Welcome to ZombieStrains the podcast that watches all of the zombie films today's film features an alien invasion A worldwide apocalypse so massive that no planes (sound of plane crash)

Trains (sound of train crash)

And automobiles (sound of car crash)

can survive. That's right, it's 1964's The Earth Dies Screaming.

You know, I've seen people act like that in pictures. What do they call them, zombies or something?

Zombie. What's a zombie?

Just what is a zombie?

Well a zombie…there’s um... ...Mr. Bill there’s... ...the living dead.

They are the living dead.

Get me the zombies!

Against an army of zombies, no armies could stand.

Because a Zombie has no will on his own.

What is wrong, what is wrong.

Hi everybody. Welcome to zombie strains. I'm John.

I'm Andy

and I'm Brad.

Hello. So we have a secret today. Everybody in our secret is so this is not the first time we've recorded a podcast episode about this movie. We did it long ago. So producer Brad, do you want to regale the fans for the story of why we're watching this a second time?

Well, the first time was our proof of concept of pilot. That's right. And I don't remember why we picked this film, but we chose this film to test out whether this zombie idea of analyzing them in depth like this would work. And so we watched this 1964 film before going back to 1932.

Yes, exactly. And we never released that. And I don't believe we're going to. We're going to talk about it a new, but I have to say my opinion of this film is so much different than when we watched it the first time.

Yeah, it's I noticed I had my old notes in front of me while I was watching the movie the second time. There's all kinds of stuff I missed.

Yeah, and you know, what I considered maybe is, well, let's talk about it in the summary, I think, but what I consider to sort of middle of the road horror film from 1964 has a whole new has multiple new dimensions in the context of all the zombie movies we've watched and all the stuff that's here. So yes, it was really interesting.

So all right. Well, anybody have anything zombie related that they want to mention before we jump into the movie.

No, except that, you know, it's a good month to be a zombie fan with we bury the dead in theaters and 28 years later, bone temple in theaters, and I think there's at least one other zombie-related movie coming up for a DC cold storage in February 13th, starring Steve from Stranger Things.

Yes.

I would just add that I would like to apologize for our last episode for continually calling the movie The Horror at Party Beach when it's The Horror of Party Beach?

Yes. So I'm not gonna say this. I think that's a better title because that thing could have been pretty horrific just the party. This is the party at Party Beach without the monsters. So the whole thing was just terrific.

I'm not sure it makes more grammatical sense, but it's what they call that. So we have to respect that.

Does it change the meaning at versus of?

Well, a little bit. I mean, it could be suggesting that party beach itself is the horror. That's what I was bigger than just simply the location where the horror emerge. Right. and most of the movie there's really only one a few minutes of horror at party beach and the rest of the movie the horror is at other places that are party beach.

So Brad what do we what just happened there? What would you call that? see we can play that but before and after the grammar quote it doesn't matter we have to train Andy when he's in go into grammar he has to pause yes because I'm ready to go but he didn't pause he launched into his streamer thought I just got so excited guys. Well, I apologize. Well, I'll say one of the things and then we'll get to the movie is Brad and I have both seen 28 years later the bone temple and Andy is seeing it tomorrow. Yeah. And it's it's killing me not to be able to talk to him about it right now. So I have excited and excited to talk to you about it when you see it. Well, good. Okay, so without further ado, produce your bread. Tell us how this brilliant film came to be.

The Earth Dies Screaming was released in the US, October 4th, 1964. It was produced in England by Robert Lippert and his company, Lippert Films, who we discussed in our episode on the last man on earth. Lippert is a recall as a theater owner, who started making his own low budget movies in the late 40s. Terrence Fisher directed, he is best known for directing many classic hammer horror films he was known for making low-budget films look great. He directed the 1957 Hammer Film, The Curse of Frankenstein, which was Hammer's first gothic horror movie filmed in color. It's also the film that made Christopher Lee and Peter Kushing horror film stars.

Oh, it's interesting.

Okay.

In addition to The Earth Dies Screaming, Fisher had two other movies released in 1964. He directed another Lipper film called the horror of it all, which was a horror spoof starring Pat Boone.

And yeah, specifically was not the horror at it all. It was of it all, right?

You know what? I needed double check my work from now on when it comes to the ofs and the ats. I didn't check this.

