Welcome to ZombieStrains, the podcast that watches all the zombie films. This week, due to some busy schedules, we're re-releasing our episode on 1966's The Frozen Dead. We'll be back with an all new episode next week. Please enjoy. Welcome to Zombies Strange, the podcast where we watch every zombie movie ever produced. Yes, all of them. How many is that? The current total is more than 600 and we will try to watch them in order of release date with a few flash forwards for fun. We look forward to watching Zombies Cinema evolve and become what it is today.

I'm John, I'm joined by my co-host Andy and our producer Brad. Join us for this journey to see which of us makes it to the end alive.

Hello producer Brad, hello Andy, how are we doing this week?

Hey John, Andy. Hey John, hey Brad, doing great. We have an exciting movie this week. Can I say that? And here's why I find it exciting. It is the frozen dead from 1966. And the reason I was so excited about it is, well, I was watching it with all the shlocky stuff that's in it. I was like, yes, this is what I was expecting when producer Brad invited me to do a zombie horror movie podcast. It's got a severed head on a table and these arms sticking out of a wall It's just kind of bonkers and fun in a way that I was hoping all the movies would be. So I don't know how you felt about it, Andy, but that's what I want. Yes. This was a pretty, this is a pretty delightful movie. Yeah. Yeah. It has some set pieces. I, I think what I'm discovering is that over time, your brain sort of filters out all the boring stuff, you know? So like, like there is some boring stuff in this movie, which we will not burden you with. But the memorable bits are those wonderful bits that you remember from old stocky movies. So is it safe to say this is the only movie that you physically own? It is. So apologies for me to our dedicated listeners. This is not available to stream. So Andy and I bought it on DVD and watched it. So we won't be doing that a lot, but we really wanted to for this one. And also, The second and we'll see how many we're going to do, Brad doesn't tell us what our next movie is going to be. It's our second in a series of zombie movies about Nazi zombie. Yeah, but the big question as well, this movie mentioned Germany or Nazis are will continue to refer vaguely to a European country. Exactly. No, it's pretty explicit. It's 19. So we've moved to 1966, taken a little jump, and it's much more zombie or it's much more Nazis as as like horrific creatures than the last one. So All right, so hey, before we start, this is the part where I talk about anything that might be upsetting to hear about or any kind of troublesome content in the movie. This movie is pretty devoid of anything to shocking or transgressive, I would say. Yeah, John. It's a pretty shlocky film, but unlike some of the other ones we've covered, it may be because it's, we're in the late 60s now and not in the 30s and 40s. A lot of that sort of ambient background racism and other stuff is not as present in this movie. There are a few exceptions that we can talk about once the movie gets going, but nothing too shocking in this one folks. So, at least, severed heads and severed limbs. I guess there's a lot of that in this method. And we're expecting that if you're watching zombie movies and listening to a podcast about them that you're okay with those things. So just to be clear, that you in fact might demand those. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Alright, so Brad, will you talk a little bit about this movie's release? The Frozen Dead is a British film released in the UK, 1966, and in the US in 1967, it was given an ex-certificate in the UK, meaning it couldn't be shown to anyone under 16. In the US, it received a motion picture production code and was approved for general release. There isn't any reliable box office info for this film, so I can't tell you how it did. The film was written and directed by Herbert J. later, who also wrote and directed it. Can we talk about it for a second? We can. We don't have to go into details, but so first of all, if you're going to Google this, it's with an exclamation point. It is the only other movie this studio released. And here's the one liner on it, Andy. It is about an archaeologist Oh. Wouldn't you want to watch that movie? Yes. So we could go into it. I actually want to bring that up later. I read that description. I'm like, let's watch that one too. Like why not? Yeah. But the goal I'm a prog might count sort of as a zombie adjacent. Well, I want it. I actually want to talk about that when we get into the zombie bits here. So we'll come back to that. Okay. All right. You know, the only other movie like that. Did you watch them? Yes. Then with an explanation point. Also with an explanation mark about giant radioactive ants. Giant radioactive. That was a glorious age of film when they just used those words with X-Men. Yes, but yeah. Absolutely. Sorry, but I interrupted. All right. Well, Golden Star Productions, as you said, only did two films them, and the Frozen Dead, and in the US, these films were bundled as a double feature. So it sounds like you guys would have been very happy to go watch this on a Saturday for sure. Dana Andrews is the star. He's Dr. Norberg. He's best known for his roles in the 40s, and both film noir and western films. One of his famous films was Laura directed by Otto Preminger. Anapalk plays Jean Norberg. She was also on the British zombie film, the Earth dives screaming. And the fall goes to plan. Oh, watch that in season two of our podcast. Alan Tillvern plays Essin, and he was the voice of Arcane Maroon in who framed Roger Rabbit. Oh, and the last name of note in the cast is Edward Fox, who plays prisoner number three, who we come to learn is Norberg's brother and Jean's father. He was in the jackal in 1973. He played the jackal and he was him and never say never again, which was song Connery's 80s return to James Bond. Yeah, he is a, he is a that guy of the 70s and 80s. He was also in a So I saw him and I'm like, oh, I recognized him immediately, but this is an early role for him. So he's playing a shuffling zombie and I just he just jumped out so clear to me as as M from never say never again, it was a bit of a contrast. Do you think he looks back at this role as his most treasured prize? Well, according to IMDB, he's still alive so we could ask him. He probably doesn't remember it. He was born in 1937. But yeah, if you're listening, get in touch with us. Please, I want to provide a little bit of historical context for this movie. I want to go through a couple kind of what was going on in sort of the headlines and the box office, but I also then have some specific kind of cultural themes that were burbling. in the background when this movie came out. So this year, 1966, the SR-71 Blackbird goes into service, a very space-age sort of aircraft, I would say. Batman and Star Trek made their TV appearances to Beach Boys, really its pet sounds. The Fermi Nuclear Reactor in Michigan has a partial meltdown, which I would like to read more about because that sounds amazing. And Ronald Reagan is beginning his ascent as he's elected governor of California. and then Jack Warner sells Warner Brothers to seven arts productions, which will be apparent in the credits of this film. Interesting. So there's a few things that I think aren't evident just from the date. These things sprung to mind. First of all, this movie is about Nazi's who escaped justice in World War II, right? Basically stories about Nazi's who evaded justice in blended into the background of different countries, whether it was in South America or in the United States, those sorts of rumors started almost the day World War II ended, yes. And although World War II was quite a while in the past, about 20 years, I mean, 20 years ago for us is roughly 9, 11. So, you know, it's not that far in the past for these people. Exactly, and it wasn't that long, the vast majority of Nazi war criminals who were imprisoned were released in the 50s, and so I think, at well, at least I wonder, if there was a lot of this sort of pretty easy, I think, to imagine that a lot of horrible people had maybe blended into, maybe they were your neighbors now, right? There's a little bit of that Cold War paranoia. And so I think people were probably primed to imagine that there might be some faithful Nazis still out there, which is the centerpiece of this movie. Yeah. And what's interesting is I don't know if this is the first instance of that trope. I'm guessing probably not. I we'd have to do some real archival research to find out. But it became a popular trope in movies and TV shows and lasted for a long time. You know, 1978's The Boys from Brazil starring Gregory Pack of All People was about a plot to genetically create a new Hitler. You know, so it was like this was a major movie trope for a long time in And on top of that, I don't want to again, the John and Andy's history podcast will have a different show. But