LAND OF THE DEAD

0:21 I proclaim this the summer of George. Hey there everybody, welcome to the pod and the pendulum. We are the show that covers all the horror movie franchises one movie and one episode at a time. As always, I'm your host Mike's Noonian and the Summer of George continues with this week's offering 2000 fives a Land of the Dead. As always, I'm not alone sitting in the Co host chair from Bloody Disgusting Manor, Vellum and the forthcoming podcast Holy Terrors, Mr. Brian Kiper. Brian, how are we?

1:07 I'm doing just fine. I'm feeling a little bit like The Walking Dead today, I'll have to admit. But hey, a little extra tired means a little extra nerve divergent, so it should be fine. I. Am definitely feeling definitely feeling that rundown feeling right now and we're barely working like we're on summer break and oh I know I don't know what it is. It's just like. In my situation, our dog isn't doing, he's feeling, he's not feeling so good. So he's been up a lot and so, so of the rest of us. And so that's, that's where, that's where I'm at. But I'm good boy. Guy. Like I said, maybe a little extra spicy today.

1:48 Let's say, well, we look forward to that. I hope we look forward to that. Joining us again, formerly of Ghouls Magazine, all the way from the UK. Let's welcome film Blogger in all around zombie fiend, Miss Sarah Miles. Sarah, how are we doing? I'm doing pretty good and there's some pretty good vibes here because the England ladies just won the Euro football, so that's pretty cool. Nice. So is it chaos there? Like do people go bananas for like the women's sports as well? Like if if England wins the cup. Not as much, although you know, most of it's kind of pretty much acknowledged that usually the ladies football team play a lot better than the men's. I was there last summer when the men's team went to the was it the Euro Cup?

2:37 Yeah, yeah. Euro, they made it all the way to the finals. And I have to say that like one of the coolest sports watching experiences I ever had was like being in a pub in Cornwall with like a ton of people, like literally shoulder to shoulder with people and just having everybody. It reminded me honestly, the closest thing to that was like 2004 when the Boston Red Sox like went won the World Series for the first time in 86 years. Like there's nothing else like that. So it was really cool. Oh yeah, like when we do go hard for sports in this country, we we go hard. Now, would you fancy yourself a soccer hooligan?

3:20 Like, are you someone that's going to roll up the sleeves and maybe ship somebody after a hard game? Yeah, give them the good old Chelsea Grin. No, no, I mean, my, my, my parents and one of my brothers, they like it a lot more than me. I just, I'm sorry. It's more a case of like, I'll stick my head in the room, be like, oh, OK, we're winning. OK, that's more than my wife will do. Who? Famously picked up our kitten at the time and told the room full of my friends we were scaring the cat when we were all cheering so loud during a game. So she is one of those like, oh boy, sports ball people. So you know, but my dad. Also does like a bit of your guys's football as well like he he does. He does like a bit of NFL.

4:04 We keep trying to make it the thing over there and I don't think it quite lands. I don't think we're there. We just one of those. We have our, our soccer program here in Seattle is pretty popular. It's the, the, the Sounders. But yeah, we don't go crazy around here. I mean, when the Seahawks won the Super Bowl, yeah, we we only burn the city down. You know when you know, like UHO is here or whatever or no, not WH the World Trade WTO, the World Trade Organization, We we burned, we burned the city down then, but. I was thinking Roger Daltrey. When Roger Daltrey, Yeah, shows up, we riot. We.

4:45 Yeah. But I remember when the Seahawks won the Super Bowl and the bus came back, they just sort of were lining the sidewalks very nicely, welcoming it and back and it was cool. But it's like, we're so nice around here. Yeah. We're a little bit of both. I think we're it's points I can get a bit frightening, but overall I think that it hasn't been too too bad. Like when the Duck folks aren't rolling and remember the parade for the O4 Red Sox on my friend Nate yelling at Johnny Damon that he wanted to have his baby. So that's about as raucous as we got. You know what? Let's talk a little bit about this movie. I could go on and on forever that. Might be a tangent film that I. Know yeah, so this might be one of those tangent, although this is a fun movie. Like I have a fun.

5:31 Story Let's do a little bit of housekeeping and then get right into it. If you see your first time listening, we hope you enjoyed our ESPN sponsored content of the show and please make sure that you rate, review and subscribe to us everywhere that you get your podcasts. On Spotify, you can rate US five stars and also leave comments on individual episodes. On Apple, you can leave us five stars. And also a brief review goes a super long way to new listeners finding us. Welcome new listeners who have found us through our Summer of George series. You can go to our website pod on the Pendulum where we have all of our back episodes listed. You can leave review there's, you can leave us emails there, make comments. It's really easy to search through and find. I think Steven said we're now up to like 3738 franchises that we've covered since 2019.

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7:07 Sarah, as our guest, can you remind us or tell us about the first time you caught Romero's Land of the Dead? And were you at that point like as much of A zombie fan as you are now? Relatively relatively as you know, I mean, I wouldn't say I was maybe as widely watched, but I I definitely did like the genre. Unfortunately, there's nothing to kind of like too spectacular about the first time I watched it. I think it was just kind of like a case of just kind of like a bored afternoon was like, oh, hey, I should finally watch this. And that was it. I can imagine that the atmosphere at the time when it came out was in some ways kind of akin to when Star Wars Episode 1 came out. Sure.

7:57 Like, like, you know, that long gap in between, Yeah, the old and the new sort of things. I I can imagine. That was a that was a good atmosphere. Yeah, I would probably say on a smaller scale, but maybe with like the intensity of that for the diehards as we'll get into where did this, I guess maybe we'll talk about it more when like we get into the movie itself. But did like the zombie films that had come out like just before this kind of create more of a resurgence or like re interest in in this like genre film for you? I mean, it's like it wasn't around that time that I saw it was only kind of like, I would say maybe, I don't know, 7-8 years ago maybe, OK. It.

8:44 Really was just like AI need to catch up with this. I mean, it's like at the time I knew of it obviously. And of course you did have around the same time like Shaun of the Dead and the Dawn of the Dead remake. So I mean, it's kind of a case of it's like, would we still have this if it wasn't for those films and, and particularly the popularity of like, because I think Dawn of the Dead did quite well at the box office. So yeah, it's interesting to kind of like case of it's just like how the essentially the father of the genre wasn't able to get another one of his films made until kind of like these other people drew from him and got popular. Yeah, we'll definitely dive into that and what was going on and what kind of got this film maybe over the finish line out of like development hell after a couple years. Brian, how about yourself?

9:41 Well. I was thinking about what was going on around 2005 for me, and I just wasn't watching a lot of horror at the time. I wasn't seeing any of it in the theater. I there the one exception because every movie I saw, I saw with my wife at that time. We were pretty recently married. You know, it was like around three years of marriage for us at that time. And I was very busy with my first career, which took a lot of, took, you know, frankly, too much time of life to get to get rolling. Is that your Chippendale dancer? Yeah, Sage. Yeah, exactly.

10:22 Just like that. Me and me and Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley, you know, we're all together in that. But yeah, actually that was my, that was my the reason. Well, one of the reasons maybe I wasn't watching a lot of horror was I was a church worship director, so I was very Jesusy. And I don't know if you would have. I don't know if I need to go too far into all that. I am fascinated. No, please. Do well, you know, it was, it was my, I'd gone to college to be a music teacher, but I knew I wasn't going to be a music teacher. My plan was always to be a, a music director for churches. And then I got into it and you are very overworked, very underpaid, and there's not a lot of room or ways to advance very easily and things like that.

11:13 So it was, it was very draining and. Yeah. But after 10 years, I finally figured that out and jumped back into my What I went to college for and teaching has just been a better fit. That's all. I and. There's more, as we know, teachers. Yeah, teachers are teachers. Are never overworked and underpaid. No, teaching is never training. No, but honestly comparatively it's been much better situation. That's good to hear. And so when the Holy Terrors podcast starts playing, you'll you'll hear the more of the story, I'm sure if you listen. But so the but anyway, even if that wasn't the case, I wasn't seeing a lot of movies by myself. I was going with my wife, you know, and the only horror movie I can remember, or scary movie, I should say, I remember us seeing together was Open Water.

12:12 And there was a trailer for Shaun of the Dead at the beginning of that. And I remember thinking that looks amazing. And I was right. But Land of the Dead, I, as I've mentioned in the previous episodes, I liked all of the previous movies to some extent, though Day at first was, I don't know, a little extra disturbing to me, I guess. But I was looking forward to this and I, but I didn't think I'd see it theatrically, which I didn't, but I ended up renting it. You know, there was still when Blockbuster and Hollywood Video were around. So I, I rented it some night and I watched it and it was like, all right, you know, not bad, some kind of interesting stuff. And I didn't really think about it since then until watching it what, 2 days ago to talk about it with you fine folks. So and I like it.

13:12 I think it's a fun movie. Not a ton of subtext in this. I mean, the subtext is text of this one, right? And which is, but you know what, there were things like I had listened. I was, I used to listen to audio commentaries all the time. Like I'd listen to the Dawn of the dead commentary. And he's talking about with Sonic Tom Savini, how he's writing a fourth one called Dead Reckoning, and it's about 911 and the the gulf between rich and poor and all this. I'm like, OK. And so eventually they got it made and it was obviously under this different title, but you know, that's just, I haven't really thought much of it since seeing it initially.