Uh, and Andy Pat Boone, I believe was a prolific Christian singer. So I'm very curious about his foranda horror settire. Yes. Yeah. All right. We, you know, we, another, it's, it's another podcast idea. What is episode some day in the future? Well, the other film Fisher directed in 64 was the Hammerfilm, the Gorgon, with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Nice. Harry Spalding wrote the screenplay, but it's credited on screen as Henry Cross a name he often used. He wrote over 20 produced scripts between 1960 and 1965 many for Lippert. His first produced script was the 1958 movie, country music holiday starring I knew I could get. It was just on the laugh at that. That's your music and that's a computer. I thought you were going to say starring Dahlie partner, something like that. Or starring Hampoon. Yeah, or Hampoon, you find too. In the 1960s, he wrote teen movies like The Young Swingers, Beach Movies, Surf Party, and Wild On The Beach, and genre films like Raiders From Beneath the Sea, Curse of the Fly, and Space Flight, I.C.1, and Adventure, and Space. In the 1970s, he wrote six episodes of the magical world of Disney. of course he did. It lives with Lutians composed the score for the earth die screaming. This is excited. Sorry, go ahead. This is the one thing I remember about the first time is how good this soundtrack was and sorry to interrupt you, but like her story is also amazing. So please. Yeah, she is excited as the first female composer to score a British film. It was 1948's Penny and the Powell Nell case. She scored 12 feature films and many documentaries. She was also respected composer of concert works and was made commander of the order of the British Empire in 1969. Yeah, like this sounds like a composer who's used to composing like works for Symphony or something. This does not sound like a movie soundtrack in many ways. Commander of the order of the British Empire sounds like a pretty high ranking title. Yes, it's CBE. It's CBE. There's a bunch of them. They just have cooler titles for their honored civilians. It's like a step a little being a knight. I think a knight. And I'm not going to knock the work in this film, but she didn't get the title for this film. She didn't get the title. She was not awarded the title commander of the British Spotify has two albums of her classical work available, and both Apple and Spotify have the album, the Golden Age of Horror Volume 1, which is a compilation of tracks from four different films that she scored. All right. Now, you put a link in the show to that one because I want it. We'll do. The cast is small with only seven actors and all but one are British. Willard Parker plays Jeff Nolan, Parker is the American in the cast. His career started in the mid 1930s with small parts in the late 30s and early 40s. He did a lot of acting on stage. He then served in the Marines during World War II. After the war he returned to acting had a few starring roles in unsuccessful films. In 1950, he starred in this first Lippert film, Bandit Queen from 1955 to 58. He starred in the TV series Tales of the Texas Rangers and his last acting credit is the 1966 Western Waco. He looks like he belongs in a Western. He sure does. And he's a ruckid looking guy, yeah. Yeah, and if you ever want to sort of interesting side note, especially for Gen Xers, if you look at a list of the people who were in the Marines or fought in World War II of creators like Mel Brooks was a combat engineer and Captain Kangaroo was a signalman for landing beachcraft and like so Jimmy Stewart was in the army. Like he almost became a Brigadier general in the Air Force. So anyway, just this generation of actors, so many of them, we're well, we're too. It's crazy. Parker was married to Virginia Field, who was also in the cast, and she plays Peggy Hatton in the film. Field's had a long career. She was born in London. Her first film credit was the lady's willing from 1934. In the 30s, she appeared in three of the Mr. Motto films, which were a film series about a Japanese detective, played by Peter Lori. Oops. Okay. Yeah. I was my excitement about that nose dive, rather. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's exciting that there's a prominent character, but then it's yeah, it's Peter Lori. Yes. In 1949, she played Morgan Lafe in the Bing Crosby movie, a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Oh, huh. Her later credits are mostly TV shows in our last credit as an appearance on Adam 12 in 1975. Dennis Price plays Quinn Taggart. Price was a British actor who's first credit with the 1926 film, Nana. He appeared in five TV movies that aired on the BBC between 1937 and 1939. The BBC started broadcasting in 1936, so he was there at the beginning. I can't imagine implying anything but a condescending self-absorbed Englishman in any. Weasel. Yeah, a weasel. Yeah. Vanda got so plays Violet Cortland. She had a long career working in radio, TV, film, and on the stage. She was in two different pink Panther movies, a shot in the dark and the pink Panther strikes again, playing different characters. In strikes again, she plays a maid who is a following interaction with Kluso after he swats a bee flying over piano with a medieval mace. that piano. What is the price of one piano compelled to the terrible crime that has been committed here? But that's a price of the Steinway. Not an immor. So I just have to say, for unrelated reasons, also in 1964, was the year Dr. Strange Love came out. Same here as this film at which featured Peter Sellers in three parts. I was just thinking about that movie today because he's so crazy and that movie. Thorly Walters plays Edgar Otis, he was in several hammer films in the 1960s, including the Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, Prince of Darkness, and Frankenstein must be destroyed. He also played Dr. Watson four times, but each time opposite a different actor playing Sherlock Holmes. Ah, he's a that guy, like, I couldn't place it, and it was probably a Sherlock Holmes old Sherlock Holmes movie, but I've seen him before, yeah. He does look like a Watson. Yeah. The one that you may have seen was in the 70s Gene Wilder wrote and directed the adventures of Sherlock Holmes's Smarter Brother and Thorly Walters plays Watson in this film. And he's deep in the credits. I haven't seen the film a long time. So I don't think he has a big role, but he is in it. Wait, wait, wait. All right, I'm trying to remember what is the name of Holmes's brother? Mycroft? Mycroft. Yeah, yeah. Okay. But this film, Jean-Water plays Siggie. Holmes. When I was looking this out apparently the studio said would you like to do a Sherlock Holmes, but because he had just done I think you wrote and directed something and they said don't give an answer now but come back in a week and so we clear they checked in on our amigos why don't want to do one in home so what I like to do one on his older brother SIGI that's hilarious. All right. Anna Polk plays Lorna Bernard, does her name sound familiar to you? I want to do it. It does. Because. Anna Polk, I have a, like, it's familiar, but I couldn't tell you where from. Amy? No, I'm, I'm like, she played Jean Norberg, niece of the mad scientist and daughter of Azambi in the frozen debt. That's right. Now, that film was released in 1966, two years after the Earth ice-creaming. But we covered it last year to compare 1940 zombie films to later ones. You know, it's funny about that as I now remember the conversation we had because she was the one who didn't have to play the head on the table. Right. Yes, that's right. David Spencer plays Lorna's husband, Mel. Spencer played Tommy in six episodes of Doctor Who in 1967. And that was the Patrick Trouton era of Doctor Who. I have a Doctor Who tangent that we'll get into in a little bit. You know, I just, I missed out on Dr. Who I couldn't tell you a single thing about it, you know. I didn't know how this fact was going to play. Now I know we don't have a big doctor who contingent here. Yeah. And I don't even like the old doctor who I only kind of like the new one. So sorry, I probably just cost us half our listeners. All right, the Earth Dye Screaming is a provocative title. It struck a chord with UB40, the band from the 80s, who released a song with that title in 1980. The song is a commentary in the Threat of Nuclear War. And on Tom Weights is Grammy-winning album, Bone Machine. The first track is the Earth Dye Screaming. Yes. When I was Googling for way to watch this, I was like, I kept getting hits for that song. Now, no box office results are available for this film. All right. I don't think there's much history to cover here, Andy. Do we want to say anything? Just a little reminder for folks. I mean, it's high to the Cold War. Everybody's worried that we're going to get, I mean, we keep in missile crisis was a year ago as if the release of this film. So everybody's terrified about atomic weapons. And I think that shows up here. Yeah. I guess I do have one historical comment. You can see our last episode or our last couple of episodes for more talk about the history of 1964 in the middle of the Cold War. piece of history that is relevant to this movie, though, is that this movie is not about the threat of nuclear annihilation. What is, I mean, just not to get ahead of ourselves, John, but what is the mechanism by which the Earth is killed screaming? A gas attack. That's right. So I went down a little rabbit trail on this one just because, I mean, so gas was famously used in the first world war, And it was generally determined that that wasn't a very good idea, just generally. But