I think there was some knowledge of things like Operation Paperclip and other ways that the Allies recruited Nazi thinkers and scientists after the war to gain the benefits of their knowledge and their research. I wondered watching this if the character of Dr. Roberts, and this movie, we can talk the allies may be collaborating with the Germans, albeit with a certain amount of naivety. I'm super curious about this because for just to expand on that for people who don't know, a lot of the American rocket program we're in 1966. So we are starting to launch. orbiting rockets into space and that program doesn't happen. Certainly not as quickly as it did without some of the Nazi scientists we recruited basically give a pass to and live in the United States, right? So I think that's just in the background when you're watching this movie. The last thing I want to mention, I don't know the history of the use of cryogenics as a feature in science fiction films, but I just want to point out, in the 60s, home refrigeration probably still felt somewhat exotic. Yes. It hadn't really become widespread until the like the 40s or even the 50s and I just wonder if the possibilities of freezing stuff were like in the air. I will say when it comes to cryogenic freezing. So this movie is about cryogenically frozen Nazis. Yes. So it was the sixties that this idea of freezing a human body to preserve it and then revive it later, kind of entered the mainstream. There was a book in 1962 that I think is the first to actually propose the idea. And the year that this movie came out, 1966 was the year that the first So it didn't work. It probably felt like it exciting and maybe a little bit transgressive science possibility at the time. So that's it. That's why I like really long monologue about the history stuff. Do you have anything to add Brad or John? Don't forget Captain America. Oh, what is Captain America doing? Yeah, of course. Yeah, but not intention right right. Yeah, I forget that. So yeah. Okay, good one. Okay, well, can I give a brief summary of this movie? Please and the plot. So this movie centers around the work of one Dr. Norberg, who is a German scientist living in England. Early in the film he's visited by sort of two Germans, Lou Beck in Turpets. The broad strokes of what he's doing is he has frozen around 15 Nazis and has them in his lab and he has been conducting experiments, thawing them out and trying to get them to. They are supposed to be the cream of the Nazi leadership and he is trying to thaw them out and basically recreate Nazi leadership in 1966. This plot is thrown into a little confusion when his niece Jean shows up with her friend Elsa, and he has an assistant like a lab assistant, like an Igor, like a assistant named Esen, who further complicates this thing by murdering Elsa and taking her head and mounting it on a table so they have this disembodied living head of Elsa and then things get even weirder. Is that a good It is indeed. Hadjohn, so imagine you are a, a young actress in the prime of her life. And you're auditioning for it as the same thought. Yeah, there's so there's two roles. You can be that the romantic lead heroine or you could be the head on the table and that's like, well, good news. We've selected you for a role in this film, like which one would seems like the better career maker. If you want to tell you the numbers and Apalk who played romantic lead, she had 39 film credits and Kathleen Brack Oh there you go. Okay. Yeah. I mean, you just, there's just not a lot of range that you can evoke when you're ahead on the table. Although she manages some she does she does manage some. Yes, we'll get to that. I'd like to jump into this movie here, but let's make a quick moment to just review the poster to poster I'll describe it. The poster I'm looking at it's blue and white. It has a big tagline frozen alive for 20 years. Now they return from their icy graves to seek vengeance. Yeah. So I have to say this is not the first poster that is it is promising a slightly different movie than it delivers. And I was wonder, you know, when you're making the poster and you have to change the plot to sound it more exciting. If there's any sort of self-awareness that sinks in at that time. But the Nazis don't really, well, I don't know. We'll get into it. We'll get into it. I do have one last production question which I forgot to ask. Is this will be originally in black and white and colorized? Are we watching it colorized? It's a color film, but it looks, I couldn't verify, but Wikipedia says in the US it was often shown in black and white because it was cheaper to reproduce and black and white, but it did start off in color. Okay, all right, so I wasn't sure because I'd seen some black and white clips and I was like, Okay, but this is in color and it didn't look like a terrible colorization job. It looked plausible. So yeah, I wasn't sure so hey, I'm going to jump in Johnny's I'll be walking us through this movie and I just want to tell you a front I think the most interesting zombie stuff happens at the beginning of this movie and at the end of the movie so I'm going to focus my walk through on those parts and we're going to skip like a fairly Fairly uninteresting middle section of this movie. Yes, let's notice you'll just have to go discover that on your own. I guess, but we should note it is a 95 minute movie, too. It's not one of the 60 minute ones we've been watching. Yes, I just want to this is I had the thought that this I personally felt this would have been a better 60 minute and movie than a 90 minute movie, but I guess we can get into it. All right, so the movie opens to some very frantic title credit music over some painted scenes. And I will say, I don't know if this movie ever states the year that it takes place. But my understanding is that it seemed to be set in the roughly the same time that it was being filmed. Like it was supposed to be kind of contemporaneous. Is that your sense? Yeah, they said at one point these Nazis have been frozen for 20 years. Yeah, so late 60s. So we open with a strange scene, a man we're going to later learn his name is Carl Esen, all my notes call him Carl. I think his last name is Esen. So he is leading a group of chain And these men are sort of fumbling around in there clearly in some kind of distress, although it's not really clear what we what you will know when you watch further into the movie is that we're actually getting our first look at this movie zombies right so we see them sort of shuffling around their chain together. And a couple of them try to sort of try to resist, but they're easily kind of manhandled back into line. The overseer Carl here is barking some words in German, which I know are totally everyday normal German words, but as an American, I associate them with World War II, not seem to be like Chanel and Yavul and things like that. Yes. So I think, you know, we're being telegraphed that like, I think the word Nazi is already on our mind as we're watching. Abs. John, do you have any thoughts on this first glimpse of our, our zombies? So they seem very zombie-like, first of all. The movie never calls them zombies, and I don't think they're actually dead. But they shuffle and feel a lot like the early shuffling zombies. And one of them is violent and attacks Carl, the handler, and almost looks like he's going for his neck trying to bite him or something. So so these seem, maybe it's just my mind projecting backward. These seem like the shambling zombies that we encounter in like Dawn of the Dead kind of thing. You know what I mean? They're at least closer to it. We are later going to get an explanation of why that specific zombie is aggressive, whereas the others are less so, but yes. Yeah, and that would be prisoner number three played by Edward Fox. who is the brother of Dr. Norbert. We may or may not get into that convoluted plot, but there's a lot of convoluted plot. I'm going to try to skip this over here. So anyway, Carl goes inside. He locks these again. We don't know there's zombies yet. At this point in the movie, even though I knew this was a zombie movie, I wasn't entirely sure what I was looking at. But he goes inside the manner and he meets up with a scientist looking guy in a movie scientist looking lab. This is Dr. Norberg, they're both speaking in German accents. This lab is sort of a hodgepodge of mad scientist lab, props, I'd say. Yes. And they are having a conversation. They are kind of eagerly awaiting the arrival of somebody else. They are waiting for a general lubec to arrive from Berlin. and we start to get a sense of who these people are because they just, one of them says, nobody's more exacting than our ex-general. So you do the 20-year math there, and you can kind of guess that these guys are former Nazis, maybe current Nazis, and they're going to be visited by one of their superiors from the war. Any thoughts on this stuff, John? Well, so that I got two vibes here that we're really strong. First of all, there is a