13:54 So. But you know, I like it well enough. Yeah, it's a fun film. I know for myself like this was actually a pretty like the the actual experiencing this movie was more enjoyable maybe than the movie itself, which I do think is a fun pretty enjoyable zombie flick. Like at the time I lived with like 8 or 9 other guys at a house in Alston right near downtown Boston. And like our house was like the kind of like early 30s like punk rock house where we were all in bands or did other art projects but also like had jobs and could pay bills. Like our days of let's like now live in a dump. We're like well behind us and our house is just the one that people tended to gravitate towards. Like we'd throw barbecues and bands would play in the backyard.

14:49 We had a toga party on the 4th of July where my wife, then girlfriend like met all of my friends for the first time, like wearing a bed sheet. And I remember like coming down at like 2:00 in the morning piss drunk from that night. And there's like 25 people I've never met before all playing some instrument or another in the living room and being like all right, I'm just going back to bed. Like they can sort this out. You didn't grab the guitar and just smash it against the wall. No, we did not. No, because we they were our friends. Like to me, this was like the coolest thing in the world. Just just toga parties and no pollution that's I had.

15:29 I had to make an Animal House reference. Not give my love a cherry that night, although she she like basically carried me home from the bridge where the fire we could see the fireworks 'cause I was in no position to move. And we found a banana pie on the front stoop and just ate banana pie and said and it was just one of the best. Experiences come from. It was just on like people brought it to the BBQ. OK. OK. So that makes sense. Now, yeah, it was like a banana cream pie. And we just went to town on a banana cream pie on the 4th of July. So and like our house, like every, we had a message board we all belong to back when those were a thing. And I just started a horror movie night on Sundays where I'm like, hey, if anyone's around, I'm going to like, throw some burgers on the grill and then put on a couple horror movies around like 7:00 if anyone wants to come over. Just don't be an asshole.

16:26 Invariably, we would have, like, at its peak, maybe a dozen people just show up, bring a couple beers or something to eat, and we throw on a couple horror movies. And it was just like a couple of those people I'm still like very good friends with. That sounds perfect. Really. That is like. I'd miss those days so much that, yeah, just having folks over for stuff like that. We. So when Land of the Dead came out, we decided let's do something special. And we decided we were going to have like a zombie shuffle to the theater because we lived like right near the train line that would drop us off a few blocks from the Regal Theater at Fenway Park.

17:07 So we took whatever clothes you're going to wear and we rolled them around in all the dirt so it would look like we had come up from the grave. And a bunch of us, like, did a bunch of zombie makeup and prosthetics and, you know, just looked all gross and disgusting. And we rode the train the, the like 5 or 6 stops from our house, about a dozen of us, 2 Lansdowne St. in in Kendall Square, which is where the Red Sox play, but also is where, like at the time all of the nightclubs were. So on a Friday night, if you would go to Kendall Square and you would go to Lansdowne St. in particular, there would be like all the college kids, like dressed up to the nines just going to have a good time.

17:52 And we get off the train and we just start shambling towards all of these like super drunk college kids that were dressed for essentially like college prom. And but definitely I'm like, huh, like I thought, you know, I thought like Romero was a bigger deal. Like it didn't measure up to me, like Shawn of the Dead or 28 Days Later or even Zack Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead. I thought, you know, it was a good, fun movie. Sarah, you just made a face. I don't. Know what you're talking about? No, that's all right. But the movie itself, like it was decent, and it's something that's grown on me over time. It does have all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the groin, but that's OK sometimes.

18:41 So yeah, that was my experience seeing this. All right. Should we get into the background a little bit? Let's do. It all right, so I've just talked a lot, so maybe I'll kick it over to you. Brian and Sarah, can you guys talk a little bit? Like to me it feels like post Day of the Dead and that one is a bit of, I don't want to say a flop, but it definitely commercially underperformed and fans didn't like it as much of as Dawn of the Dead that it felt like Romero was in a down swing creatively and commercially. And the zombie sub genre as well from the mid 80s to this.

19:22 What was going on for Romero at this time? Well, I mean, I mean, he did. He did write the script for the remake of Night the Living Dead, which Tom Savini directed in, I want to say 1990. Yeah, and then you also had Tales from the Dark Side, which I haven't seen, but I've heard good things. Yeah. And I saw that in theaters as a kid. It was one of the first R rated movies I ever stuck into. It's. The. Real. It's the real Creepshow 3. Yeah, OK. Yeah, it's it's much more along those lines than than the actual Creepshow three. Yeah, movie. Directed by John Harrison, his composer and collaborator. It's really fun I I highly recommend it. I need to watch more anthology horror like I have seen the like Creepshow and Trick or Treat and things like that but I really need to like like look into it more. Sorry, tangent.

20:18 That's OK. And of course he did the dark half the Stephen King adaptation. And of course, Stephen King's the copy of same slot had its little cameo in Day of the Dead with Bob. But although fun fact, Romero was going to do Pet Sematary 1999, but it was just like a scheduling thing. They weren't able to arrange it and then Mary Lambert didn't instead. But I think that would have been an interesting one. If if I like, I love Pet Sematary, but I think I think that that is kind of a very interesting kind of what if. My hot take is I've come around in like Mary Lambert's Pet Sematary too say that I've heard a. Few people say that, actually.

21:03 I kind of agree. I I think that obviously the the story of the first film is it's a based on the novel. It's a much more serious, you know, idea and all of that. But I think that too is just so much fun. It's it's got a little bit of a moon streak to it, but it's, although it's, it's, I don't know the, the it's, it's playing in the sandbox in a way of that mythos that I think is really intelligent and fun. I really like that one. It's like Gremlins 2IN that she had a blank check to do whatever she wanted and Lambert has like a very kind of like punk rock sensibility to her filmmaking and that's what Pet Sematary 2 is. Where as good as the original 1 is and it's a solid like late 80s horror movie, it kind of like a slavish recreation of the novel in a lot of ways.

21:59 And I also felt kind of like the miscast with the main performances, like they weren't my favorite, so. Really. Yeah. I mean, I think the best cast person in the original Pet Sematary is Fred Guinn as Judd. Oh yeah, that's true. I should give him a pass. He's fantastic. Yeah, so here's the. Others I think little. He's great in that. For a little kid performances, I think for a little bird is great. Yeah, yeah, I will say I my hot take on Romero in the dark half is I think he would have been a better choice for the kind of quasi sequel to that which is Needful Things.

22:42 I don't know if if you've ever read that novel, there's like a real satirical streak to it. Like, it's very dark, but also, like, really funny and rife with a lot of commentary on consumerism and community, which, to me, those would fall right into Romero's wheelhouse. And I think he could have knocked that one out of the park where the dark half is a bit more straightforward. You know, like King at that time was really kind of ruminating on his alter ego that had just been outed. Well, it's weird because frankly, I was going to say the dark half almost feels like a Bachmann story because it has that sort of blunt force trauma to it where because I remember read that was one of the first books that I read, but from King when it first came out, I think that was the first one that I bought right when it came out and read. And I was just like, man, it's it's like it's it's really, really mean and it's nasty and angry and it's got, you know, someone beaten to death with their own prosthetic arm and you know, I it's it's really a mean little book. And whereas, you know, before that I had read, you know, movies, books, I mean, that aren't necessarily, you know, warm and fuzzy, cuddly, like The Shining and stuff, but still there was something different

24:14 about those ones before that for me. And so when I read The Dark Half, I was like, good Lord, he just was. And I was in like 6th grade and I was like, wow, he's really pissed off here. Was King clean by then? I kind of feel like The Tommy Doctors is his last book when he was like really in the thralls of addiction and I think by the Dark F he had like cleaned up and I wonder how much of the meanness is kind of getting through that tough transition. It was the, as I understand the early days of his, of his sobriety. That makes a lot of sense. He, I think he started it.

24:55 He was working on it while he was making Maximum OverDrive. He was like writing it at the same time as he was directing that movie, which is like, OK, you can't do that unless you're, as you have so eloquently said in the past, sucking half of Bolivia up your nose. But I believe he finished that book sober. So I don't which say what you will about that, it's so. But yeah, the Tommy Knockers is clearly like, what the hell is this? I don't think I ever finished the Tommy Knockers. I think like. It's it's. About 100 pages in. I'm like, I don't have to read everything by him. It's one of his worst.

25:38 I think like I swear I heard someone once that King genuinely can't remember writing Cujo. Like he knows that he did, but he cannot remember anything about the process of it because he was just that coked out. Yeah. Yeah, he wrote that in that's in on writing his his memoir. He talks about how he's like, I like that book, but I don't remember writing. It, to be fair, he writes so much. I mean, there's probably a bunch of stuff he doesn't even like sober. He's like, I wrote what? Like, all right, I got a check for it. So yeah. Well, what else had Romero been doing? Not to dive dovetail too much. Like what else had Romero been doing at this time? We've got monkey shines.