in the Cold War, the use of chemical warfare as an alternative to nukes was pursued by both of the superpowers. Yeah. In particular, the US stockpiled a lot of VX and Seren gas. These were thought or hypothesized to be, quote, better weapons of mass destruction compared to nukes a chemical attack would leave infrastructure intact. It would just kill all the people. Oh, thank god. Fortunately, we developed the neutron bomb. It didn't have to bother with all that seren gas. Exactly. And in, but a couple years after this movie came out in 1968, there was a big nerve gas leak that killed thousands of sheep in Utah. It's called the dugway incident. And I think this is the generation, a generate tour of a number of conspiracy theorists. In addition to being an actual conspiracy, I think there's a bunch of like alien conspiracy theories and stuff that grew up around that as well. Oh, I wouldn't have any trouble believing that. It did, however, provoke a big outcry and the next year, Nixon kind of brought an end, officially, to the U.S. as experimentations with Nerf gas. I always hate it when a crap president does something good. I know you got it, I got us a loot him. So I don't know how much the average American was afraid of Nerf gas. But I do know if you were a soldier stationed like in Europe, you were undergoing constant drills on how to respond to a chemical warfare attack during this period, right? Wow. Anyway, so that's my little historical bit. So all right, awesome. So hey, that's my little history bit. Hey, John, why don't before we start discussing the movie you give us the usual 30 or 60 second overview. All right. So the movie opens with an apocalypse with we spend the first few months seeing this happen but without the cause and then we see our hero drive up his name is Jeff Nolan and he goes around finding other survivors and they try to figure out what caused everyone to die but them and they come up with a rough theory it's I won't go through the survivors in detail because I think that's why the interesting things in this movie try to figure out how to both escape, find other humans and stop the menace, which they eventually figure out how to do at the end of the movie after several of them have been killed and then they get on a big airplane and fly back to London to try to continue to save the world. How's that sound? That's perfect, yeah. All right. So I want to get into it right away. I just I think this movie is amazing, Andy. Not like a great movie, but there's so many things here. So let's start with the beginning, okay. So when we watch last man on Earth, we made much of do about the fact that this was in apocalypse. This isn't even stronger apocalypse, like in the last man on Earth, we don't see the apocalypse. Here they set us up. Now, Is it brilliant? No, it is not. However, they do have a crashing train and crashing cars. If anyone's wondering what plane crashed, it is get this handy. I'm not making this up. It was a deheavilland chip mug. Okay. All right. That's a real plane. And to be clear, we don't see a crash, we see it fly behind some trees and then we see some smoke. Yes, correct. The music over the credits is amazing. Yes, it is. But sort of the thing I wanted to point out here is that, is that this is what we've been looking for all along. I think when we first saw this, we were like, well, every zombie movie starts with apocalypse. But, We didn't know that was not the case until like now, you know what I mean? Like yeah When we watched this, we hadn't watched all those other movies, so I thought and then the way they do it It's similar to last matter. They zoom in on a small town and show a bunch of dead people lying around and crash cars and and it's kind of very small scale So I you know, how did you respond to the opening this time? I liked it and I liked how it set the stage Also this movie has no dialogue until about nine minutes in which I also really liked Yeah, that's great. I agree with all that you just said, John. Yeah, so a couple things I wanted to call out first. It's black and white. So yes, I am really interested when the year is going to come when just everything is in color just 100% of the time, but right now I feel like we're alternating between color and black and white. And I think with B movies, it might be later than we think, you know, I think so too. Yeah, so this is this apocalypse stuff all plays out before the credits. And yes, I, it's not the first kind of pre-credit prologue sequence we've seen, but I think it's one of our stronger ones. Yeah, I agree. And then the credits have the sinister music playing. There's these sort of stare at the sky and, and wait for the credits to go. And then the credits are black, the black fonts, which is new. Yes. Oh my gosh. I hadn't noticed that but you're right. I wanted to know. Do you know what? It doesn't look like these people did? What? Died screaming. No. No. In fact, there's a guy in a bull or had who just falls over. Yeah. So no screaming there. When I saw this, when we first watched it, this comparison hit me and hit me again, watching it now, this really reminds me of a weird little genre of religious movies. Oh, yeah, capture rapture films that are going to really take off in the 70s. Yeah, um, because, and Nicolas Cage made left behind when when rapture films broke into the mainstream briefly. Yeah, so you know, I think most modern viewers are going to reflexively see a scene like this where you see does a whole bunch of footage of like of empty buildings and bodies littering the streets and stuff like that that really evoked like, you know, the rapture came and went vibes with me so yes. Yeah, but then then our hero drives up in a 1951 land rover series one. and his name is Jeff Nolan, but again, when he first shows up, there's no dialogue. He pulls into town. He steps by a shop to get a radio. I noted here, John, that I think this and last man on earth are the first post apocalyptic looting scenes. Yes. I think staple of modern zombie movies. Yeah, and we've got another big staple coming up too. So he then pulls into up in front of a hotel, hoping to find other people. He goes into the hotel, he tries to tune in any signal on the radio, we'll come back to that in a minute. He sees a crash car, but one of my favorite things is he picks he looks down. He sees a dead bird You have the birds are dead So all of this is done before anybody says anything He goes into the hotel and the first thing he sees is the dead desk clerk and this is the next thing I wanted to bring up because I think it was This is kind of a thing that we haven't seen before which is the living, cleaning out a building of the dead so that they can occupy it. Like that sounds like nothing, but it's such a staple like it didn't even occur to me it would happen for the first time sometime and I feel like this is our first time. I think you're right. You know, we we saw Vincent price and last man on earth clearing out corpses from areas, but he wasn't clearing them out to make a base. So I think you're right. This is like the home base. They have to establish. But he puts on the TV. It's all static. But he hears this noise. And then he tries it with his radio and that's all he gets, too. So we're going to find out this noise as signals the presence of some visitors, which we'll get to. And as he's doing this, who comes in and pulls a gun on him, Quinn and Peggy, who initially claims to be, they initially claim to be a married couple, that we quickly learned that's not really the case. Right. And then they come in, they hold a gun on him. Quinn makes Peggy look at Jeff's wallet. Do you mind if we call him Nolan? I think it's a, yeah, that's fine. Yep. And she's like, sorry, I had to do this. They get into a conversation about how they got here. But then we have another sort of first. So here's our first substantial clip that I want you to play producer, Brad. I was in a hospital in an oxygen tent. What was the matter? I'm alright now. But when nobody came, I got up by myself. Everyone was dead. So Andy, what, what are their great zombie films have started in this way? Like, I don't want to overdo it, but like, here's another first. Yeah, we've seen a couple of them actually just in this podcast, but 28 days later, of course. This is the, yes, and also the beginning, the pilot of the walking dead. Has that same, and Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead that we watched way back at the beginning, yes podcast, started in a hospital. Yes, so yes, oxygen 10, wake up in the hospital. We don't see it, but I thought that was very interesting. So when I first watched this movie, John, it wasn't until now that I realized that everyone was dead and not just combatose or unconscious. Right, it's established here that they're dead. Yes, that's true. And then they had go into a discussion about survival, what could have caused it? Quinn is suspicious at some new sort of weapon. Those details don't matter too much, but we do find out that Peggy and Quinn are not actually married. Yeah, that Peggy is sort of with Quinn for protection. And spoiler, now that she sees a hunky American, it looks like he should be in a that shallow chind English men in a heartbeat. So I want to talk about Quinn for a minute. So you mentioned already, he's got kind of this cynical sketchy vibe about him. I think this is a new kind of survivor that we haven't seen. And that is somebody who, for whom the end of the world is an opportunity to do whatever he wants. Yes. So I don't know if there's a better term for that, but sort of the, um, he's not as crazy, overtly