strong... Frankenstein, Maddoctur assistant vibe to these two characters. Yes, right. There is something a Frankenstein in this movie. And I wanted to talk about that, especially when we get like the head on the table later. This feels closer to like Mad Scientist Frankenstein, than it does to sort of zombie hordes kind of thing. And the reason I bring that up is is the first time Brad and I ever talked about even doing this podcast. we were talking about what we'd watch. And I just made an off-hand comment. I think Brad, you said, well, we'll be start with Frankenstein. And I say, well, Frankenstein's not a zombie. He's a golem, right? We were just talking about the golem of Prague. So the vibe here has that Frankenstein vibe. And these zombies seem like zombies in other ways, but in some ways they feel like Frankenstein's monster. Do you know what I mean? totally and you know this is this is a pretty service level thing but if you we can beat you this movie it'll be described as a science fiction movie right so i think we're in a time when zombie was at least as evocative of science fiction as it was of horror whereas today i think if you see a zombie on a poster that clearly telegraphs you're going into a horror film but and there's a lot of like a lot of the equipment is lab it's just very lots of blinking lights and dials like things that evoke science fiction I think a little bit more than horror yeah and the one actually a lot of these movies we watch so far and I don't want to give this movie too much credit but there's a relationship between Carl S and the the assistant and Dr. Norberg where there's a little tension between them it comes out that Lou Beck is visiting he had a success in throwing out his zombie subjects and Carl Essin reported it to the general lubek, but Norberg didn't think they were ready to report it. So it's almost like Carl is driving this project forward against the wishes of Norberg in some ways. So there's like a tension between them, but it exists throughout the movie. It's actually kind of an interesting relationship. I agree. It's there's a sense that maybe Carl exaggerated Norberg's process progress. Yep. But so they're discussing here and over the course of a couple minutes of dialogue, we start to kind of figure out what's going on here. So they have at least one frozen body down here. And it's going to be a little while before we put all the pieces together. But the zombies in this movie are being pulled from an idea. I don't think that we've seen in the movie so far John, which is this cryogenic freezing. Let's hear an audio clip of Norberg and Carl. Before we really know what their plan is, talking about the work they're doing here in this lab. When an organism starts to defrost, it cannot be refrosed, and without destroying the cells, you know that. The Pnele has been frozen well with 20 years. Ever since the war ended. In 2010, one year, the principal governing the decomposition of an organism still applies. You want to know that by now. So this is where if you're doing the math they're piecing together maybe what they're starting to do have a frozen a Nazi soldier here, but a couple of key points here about their process like once you start The idea here is that you can freeze these corpses, but once you start thawing them out, you can't reverse the process, right? And so Dr. Norberg has basically one chance to revive them correctly as they thaw, and that's going to be a key plot point later. There is one more audio clip I know we just heard one about I want to play one more, where they are talking about the impending visit from general loopback. I can't understand this sudden request of Lou Beck to see his revived one of the frozen bodies. I'm afraid that best milliliter not like one of those seven failures. You called Joseph, a failure? No, it's certainly not a success. Yeah, so that's where the tension comes in. Exactly, you hear some of that in conversation. So between these conversations and some other stuff, here's what we learn what's going on. They've got to dozen or so frozen Nazis in their basement lap here. They have been thawing them out for some time. And their goal is not to create, I guess, what we would call, you know, mindless zombies, the way that some of our other zombie masters and past movies have done. But their goal is to revive these people in the prime of their physical and mental health right to bring them fully back to life. Right. But we also learned that they really haven't had a success so far. And in the seven seven or so zombies we saw earlier the seven people who are not who are short they are sort of mindless. They'll get into it more. But these are the first seven thought out Nazis. They were trying to make work that didn't quite work. exactly. They've had the only one that could be maybe described as a success. We're going to learn more about him later. You hear them kind of expressing doubt of like, well, is that really, could you really call that a success? We'll meet him in a few minutes here. So the body is thawing out, though, it's time to try and revive it. And the general wants to be there when it happens. So at this point, they talk about receiving orders from the party in Berlin. I am assuming they're talking about like sort of some sort of a shadow Nazi organization and not like the German government. Yes. I think that's the case. Okay, because that's the okay. I was I was confused, but then I'm not the sharpest movie watcher. So The general does arrive with his companion or assistant turpets, and he is very eager. He is under the impression that Norberg's been able to successfully revive Nazis, and he wants to be there when the first of an army is revived. They are met at the door by Joseph, who they had described as one of their, like, I guess, a failure, but maybe a partial success. You know, did you want to describe Joseph? Yeah, he is the butler or servant of this house. He has a shaved head. He seems to know what's going on. Like he walks around, he can answer the door, he can accept directives, but he doesn't really speak. And he seems his knowledge seems to be limited to like the layout of the house. He seems somewhat but not entirely mindless. Yeah, so you can see why this would be a dubious success if you're trying to revive, you know, the cream of the Nazi leadership, I guess. So I think we found out that Joseph was just he was only frozen for a short time. He's not one of the original Nazis. He was frozen for a brief time. Yeah, there's a little, there's some complication there, but it's not, it's not that important, but here's where we hear General Lou Beck who is really the driving villain of this story, even though everybody here is morally compromised, of course. Yeah, General Lou Beck kind of describes a master plan that even Norberg and Carl weren't entirely aware of its scope. or I can't tell you what it means to me and the party. I have a good idea. Oh no, you don't. But I will tell you, it's time you knew. But General, hear me out, please. It's something you must know. Your achievement will mean the revival of over 1500 of the elite of the Nazi party who had been frozen and hidden away all these years in caves, most in Germany, but also in France and even Egypt. 1500. Did you think the 12 you've put into suspended animation by your instant freeze method, by the only ones? Oh, no, how do I do? Ooh, the plant thickens. So there's our master plot. Norberg is If he can successfully do this, they're going to replicate this on 1500 elite Nazis scattered around the world. I don't seem like I was really scary number of Nazis, but I guess any number of Nazis is. It reeks of overconfidence doesn't. Yes, it does. I guess it's historically accurate in that sense. What we learn here is that, so it's clear now, Norberg is a Nazi, a secret Nazi, so is Carl. And at the end of World War II, all these Nazi soldiers volunteered to be frozen with the hope of being revived later when I guess. they don't actually describe what they're going to do once they're revived. I mean, obviously world domination is this land. I would be curious to get a little more detailed than that, but we don't get it. So, but Lubric is frustrated here because what he learns in the scene is that Norberg hasn't really successfully raised somebody correctly back to life from their cryogenic state. And I don't have a good audio clip of this because it is conveyed across several conversations. But I thought the science behind this is pretty interesting. I mean, and my science, I mean, movie Hollywood science here. Yeah. Here's what's been happening. Dr. Norbert can revive the body's no problem. So, like he can bring them back. No problem is a sort of like empty animal shells, but he can't restore their mental capacity. In the way he describes it, is that the brain is full of different sections each of which has a certain memory or a certain experience in it. But he's only ever really able to revitalize one of those sections, which means that when you revive your