26:22 Did anyone see monkey shines? I've I've seen about the 1st 10 minutes of it. I've seen pieces of it. Yeah, I've never seen the whole thing he did. There was 2 evil lies now that was him and he did one. I think Argento yeah, did the other. It was Argento, both of them doing like half of a film. Yeah. And then Bruiser, now Bruiser is was kind of really hard to see for a long time. I think it just got a release on physical media recently like Keno put it on, but I've never seen that one. And I I don't really know anything about Bruiser to be honest. Again, none of these were particularly successful financially.

27:07 I think the the biggest success of those was Monkey Shines. I remember people seeing it, but it wasn't a hit by any stretch. But I remember that movie coming out and I remember seeing a little bit of it on TV, I think. And they like, we're doing back surgery on the guy and, and I was really young and that just freaked me out. So I was like, yeah, OK, I'm done. So that's as far as I ever got. All this to say that, you know, he's kind of in a pretty big funk overall and just trying to work within the Hollywood system. And that's not who Romero it's really. Not.

27:48 And he says at the time like he was actually making more money to not make movies. Like these films would go into kind of creative turn around or they would just get shelved and he would get money for the development end of it. But none of them eventually got made. But he was still like, doing better financially than at any point to like when he was actually getting movies greenlit in the. Weird. That's such like a weird way for it to work. This this book that I got on Romero, which is around here somewhere. I know this is my I always do this but it actually. Has always post stuff from the shelf. There's this listing in here that has not just the films that got made, but the ones that he wrote drafts for. And so like in, you know, even if I just go after Day of the Dead, there's all these, there's this huge listing of different things that he did and I won't do all of them because it would take too long.

28:51 But there's like the Necronomicon, the Mummy and the return of the Mummy in the mid 80s, Whiz kid, whatever that is, War of the Worlds, The Night They Came. And just like different drafts of all these different things that he did. Yeah, another version of the Mummy in the 90s. Yeah, he was attached for a while to the one that eventually became the Brendan Fraser. Yeah. Film that like his, I think at some point will cover that sure trilogy. Oh yeah, that's just a fun. Those first two in particular are, I don't know if they're really horror, but they are a lot of fun. Yeah, they're good at, they're sort of Raiders of the Lost Ark adjacent.

29:36 But you know, the Raven then of thinking all the way up to the early thousands, the girl who loved Tom Gordon, which is finally getting made now. Dracula, She's Tusk 2003. I don't know what that is. So like the. The. Kevin Smith version. The Kevin Smith one is 1. He dreamed of like on a podcast, just came up with the whole movie, Yeah, while baked out of his mind, and then decided to make the. Movie. You think? Yeah. Yeah. And so, I mean, he was always working on treatments and screenplays and different things, but there's so few of them actually got made. Yeah.

30:22 It feels like the thing. Paid for it. It's probably just so defeat, like it feels sorry. It's probably like, it probably just feels like it's still like a bit of a defeat in a way that you know, your projects aren't getting made and you know, you're like, you're not getting to tell these stories you want to tell. I guess it depends like I don't know how many of these were necessarily passion projects or Romero, because you'll see like after this one hits like his next two movies, he's like, I'm just going to go and make what I want and I'm going to do it. I'm on my own terms, even if it means I have a lot less money. It feels like he was in his I got to keep the lights on phase and as long as like I'm getting paid to work, like there are worse ways to kind of make a living and it does.

31:07 It's not. There's nothing in there that screams like this would have been like a real a movie that maybe he was super passionate about that he wanted to see. That's just like the way that industry works sometimes. Yeah, I mean, you even hear like Martin Scorsese, what, you know, he announces his next movie right after a Killers of the Flower Moon. Oh, he's going to make the story of Jesus. And that's like, no, I'm going to make Devil in the White City that no, I'm going to make, you know, I'm. Going to make a Sinatra biopic. Right, right. And so it's, and I think with him, he's like, I don't have that many years left. I better make something that I really really want to make. Or, you know, Tarantino writing, you know, shelving the hateful 8 the script leaked and then it was going to be the the movie critic and now that's shelved and you know who?

31:52 And I, I, you know, maybe he's getting so much in its own head 'cause his self-imposed last movie, right like these things kind of go through was going to be like a Vince Vega, Victoria Vega team up at one point after Pulp Fiction. But I the thing that does get Romero back on track, like in I think 97, he directs a commercial for the video game Resident Evil 2, which is really well received. And if you've ever played especially those early Resident Evil games, they owe so much to, especially Night of the Living Dead, like that whole slow shuffling zombie, the Bee movie, like low budget movie feel to it.

32:38 So to get Romero to direct a commercial was kind of a stroke of genius. And then he's attached to the Resident Evil movie, which listeners, you can, if you want to punish yourselves a little bit, you can go back into our archives and we have a whole dramatic script reading. I think we have it in multiple parts cuz of various technical and oh gosh frankly inebriation issues. That was not one of our great. The height of COVID. The height of COVID. You know what though, I might. Need to hunt this down. You don't even have to hunt for it. It's in the episode list. But it was fun and we did it with friends during COVID at a time when we couldn't see anybody so.

33:23 Yeah. But yeah, the cast got smaller and smaller with each part cuz like people just could not come back for it. We need to do another script reading this year. We need to do something. Fun. I mean, you know, I learned so much about Stephen King and the making of Maximum OverDrive. OverDrive, we did. Maximum King. That was that was the my favorite one. That one was so much fun. Yeah. We did the Carrie Fukunagua unused like script for it, chapter one. That's right. Yeah, where I think Stan was a goldfish in that version of the script. We did the unmade version of Halloween 4 where Michael Myers was like a ghost type of deal.

34:08 I don't remember anything about the script. I just remember it was a good time. And that's how we met Steven as well. Like doing these script readings, like we liked him so much. Or like, do you just want to keep coming on the show? So that was a lot of fun. But he gets attached to Resident Evil and he writes a script that's faithful to the game. Like, it's not like I will adapt, make Resident Evil fit into the Living Dead series. He's like, no, he creates something that is like fairly fairly faithful to to the game itself. That first one, like it takes place in Raccoon City. There's like the mansion, there's the strike force team that's about others, like the liquors, like the long tongued monsters in it. And it isn't production for over a year. But then the plug is like pulled on the movie at that time and Romero is let go from it.

35:01 But all of a sudden, you know that is something that said, well, why isn't Romero making this? And also like, why isn't he making movies at all? Like he has three classic zombie films and he did Creepshow. We this guy needs to be making movies again. Why is he in director jail? And then as this is going on, like not too long after it, he does turn in a script for Land of the Dead, which at the time, I think it might have been Warner Brothers at 1st and then eventually Universal. They wanted to name it Night of the Living Dead. They're like, well, let's just call it that. And Romero's like, that's a horrible idea. I don't want to do that. And if you do, I just won't do it. What I do want to do is call it Dead Wreck. Right.

35:46 Which is also a really bad idea. And they're like, no, George, you're not doing that. So they compromise with Land of the Dead as the title, and then 911 happens and studio executives see this movie where at the climax of the film, somebody basically slings a bunch of missiles at a skyscraper and a lot of civilians die. And they're like, you know, maybe this is not the right time to make this movie. And Romero has said studios only wanted to make touchy feely feel good movies that something like this just wasn't going to land. So the script gets shelved and it's not until 2004 when, you know, we enter the conflict with Iraq. And that's deeply unpopular that studios feel like there's enough sentiment there for this kind of anti war message to resonate with audiences.

36:44 But something else happens in between that and that is the zombie resurgence. And I'm going to turn it over to you, Sarah and Brian, to talk about a few movies that kind of came out between O1 and O5 that made audiences a bit hungry for Land of the Dead. Well, I mean, I mean talking about kind of like 911, I think that one film in particular that's very fascinating in the context of that is 28 Days Later, because it started production before. And I think I think 911 happened kind of about halfway through production and then it's released afterwards. So it's this weird kind of thing where a lot of people very much like it tapped into a lot of the fear and anxiety of Post 911.

37:28 But it was being made before then. And it is interesting because you wouldn't. There's a lot of the stuff in that early part of the film that's so iconic with Jim walking around the abandoned London. They would not have been able to film that post 911. Like it would have been impossible. Like there is no way that you could. They would have been able to clear like the road outside of Downing St. for I think it was 20 minutes or so when they did the scene with the bus on its side. Like impossible. That would have been just absolutely impossible. Well, just some of the imagery, too, which if you recall, like, New York Ground Zero at the time, like those same memorials are up, like persons that were missing and all of those memorials. And my understanding is like Boyle says, no, we filmed all that before 911.

38:16 Like there's no way we would have been able to get away with that after the fact. Yes, No, I think he said that he took the inspiration for that from a earthquake in China. I think that was like the direct like inspiration for that sort of like board of photos and messages that was in like a dilly circus. Yeah. So I I and and of course, you know, the whole zombies versus infected thing, but it does kind of really bring to the masses the fast zombie, which definitely some would say really kicks things up a notch. But then then then you also have Shaun of the Dead, which, you know, very, very more traditionally Romero derived. Yeah.