crazy as I think a modern version of this archetype would be, but the end of the world for him is like a new beginning. It's not a bad thing. And one thing that is very strong in this movie is our survivor party, our survivor party that is a collection of the stereotypes that we've come to know and love in zombie films. This is a very early example of that. I don't know if it's a first, but like we've got the survivor Quinn right and then we've got. Jeff, obviously, is the handsome here. The next couple we run into. So after a little discussion, Nolan goes out scouting, he sees a couple in a car. Can I pause us, Jeff? Yeah. So a quick detail I wanted to touch on. So we learned that Nolan is a basic like a test pilot. Yes. And he was up in a plane when whatever happened to the earth happened. And when he landed, everything was dead. So he was testing out a vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. Yes. So I just wanted to look was first of all, what's the most famous vertical takeoff landing airplane? Well, to me, it's the carrier. It is the carrier. What year do you think the carrier first flew? I'm going to go early just in case 1968. very close 1967. So and it but it was in development of course for years before. So that's like super high tech technology that this movie is referencing. Yes, in last little history pit. So what year do you think the U.S. military formally put out a call for like designs for a vertical take-off landing plane? 1947. uh, also very close, 1948. And they got a couple of truly wild prototypes that I just, I really encourage you to Google these. Yeah. Do yourself a favor and Google the Converx FV Pogo. Which, uh, when you see it, you'll see how it could take off vertically, but I do not see any way it could ever land. So anyway, yeah, we'll link in the show notes for them, and I'll Okay, good. All right, back to you know, we've just, but back in the movie, we've met another survival couple. Yes, we have another couple. This is actually a couple. It's, um, it's Edgar Otis, who will just call Otis, and Vi is wife Violet that he calls Vi. They're not actually, Mary, there are a couple though, what we find out is that they were sort of the company Christmas party and they had snuck off to a lab for a little for a little shenanigans and when they woke up and then next morning everyone was dead and they hypothesized that the lab was you know air sealed so the gas that the killer everybody else didn't affect them. Yes. And so this is another couple and a couple of interesting characters. These are our panicked characters. So yes. So they come back to the hotel. We start talking more about what happened and Vi is convinced that there are other people alive. There are airplanes that they can find and get on and fly to the other survivors that everything will be fine outside of this little space. Um, and Nolan and Quinn know that's not true. Additionally, Otis can't handle it, and he starts drinking heavily. So these are the, these are the, I clearly is the liabilities, right? Like, they just create trouble by their panic and fear. We have a surprisingly, uh, deep range of characters. Yeah, compared to past survivor groups. Yeah, if we compare this to like invisible invaders, we've got like a soldier of scientists. We got one guy that's kind of a flake, but he recovers and then, Yeah, everyone is just generically heroic and a lot of the earlier movies we've watched and this one and I hear most of these characters have like what you would call a flaw or a very least like they have something there's some friction in their character around which you could generate some drama. Yes exactly. So then Violet sees a couple of guys that look like they're in spacesuits walking outside and before anyone can stop her, she runs out. She grabs one of them by the shoulder and it's not a man in a space suit. It's a robot or what is it in? It's a robot to robot and the robot touches her and she falls down. And Quinn and Nolan open fire to know a veil against these robot and robot invaders and know it is never established why the robots need to be inside atmosphere suits it. No. But this is, okay, I got a tangent here. So when I saw these, I know you're not a doctor who guys. So I'll lean on producer Brad here. The first thing I saw, did you think of the same thing? I did Brad, the villain's from the side. By Berman, yeah. Yeah. So that's something like a doctor who creation. Yes, exactly. So there's a group of villains called the side of them. Now I had to do a little research on this. So, so doctor who actually debuted, Actually, the day after JFK was assassinated, November 23, 1963, and the villains in 1963 were the most famous villains, which are the Daleks, and they appear in the second serial. So this idea of a robot invader, villains, from outer space, I don't know that it came from Dr. Hoo, but as far as British origin. The Cybermen unfortunately did not appear until 1966 because I was just so sure these were a rip-off of the Cybermen and it turns out they are not. But anyway, I thought that was interesting. It has that whole doctor who vibe. The main question, though, that we've asked and past my Vases, how do you conquer the world, the planet, the universe, when you move so slow? Like, just, I'm learning that that is mankind's greatest evolutionary advantages. We can move faster than a walking pace if we want it. Yes, yeah. The scene also has a tie to the 40s films, which is Andy's favorite way to shoot a gun, which is sort of throw it through the ballics as you shoot, because Quinn, when he shoots with the pistol, he's kind of throwing his hand. He doesn't hold it steady and shoot. Jeff knows. Yeah, Jeff holds it steady. Yeah. He's a shot. Jeff has good discipline. Quinn is throwing his gun around like it's a starter pistol, there's something. So maybe I'm making too much out of too little, but we haven't talked about the types of guns in these movies. This is however one of our first movies where someone had a rifle overwhelming majority of guns in all of the movies we watched have been pistols. Yeah, and as a bolt action, actually it's an English Second World War rifle that he must have picked up somewhere. Um, which I thought was interesting because he carries it ever, even though it's not useful to him. They realize. Um, however. Oh, yeah. Hey, do you want to talk about it? So when they kill Vi, they, they don't. Importantly, they, they touch her head and there's like a cheesy full throw blight, special effect. And she just collapses intact. Correct. Uh, yeah. So, and she's dead. They go out to look at her and she's dead. And Otis falls apart. but they bring her back in and at this point Quinn talks about leaving and Peggy says, well, I'm not going with you Quinn. So that sets up a little little tension between Quinn and Nolan that will pay off throughout the movie. However, our part we have one more group of our hero party. A young couple pulls up in a 1963 Voxhall Cresta, which is apparently a very fancy car for the time. which is funny because they talk a lot about how little money they have. I think they make a drop, they drop a comment in around this scene about how they just sort of picked it up. Oh, do they? Okay. Yes, that's nice. Because Nolan goes nice car. We just got it. Yeah. Yeah. Now, good, by the way, drives an MGB. If you remember horror of party beach, our hero drove an MGA, this is an MGB, which is the more. Is the B just better than the A? I guess, but in the 80s when like we were all at where mg crazy in the US, it was the mgb not the a that was the sort of thing is fair enough. Yeah. Well, there's something about this final pair of survivors, John, that I got so excited. I know. Any. when we first watched it and we did not have the context of all these other movies we watched it completely went past me without me noticing but it was like the most exciting part of this history movie. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah that that Lorna, so it's a couple named Mel and Lorna. Lorna or Mel is a certainly young man who's rude to everybody. I almost uh uh you know when when Nolan tells him where to park he says is that an order to uh um but the more exciting thing is Lorna is pregnant. Yeah, visibly so. Yes, which is such a trope for the modern horror film. Uh, I don't even know where to start. It was a trope in so many different movies. We go, we just talked about it in we bury our we bury the dead episode. That's a modern movie. Yep. And then then obviously the original dawn of the dead and the remake have a pregnancy scene and you know, the stress of here. I think it provides more just the stress of being pregnant in a circumstance like this, they don't end the bit about becoming a zombie. But anyway, they all go back inside and they start discussing what they are going to do. next. And this is where Quinn sort of reveals his true colors. He sort of says, we can do whatever we want. We got to get out of here. And Nolan and Peggy are like, well, no, and Quinn says, he says, that is all we need a cheeky kid and a pregnant girl. Like, he sees them as a liability. Let's get out of here. And there's a debate about it. And of course, Nolan wins. Like, we're not we're sticking together. You can go if you want. Peggy says, she's staying. Um, What they decided to do is go to the drill hole, which is sort of like the national guard barracks, where it's sort of like a militia barracks, and maybe they've got guns in ammo. And so they decide they're going to do that. And how do they get in the drill hall, Andy? To further show his darker shade, how does Clint get