51:53
Speaker 1: as we have to say pretty often nowadays, it's.
51:55
Speaker 2: Always Halloween in America.
51:58
Speaker 1: Big thanks to our super producer from mister Max Williams,
52:01
Speaker 1: his brother Alex Williams, who composed this slap and bop
52:05
Speaker 1: and gosh, is Alex back in town?
52:09
Speaker 2: He isn't at the moment. I know he's coming soon.
52:11
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, very soon. He'll be back very soon.
52:15
Speaker 2: Wow, you made it sound like he's outside. Yes, he's
52:18
Speaker 2: scratching on my door like a zombie. Huge thanks dude.
52:21
Speaker 2: Our favorite shambling zombiefide creature of the night, Jonathan Strickland,
52:26
Speaker 2: the Quizzed aj Bahamas Jacobs, the Puzzler.
52:31
Speaker 3: Yes, the route.
52:32
Speaker 1: Dude's that ridiculous crime. If you dig us, you'll love them.
52:35
Speaker 1: Big big thanks for research associate Renfest.
52:39
Speaker 2: Yes, this one was a banger, as was the previous
52:42
Speaker 2: zombie related episode that Wren delivered for us, and we're
52:45
Speaker 2: really enjoying her work a lot. Man. Huge things to you.
52:48
Speaker 4: Ben.
52:48
Speaker 2: Love talking zombies with you, do it any day of
52:51
Speaker 2: the week. And also if you'll see you next time.
52:54
Speaker 4: Books.
53:01
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
53:05
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.