entire mental state is dominated by that memory or that emotion. And so he sees this when he takes Lubec to see sort of the failures, which are the zombies we saw earlier. And this is a really interesting scene, John, as are in the kind of the little dungeon, meeting each of these failures in turn. Do you want to describe like this scene a little bit? It's interesting. It's almost sort of like a, they're introducing like members of a family or something. And so as they introduce each of the revive Nazis, they say in the name and they say, you know, he's trapped in this moment where he was under fire or something like that. And so he sort of describes the moment in which each of them are trapped. And I think there's one who's just counting, but they all, they all look like they have like OCD and can only engage in like one behavior. Yeah. That's all they can do. They're all just reliving a moment and my opinion over and over and over, whether it's crying And one of them, who turned out to be Dr. Norberg's brother, his memory was of a moment of violence. So he's aggressive. So that's the violent one. He's the violent one. I thought this was an interesting idea, John. Yeah. There's, you know, at some point zombies and brains are going to like become really closely linked. But I don't know, and you can correct me if I'm wrong. I don't brain stuff in these movies so far. The only one I can recall is from our last one, Revenge of the zombies where he points out that as long as they're brain functions, they can keep going. And that's the only one from what we've watched so far of the older movies that I can recall. Yeah, so at some point, I mean, we have already seen a little bit of a shift from zombies as a purely type of being created by supernatural means by a sorcerer right to zombies as sort of a scientific achievement right that scientist brings into being this movie although it does have some supernatural elements that in my opinion listen the movies don't make a lot of sense but generally speaking these are science zombies like purely science zombies yeah agreed yes So Lubex mad about that and you mentioned John that they introduced these failures like family and I did think this is kind of interesting. These aren't the disposable. you know human chattel that most of the zombies and past movies were no they have names and they have personalities and and they mean something I mean they're all Nazis so they're bad but they mean something to the Nazis who are trying to revive them obviously one of them is Norper's brother but these are all it's sort of suggested that Some are all of these, you know, they serve together in the war. So that had a surprising impact in my mind on like this the general tone of this film just having having the zombies be Not loved ones exactly, but pretty close to loved ones that they're trying to bring back Right. And there was one that is a loved one. So we keep saying, Dr. Norbert's brother, but when we get introduced to Dr. Norbert's niece, we're talking about her father, right. Yeah, prisoner number three. So there is a familial connection here, which I think becomes important. So the next thing that happens is so we now know the plan. We know what they're up to. Norbert still has some work to do before he can do this process perfectly, but he's under a lot of pressure to speed up and figure out how to revive these Nazis. At this time, the movie changes, and we cut to two young ladies arriving at the manner. One is Jean, this is Dr. Norbert's niece, who is lived with him, but knows nothing of the real nature of his experiments. I thought this is kind of interesting. These Nazis are suggested that they told all their loved ones that they were the victims of the Nazis, when they were in fact the Nazis In control. So like I think I think Jean the niece thinks her uncle was was in a concentration camp as a victim Okay, when you're right there as a as a overseer, so okay So, all that to say, I do the in jeans also been told to stay away from the dungeon lab. She doesn't know what is there. Yes. Right. So all that to say, Jean is like, you know, a young innocent here who's arriving at the scene. And she's brought her friend Elsa. Elsa is an American and a friend that Jean met at university. And she's here for a visit. And she is here earlier than planned, the Nazis in their basement don't realize that she's here. And John, would this not be the most incredible surprise upon coming home from college for vacation? Does it come in? You get their date early. And your family is reviving frozen Nazis in the basement. Uh, I don't know. What might run through your mind? Yeah, forget about like your dad has a new girlfriend or something when you come home from college. Like, yeah, your uncle is actually an evil Nazi scientist, which is. That's quite a jump. Yes. But they don't know that yet. No, no. So the Nazis adapt and they still, they're working very hard to keep Gene and Elsa in the dark about going on. But Gene and Elsa move in. They stay the night. And while this been happening, What Norbert needs to do in order to to perfect his zombie raising scheme, he needs a live brain to study, right? And he specifically is thinking he's going to get an ape brain. But John, do you want to describe to the eager alternate suggestion that Karl makes? So just to put it in context, Karl is kind of on the hook here, right? Because he is the one who summoned Lou Beck to come check their progress by telling him they had this huge success. So he is sort of realizing he's got to do something to push this project forward. So he suggests they get a human head that they can keep alive and study that brain. Now at this point does he actually suggest they get Elsa's head or does he not? He doesn't. But I guess it's a pretty suggestive scene. Because where is he going to find the head of a fresh person here, right? Yes. So that night, Jean and Elsa still oblivious to what's going on, go to sleep. and Carl sneaks in and he strangles Elsa. John, do you have any thoughts about this scene? He sedates her first and then strangles her. It's a little creepy, so we were talking about is there a trigger warning here, like it kind of. He's a total creeper. He hides in a room sedates her and then strangles her, but they don't show it to us in detail. We do get kind of a creepy shot of hands closing in on a sleeping Elsa's throat, which I thought was a nice little, nice little creepy bit. So if he strangles Elsa, he brings her down to the basement. and then he sets it up to look like he frames the zombies for Elsa's murder and specifically Norberg's Dr. Norberg's brother. He frames him as the murderer because he's the violent one. Yep, so Norberg comes down and he sees Elsa's body in the lab. a zombie standing right next to her and Carl's like your brother your zombie brother just murdered Elsa I just came in right as he was finishing strangling her and so it's a bummer that Elsa was dead but well we're here should it happen I mean you know let's uh let's hear an audio clip of uh of You only have about two or three minutes left. Oh, this is impossible, Carl. This is murder! It has to be reported. Do you want the police snooping around? Time is sleeping by, Doctor. Soon her brain will deteriorate. I count. But do you think, General Rubin would say, if he knew you had this opportunity and rejected it, right. So it's Carl putting pressure on Dr. Norberg to take Elsa's brain and exactly so continues. Norberg reluctantly agrees that while they've got Elsa's dead body there, they have a couple minutes before her brain dies to chop off her head and prove as preserve it. So right, he does. You know, science has to come for something. That's right. So that's the end of the first act of this movie and it's been a lot. Before we move into, I'm going to breeze over the middle section here. But John, like do you have any thoughts on what we watch so far? What do you think? Is this feeling like a zombie movie to you so far? It really isn't. We have zombies, but But they're not, they're sort of chained up, they're not really active. They don't really do anything. And certainly Elsa's reanimated head does not feel very zombie to me. No, but she does turn kind of blue and sort of look a little bit like a zombie, but I'm not really feeling it. I can't wait to describe when we get our first good. Look, the movie teases us for a while if like getting a look at Elsa's head, which is in this little head of the keep it in a box. Yeah, like prominently in the middle of their lab, which is a problem. Yes. Okay. So having secured their head, it's looking good for Norbert. He's going to experiment on Elsa's still living brain if you're going to have to revive these Nazis. The movie then shifts over to kind of a secondary plot. So two things of note happen next, and I'm going to breeze over this a bit. First is the American Dr. Roberts appears. He arrives at the manner. He's been invited to help with this research. He's a scientist who has had success in like preserving