the door open? Because he picked the lock. He picks the lock. So, you know, he doesn't have one savory characteristic as far as we can tell so far. But they strike out, I think. They realize that none of the grounds have firing pins, but they do find some pistols and some ammo. uh... but then they return to the hotel thinking that it's a safer location anything you want to say about that scene uh... now i don't think so so anyway they they they come back uh... you know peggy his sort of adopted a mothering attitude towards lorna and his helping makes sure she's comfortable uh... notices drinking a lot here he's trying to drink himself to death actually his his partner has just died he was drinking before And then Mel comes back, and what is he carrying a box full of Andy? This was fun. He's got a ton, a big stack of cash. Yes. And there's a fun scene where he goes on about like a week ago, I would have literally killed somebody for this. In fact. And now it's worthless. Yeah, we have a clip of it. And I wanted to play it because it's such a good debate for this sort of movie. But we haven't really seen one like this yet. So let's hear it. I'll show you. Where'd you get those? Bank! They got a special today. All you want for nothing. Help yourself. No, you shouldn't take it. You didn't even work anything. Why not? Absolutely useless. You can't eat it, you can't wear it, you can't even write on it. That's funny. Anything blown up a building committed murder? Oh, yes, I would. You don't know. I wanted money so bad I could taste it. So then he throws the money in the fireplace. Uh, and one of our characters freaks out about and tries to pull the money out, which is of course. For the lethal. Quinn the Weasel. That's right. Um, I just wanted to bring up this particular scene because it's It's a very apocalypse scene, right? It's a realization by your survivors that the world that they knew and the things that were important to them are no longer important to them. And it's really, I don't know that it's super well articulated, but it's sort of the first time we've heard it articulated in this way, as far as I can recall. Well, it's a scene in which you, the viewer, are asked to ponder along with the characters, like, what do you do now? Like in the past movies, the heroes have been motivated to try and find a way to stop or undo whatever the threat is. But nobody's talking about that in this movie. Nope. In fact, they've resigned themselves that things are never going to go back to normal. Yes, and I think the only other movie we've seen like that is the last man on Earth. Yeah, so there's just, there's a scene where they're doing guard duty at night. I don't, we don't need to go into all the details of this scene. I, I marked down that they, they keep a very lackluster watch. They keep a lackluster watch, but two things happen in the scene that I want to mention. First of all, we see a robot. And it walks up to the window, it looks at Lorna the pregnant girl through the kitchen window for a long time, but she doesn't see the robot and then Nolan sees him but hides because he knows his gun isn't going to work and the robot just walks off right. So it's worth noting the robots are, I mean, they are threatening, but so far the only person we've seen get killed by one went up to it and kind of hassleed it. Yes. So the robots, in fact, know where the survivors are and this one just came in and and ogled the woman in the kitchen for a really long time, but they don't really seem to care as long as those survivors don't get in Yes, but now we get to a good bit. Okay. Yes. So now when the weasel everybody's asleep by the fire place because keep in mind this is English hotel, they probably don't have heat, so they're all sort of lumped and they probably only have one set. So they're all lumped in the living room by the fire. And when Quint thinks everybody's asleep, he gets up and starts to collect his things, his weapon and grabs food out of the kitchen, and he's going to the impression we get, he's going to steal some food and head out on his own. However, while he's doing this, somebody else gets up. Who gets up here, Andy? So this is a fun surprise. I had resigned myself at this point in the movie to imagine that the robots are this movie zombie. Right, because we've seen that, right? We've had movies with this movie, doesn't even have somebody in the title, but zombie movies like zombies of the stratosphere where they really just mean aliens. Yeah, or somebody. No, we have an honest, a goodness real zombies in this movie because Vi, who was killed earlier, and they put her up in an upstairs bedroom. She wakes up and she's a zombie and it's a great look in zombie. You want to tell us about it? Yeah, so she looks. normal, but she moves in this very sort of mannered slow way, and instead of eyeballs, she just has white orbs in the place of where her eyeballs were. But she behaves much like a zombie. First she's curious and just looking at everybody. But then when Kuin comes out of the kitchen and sees her, she turns to him, sticks out her arms like a zombie and starts to walk towards him. and being Quinn immediately shoots her, and she falls down. So that wakes everybody up. Yeah, I just want to say this is another movie. We've seen a couple of others. I'm trying to think of some good examples. Maybe the zombie in, I walked with the zombie. Like you can have a great zombie that doesn't have real elaborate prosthetics and you can even have a zombie that has very cheap goofy looking prosthetic stuff. As long as if you get it right, it still is creepy. And I think, The zombies in the alley are quite creepy, despite having only one special effect, and that is their eyes. Yes, I agree. I think this is also a first, because I think this is the first time that the hero party has retrieved one of their dead members, brought them into their safe spot, only to have that person revive. Yeah, this is a classic love one turning against you. This is, I don't, we can't say it's the first time this has happened, but this is the most, She were distilled. It's the first turn or it's not the first turn, but it's the first time that they brought the danger inside. Yes. Wait, they did it in zombies of Moritau. Oh, that's right. No, he can't. He's right. She didn't revive exactly in there. I don't think. But they did bring his character. I can't remember who she was, but she got turned into a zombie. And is it Mona? Mona, your list, your list doesn't deport her. Yeah. That's right. Uh, that's a good point, but I feel like this is, I don't know, this feels very modern zombie. This feels like Sean at the dead or something where they have a zombie. Um, and, and it's a loved one, and it wakes up and surprises them. Yes. Um, so, uh, this is hilarious to me. So Quinn goes to punch Otis, but he's like gives him a British punch, which is like slapping one on the side of the head, and then our square shot American comes in and does a roundhouse, right? The Quinn's John, knocks him flat, it's fantastic. Quinn appears to get over it immediately though and uh... here's what they that now they debate has escalated and here's what's Quinn says and how the debate goes what you think now professor better get back to draw half of the night but head south on the money those of us who want to go south what do you want to do board on it oh forget the footsteps no long and the janitor rule or an order that aren't in the rules that aren't in the orders we can make any kind of world we like look what are we standing around here arguing for let's get out of here All right, now do you want to get some food? We'll take all the cars. Peggy. Yeah. To carry on with you. So there's a bunch of wonderful things in the scene. But one of them is Quinn revealed as the man who's excited about the apocalypse. Yeah, I love his lines, and that's the same. Yeah, they're very fun. Yes. So very tenderly, Otis covers Violet, having lost his wife for the second time in one day. and the thing he brings to the drill hole is some booze so so they head back to the drill hole and Nolan is clearly in charge now and Quinn is suspicious and resentful so they decide to keep watch everybody goes inside and Quinn is going to watch around the back and Nolan is going to near daybreak, Quinn sneaks around and coldcocks Nolan, and goes back inside grabs Peggy, forces her at gunpoint to go with him, and then they drive away in his MG. And then he stops for gas and Andy like, I've made a note about this too. What does he, how does he gas up his car? Well, is this how gas, is this how it worked to fuel your car in 1964? You like start the pump and the gas starts spraying out immediately. You have to just, you have to race to your car to get in with the gas just pouring all over the place to get it in the tank. Yeah, I suspect most people put the hose in the car and then turn it on. But Quinn doesn't care, plus he's got a hold of gun with his other hand. So, you know, he's a busy man. Did you notice the the other piece of old technology? The gas cap is not attached to the car. So you had to put it on the trunk. That's right. Remember back in the day how many people lost their gas caps? Yes. I do remember that I did that more than once. Yeah. Um, however, Dan Peggy says, look, I'm freezing. I don't have anything. Um, he's like, all right, we'll stop and get you something. So they stop in town. He goes into a shop and Peggy escapes. She runs into the hotel. She runs. And so I don't know if this is the shoes she's wearing. So unfair that she has to wear these shoes. It is, I mean, it is a very silly looking, uh, fast