38:59 And very, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's good because it, it has that kind of balance of horror and humor, which I think in Romero's Dead trilogy, particularly in Dawn, you know, it's, it's, it's in there. You do have like the really funny moments. And then you also have the moments that are like, shit, I mean, the best kind of wait, sorry. I wanted to say, but my favorite thing about Shaun of the Dead is that it not only sort of captures the I mean, the gore is like Day of the Dead level stuff. I mean you have. People ripped. Apart, you know, kind of things, yeah. But then you also have, like you said, the humor. I think the humor is even, you know, beyond the humor of of of Dawn.

39:45 But where I think it really captures the spirit of Ramiros is in it's just social commentary. It's basically saying these doofuses don't even realize that anything is happening because they are the zombies. They are the actual zombies. We are the actual zombies and everything that's going on around us, we're oblivious to it now. I mean, that's and that's really funny though too. And that is, but ultimately, you know, coming down to and then the exploitation of the zombies at the end. I think it's 100% brought into this movie. And I don't know if that was totally. I don't know if that was, you know, Ramiro saw Shaun of the Dead, which I know he was a fan of, and said, hey, let's do some of that, you know, or if it was if he already had that in mind. There's definitely a thing where Edgar Wright said that he talked to Romero post Shaun of the Dead, and he said, oh, what do you think of the bit where we quoted Night and apparently Romero was just so into the movie he completely missed the fact that they quoted.

40:50 They're coming to get old. We're coming to. Get you, Barbara? Yeah. He was like, oh, I didn't even know it's that. Yeah, it's it's brilliant. It's probably at the top of my favorite, like zombie films period, because it is so funny, but it doesn't sacrifice the horror and it doesn't play the situation light. No, no, it doesn't. You know, it's a very serious situation with very funny bits. And to your point, Brian, I think my favorite scenes in the film are like, you have the opening scene with Sean kind of moseying to the corner store to get a, you know, to get like his morning soft drink and an ice cream.

41:31 And then the same thing happens the next day in the same way, but with zombies. And he's completely out of it and it's live. With a stadium, Yeah, yeah. Honestly, that whole kind of like those two things side by side I think are just genius basically. Genius. Cinema, but I mean like the mood of it. You go from hitting the pub landlord with pool cues to Queen and then you go into the scene with like Sean's mom and it's like genuinely gut punched, like devastating. It's it's just brilliant.

42:18 Yeah. Well, Speaking of Dawn of the Dead, you know, in the wake of 28 Years, 28 Days Later, you know, we get A and it's the early days of the horror remakes. Like it's think Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It happened the year before. So this is kind of like in those early, early days where you have Zack Snyder's like, debut feature film Dawn of the Dead, which keeps the setting of them all. And that's really about it. Like, it's a vastly different movie. I think it's probably Snyder's best film. Like, I'm not a huge Zack Snyder person, you know, my understanding is people love to work with him. Like, he's a very good guy to work with. So his films just decidedly aren't necessarily for me. Like there's a you get to 300 and sucker punch and there's like a hyper violent masculine male fantasy thing going on. And you know, my understand is a guy that will do push ups everyday while yelling kind of mantras to himself really loud and God love him if that's your thing. But it doesn't translate.

43:36 But dawn of the dead. I remember seeing that in theaters in getting up in like, applauding at the zombie baby, like the row of people I were with, like all my friends are like, this is amazing. Like, why would we not want this? But that seems to be the final kind of cog in the wheel that gets Land of the Dead greenlit, right, I think. So this is true, and I mean oh boy will I go into it when we get to the Zack Snyder Day of Dead. So it is not your thing for sure. It's it's not, I don't hate it. And like I have, I've like watched both cuts of the film. I have seen it multiple times, like, like I have tried with Zack Snyder's John the Dead, but I can never get away from the fact that it is just such a stupid fucking movie.

44:28 Like it just like the opening sort of 10 minutes. It's like, yeah, that's very cool, very intense. And then got Johnny Cash, love a bit of Johnny Cash. But after that it is just a non-stop parade of people being absolute fucking idiots. And there just comes a point where I'm just like, I'm done with you. And I think, I mean, I have a like theories about it because of course it was written by James Gunn. And so I I just, I wonder how much James Gunn wrote it as comedic and then Zack Snyder directed it. Straight. Kind of thing. With like again, like just a blunt force drama going into it.

45:12 And but I will say there are things I like in it. I think that the it's it's very much a remake in name only in my opinion. I don't think it takes like it. Sure, it has the mall setting, but I don't think it takes advantage of the mall setting in the same way that the original does. And yeah, just everyone in it is just so freaking stupid. I definitely can't wait to talk about the end of that movie because it's one of the things I hate when a horror like, you've spent close to two hours rooting for these people and then like during the end credits, like their plan to escape is like, sure, but now we're going to have them like, devoured in 30 seconds.

45:54 And it's kind of like, well, what did I just spend the last two hours doing here then? Like that's the kind of thing it felt very like the end feels very cheap to me. If you're gonna have a bleak ending, go all in on the bleak ending and not just tack it on to the ending yet to the credits or whatever. Yeah, I'm, I'm kind of think more with you, Sarah, on that one. I've seen it twice because I read Ariel's book and she talks about the Dawn of the Dead remake in it. And I was just like, OK, you've convinced me to watch this again. And I did. And it was just kind of like, it doesn't do that much for me.

46:35 It's I, I like parts of it too. I, I mean, I wish that I, I think a lot of it is I just see and I know that there is a school of thought about, you know, style being the substance, but I feel like that is all that is there. It is slick. Yeah, it's not saying. Pretty and has nothing behind its eyes, it is saying. I agree. Great big beautiful zombie of a picture. Yeah, I rewatched it recently. Like as we started this series, like I've gone ahead and just rewatched a bunch of zombie films I really like and I still really enjoyed it. Like I found it like to your point, Brian, it's like and said there's nothing there and people act horrible and people act stupid and the reason they leave the mall is I still can't really comprehend it.

47:27 There isn't. One that this is. Sorry, this is. Just like one of my biggest pet peeves, that movie. There is no good reason for them to leave that mall. And they don't even like fortify that mall or anything. They're just like, oh, we've locked the doors. That's good enough. Yeah, but is a way to kill a couple hours with some good effects and I don't know, I was down with the sickness. It's all on. I like the references to it in The 40 Year Old Virgin. You know where he's watching. Watch. That in forever. Or he's the guys watching it in. This in the electronic store is pretty funny. I have not watched Polar just forever. Yeah, so anyway. Well, talk a little bit about the casting here. Like it is a mix of established and up and comers like Romero for the first time, Like he actually has like a real budget to play with. Like he's about $15 million and he gets like Dennis Hopper to come in as like the big bad in this. And Dennis Hopper, kid kind of gone from one of the real wild men of New Hollywood with things like Easy Rider and Last Picture Show and had been like unemployable for like a huge stretch of time just because of so many substance issues and being hard to work with by this point. Like one of the few kind of mainstream conservatives in Hollywood.

48:44 It's just insane. To me. It's really is. It's. Wild because I mean, he was the epitome of the new left in the yeah, in in the, you know, an Easy Rider and stuff. He was the cowboy. He was, you know, so it was just wild to me. And, you know, I mean, but I got to say dude can act. I mean to Oh yeah, playing the cowboy, playing, you know, like Frank Booth in Blue Velvet and then, you know, the terrorist in speed and, you know, it's just, there's just so much that he is capable of. And in this movie, he's he's terrific. It's a very he's not in it that much. I mean, he's, he's, he's a glorified cameo in a lot of ways. He's probably.

49:29 Very ill by then too. I think he said not long after this they announced that he's I'll. Yeah, he talks about he played the role like Donald Rumsfeld. It's basically what I've read is that he's trying to channel Donald Rumsfeld and like that kind of like power player in Hollywood. But you know, then in interviews he would say, but, you know, I'm not playing like a Republicans. I don't think Republicans are really all that evil. And it's like, you're so close to this. You're so close to getting it. And that's what's fascinating is that someone like Hopper comes in. He really wanted to work with Romero. Like, he had a lot of respect for Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead in particular. And he was really excited to work with Romero. And to me, you get someone who knows this filmmaker, knows what this guy's movies are all about and the message underneath it, but doesn't recognize, like, I'm the bad guy here. Like, and I'm the bad guy because of these ultra capitalist beliefs and these, you know, basically feeding people to the gristle of the machine. And he's like, yeah, but I don't really, I don't really see the political context there.

50:45 Like that is a next level of. He's literally. Of dissonance. He's literally dressed like Dick Dick Cheney in the movie. Yeah, yeah. It's hard to miss. It's not subtle. John Leguizamo would have been the other kind of notable talent who had done things like Romeo and Juliet. Son of Sam, Spawn, you know the past. He's gone, yeah, but he's just a a tremendous kind of chameleon of an actor like he. I always. Forget he's in. Spawn. Yeah, I always forget Clown. Yeah, he's one of those guys that, like, you don't necessarily think a ton of.