and reviving animals and organs too, right? Exactly. And he doesn't know that Norberg's in Nazi and he doesn't know what the ultimate plan is for this research, but he arrives excited to help research how you might like preserve or revive human organs, right? So that's one I think it's just a real jerk through most of the film, but and boring. A boring jerk. Yeah. Again, with the American boring jerks, but that's just where we are. Yeah. So from here on out, the movie is going to try to convince us that there's some sexual tension between Dr. Roberts and N gene. But the second thing that's happening throughout this section is gene basically doesn't buy the strangely elaborate scheme explanation, the Nazis came up for her with why your friend also vanished during the night. Yeah, so I'm not going to go into it, but Jean doesn't buy their excuse. She knows that there's something fishy. So there's these extended sequences where she's basically driving around the countryside investigating what really happened to Elsa and yes at the end of all of this she's going to talk to different people at the end of all of this she's going to figure out that you know Elsa didn't really leave the manner and that's going to bring us back into our final act where there are any parts of this sort of investigative phase of the movie that we're interesting to you John is otherwise I'm going to move on. Not really, I was confused. There is a character that's introduced here, Mr. Schmidt, who has a horribly scarred face, and she wears like a human, yeah, a normal human face mask. I don't know why she's here. That's just why I didn't want to get into it. I just found it very strange, but she comes up in the course of jeans investigation. Yeah, there are some weird stuff like that. So this is the part of the movie where I wondered if there is just a little bit of like, a little bit of kind of, I don't know, phrasisms, the word, just sort of paranoia of like, hey, does your neighbor have a German accent? Do you know they're not really a Nazi? Because it turns out there's like a small network of Nazis in this town. Right. That has been helping out Norberg or whatever, which, um, I don't know. I'm probably reading a bit much into it, but yeah, that's a lot of Nazis still wind up in rural England. Yeah, yeah, the whole thing's very strange. But yeah, so other than that, we can brush past it. We just need to know that Jean is investigating Elsa's disappearance, and Dr. Roberts is getting in deeper with the younger American doctor. Excuse me. And that the younger American doctor, Dr. Roberts, is getting in deeper with Dr. Norbert and being drawn more into his investigation. Yeah, so in my notes here, I wrote that, quote, some boring stuff happens, but then it gets good again because we're about to see Elsa's living head in the cabinet. So, while Jean is out doing her, uh, her slew thing, uh, Norberg and Roberts get to work on the research and that means giving Roberts a tour of the lab. We see a lot of a living human organs preserved in jars. Yep, John. Did you have any flashbacks to maniac from this idea? Okay. Yes, very much so like mad scientist. There's beating heart and a jar just like in maniac 100%. So there's two wonderfully grotesque things that we get to see in this part. I love them both. the first thing obviously we're waiting to see Elsa's head. I mean we're I was very excited to see us like what's it I can look like but they draw that up for a long time but before we do that we we see something genuinely bizarre and weird. John do you want to say what it is? Yeah so apparently Dr. Norbert is experimenting on animating just certain body parts so there is a wall lined with arms naked arms up to the shoulder attached to the wall and there's a great moment And Dr. Norbert shows off how he can sort of control them with electric current. And as a great moment where Dr. Roberts looks around the wall and is like, well, what is on the other side of the wall is just a bunch of electric patch cables. So these disembodied arms that can move at Dr. Norbert's will. And I don't know, this is like check-offs like wall of arms because you know something awesome is going to happen with this wall of arms, but you know, but I don't put that much effort into a into, you know, this is half their effects budget here this wall of arms they have to do something with it so yeah so speaking of half their effects budget the other half went into Elsa's head so yes we finally get a look at Elsa's zombie head in this cabinet. And I don't know, John, I keep passing the ball off to you for these descriptions, but I would just like to, can you just describe for us what else has had look like it's amazing. So it's starting a box like one of those magicians boxes that drops on the sides because it has to be because they have to be able to open it because, you know, it's an actress under the table with their head sticking through it, right? But what it looks like is they said earlier, we didn't really go into it. They have to look at the brain. Well, it's conducting their experiments. So they've taken her skull and put a transparent dome on it And then they have all these like tubes and stuff passing blood in and out and she's like painted blue She has this this dramatic like black makeup on her cheekbones to like just make her look dead She's like blue and it's this real old school looking like corpse makeup Yeah, if you think of like really stark lines and shadows and stuff reminds me of bride of Frankenstein totally it is it has an incredible Frankenstein vibes at this point also the brain is pulsing so I don't Yes, I like the idea that our brains are are creepily pulsing all the time. Yes, I suppose that's because because he's got all these tubes going in the lecturers plugged into our stuff, but yeah, it's amazing The head is amazing. This was honestly, genuine in my favorite part of this movie. I loved every minute of this film that was in which Elsa's head was in the shot. Yes, it's really creepy. She looks very zombie-esque, but at this point in the movie, she's clearly alive, but she's not really responsive. And right, the most she can do is give these sort of hateful stairs at Dr. Dorberg. Yeah. So she can't speak at this time. You know, so she can't tell Dr. Roberts like what really happened to her or anything like that. She but but she seems to be able to hear and understand she's aware of her existence as a head in a correct. So I wanted to say so obviously most of these shots were they had the actor sticking her head through from like she's under a table and she's stuck her head through a hole in the table. But there are like two shots where I couldn't figure out how they did it. Oh, yeah. I was wondering if those had stuck out to you. There were like there were two shots where I just didn't see how they could get a body under the table and not without having it beyond camera. And I was wondering if like if there were some special effects used for parts of this, but if that didn't jump out to you, then probably I just am overthinking it. Yeah, I might have just made the assumption like it's so obvious she's out of the table and just sort of glossed over it usually it is that's why it was weird the couple times I was like, where where are they hiding her. So, oh, interesting. Well, if you notice no one passed behind the table and I think if they had you not have been able to see them because they had like either projection of film or something to make it look like you can see under the table. That's what it was that's okay, must have been what it's because that's what it was it looked like you could see under the table and. Okay. Okay. Well, that was a pretty good effect. Then I got to slip them for that because it can tease me. So, um, the, a lot of things are going on, but the zombie nocties are starting to get like kind of restless. Yeah. Can I actually take, can we take a step back for a second? At some point late in the first sector, in the second egg, we see this giant door in the lab open and they're And I thought that would be checkoffs frozen zombies because I was sure at some point they were going to thaw these three out and they were going to attack somebody and they never do. But that's one big thing is that there's these zombies in this block of ice. you're looking me like I'm crazy like did you think something was going to happen with them no i agree i mean somebody meets their fate in that in that room with those zombies but i agree with you but it was weird to you that these zombies were all frozen and they're like full military yeah yes it was yeah i don't understand i don't want to see naked zombies either but it just seemed kind of funny that they're all there were in their german military Like you could put them in like a I don't know like just some overalls or something because like if somebody comes in and sees your lab You could say well, they're just frozen people but if they're wearing like Nazi uniforms they're like no don't they're not