trot she's doing. Yeah. They are asking a lot of people with bad shoes and old legs to do a lot of running in this movie. That's what I'll say. Yeah. Well, but this is, but this ends up being a really good scene. So carry on. Yes. So Peggy escapes. And when Quinn comes out, he sees her, but what else does he see? He sees the robots, which have returned and are roaming around the town square. Yes, so he jumps in his car and he takes off. It almost gets him right by walking very slowly because he has to keep stop and looking at it just to make sure I wonder if his name is mind is going is it really walking that slowly let me look again and make sure that it's really that slow. Yes, however, Mel comes out and sees that they're gone and he finds Nolan, who's head is head smacked in and they bring him inside but what they realize is that is that Quinn has left with Peggy And he resolves to go back to the hotel and find her and they're like, oh, he could be gone and he's like, well, I have to check if I'm not back in 30 minutes, leave without me. And then we sort of cut back and forth between Nolan trying to get back to the hotel and she is trying to hide not only from the robots, but now the zombie of the Desk clerk from the beginning of the movie has reanimated. There's another zombie here. Yeah people started to wake up. Yes zombies. Yep, and they tried to chase her. I don't know what they're going to do to her. There is one tent scene where she hides in a closet. Yeah, this is certainly the first time we have seen what is a fairly iconic horror movie shot of peering out of a hiding place like in this case, pairing out of a dresser or something at a creature that is like milling around right in front of you. Yes. And they seem to have some intelligence, but not that much. She flees down the stairs. There's too much going on here, but long story short, Nolan arrives to the rescue and in a really dramatic, dramatic fashion. He and he hits the robot with his car and then he shoots both of the zombies with his rifle. So what's having here is a quick note on the scene. So this is a pretty good scene. She's basically been trapped by the zombies and the robots and she's outside and then a modern movie would have like surprised or jump scared you by having Nolan and his Jeep just crash into the scene. Right, but this is a 1964 movie. So we cut back to Nolan, quite a ways away, driving in his Jeep down the road towards her. It's a good scene, though, and he plows into the robot that kind of explodes when he hits it. Yeah, now, we've been caught in the robots, but they didn't actually know this. So here, play a clip for us, because this is the big discovery for them. It's a machine or robot. Well, a few things began to make sense. The nothing makes any sense to me. What about them? What are they? What did they want? But was that? Wasn't she? This must be some sort of a shock attack. They paralyze all the bodily functions and then reactivate them. Sightless and mindless slaves. What would they do if they got away? I don't know. Without any mind or any intelligence at all, there'd be worse than animals. So I wanted to talk about the last bit of that, Andy, because this is the animals, they're like, out of nowhere slam on animals. Yeah, but also, I made this point long ago, and I'm gonna make it again that zombies to some level don't make sense, right? Like the zombies that attack regardless of what they face sort of seem anti-evolutionary to me, right? Cause even the fiercest predator, I said this way back in episode two, knows when to stop. You know what I mean? But zombies don't. And I think he puts his finger right on what that is, is that there's something that reduces them to less than animals. They're just they're not even following evolutionary impulses. They're less than that, which I think is interesting. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. So not did you notice the other thing about that clip that maybe you could hear in the background. the apocalyptic wind sound now there wasn't much wind in the village but there's that swirling that you would hear in a desolate wasteland oh nice but here it's in the singleest village so that's sort of kind of new yeah i want to give this this film like we'll talk about how good it is at the end but for like the sound design is good like they do a pretty good job of like it's not like life-changing but it's there's intention and an artistry in this film believe it or not so yeah for sure now we're gonna zoom towards the end of this movie uh yeah there's so much happens we're we're like 10 minutes from the end of this movie yeah and a huge amount of stuff is about to happen we'll try to go through it uh at a good pace though Yeah, and I just remember the first time we talked about us. It was the first time we'd also watch a 60-minute long movie, and we're like, oh, this is how movies were shorter. The third act was eight minutes, you know? Like, yeah, so what happens is, because it's a machine, so what Nolan figures out is that there's some sort of transmitter controlling the robots. that transmitter. And specifically that they must have must be using like a human transmitter because for some reason I forget that he tells they didn't bring their own or I don't I don't really know if it makes sense or not but right so so Nolan and Mal so Lorna is about to go into labor or actually she has her baby. And if you have to flee, but they realize they've got to try to stop the invasion of the robots. So they come up with this plan where they can triangulate the pickup signals and triangulate the location of the strongest radio tower in the area, and then they're going to destroy it. They come up with the plan to stop the robots five minutes before the movie ends. It's also just feels a little unnecessary, like they have a good film going here. Yes. I'm not entirely sure why they, I guess they just felt like they needed and on my action scenes, which they do. Yeah. And I'm not going to go into super detail here, but as they drive around trying to find this transmitter tower, well they do that who returns from the dead to haunt Peggy one last time. Yeah, well, we find out maybe what the robots are doing in animating dead humans as zombies, because zombie Quinn, the sinister guy who left who bailed on the group a couple of minutes ago, appears leading the robots right to their base. Yes, so he must have some sort of memory of his human life because he knows where they are. He lets them in, two robots come in, Quinn comes in, there's a battle. I like Peggy as a character, but girl, you can lock a door. Like, you don't have to freak out so much you just shut it behind you, you know? So as the zombies very slowly move towards Lorna and Peggy, There's a quote unquote action scene where Mel and Nolan are being chased by robots so they can this before they can destroy the tower. My favorite part of this scene is that at one point Nolan jumps out of the Jeep carrying a box and it says on the side high explosives and then they rig it up they blow it up the tower falls and as soon as the tower falls all the robots in all Sort of sort of Otis kill the that's right the zombies don't Insta collapse the robots do. Yes, and then Otis kind of sort of redeems himself because he comes out of his drunken stupor long enough to shoot zombie Yes, and he redeems himself and then everybody returns And at the very end The baby is born showing hope for the future. They decide to head south to do, you know, blow up more transmitters, save more people, and they fly away in a gigantic Boeing 707, the four of them in like a 400-person passenger plane. And that's the last shot of the movie. So any other thoughts about that ending, Andy? Yeah, there was one moment when they were wiring up the explosives to blow the transmitter tower, that that also felt like a thing you see in modern movies all the time, but I this might be the first. You have a very deliberately shot scene where the hero is like working and behind him, he does not see, but you watch for a fairly extended scene as a robot is slowly approaching him. It's like a much more sedate version of it follows. But it's not ineffective and there's a reason that horror movies do that that shot a lot. Yes. Yes. So anyway, that's the film. Let's say. I have a question for Andy and I think a missed opportunity for an Andy rabbit hole. Oh, okay. All right. How much gas will be required to coat the entire planet Earth and kill everyone? And how would you, what kind of container in the size of it would be needed? Well, you, you raise some interesting questions. I want to give this movie a little credit to say that it is, it is, it is ambiguous what the extent of the apocalypse is. Like, it's the character seem to believe that everything is gone, but we don't, There's we don't see a that's not directly shown in the film like this is a local scale movie and Yeah, so I don't know if the robots have just Nervegast England or if this is a global phenomenon or what you know, it's interesting though There's a there's a modern TV show that addresses this question directly and answers Brad's question. Oh, that show is plurvis Oh yeah, they did a great length to talk about how they distribute the chemicals in the pilot episode of the show. We won't go into more details in that, but like that actually is that whole first half of that, or you know, pilot is about how they go about doing that actually. I think the difference is in this film, it's instantaneous and happens at one moment in time. It's not spread out. So I think a more modern take is we've got to give some