51:26 And then he's great. Like, you know, almost. He's in Carlito's way. He's Luigi in Super Mario Brothers, which OK. That's a movie. He and then he would like go on to like anchor things like the Ice Age animated films. That's probably what he's best known for at this point. Well, he's in tremendous and. He's in Violent Night. He's essentially playing a similar character that plays in this movie. That's a good point in Violent Night, but he's great in that he's. The menu. Oh, that's right, I forgot. Jeez, he's great at the menu.

52:07 I love him. I really like that movie. Yeah, me too. I kind of. Feel like he's an under appreciated performer. I've always really liked him. I remember seeing him on, gosh, I don't even remember what it was like. A short lived sketch show that came out around the in living color time of things, and it was it was his show. It's like, hi, I'm John Leguizamo and this is this is our this is what we got for you. And it was like a sketch show. I don't even remember what it was, but it was. So that's where I first remember seeing him. And then, you know, he showed. Then there's, you know, to Wong Foo. Thanks for everything, Julie Newmar. And it's like, wow, that's the same guy. That's what a great performance.

52:47 And then, you know, just everything he's in. I think he's fantastic. Yeah, I'd agree. Yeah, I would agree. Yeah, I think first thing for me was definitely Romeo and Julia kind of thing. Although he was also in a failed attempt to remake the British sitcom Only Fools and Horses. There's like. I'm not familiar with that. It's it's like the premises like these is like two brothers who are kind of like a bit of sort of like Wheeler dealers. They're always trying to get like a get rich quick scheme kind of thing. And or it's saying, oh, this time next year we'll be millionaires. But yeah, there was an attempt to do an American remake of it. And yeah, John Leguizamo was in that as kind of like the the main role that in the British show is called Del Boy. It's kind of, it's kind of like one of the classic British sitcoms.

53:38 OK, like a Fawlty Towers and. Oh yeah, yeah, that that kind of thing. Like there's there's. Father Ted. Oh yeah, yeah, it's it's so it's older than Father Ted, but yeah. OK, so in the main role, we have Dylan Baker, who up and Comer at the time, probably best known for starring in the CBS drama The Mentalist, which is one of those shows that exists because, like, Jim's Need shows to play in the background at 2:00 in the afternoon. And you can just make these things cheap and forever. And he's probably a very rich man for playing a role on a show that I don't know a single person who's ever, like, watched and followed. You know, it's one of those shows that, yeah, it's like, no one is out there.

54:33 Yeah. It's not like we have a show like Firefly that runs for like 13 episodes and people go Gaga for it. Like there's no mentalist stands out there. There's not like or Supernatural where those two guys could, you know, that cast could live off the convention circuit forever if they ever needed to. No one is ever going to be like, hey, mentalist convention, it's going down. Let's book our tickets and flight. You know what I mean? Like, that's not going to happen. But he's he's all right. Asia Argento is brought on cast. She's the daughter of Italian horror maestro Dario Argento. And it is really complicated to talk about her.

55:14 Like, she is someone who has had a very storied career, mostly overseas, but that she has also been like a victim of and a perpetrator of some pretty bad sexual abuse. And I don't know how much we want to dive into that here. Maybe not much except to say that like it horrible things happen to her and hurt people often go on to hurt other people. So and I have no jokes for once I have like. Yeah, no jokes. It's not really, anyway. It's fun. It's one of those things where it's like with me, I kind of like I said, there's sort of this big gap in my sort of horror film knowledge where I was on, you know, I was engaged with what was going on. So I hear about actually Argento and I'm like, and people will say, but you know, we're, we're not. And, and they'll just sort of skirt around the subject and just move on.

56:16 And I'm like, I have no idea. I, I I I'm completely clueless about. So essentially like she's one of the many victims of Harvey Weinstein for sure. OK. Like that is one of the things is that she was assaulted repeatedly by him. But then when she spoke out against it, one of, like, a young male performer who was, like, underage at the time said, hey, she took advantage of me sexually. And she was with Anthony Bourdain at the time. And she was very adamant that this had not happened. Like, this is a lie. They're trying to sully my name. But he had receipts. And there were like a number of like, text messages and a photo of them in bed together and some text messages that she had sent that were pretty explicit at admitting it as well. So or admitting some level of wrongdoing as well. And it was, I feel like she almost tried to Bill Clinton her way out of it where, you know, famously he said I did not have sexual relations with that woman. And it came down to like, well, how do you define sexual relation type of deal, you know?

57:24 Depends on what the meaning of the is. OK, and it doesn't mean that she was any less of a victim as well, but also that like she also perpetrated some awful things. And it was also weird that her dad would film her naked in some of his movies as well. Like that cannot be good for anyone's mental well-being. That's was just weird. So we'll be gone. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry to open that. Down. No worries, I think it fares. Probably just about it. I'll probably put a little disclaimer at the top of the episode. Sure. For the ABUSA kids, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, in a more delightful note, do make cameos as zombies in this movie.

58:09 Like they are the 2 zombies in the kind of photo booth scene. I love that. If you believe the rumors. Like Edgar Wright is supposed to be Bub from Dawn. Sorry Day of the Dead, I don't necessarily buy that, but he is made-up in a similar way. Maybe isn't nod to that, but I don't necessarily buy. Oh, that's what he's supposed to be, yeah. I don't like that at all. Yeah. So the movie's a hit. It is released in June of O5, pulls in close to $50 million worldwide, triples its budget. Not bad at all. I think maybe they were expecting a little bit more given that it was Romero returning to the series that made him famous and zombies were hot.

58:55 But it does really well and Romero is absolutely miserable making it and dealing with the studio and decides after that, like, fuck it, I am just going to go back to independent filmmaking and do my own thing. And we'll talk more about that in our next two episodes. Let's dive into the movie for a short bit, then call it a day. So, Sarah, you have a note here about Fiddler's Green as a name, like the the main source of refuge. What can you say about? That so I just I found that very interesting kind of thing. So I like the because the sort of the rich section of kind of like this, this sort of settlement is called Fiddler's Green, which traditionally in old seafaring ballads was the essentially the afterlife for that loyal sailors would go to like that would be their reward. And it was, it's also kind of thought that it was kind of like a alternative to heaven for pirates who would not typically be allowed to go to heaven due to all of the, you know. Stealing and killing.

1:00:03 So fiddlers, green kind. Of. That's traditionally, yeah. But yeah, so Fiddlers Green was kind of like this sort of mythical, like alternate afterlife. But then there's this other kind of use of it, I think in US Cavalry men and sort of like the around kind of like the 1900s kind of thing where where it's more of a kind of purgatory. And there's like a poem that describes it as halfway down the trail to hell. And in the final verse of that ballad is essentially kind of like it. It kind of essentially says, describe someone being surrounded by enemies and their back against the wall and to put their gun to their head and go to Fiddler's Green, Which I think which really kind of like made me think of the kid at the beginning of this movie.

1:00:56 Because like at the beginning, the main guy, Riley and his a lot of scavengers, they go out and this young kid who's like his first time out, he gets bitten and blows his head off kind of thing. So I find like it very interesting that they use the name fiddlers Green because it's very much a it's got very both like positive and very negative kind of interpretations to it. So it which I think also really reflects the fact that, you know, this, this it looks like a kind of paradise in this zombie infested world, but really it's its own kind of hell. And I mean, kind of like the whole sort of symbology of, you know, we have the Richie Rich, then we have coming people in the surrounding area, and then we have the zombies kind of thing.

1:01:43 And the zombies kind of like essentially rising up to take out the Richie Rich people, but then the people in the middle kind of get caught in the crossfire. You feel like they are there and they're kept around almost to be like a buffer zone and nothing else between the zombies and the ultra wealthy. That at the end of the day, I think the expectation was like, if anything were ever to go down, the zombies could feast on the poor and the rich could like make their escape. Like that was supposed to be the plan. I mean, like the whole, that whole kind of like community, even even aside from like the events, the film, like there's no way that could be sustainable for much longer. Like, this is meant to be like, I'm not sure how many years after the outbreak this is meant to be, but sort of like without any kind of like, means of production for the luxury goods they're all enjoying, Like, there is no way this could like, keep going for much longer.

1:02:41 And also the fact that, of course, like, money, like Charlo wants his money in order to be able to buy himself into the good life. And then at the end, Kauffman is making a break for it with a whole bunch of money. Money is meaningless. Right. It's like, what the hell are you going to do with that? There's no place for money in this world anymore. But they're just clinging on to that archaic idea. Yeah. We have that one board member who's like fucking pay them like who cares? Like they don't need to spend money on anything. All of their needs are taken care of. That is what what hit me re watching this movie. It made me rethink about like COVID in 2020, in 2021 again, in that there was a period during that time, for as awful as it was, there was a point where it's like, oh, we can actually do things a little bit differently.

1:03:35 Like the way that we've been doing things maybe isn't necessarily been good for us as a society and as individuals. So the idea that like you mean I can do, I can be just as productive, if not even more so working out of home and doing the same tasks. But I don't need to be somewhere 8 hours a day. If it takes me like 4 hours to do them, it takes me 4 hours, but I can have more time for myself. I can have more time to like spend with my children. I don't have to spend an hour each way in the car everyday. And this idea that we can increase the social safety net and have tax breaks for families that were not just like an end of year break, but every month, like you're getting money to basically take care of your children, which was a huge economic and lifted, I think like it lowered the child poverty rate, but I want to say at least 33% and I'm probably off by on that number.