German I don't know what you're talking about like that's kind of a good way So the movie proceeds like this for a while, Norbert and Roberts are doing more experiments. And Gene is doing some more slew thing around. And a couple things happen again. I'm gonna try to be kind of quick with this stuff. At one point, Roberts sneaks into the basement lab. He pumps into a skeleton. Wouldn't you remove skeletons from like your, like sitting out in your hallway. I mean, I realize they aren't expecting visitors, but you know, for somebody with a secret lab has security. Move the skeleton. So, yeah. The skeleton, there's one also on our last Nazi zombie film. That's right. Then revenge of the zombies. That's right. So Roberts, at some point, he's snooping around the lab, and he basically figures out that something else is going on. He stumbles his way down into the And he's a little fuzzy when he regains consciousness. And so, but the zombies know they have to filament on at least a little bit more about what's going on here. So, they still don't tell them that they're Nazis, but they tell them what happened to Elsa. They, like, say that she was killed in a horrible accident, but the needs of science, you know, dictated that they cut off her head and keep it for experiments. I know, and he's like, well, it's pretty terrible, but I guess you're right. Like he's totally fine with it. This is where, and so just until the very end of the movie, by the way, Jean is still frantically searching for what happened to a friend else. And Robert's knows what happened, and he just lies to her face. Like, and the movie is going to end with them as like the romantic couple. And it's like, Yeah, that seemed pretty impossible. Like, wait, you lied to me about my friend being murdered for days. And now you want to kiss me. What is wrong with you? Yeah, it's a little strange. So the law is starting to maybe close in on this though. Right. And General Lubuk is starting to put the pressure on to get this done. Exactly. So in Jean with her slew thing around has got the, she went to the authorities. And Well, nobody expects that they have a Nazi zombie operation on their hand, the local police commissioner, you know, he stops by to visit and like there's just people are asking questions and so there is a sense that like the the clock is ticking for them to get this project complete and general loop back in particular is is getting pretty super villainish at this point in the movie he's desperate for. the experiment to succeed. Carl has been slowly kind of losing his mind as he's he's just losing it. He makes an attempt to in he's he's convinced they need to kill Jean as well because Jean is close to finding out what's going on. He makes an abortive attempt to murder Jean in fact by dropping a on how it narrowly misses her. I want to know potter plants falling off balconies in such a way that you can't, you don't really know if someone pushed it directly. That's such a such an agate the Christy seeming like, uh, way to ask somebody. Yeah, I know. And I, yeah, I wonder about if it's efficacy of actually killing somebody like, yeah, I'm not suggesting you wouldn't be horribly injured or have brain damage or something, but like I don't think it would kill you instantly, at least at that scale. But I don't know, If you class forward to the recent years in the Fargo TV show, a window air conditioner is pushed out to kill someone. Oh, I would believe that. So you can upgrade to from a pot of plans. Yeah, it's an air conditioner. And I think the pot of plan might give you a king cushion if they hit you right. But yeah, what if it just hit your shoulder or something? You know, we're getting right. We're getting near to the end of the movie. So I'll try to speed things along. So things are coming to a head. Lou Beck is very angry now, and he's very, very eager. And this part was kind of confusing, but they could become convinced that Carl is like out of control and might be leaking info to the police, which doesn't make a lot of sense. No. They torture Carl. Like at some point, he had to acquire some bodies and they accuse him of stealing. Well, I don't really know what happens is they start interrogating slash torturing him to figure like what's going on with you Carl and he reviews the weakest link or something. Exactly. He reveals something that I had just assumed this was what was happening already, but he reveals that the body parts that he had been providing to the doctor weren't from like the Even though these are Nazis, that's a little shocking to them, so it's Carl has been going rogue for a while. And he's like this kind of loose cannon here. And how do they deal? How do they silence this, uh, this weakest length jump? So to get rid of Carl, they put him in the giant refrigerator that has the other three frozen Nazis in it and slowly freeze him and tellies like stuck frozen like with his hands up in the air. In a modern movie, you would see like special effects of ice like and closing him. But in this one, he just starts moving slower and slower until he stops. Yeah, it's good acting, good acting is what's needed here. But before just before they freeze him, he also admitted he's paranoid about Elsa's head and that the head will destroy them all. So, yes, he's terrified. He's not wrong. He's not wrong. So the head throughout this has been seemingly growing in power. So it is now able to sort of make noises and promote more effectively. Please for help to gene. Yes, which you've been getting stronger they're getting stronger and stronger and They decide that This part was a little confusing to me, but the final part of their plan here is they're going to use to see if they can use Elsa's brain to like control I think where they think to control human body parts. She has a more functional brain, so can it solve a lot of the problems? Yeah, I think. So there are six experiments. And there is a fun little clip that I think you'll see why I picked this audio clip when we listen to it. But this is what they're talking to Elsa's head here as they're preparing to do this final experiment where they're going to see if her living brain can be used to control these different body parts. you have no will power of your own. You will obey my commands. At the count of three, you will erase your arms. So, that felt like a very old school zombie master. Yes. What do you think about it? Yeah, John. Yeah, I did and he's trying to get her to raise the arms that are stuck to the wall by saying their her arms. Yeah, and I don't think she succeeds at this time. I think it's either isn't able to do it or she is deliberately not doing it. I think the movie is ambiguous. But I wanted to say so there's just the will power stuff is interesting. All the way back to why zombies zombies have been defined as beings lacking their own will power. But that's not That's not the case with Elsa here as Elsa gets stronger. She becomes more independent. Yes Yeah, and it's interesting to me because they're not trying to raise will powerless soldiers. I don't think No, they're trying to create the smartest leaders. They're trying to resurrect the smartest leaders in the Nazi army to bring the whole thing back. So, I no longer totally understand what they're doing with Elsa's brain or what their plan is. No, but at any rate, Elsa is now sending much more articulate kind of psychic messages to gene. and so gene gets up and I thought this kind of interesting gene gets up in a very zombie-like fashion like in a trance at Elsa's bidding. It's suggested that Elsa might be controlling gene, not just calling to her. And Gene comes down to the laboratory where she discovers Elsa's head, Roberts follows her down and tries to explain why her best friend's head is down there. And yes, I knew and I'm sorry I didn't tell you. And he's still going to ask her out at the end of this movie. So the movies coming to a close here, Roberts, so they now know something really bad is going on. While this is happening, someone has also tried to poison Jean to kill her. I think it's implied turpets to this, but yeah, I believe so. So in other words, they figured out what's going on and the Nazis are going to kill Jean. Roberts heads into town for help. Jean stays for I don't I don't know why I'm not quite sure why I mean she's in a house with nazi zombies and they just tried to kill her so like I don't know why she's staying here but or living nazis who also tried to live in nazis nazis nazis zombies her uncles and nazis she didn't know this like it's bad so Robert's goes off to get the police Jean, of course, doesn't stay up in her room with the doors locked, like she said she knows, but she goes back into the lab to find Elsa's head. And the Nazis basically burst in on her while she's down in the lab. Norberg, remember whose uncle tries to explain to her why he has the insane corpse of her father locked in the dungeon basement down there, right? And before that anything can come of that, and Gene is like opening the door