thought to how would you actually do this. Yeah, well, this movie, I mean, so this movie by starting after essentially the apocalypse has happened, it very wisely does not have to show us the delivery mechanism, which I think would probably just invite a lot of plot holes to open up. Yeah, but now I want to know, Brad, how old you were when you realized Santa couldn't possibly cover the world in one night. So. Well, you know, I mean, there's that other thing. I mean, there's a reason. There's a reason gas even deadly ones like nerve gas and stuff are not really used and it's not just humanitarian, but they're not very controllable weapons. So I guess if you had a ton of it and you in the case of an alien invasion, you don't care, there's no friendly forces that it could drift over and, right, a fact, I guess you could just, if you could had enough of it, you could just blank at the earth and who cares. But this may not seem like it, but it was actually meant it's a compliment to Andy because when he goes in these rabbit holes, they're never topics I expect. But once he opens the door, I really want to hear what he's found. Yeah, you know, this movie, studiously avoids the fact of who did this, why they did it, how did it happen, uh... because i think everybody's sort of scared enough of just sort of a general apocalypse from the skies at this point you know what i mean yeah that the aliens never speak there's no alien master that that cackles about his plan no you know plan nine from out of space style i mean i thought of the exact same thing you're still a so hey let's go Let's move into our wrap-up questions, John Shelley. Let's do it. I have a bunch of questions for you. You have some for me, and then we'll wrap it up with our traditional closing questions for each other. Let's do this. John, in the earth-dise screaming, is there a hero party? There is, and it's probably our most recognizable one to modern eyes yet. Yes, it has all of the main archetypes. Yes, from Heroic, you've got the Heroic people. You've got the kind of weak links that need to be protected by the rest of the team. You have the the guy who's actually a jerk. Yeah, all right. How does the party do how many of them survive? Two of them are killed. Buy and Quinn. And many others are threatened but those two are the ones who eat it. What kind of zombie are we dealing with in this film? So I'm going to say they're technologically created zombies. The robots have to turn you into a zombie. There's no contagion here, and it doesn't have been spontaneously. Yes, it's certainly not mystical or magic. It's some future tech we don't have from the robot planet. But they don't turn you. They turn a cadaver. It's a dead human. Well, or they kill you and animate you late. Yeah. They have that choice as well. Yeah. how are those zombies destroyed or killed? Each can just shoot them. It doesn't mean that. It doesn't have to be in the head. They shoot them in the chest and stuff and it works. Yeah. Is there a zombie hoard in this movie? It's implied, like we don't, we only see a couple zombies together, but I think that's a budgetary problem, not an intention problem, like I think we're supposed to have the impression that multiple zombies are around. The scene where Peggy is trapped in the house. Yes. It feels like a hoard scene, even though there's probably like one robot and one zombie in it. Yeah, two zombies, one robot, yeah, but yes. It tries to do that, it just can't, you know what I mean? Yeah, what's the kill count in this movie compared to previous films we've also the hair party. It's too, but also what is this 1964 so four billion is the kill count in this course. This is like the stand like 1% of humanity survives kind of thing. Is zombie as a reversible in this movie? So this is our new question. I think it's a good one and the answer is no. Yeah, which is different than some of what we've seen before. And John, is the world threatened in this movie? Yes, and in fact, this is our public layer strongest apocalypse. So the earth is screaming as another is another candidate. But this is like the instant of the apocalypse. I mean, though, what is in threatened? It's wiped out. So yes. All right, John. I love can I just say one thing about this. We can get more into this later. But I love how they just all assume that if we can just get with some other folks, we'll all get along great and just rebuild society, like no problem, like the walking dead phenomenon has not occurred to the writers of this era yet. So although we see, you know, the seeds of it with Quinn being a weasel and yeah, yeah, sure. Like, yeah, I mean, this is one of the first movies to ask, yeah, what if the people you're, what if the people you All right. Last question about the zombies, John, how fast are they? Are they slow? Are they regular human speed or are they speedy rages on these? They're they're sub sub sub sub sub sub human speed. They are. They couldn't walk slower. Yeah. Are we seeing any new strains here or zombie firsts? Well, I like to press that, but I don't think there's anything genuinely new here. I don't think so either. Yeah. All right. Well, John, at the beginning of this podcast, you established four pillars of the zombie genre. And we've been asking and waiting for them to show up in the films we watch. So I'm going to go through those pillars. John, in the earth-thousand screaming, is there an apocalypse? Absolutely. Yep, we've talked about it, but no question about it. Yes. Is there contagion in this movie? No. because one zombie cannot create a second zombie. It still depends on the robots to do it. Yes, I will say it does feel like a step towards contagion in that it's an airborne threat and the only the only reason the heroes aren't in danger of it is is that I think they establish or that it like it rained. Yes, and dissipated the gas or whatever correct. I don't know do we see when the zombies rise. They appear to rise on their own. I mean, presumably it's at the direction of the robots, but right, the robots don't actually go over and like touch them or anything, right? No, we don't know the mechanism exactly, but certainly, yeah, but it's implied to be technological, so. Yes, because we watch Vy rise. She's in the bad, they place her in the blanket overhead and she's just moving and getting up. Yes. All right, John, are there tough moral choices in this movie? I think there are. I mean, I think Mel's whole speech about the money and Quinn deciding to leave and then shooting by and trying to decide how to handle all this, how do we how do we save Lorna, you know, all of these things are tough moral choices. And I think it's really strong in this movie, actually. Yeah, I think so too. There's a lot of good moral choices in this movie. You know, where are we going to go? What should be our job now that the world has ended? Yeah, right? Yep. And lastly, does this movie feature loved ones turning against you? Yes. Poor Otis' ladyfriend, Violet, animates and tries to kill Quinn. So, yeah, though, nobody loves Quinn. It's still counts. Yeah, it's classic zombie movie, loved one turning against you, I'd say. Yeah. All right, John, you've got some questions for me now, specifically about the 1960s. I do. So, are we seeing an increase in violence and grittiness in this film? So yes, not an increasing gore, which this movie has none of. We've seen more gore than this, even in horror of Party Beach, there was more gore. Yes, but like last man on earth, which also felt a little boundary pushing in this way, the scale of death is very big all of a sudden, yes, we see bodies lying all over the place and I was struck at the beginning of this movie as Nolan is just kind of casually walking over and around bodies. Yes, and I think. that side of that industrial-scale death and then through whatever process of being numbed to it, Nolan has undergone sort of the cavalier attitude towards all the bodies that are strewn all over the place. I think that feels like an escalation in something in violence. Yeah, I agree. To our character's question authority here, There's really, so the authorities are conspicuously absent in this movie. Yes, none of these characters is like a policeman or a soldier. Well, I guess. Yeah, I think that's no mistake that he's he's driving a military vehicle. And yeah, is a is a pilot. Like so I think he is the authority figure. Yeah, so I take it back. Yeah, I would say it's this movie. Rather than questioning authority, it's asking like, who is going to be the authority? Yes, is it going to, like, is it going to be Nolan kind of as a traditional, strong authority figure bringing the survivors together under his leadership? Or is it, is this new world going to be a bunch of twins right to do whatever they want? Yes. So questioning authority not exactly, but this is a different nuance on authority in the apocalypse than we've seen in the past. Yeah, and we do have Mel as the is the rebellious kid. Yes, sir. Thank you for bringing in that early kid. Yeah. Yes, yeah. Do we spend more time focusing on our here's inner life is the horror more personalized in this one? Well, the horror isn't exactly more personalized, but the characters have more flaws. Yes. Maybe trauma is too big of a word for it, but they've all been affected. by the apocalypse, and the way that their situation kind of exposes and exploits some of their own personal problems is interesting and feels a little new. You have Otis, who's drunk, he wants to escape, you know, his challenges. Yeah, keeping it together long enough to, you know, to save the women at the end. We have Peggy, so I