1:04:33 And you had families that were like, I can afford better food and the necessities for my kid. And it takes a huge weight off my back that we had like outdoor restaurants and nicer, like greener spaces. Like there was more effort put in and we could have like kept on that trajectory. But instead, there was this absolute race to put the systems back in place that we had before, even though there's almost a universal acknowledgement those systems were already failing us before the pandemic. Oh, absolutely. And I mean, it's also like the.

1:05:16 But yeah, it was just like, like we all got dragged into the old normality like as soon as they could. And yeah, it, it kind of like, it does go back to that thing of like the people who benefited from the old systems trying to hold on to them. Yeah, as much as possible. And I mean, I said in my notes that like, like the the people in Fiddler's Green and like this, this whole kind of like, you know, big tower separate from like the sickness and things. It's very, very Mask of Red Death. Kind of thing. Yeah, it is. But they're like so removed from the zombie threat that like that when we do see like a zombie in this kind of area near the beginning when one of the residents of the tower hangs himself and trailer goes in and like the guy's wife or whatever, like like they're completely useless. Basically they have no that she's just sitting, sitting there screaming and crying or it's like zombie hello, whereas kind of like as the people from like the raiding team they would have they would just be on it like straight away. So they're just like so removed from it. Then you have the people in the outer city who it's like they're closer to the horror, but they're also just kind of like they're kind of desensitized to it because they're using it for that entertainment that like with the things like the photo booth and the games and using for paintball practice and things.

1:06:40 So they're just kind of like, it's like they're, they kind of don't take it seriously enough in, in their own way until it's, it's kind of tearing down the gate, so to speak. Right. Well, you with that then. You mentioned like that wealthy family in the tower, like the suggestion is the people that have the most are the least able to contribute anything of value. Absolutely. And I mean, there is, there is also like a very, let's just say like white Country Club vibe to the whole tower thing. Like the, the only person of colour we really see is like Kaufman's manservant and also like the uniforms they got people wearing in there. It's like it's it's like very, what's the word I'm looking for? But like, like very kind of like private army. Yeah, sure, man.

1:07:26 Well, that the manservant like Brian, you're more of our our classic movie guru like that feels like a very intentional nod to the role of like what most African American men and women would have been relegated to. And like the even these where they would be like the cook, the Butler, the main. Yeah, of. Course, at the end when Cholo comes back, Kaufman is spitting off some delightful slurs. For. Latino man. No. But even the name Cholo, like that in itself is a slur against Latino men. And that is like Skip Romero, not very subtle in this movie, in the kind of world that he's creating. Yeah.

1:08:11 Yeah, I do think also the zombies, there's a very deliberate choice to make them all essentially working class people. So Big Daddy, I think we kind of skipped over talking about Eugene Clark as a big Daddy, who frankly is. It might be my favorite character in the movie. Oh yeah, 100%. It's the zombies that make this movie for me. Yeah. And so you've got, you know, he's a gas station attendant. And then you have the other one who's the butcher. And those are sort of the prominent zombies are are, you know, working class people. You know, they're they're they're people who make their living go about their lives in sort of a simple but productive way. And, you know, didn't make a lot of money in life, but sort of salt of the earth kind of people. You kind of get the it's it's ironic that that you know, the people who are in a sense, you know, preserving the best of, you know, society that was are all zombies now you know, they're all they're all dead.

1:09:12 They're all devouring the next the portion of society, as it were. Yeah, I mean, when there's when we see first see the zombies in this, they're just, for lack of a better term, living their lives. You know, they're just going about their day. They're just, you know, the marching band just Tooting their little instruments and things. They're just they're just going about the day. And then and then the Raiders on behalf of Kauffman and the people in the tower, just like Blaze in and, you know, mess them up for the sake of getting some supplies. But also like that is where we that first scene is also where we see the that this is more of a development of the zombies intelligence as as big Daddy's able to kind of like ignore the fireworks or sky flowers and he's just he's filled with rage. You know, we see him kind of like pushing other zombies out of the way of like the bullets and things like it's really, it's really interesting to say.

1:10:07 For me, the 1st 15 minutes of this are maybe the best in the movie. And I think they're, it's a really, really solid opening and you just kind of jump right in and you really do see this as a land of the dead where outside out there they're like you said, they're just kind of existing more or less. You know, yes, they're undead, but they are I guess living their lives as it were. And, and this foreign agent that wants to just stir up trouble is disturbing this world. And they are the ones that kind of get, I don't know, they're the ones that get the bad end of that deal, it seems to me. It is a very natural progression of what we saw with like the first 3 movies and that you have like with a night, the initial outbreak with Don, like what happens a few weeks later and how we thought it was contained but actually it has spread. And then with Day of the Dead, how you know, as Doctor Frankenstein says in that we have 400,000 undead for everyone living, remaining human.

1:11:20 And what you have in this movie is whatever is left of humanity contained in this like 1 not even whole city, but a few blocks of a city trying to live out their days where the stenchers or the zombies, they have taken over every other aspect of the land. At this point. To me, what Romero was kind of saying in a lot of, because this is not a subtle movie, like this is very much as like, let's eat the rich. Like literally let's eat the rich. The only thing that's missing is a guillotine in a scene. And you know, which I would be all for. And I think what Romero was saying is like, if we're going to rebuild things, if we're going to do things a little bit different, we can't rebuild things the exact same way we did before.

1:12:10 Like that part of our culture, that part of our site society, it needs to be destroyed. It needs to be eaten, it needs to be consumed. And that's the only way. Like, that is the problem in each of these movies. Like the problem that the humans invariably run into is they try to recreate the comforts of their old life. And you know, you see that in Dawn with them, like hunkering down at the mall. You see it in Day in that they're like, well, we need to figure out how to tame these zombies so we can go back to our old way of living. And you're like, Sir, it is so far past that point where that's going to be anything we're going to be able to do.

1:12:50 Like the time for that would have been years ago. In here, it's the same thing. It's like, well what if we just keep the working population fat and happy and drunk with like games and carnivals while we get to live a cushy existence in. There seems to be only like a few people that are aware of that or feel that disparity. Yeah, comparing this to the previous three, one of the things that I think stands out though is it's just a much more open, expansive world. Because all of all of the previous three, like you've said, Mike or Siege movies, the threat is outside. You have a small group of survivors hunkered inside a building, whether it's a small farmhouse, a big mall or the bunker. It's kind of the same scenario here. They are going out.

1:13:39 That starts with them not pulling themselves in, but going out into this world. And I think that really is exciting and it's an exciting way to start it. And then I think for me, the middle section has its ups and downs. I love the zombie stuff in the middle section. Every time they come back to big Daddy and his little group that he's forming that keeps moving closer and closer to Fiddler's Green. I I'm always in on that. And then, you know, some of the things are kind of little. You know, things are kind of interesting along the way, but you know, the the sort of inciting incident. Hey, I need, you know, he stole dead reckoning. I need you to go after it and get it back. I mean, it's, that's pretty typical fair as far as storytelling goes.

1:14:27 I mean, it's not particularly it's. Pretty whatever, you don't really care about that it's. Kind of a Western in that sense. You know, it's that's very much of A Western classic Western sensibility, which is cool too. I mean, but you know, it's not it's not particularly innovative. Whereas I think that horde of the zombies realizing that they actually, when they're together, they have more power than the rich people, this limited number of people inside this building and they can overtake them if they band together. And I think that is really fascinating. And so for me, the 1st 15 minutes and like the last 20 or 30 minutes is where this movie really sings. And then in the middle, it's sort of, it's got its ups and. Downs we got to get there yeah, we need to like get something. We need an inciting incident that will set up the world and then we need a big climax so like that second section is just kind of exists to push things along. I think if there's like, because, you know, unlike, say, the Star Wars prequels, like some people have come around on those now.

1:15:35 And I think for like the millennial generation, like, even like, those are the movies they might even enjoy more than the original trilogy because it feels like that's their Star Wars. And yeah, which? I nod my head. At but understand that at all but. Whatever. Like it's like because you think they saw it at a certain time. I don't know anybody that would say, yeah, the second Living Dead trilogy from Romero. Like, I actually prefer that over the original 3. Like that is a person that, you know, you would probably kick God of normal society at that point for their views and that you would publicly shame them for them. And I think maybe the reason why is there aren't really any compelling human characters in these, in any of the three movies.

1:16:23 Like we're going to talk about Diary next week. And it is just the most, there's no one in that. Like you're just like everybody get eaten in the 1st 5 minutes, please. Just I don't want to watch any more of this. And here, like, I mean, Luisiamo is great, but like Cholo is a character. Is it necessarily a character? Yeah. And he's not so over the top like Joe Pilato in Day of the Dead where it's such a memorable performance, you're drawn to it. So there's no like Ben, like there is a Night of the Living Dead by with Dwayne Jones. There's no Peter and Raj and Fran. There's no Sarah or John or Billy like there is in Day. It's just like, you know, to your point, Brian, it's just a bunch of grunts.