to see the cryo chamber where the Nazis are. So she's about to see the full horror of the situation. When General Lou Beck comes in, holding his gun in fine Yeah. And he opens the cryo chamber and reveals all. So you see the frozen Nazis, it's reveals that Gene's father was a Nazi that her whole family besides her were Nazis instead of being the victims of Nazis. that her father is still alive, and he's a Nazi, but he's a zombie Nazi. Exactly. It's just, it's a lot to take in, I think. So, Lou Beck and Norberg get into a fight. It's suggested that Lou Beck is going to just like shoot them, I think, shoot them, yes. Lou Beck and Norbert get into a fight, but what do they drift to close to John during their struggles? They somehow come up against the wall covered in independent arms. Yes. It's beautiful. The arms grab them and slowly strangle them. It's great This was at Elsa's direction. Don't you think Elsa is now succeeding? Yeah, so Elsa is now commanding these arms to kill Elsa controls the arms to kill them and we know this because there's a really funny shot of Elsa's head smiling with satisfaction. So yes. So the police arrived. I thought Jean was dead here and has seen for a minute. But she's alive and a minute later. So I guess not. The police arrived they round everything up and then oh wait there's one thing I want to go back to though. The other thing is that Jean is almost strangled by her father. Yes. Who's just? And Elsa also uses her psychic powers to stop this from happening. But we think Jean passes out. So I thought she was dead. But I think it's important that her father is the one who does this. I think so. I think I know where you're going with this John. Yeah. Yeah. So the movie ends with what I would. say kind of a genuinely creepy thing. The movie ends with everyone crowded around Elsa's head while it begs them to bury it. And it's just repeating the words bury me, bury me, bury me, and you get credits. So all these movies are so funny. No need for like a wrap-up scene. It's just like, no, stories done. The end. So this may be sort of solved for a problem of having a five minute act three, but they solved it by having a way too long act. Yeah, by having like a 17 hour act to yes, exactly. Okay, John, that is a wrap on the frozen dead. So now we got to ask our now we got to ask her questions. So yeah. We watched this because the last movie we watched was from 1943 and it featured Nazi zombies. That was revenge of the zombies. So, right, do these feel like cousin films to you? So they both feature a German doctor using zombies to further an evil plot. I think two things, again, 1943, they don't say zombie or German or anything. But his plot is to figure out how to create zombies to create an unstoppable army. And here we're trying to thought out former German soldiers to to conquer the world though it's a little more hand-wavy. How they're going to do that. So they are cousins in a sense. I guess my issue is the zombies in this movie feel actually less zombie-like than the zombies in revenge of the zombies. Yes, they don't even say that we're zombie in this movie. They don't care about that. Yeah, they don't and I mean in this movie I felt sorry for the zombies in this movie. Yes, I mean, yeah, they're Nazis. So of course they deserve there's on the fate, but you know, they're when you see these pityable People down in the dungeon just like trapped reliving one moment of their life. Yeah, none of them are living a happy moment. It's all some horrible moments. Yeah, so yeah, so that was interesting. I don't know that any of the movies we watched so far have invited us to really I mean have invited us to really empathize with the zombies. We've had a few. This one does. We've had a few heroes like get zombified or threatened with zombification, but it's not the same. I think this was asking us to like think of them as human beings. Yeah, and I wonder, like I think we're so used to like giant hordes being moaned down by Brad Pitt with a machine gun or something that that there really is no sort of empathy for them. But I think we're going to run into movies sooner or later where we do feel empathy for these poor souls that have become zombies. And I think that's a pillar. that I didn't pick out, but I think it becomes important later in Zabidam. Yep. So let's keep going to our questions. Is there a part? I would add that, for me, this film was the first one where the zombies are Nazis, where in the last one, they were just raising the dead to help them. That's a true point. And going forward, that's when we have the sudden increase of Nazi zombie movies. Yes, that's a good point because in revenge of the zombies, the zombies are mindless and have no control and the Nazis are going to take advantage of that to their own hands, whereas they're trying to revive these people so they're actual Nazis again. Yeah, it is interesting, you know, when I think of zombie movies, there's been to them recent ones like, did you watch overlord? I did not. zombies wearing SS outfits or something like that, right? But this movie is quite far removed from that type of over-the-top Nazi zombie. And I don't want to credit this movie too much, but this movie really, it has more empathy for what's going on here than I think we're going to typically be experiencing in movies that have Nazis zombies in the future. Yeah, I mean, my theory is they wanted to show something horrific with about these these creatures being trapped in their most horrible moments and have that be scary, which it kind of is, but what I think they did accidentally was also make them sympathetic in a way. Yes. All right. So is there a hero party, John? Well, I feel like the only hero is Jean, because Robert's is in on the plan. Yeah. Yeah, it's what it's like, what a tool. Like, I, so this is, this is why I wondered if, are we supposed to be kind of contemptuous of, or morally uncomfortable with robberts, in the same way you might be morally uncomfortable with allied scientists and governments, making use of German Nazi technology research and science with better goals. But drawing on the like that fruit of that poisonous tree. Like do you think that he's a standin for Americans? I do and I think it's an interesting question because first of all, this is an English film and England didn't get a bunch of rocket scientists out of this deal, right? So they're at a position to sort of make this judgment. And I feel like he's incredibly callous. Yes. And I think the only reason and he's incredibly like, well, this technology is worth it. So I don't care about their politics, kind of guy. I think I think he becomes a bit romantically because it's necessary for because of the film, you know, of the time. But I think there is a judgment here on Robert's being like, incredibly morally flexible and what is clearly a black and white situation do not raise Nazis zombies. We've talked about the kind of two types, one of your pillars which we'll get to in a minute is, you know, tough moral decisions. And I think in modern zombie movies, a tough moral decisions often look like, you know, what parts of my humanity and my willing to cast aside in order to survive. Right. And but the movies we've watched so far, the moral decisions have generally been more like what parts of my humanity while I cast aside in order to make progress, you know, yes. And Dr. Roberts here is easily instantly swayed by the promise of like, but won't the science we can achieve be amazing. Yeah. He doesn't even think about it for a second. He's like, yes. Yeah. Exactly. I agree. I completely. So it doesn't help that he looks like So how many survived from our hero party? I guess if we're saying our hero party was Gene and she does survive the movie. Yeah, I guess we could say it's Gene and Elsa in which case only Gene survives. But Elsa's not around long enough as a hero to sort of fulfill that. So yeah, Gene does survive, I think she's it. Is there a zombie hoard in this film, John? Yes, because there's a group of them and some of them are final. So say it's a small hoard. Yeah Is there's a hoard of arms on the wall and the hard and there's now be arms. Sorry for got about the zombie arms. I don't know how I could do that Is the world threatened in this movie? Yes, but not in the way that other zombie movies, the threat to the world is that when these people are revived, they'll actually go back to being their own Nazi selves, and that's the problem. But I would say like technically the world is threatened because if they succeed with this plan, now the world is saved, but the world is threatened. Yeah. It is interesting. The... Zombie is the creation of zombies is the fail state here. I'm not the great so that's a great way of the Nazis Don't want to rule the world with zombies. They want to rule the world with them. You know, they're their greatest minds Right right did any of these guys look like the Nazis greatest minds by the way. I don't know I think a bunch of enlisted men to me, but what do