want to shout out Peggy here just for a second and like part of the plot here is that her husband died and and she the actress is very good maybe I'm reading too much into it is sort of being very fragile sort of on the cost like she's holding it together but like the loss for husband and the experience with Quinn like it feels very personal in her case so i i think it's there's a little bit more but it's not all the way to personalize tours. It's not Rosemary's baby yet. Yeah. And I think in Mel and what's his wife is it, Peggy? Lorna. Mel and Lorna. When the survivors arrive, they each, each group of survivors, it seems to be bringing their own backstory with them. Yes. which is interesting, and honestly, you know, the first character is Nolan. I mean, he is the closest to what we would have seen back in like the 1940s, just a solid dude, you know, who takes charge and doesn't, and he's, but of this group, he's the only one that doesn't have an issue, I guess, with a capital I. Yes, I agree. How about fear of crime, societal chaos, anarchy? So I got to say, I got to say yes here because it's in a apocalypse. Society has collapsed. Money doesn't mean anything. Even we're only like three days into the apocalypse and they are already coming into the conclusion that money will never have value again. Yes. So the characters believe that society has collapsed. No, has collapsed. Yeah. You know, I, I don't know if, you know, breaking into a store to steal a radio is really shocking anymore in 1964. I mean, it does have slight echoes of like looting in the streets, I guess. Yeah, it melts. Still, Rob's Rob's a bag. So. Yeah, so I guess a little bit certainly yes that there's like societal chaos and breakdown fear of crime and stuff and anarchy not so much although remember that Quinn you know is our president I'll do it whatever I want to do. I'm going to do. Yeah person. So that's pretty in arctic. Yeah. How about looming sense of apocalypse and psychological stress. Well, the hotclips has already happened. Yep. I do think that watching this movie, you feel the characters stress at not knowing what is ahead of them. Yeah. And you see it in Otis and you see it in Lorna. And you see it actually early on in Vi when she's freaking out. So I feel like, yeah. And I mean, as you said, Otis is like, literally trying to drink himself to death, so he doesn't have to face whatever's coming. Yeah. Horses without solutions and a lack of clear villains to defeat. I'm going to say mostly yes on this one. And in fact, I'm going to say it's a strong yes. So they do achieve what I would call sort of a tactical victory against the robots. Right. They do take out the tower and it gets rid of the robots that are in their little town. But that seems like the only handway to me. Yes. In addition to feeling like that scene was thrown together in the literal final minutes of the movie, there's no the characters do not seem to believe that like they have solved the problem. Right. No one understands who the robots are or why they're invading. there is no obvious way to make it all stop beyond a really long slog of traversing the whole country, I guess, taking out transmission towers. So that does not, that is a very far And society hasn't been restored. I mean, no. This movie leaves us, I mean, in, and it's not like people are waking up or anything. I mean, they're in a post-apocalyptic world and they're going to have to figure out what that means. Yep. All right. Well, I like to close our discussion with three questions. the challenge us to imagine ourselves in the world of the earth-sized screaming. So John, would you and I survive in the zombie world of the earth-sized screaming? So I have a clarifying question. Did we survive the initial apocalypse? Yes. We were in a sealed environment for some reason. OK, we were, bonus, if you could tell me what the sealed environment you would be in. It would be a dehevelin chipmunk. I thought you were going to say a Fraser's pop. or Frazier's pub. Yeah, so I'm maybe, like this is the first world I feel like, well, along with last man on earth, this is the world that it does not feel easy to survive here. The robots could get you, the zombies could get you. Quinn could get you, like I feel like there's, there's enough threats that it's not a foreground conclusion. It's not like we could just walk away from the zombies so it's too much other stuff going on. I mean, this is our, this might be our first movie where the possibility of other survivors being out there is not. reassuring they could be a bigger threat to you than the zombie. Absolutely. But I tend to agree if if the earth is just filled with corpses and they could wake up at any time and come for you, I don't I don't think my chances would be great. I'd screw up at some point in a zombie. Yeah. Yeah. All right. John, is this a zombie movie or is a zombie movie with zombies? I'm going to say it's a zombie movie with robots. Yes, I think so too. The zombie stuff is he's actually pretty central, especially with vise. Yeah, revival. Yeah, and lastly, John, do you recommend this movie first as a general movie that everyone might want to go and check out and secondly, do you recommend it specifically to the zombie loving freaks that listen to this podcast? Yeah, so, um, I enjoy this movie much more the second time. However, I will say, it's not quite strong enough as a general recommendation, I don't think. Like you could find something much more entertaining from this time period. You could go out to hammer, film, or something, which is probably better. But for zombie-loving fans, I'm gonna say hard, yes, how about you? Yeah. I have the exact same thoughts. It's not terrible. It's, you know, it's a B movie. Yeah. And we don't, it no more no less. It's probably better than some of the, you know, some of the soft, no movies we've had in the past. But yeah, I don't think this has a lot to offer to general audience, but 100%. If you're, if you're following us on this, you know, zombie journey, you probably should check this one out. And there are some really good zombie bits that I think I took for granted the first time we watched it that really stood out now that we've watched it in sequence, you know, agreed. Yeah. The pregnancy thing just really blew me away on this time. Yeah. So yeah. Absolutely. All right. Well, it's time for the scary as part of every episode. And that is when producer Brad reveals to me and John what we'll be watching next. So a little caveat here. The next episode will be about 28 years later, the bone temple. So that's our next episode. However, the episode after that, we will announce right now as well, and I'm sorry to interrupt you, but take it away, producer Brad. All right, in two weeks, we are going to June 1965, and before I share the poster, I'll play a clip from the film's intro. I love it. I always like this. I atop one of the hills, which ring the teeming metropolis of Gotham City, a large house rears its bulk against the dark sky. Outwardly, there's nothing to distinguish this house from many others, but deep in the taverners' basement of this house. In a chamber, hewn from the living rock of the mountain is a strange dimly-lighted, mysteriously secret. That's key. Hidden headquarters of America's number one crime-class. That man, what is he asking? That man, clad in the summer costume, which is put terror to the heart of many of swaggering denizens of the underworld. What movies? What? Wow. Columbia Pictures presents an evening with Batman in Robin. What is this? What does it say across the top, Andy? It says, I don't know what this means. It says, made in 43, discovered in 65, the greatest serial ever filmed, now the in entertainment, scoop of the year. Yeah, and it's got a quote, two high camp folk heroes in a marathon of fist fights, zombies, and ravenous alligators, all 15 episodes, all live action. But this is not Adam Weston, Bert Ward, is it? it is not this is from 1943. Wow. So so this sounds like somebody cashing in on the Batman craze of 65 with a separate product. Or, or this is what caused the Batman craze, which is what actually happened. Okay, that's amazing. I will not lie. When I did see 15 episodes, my heart did sink a little bit. So Andy, it is over three hours. Oh no. Okay. Oh. Well, it was going so well. And then I knew that. Well, here's the good news, right? Like we, we got 28 weeks later, is our next episode. So we have actually like two weeks to watch it before we have so far on it. So we just got to start on it. So we just got to start on it. I can do it. I can do it. Yeah. Promise me you won't do it all the night before, especially since you're the one who has to pull the quotes. So. Oh no. Okay. All right. All right. Thanks, everybody. This is exciting. I'm excited. Who's excited? I am I'm extremely excited. I I do predicts It will be a great 20 minutes, and then it will be like, we'll see, we'll see, how often do you get to see a new piece of Batman media that you've never seen before? Oh, yeah, not basically never. All right, so everybody, just to remind her next week, Andy and I will be talking about 28 years later, the bone temple, and the week after that, we'll all be talking about an evening with Batman and Robin. So please join us for both of those episodes coming up. You've been listening to zombie strains. We'll be back next episode to talk about another zombie movie. If you enjoyed our podcast, please take a moment to rate us in your podcast Apple Choice. Tell a friend, follow us on Instagram at zombie strains. All of this helps like-minded people find the show. See you next time.