1:17:11 Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, I think for me, like Rosano stands out because he's just kind of got an IT factor that mostly other actors don't have and it. Yeah. So I find the lead character in this just kind of bland. And I just like I, I'm not super engaged with that and I. I said Dylan Baker, it's Simon Baker, that's how. OK, sure. I mean, that's how I feel about him. He's just like, he's just like I don't I didn't even bother to look up his name. So you got farther than I did, but I was just like I that's how I felt about him. Is like the character is not written poorly, but I think it's just not given the oomph, you know, if you had because I know originally Romero wanted to have an African American actor in this role. He wanted to have a black actor play their lead role here, you know, just like Ken Forry, just like Dwayne Jones and have someone who could I I think if you have, I don't know who who that would be, but in 2005, but someone just with a lot, I think you get an actor like like either of those guys in that role and you have something that is, you know, it doesn't have to be a black actor either.

1:18:33 But I mean, just someone who really has that kind of charisma. I think you could really have it would elevate the whole middle section of this movie so much more. But but, you know, so the studio basically told him, no, you need to have a white actor in the in that role. And then and so he made the the lead zombie a black actor, which you know, and he's great. I love it. Yeah, it's. Great, that's. The thing it's like because the humans are just so blind, it just means that we root for the zombies. Exactly. Which I don't think is necessarily bad because we're at this point, I think we're the zombies actually have taken the role. You know, as often happens in series over time, where the the the big bad of the previous movie kind of becomes a hero over time.

1:19:19 You start rooting for Jason, you know, after a few movies, right. Yeah. And I think that's kind of it's almost feels like the point of this one, like you, you, the the zombies are maybe on the right track here as far as the where things should be heading. Yeah, they eat people, but. There's a line in 28 Days Later that one of the soldiers says when, like one of the, I think when it's Christopher Eccleson's character talks about things returning back to the normal. There's like the one soldier who's like, well, the world is like a billion years old and we've only been on it, no.

1:20:00 10,000 years is meant, right? So he's like we're kind of a blip. So if humanity gets extinguished, that actually would be the norm. Not, you know, man continuing on. And I kind of think of that with this movie here in that humanity has in some ways evolved in that like this is what it's going to be now that the zombies can think and they do. It's more even more than like we saw this a bit with Bob in Day of the Dead, and you see it in Daughter of the Dead with people just returning out of instinct. And even in Night of the Living Dead, the zombies start using like rudimentary tools, like they pick up rocks in order to smash glass.

1:20:43 But here when they get to Fiddler's Green and you have that really thick, thick glass that they would not be able to breakthrough just through physical force, that they use the tools they picked up on the way to smash the glass. That when Big Daddy corners Dennis Hopper Kaufman at the end of the movie and he picks up the gas, the gas nozzle, you think, oh, he's going to like fill up the car gas tank like he would and his And he's like, Nope. He's like, I know what gasoline does. It burns, it ignites. So he sticks it through the window and he covers the whole car in gas and then sets it on fire, which is really brilliant.

1:21:26 So you can see how they're they're thinking like they have evolved. The the bit I like is when they've kind of they get to a barricade and he essentially kind of directs the Butcher zombie to use his hatchet. Yeah. Barricade and things like that. Or when with the baseball girl, he kind of like she goes to hit someone with her bat and he's like, no, no, this is how you can shoot people. Yeah. Yeah, I I like that a lot. I think the evolution of the zombie is really one of the great things about this movie, and I think it was probably one of the bigger criticisms of this movie from certain corners of the horror fandom. I imagine because I can, I can just hear them go to, but zombies can't do that. It's like George Romero literally created them. He can have them do whatever he wants, you know to. Tap dance.

1:22:18 They will tap dance. Yeah. And so I was, I was on board with this on this viewing with the with that. And I liked it with Bub. I remember thinking that was really cool when I first saw Dawn of the Dead or Day of the Dead way back when, really liking the Bub element and also really liking the continuation of that when I first saw this one years ago as well. And it only it reinforced it on this viewing how kind of well done it is. It's not, it doesn't feel, it doesn't feel forced. It's like this has been a long time coming and this like this this thing that brought them back and took over most of their brains and doesn't require function for most of it is sort of receding in a way.

1:23:04 Yes, it's still keeping them going, but the they're higher functions are sort of regaining slowly control over over this tissue. You know, it's pretty. Proves Frankenstein right. Yeah. Eventually, like it took maybe many years afterwards, but he was correct. And then, of course, the very iconic shot of this film is when they basically figure out that they can just go through the water. And then, yeah, they're all kind of like the heads coming up out. And I love that shot. And it's a great shot, yeah. Beautiful. What other? Horrifying. Zombie movies used that. I feel like there's one where like there's a zombie in a shark that fight and I can't think of. That's what.

1:23:50 That is but. That's full cheese. I feel like that's a. Yeah, that's full. Cheese film. The zombies do the same thing. Yeah, that's full cheese zombie. He the zombie. It was like, OK, let's exploit Jaws and Dawn of the Dead in the same movie. So the zombie fights a shark and like literally bites it. So yeah. So zombie or Zombie 2, depending on how you want to call it, Yeah, so. The other thing that stands out is just like the nonchalance of even the soldiers in this movie, in that like the zombies are such a part of life that you see them everybody getting careless. I mean, you see that with Cholo's character in that like he causes the death of one of his teammates. Like when he knocks over the cigars and he tells the guy to pick them up and the kid like doesn't even tend to look around.

1:24:44 He just reaches down and then he gets gotten that you see in the, you know, like at this point the zombies are being used as a form of entertainment. Like where come and get your picture taken with them. And that just seems like a very bad idea where so many things could go wrong. And I don't even want to know what the insurance liability would be on something like that if something bad were to happen. And yet here we are. And you know, it's a little kind of a nod and a that to me. And like the fireworks, which I don't, it's a bit overwritten at times. Like let's call them sky flowers. It's like. We wouldn't have forgotten what they're actually called, yeah. Yeah, like, no, like they even say fireworks at one point and like the whole like sky flowers and it's like, no, they're just fireworks.

1:25:36 But this idea that like we can distract the masses, I think even the phrase that was used in O4 when we went into Iraq was like, we're going to use shock and awe that we're going to have these displays of like violence and carnage and destruction. They're going to be so overwhelming that the average person is going to be like approve of them in a lot of ways. Like, well, isn't it cool that we have missiles that can do that? Not thinking like, well, at the other end of that missile are like a number of human beings that are being blown to pieces. And we can use like these sky flowers and we can use these cage games where like we'll throw people in to get zombies to fight one another to see who gets to eat them.

1:26:24 Then we can have this carnival atmosphere almost as a destroy it it not almost. It's a distraction so that the masses that greatly outnumber the rich never even think to uprise, aside from like a very small band of people that know we don't have the numbers where we can have any sort of impact. It's very Roman Empire, you know, give them bread and circuses. And I mean, I'm pretty sure in that kind of like carnival area, I'm pretty sure you do see some of the a few of the richer people in there as well. So. Clearly they like to like come down and get their kicks among the rabbles. Slum it. Yeah. Slum it before heading back to the safety and security of the tower. No, there's even the shot of like the bird in the cage and then later on you come back to it and you see that's not even a real bird, that it's a mechanical bird. On a character note, there is like this Allen Van Spring, because this film feels like it ends the series. Like what you have after this with Diary of the Dead is like a soft reboot of everything that had gone on. So it doesn't really feel in place with Night of the Living Dead and Day, Dawn and Land.

1:27:41 It feels like it's own thing and then survival is a direct continuation of that. But there is like a person like Alex Van Spring, he turns up, is one of like the army men guarding the city where he's in charge of dead reckoning when it's docked. And then, like, that actor turns up again in Diary of the Dead very briefly, as like a group of soldiers that board the van that the kids are on. And then he becomes the main character in Survival of the Dead. And I'm almost wondering if this is like a trilogy told in a sort of reverse, that in the end, like everything happened in Diary in Survival and it culminates in Land of the Dead rather than it being a continuation of the other movies.

1:28:28 And I'm not sure where I land on that. Or it was just like happy happenstance that I hired this guy for one scene for two movies and then made him the lead. I haven't seen Diary or survival recent enough to be able to comment. You're not missing a lot. Yeah, I did pick up a cheap Blu-ray of Survival of the Dead though, so maybe we can I can at least watch that one. I am surprised those are not preciously held. I own 2 copies of Survival of the Dead and I have no idea how I'm like that. Feels like 2 too many but here we are. Yeah, I think the real answer is just random happenstance, but I, I mean, I, I think as far as kind of like little movie theories go, I've heard worse like. Well, what's the worst one?

1:29:19 I kid, I kid. What else do we? Well, it's like, well, you know, like all of those words like, you know, some sort of like kids film and it's like a a theory about it that makes it like really, really dark or something, you know, like some, some like like they'd. Like people like. Well, but no, like like sort of like kids movies where they're like, it's clearly like the main character is is dying and this is like his dying fantasy, OK, kind of like that kind of thing. Like, like people like to do that a lot with like really awesome movies. Yeah, see, my thing is and I love Home Alone and Home Alone 2. I think those are so much fun. And Home Alone 2 is Home Alone 2 is a horror movie.