I know? So John, let's talk about what type of zombie strain we're dealing with in this movie. I do think this is a new strain of some sort. What do you think? Yeah, the movie itself is a mad scientist movie, but I think the actual zombie strain is new, because they're not... the mad scientist zombies we've went into occasionally before. Yeah. I do, I am pretty curious about the hyper focus of like all the brain talk. Yeah. Because in modern films, I mean, brains are mostly just the place you need to shoot this on me to kill it. But I do think that there has been a pretty noticeable shift in like what what is like kind of the defining element of a zombie and here it's like a physical organ that can be scientifically manipulated which is quite different than the past movies we watched right and i think zombie number three aka norbert's brother aka jeans father aka Edward fox is aka m aka m from never seen ever again he could be considered a template for future zombies he's immediately violent He even attacks his own daughter, which we're about to talk to, but it is a different zombie strain, but I wonder if, you know, like a creator could look at all these zombies and pluck that one out and say, I want to make a movie about these kinds of zombies. Yes, you know what I mean? I am intrigued also by the idea of the zombies kind of relieving moments from their life. I've seen that in other stuff, and the girl with all the gifts. Do you remember there was a zombie, like mother pushing a Yes, and I've seen this in some other media to this idea, you know, that just enough of their memory or personhood remains for them to repeat, you know, tasks that were important to them. I think that is an interesting idea. Okay, let's move on though. We got to get through your four pillars of the zombie movie, how does this movie stand up to them, John? What's the first pillar? Well, the first one is in Apocalypse, which I would say no. It's a threat in Apocalypse, but we're not in Apocalypse. I'm going to pass on that one. It's not contagious. There's no contagion here. Now, tough moral choices. What do you think about this one? Again, I'm with to the point where they're making moral choices, but they don't seem that challenging to them. Sort of back to your point of just sort of hand-waving any moral difficulties. What do you think about that? These are mad scientist moral choices, which is. Yes. They're moral choices, and they are maybe a little bit tough, but nobody really wrestles with them. You know, there's a little bit of hand ringing about like we shouldn't have murdered Elsa, you know, but nothing that really rises to a meaningful moral stress. I don't think no, but the big one is loved ones turning against you. You know, because at the end, first of all, Elsa uses zombie arms to strangle people, but she doesn't love any of these people, but I think there's something really scary about it, and I wonder, I'm starting to think about the Cold War and paranoia, you know, what if your neighbor is secretly a Nazi? What if your neighbor is secretly a communist? Yeah. Right? Like what if, you know, and what if your father, was a Nazi all along and you're just finding out now. Yes. I think there's really something to that and there's a genuine horror there, and then when he tries to kill her, you know, so I'm interested to see hey how we got to this point but where we go from this point we're not that far this is 1966 from night at a living zombies or sorry night of the living dead so i'd be curious when we go back in time back to the forties and move forward if we start to see a little bit more of this loved one's turning against you think because that's always been the scariest part of zombie movies to me and i wonder if they're they're starting to latch on to the night of the living good I mean, it's what are we, we're just two years away, two years. It has an utterly iconic scene of love turning against them. So yeah, that is interesting. It is, this movie doesn't really seem to think that that has as much weight as other stuff that it spends way more time on. It's, it's a very fast, almost throwaway scene where father tries to kill her. I mean, it's over in probably 15 seconds. Yeah, I just wonder if that inspired somebody in the future. I wonder that too. So, okay, lastly, John, would you and I survive in this zombie world? I don't know, Nazi is a kind of scary, and there are Nazis with guns here. I don't know if we get killed by a zombie, but this plot seems more serious than John Carrotting trying to use lilies from the swamp to raise zombies. Yeah, I think this is a unlike a lot of the movies we've watched where the you really are only in danger if you let yourself get drawn into like the like the little love triangle of some divented family and the Caribbean right this is something you know that could threaten you and and you know the idea that there's all these like Nazi sleeper agents all over the place I think is is almost more threatening than zombie part of this but. who are totally willing to just kill people to meet their own hands, right? Lubek would kill you in a second if he thought you knew something. Carl would kill you in a second if he thought it would advance the research. Yeah, the random lady Jean meets in town who's a Nazi is willing to, you know, has willing to kill himself. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah. So, John, do you recommend this movie to our listeners to fans of zombie movies? I'm of several minds about this because I love that there's there's a couple of just delightfully shlocky creepy things in it. The wall of arms, Elsa's head on the table like as of as a fan of horror movies like that's a yes for me. But as a fan of zombie movies, I just am having trouble fitting the zombies in this movie into the broader zombie narrative though. I think you may be I would say, I'm going to say yes, despite the boring second act, I'm going to say yes, watch this. I think I would say that too. It's a, it's a little hard to recommend this movie, like on its own merits. Right. If you're interested in zombie stuff, I do think there is just enough stuff in here that's zombie adjacent. and zombie interesting to make it worth watching. I mean, it probably is worth watching it just to see Elsa's head in the cabinet because that's a neat practical effect. And I got to say the poor actress, for instance, musician, does make the most of it. She looks angry, she snarl, she begs for death like, yeah, it's fairly moving actually at times. Yes. So, yeah, I'll give this But I don't also, I don't think you're going to learn a ton about the zombie genre from this movie. Right. So, okay. Yeah. All right. Do you guys know about the 1962 movie called The Brain That Wouldn't Die? No. Where that film? I have not seen it. I knew that before I knew this one, that's when it was on like the creature feature Saturday afternoon as kids. It's a scientist who's got a head in a box on his table and he's trying to regenerate organs. I must have seen it. I think it's black and white and it's a woman's head and she's got kind of like a cast like a white skull cap on yeah yeah Yep, I mean it's very similar to this same idea with the props how it's staged Interesting, do I feel like this film stole a lot from that one? Yeah, what I'm learning is that like mid-century America was just obsessed with preserving human organs Right, like what the heck is there a medical advance somewhere around here that I don't know who knows But yeah, this is the scariest part of each episode John because you and I are about to learn what we're gonna watch next I'm ready. All right. I'm ready. I have good news Our zombie forecast predicts a flurry of Bella Legosi First we're going to pick up where we left off in the forties and watch voodoo man. Oh There's Bella he's holding his hands up like hey Um, I thought, okay. So it's 1944. Okay. Let me describe the poster. Do we have technology to not make things look green? Is that in 1944? Okay. I just want to say the first jump. So the, the foot, the poster is like split into three sections at the top. There is Bella Legosi in a Tuxedo. Holding his hands up with a, you know, a sinister beard and staring. There's a good shadow of behind him too. Yes, making it a very interesting. Like I thought I thought this was like just a regular photo, but I realized it's 1944, so it's probably black and white, but just like colored orange kind of to make him look like natural. And then below that is a green photo. There's like a guy and like a wizard robe in the background and like these women standing in these white like Greek robes. They look like Greek goddesses or something. And then it says Baila Legosi in Voodoo Man with John Carrotine and George Zuko. So yeah, I'm very curious about the wizard robe happening in the background here. Alright, Voodoo Man it is. You've been listening to zombie strains. We'll be back next episode to talk about another zombie movie. 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