1:30:01 I mean, to me, Home Alone and Home Alone 2, like, those are like, like Kevin McAllister grew up to be Jigsaw is my thing is like, that is because you see it in a Home Alone too, where he doesn't really need to torture the Wet Bandits like in the first movie. Yeah, he has to defend the home so you can see where it goes awry. But in Home Alone too, like he's in New York City, one of the biggest cities in the world, where there's a cop on every corner. And any point he could have gotten to someone that would help him and not have to tort. He just wanted to hurt people. He just wanted to hurt the Wet Bandits. And he gets off on it.

1:30:44 So it's, to me, that's a dark, dark theory. But well, Nicotero comes back. I just want to mention K&B briefly because I do feel that there are some of, like, the best zombie effects in a film here. And then there's also some of the. And this is a trend that will continue in the next two movies. You see Romero employing CGI for the first time, and it never gets any better whenever he uses it. Yeah. It's like, I mean, I like the concept of like when you turn around and there seems to be like a headless zombie and then it like flips its head over to bite. I love the concept of that.

1:31:25 The execution less so and I think as a like a brand and I think after the zombies breakdown the barricade, they'd like see a bunch of zombies that have been caught in snare traps or something and like just the CGI face just like pops into view and it's like, oh, oh, that, that does look good. A lot of it is with the blood, like a lot of it is going to get headshot. You can see that. And like, there's one, one that's really egregious is like when Leguizamo's character like, shoots a zombie in the head when it's lying on top of him and you see like the blood splatter from CGI and then you come back to him and he doesn't have a drop of anything on him. You're like, OK, that doesn't seem right. Yeah, CGI does not do blood well, No, it's never. It still doesn't.

1:32:15 It still doesn't, no, but it is good to see that there is, you know, quite a lot of practical effects still going on. I know they augment it with with CGI, of course, which, you know, was sort of, you know, that's if if you're going to do CGI, using it as an augmentation is the best way to do it, I think. But yeah, I know Romero was never really, he didn't ever want to do it, but it kind of became necessary, I think just. Well, I think in the next two movies, yeah. Yeah, it's just cost prohibitive to not have any.

1:32:58 Yeah, You know, I think he would say like with survival, it just let them keep shooting and then we can fix it later and it just it just he didn't have the budget to do it. Well, like you can do it and you can get away with it to a certain extent, but you go especially like coming off of watching like Day of the Dead where I think that might be some of the best effects work ever in a horror movie. And that's all 100% practical. You have great make up here. Like Brian, like you said, the 1st 15 minutes, you know, I think of like the cheerleader zombie and like that shot of her, it's so good. It's unfor.

1:33:38 And you do have like 1 scene of like a the belly button scene is so grotesque and just so disturbing. So when you get those scenes, that's great. It's unfortunate that you have to. And the bites look really good here as well. The bites like they keep. That's one thing that's consistent in all of these movies is when you get bitten. It looks great. Well, I don't have a lot else. I mean, do we have anything else on Land of the Dead? Really, I mean, I mean, one of the saying about like the subtlety of the film, there's the line after bitten where he says his buddy offers to shoot him and he goes, Nah, I think I want to see how the other half live.

1:34:19 That's definitely a bit on the. Yeah, it's not a sudden. It just speaks to Cholo's character like, well, it just broke up a little bit there. A bit fuzzy there. Yeah. Do you want to take that from the top again? And I'll just edit the other part out. Yeah, sure. Yeah, No, basically like talking about the extreme lack of subtlety in this film. There's the line that Chow has after he gets bitten by a zombie where he's where his mate offers to shoot him and he and he goes. Now I want to see how the other half live it's like. Yeah.

1:35:01 Wow, just just really, really nuance, George. Nuance. Don't know what it is. God bless yourself. Because you could watch the the first three, I think, and just watch them as, you know, whatever I think the second one is, you know, it's a fun romp. I never really thought about the consumerism aspect of it when I first saw that when I was younger. I didn't think about, you know, Vietnam and revolution when I was watching Night of the Living Dead. But then or, you know, even Reaganism and Day of the Dead. But you know that it's all there in those. But this one, it's like you cannot miss. Can't miss it. The social commentary especially, I think by this point it's like.

1:35:43 Literally eating the rich. Literally eating them. Well, and here by this time, Romero was very much known as a political filmmaker. He he all of his zombie movies have a something in them about, you know, the social commentary was just a key part of his, of his version of the zombie. Yeah. Yeah, there's a deleted scene where Big Daddy is handing out Che Guerrero shirts before they go into the city, but that didn't make it into the final cut. Like even like Romero's like maybe that's a little bit a step too far, which that would be amazing. Or yeah, some big daddy has a Karl Marx tattoo on his neck. And you just, I mean, well, it's almost too it's, it's almost, it's in a lot of ways for Romero's detriment that he did feel that he had to be that person. So I think that it's almost like he constrains himself in his writing.

1:36:47 Like there's the theme 1st and then everything else around it where I think that just would have naturally come out in Romero if he were just allowed himself to just write what was on his mind. And then those themes would have made their way into the movie in a more subtle and nuanced way, you know, And you and I think the especially the next movie really suffers for it. Like the next film really, really suffers for the text being like right at the surface. And it's a, to be honest, like the thing about Diary of the Dead, it's probably the most relevant message in terms of like what we're experiencing in 2025 and media manipulation and media being used as a source of entertainment rather than to inform. But it's just such a horror movie that it's very hard to kind of like dig into that.

1:37:40 So that's our hint for next week's episode listeners, in terms of you might get grumpy mic when it comes to talking about. Well, that fifth entry syndrome I think is, you know, because I mean, it's the 5th, the 5th movie is a lot of time. It's a real it's the worst of the series. It's a it's a tough go in a lot of cases. Elm Street, Elm Street 5 and. Friday 5. Halloween 5. Friday 5. Though I know it's I know it's not a great movie, but I love Friday 5. Well, you are all about topless women, Brian. If there's one thing I know it's like, I mean, you've said before, I like my coffee, like I like my women naked.

1:38:20 So it's just just these, I didn't say it. Brian says it all the time. Just. Think about this. I'm learning so much. Psycho Movie is the remake so hey. Oh, trendy no. It's Scream film is the first radio science one that's pretty decent. It's pretty good. It's yeah. It's better than the 6th one. It's better than the 6th one. It's better than the 6th. No. I did like screen 5A lot, so I can't argue with you there. What was child play? Proves the rule. Child's play was the not bride of Chucky, it was the seed of. Chucky. Seed of Chucky, which it's fun, but it's definitely a step down from bride.

1:39:03 It's better than three. It's. Pretty. Yeah, it is better than. 4 is 4 is like often where like the hidden gem is like you have dream master final chapter Halloween. Like it feels like people have come around in Halloween 4 and that they're like, it's not as good as Halloween obviously, but it's the one that I would throw on for Halloween season. Yeah, because it's. Just a really fun one. Texas Chainsaw. The next generation. I love Texas Chainsaw Four. I love that Renee Zelliger telling Leatherface to sit down and shut up. And he does like I. And whatever Matthew Kahanahay is doing, I've come around on that movie like that is so much fun to watch. So, all right, listeners, that is, that is it. Sarah, do you have anything you want to pitch or promote or let people know how to find you out there in the interwebs? Or you, like, know you're all a bunch of weirdos? Oh well, that's all right, because I we are the weirdos. Mr. I can mostly be found lurking around on Blue sky where my handle is at Sarah Joe Miles.

1:40:12 So you can also find me on Letterbox, which where I'm Sarah Joe Smiley and yeah, at the moment. I mean, I've been writing a lot of anime reviews and things, so not as much horror, but hopefully soon. Couple of things got the ball rolling on. Excellent. How about yourself, Brian? Well, you can find me at the various socials at Brian Waves 42. See here. I, I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot, kind of the same things. But my Young Frankenstein article is now alive, as they say, over at Matter vellum.medium.com, so you can check that out. There's stuff at Bloody Disgusting coming out fairly often right now because, hey, I'm on summer vacation, so I got a little more time to write stuff.

1:40:58 So, yeah, so you can. That's really where you can find my work. Also, if you're a Mario Bava fan, I have a couple of commentaries on that box set that's come out just right around the time we're recording this, so on Black Sunday and Black Sabbath. Well, listeners, you can find me at Mike's Noonie and on Blue Sky, same on Instagram, and follow me on Letterbox at Mike Chump Change. And you can follow the show at Pod and Pendulum both on Blue Sky and Instagram as well. Go to our site, Pod of the pendulum.com and consider becoming a patron at patreon.com/pod of the Pendulum.

1:41:39 That is it this week for let's see if we can cue this correctly. That is it this week for Land of the Dead. Sarah, thank you so much for joining us. You're coming back for Dawn of the Dead and you're going to just talk that shit the whole time? Oh yeah, that's the comments section are going to be a nightmare, sorry. Excellent. Well, that is great listeners. Thanks so much. Have a great week and we'll be back next week with Diary of the Dead. It's the summer of Jord lumbers on.