Welcome to Zombie Strains, the podcast that watches all the zombie movies. Today we have an A-List Superstar.

(sound of automatic gunfire)

That was Charlton Heston and he is locked and loaded to fight for humanity's survival. But he's also armed with his wit.

Coming at you from 1971, it's The Omega Man!

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

Zombie.

Zombie?

What's 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!

The unburied dead are coming back to life and seeking human victims.

I’ve seen the dead rise.

Kill the brain, and you kill the ghoul.

Welcome to zombies trains that I'm John.

I'm Andy.

And I'm Brad

Guys a big budget an action movie Charlton Heston. What is this podcast? I don't even know. Here's my question that intro music we have has a lot of cool quotes about zombies, but we need a special edition version of it that has our favorite quotes for movies that would include things like okay baby hitch up your drawers. And shoot that chassis over to you, yes, yeah, yeah, so get on it. Yeah, sir, Brad. Please. All right. And as you if you didn't know from the intro, we're watching the Omega Man genre film that Trouton has been made in 1971, where you famously others the line get your damn hands off me. You damn decaying zombie. I think that's this movie, right? No, something something something like this Yeah, what a trip this was. I remember seeing this as a young person and the experiences in a adult person is very different. This is one of the, I hate to sound pretentious, but the most rich texts we've ever watched as far as like cultural commentary and context. Yeah, like remember we kept saying during the sixties like we made predictions and like, And like we were bummed that a diverse never seemed to get there and here we go, 70s, right out of the gate, like full 70s, 100% pedal to the metal. Such a 70s movie. Yeah, it's fantastic. And this gave me, I have a lot of hope for the movies to come. Oh, that's not. That's a cue for producer Brad. Did just crush us coming up, but yeah. I wish I had a cue for ominous music, but I don't think I was. Well, on a series, now before we jump in, so recently, as of this recording, we're probably a little bit in your past listeners, but a same meal passed away, who was an amazing actor. Most famous for Jurassic Park. I don't know if how many, I mean millions of people know this, but of our listeners, I don't know who knows this. He is also, he was never in a zombie movie that I'm aware of, but he was in some absolute bangers of horror movies, and I thought we might just take a minute to talk about a couple of performances. I know what my favorite is, Andy, but I'm going to let you go first because I think you're going to pick the same thing. Well, I don't know if it's, uh, I don't know. Well, the most memorable performance I have seen him in, that's not Jurassic Park is event horizon. That's great. Yes, which I was trying to think of that had anything that we could technically shoot horn into being a zombie, but I don't think so. I don't think so. That is such a wonderful scene during performance. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. It's just an over the top film. And he perfectly embodies what that film is going for, which is just pure, or cheese. And I'll pick a similar one. Often overlooked, but I think it is, one of John Carpenter's best movies. in the mouth of madness, starring Sam Neal. He's extraordinary and it's an extraordinary movie, like it is a great horror movie and a lot of people don't think so. I happen to think it's brilliant and he's brilliant in it. The year after he made Jurassic Park, he makes this, well, it's not low budget but just like like skeesy, shlaki horror movie directed by John Carpenter, it's amazing. You made me watch this John about a year ago. Yeah, I was so glad that you did. That was it. If you're listening to this podcast and you haven't seen it, I guarantee you're going to like it. Yeah. And actually one of his first roles, well, I shouldn't say one of his first. But an early role would actually in the Omen 3, the final conflict, not a great movie. However, Sam Neil plays the adult Damian who's trying to bring him out at the end of the world and he's great. And like I can't even recommend them, but he's absolutely fantastic in it. So does he play jog my memory? Is he like a businessman anti-Christ in that movie? Yes, he's a corporate businessman, anti-Christ in that movie. Okay, 100%. So you heard it, John loves that movie and he thinks everyone's your wife. And I heard this rumor Brad, but also I've been told after our Avengers episode that I am not to confidently state things about James Bond movies ever again. But, but wasn't he considered for the role of Bond at one point? Yes, and you can go online and you can find audition tapes that they've been leaked by now. Oh, okay. He also said he never wanted it. So who knows how much effort he put into it. Yeah. listeners, we were raked over the calls by a listener over our Avengers episode. Yes, yes, I don't know. I would shout out if I can, yeah, yes. Well, not raked over the calls for the episode just for some of the facts that you stated or didn't state. Yeah, I think my first mistake was when you Andy when you said you're a bond guy right and I said yeah, and then I managed to get every basic bond question completely wrong for the next hour. So, except for the cars, I got the cars right. That's really all that matters. All right, well, we're not actually delaying because we don't like this movie. It's a fascinating movie. Charlton has an in the Omega Man. How about you tell us how this came to be, Brad? This full of interesting that guys and stories and lay it on us. All right, the Omega Man was released on August 1st, 1971 by Warner Brothers. It's the first big budget Hollywood studio film we have seen on zombie streams. The budget was just under $4 million. All the other films we have watched were B movies, Independence, or Foreign Films. Now, the Omega Man was not the only post-apocalyptic or dystopian film from 1971. Also released were George Lucas's THX1138 and Stanley Kubrick's a Clockwork Orange. I've seen both of those films also released, by the way, we're dirty hairy in the French connection. Yes. Dirty hairy sort of leans a little bit into this kind of world with its view of violence and justice. Yeah. Yes, we're entering a phase where we're like the gun somebody carries is like a thing now that will go away in later action movies, but it's all over this movie for sure The Omega Man is the second story to be adapted twice that we have watched on zombie strains. We've already watched two versions of the 1909 play, The Ghost Breakers. The first was the 1940 film The Ghost Breakers starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard. It was adapted again in 1953 and retitled scare stiff with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. One of John's favorite. I'm been trying to forget that for months, Brad. No, it is literally, but carry on. The first version of the IM legend novel we watch was the last man on Earth from 1964 starring Vincent Price. So the Mega Man is the second adaptation of this novel, and there will be a third in a couple of decades. That's right. The film was shot in Los Angeles and to achieve a deserted city, the filmmaker shot the exterior city scenes on Sunday mornings when downtown LA was empty. I don't know if you noticed the other cheat they did, they would often just freeze frame. Yeah, they catch a moment where there's nothing out there. They just freeze it. Yeah. The exterior of Charlton has since apartment was a set on the Warner Bros. Ranch, a studio near the main Warner Bros. Lot. And you've probably seen glimpses of this facade many times over the years. The fountain used in the friend's TV show title sequence was in the park just in front of this facade. And if you freeze frame at the right time when friends is playing, you can see the windows of Chuck's place. Now, this lot was recently renovated, and the streets and building scene in the Mega Man are gone. The fountain was preserved and moved to the main Warner Brothers lot. Cool. Boris, say, got all directed to the Mega Man. He was mostly a TV director in the 60s. He directed episodes of Dr. Kiel Derr, the man from Uncle and the Twilight Zone. He also directed the 1965 Elvis film, Girl Happy. In the 70s and 80s, he directed many he is the father of Katie sigal who played peg Bundy unmarried with children. Oh my gosh. And he died in 1981 at the age of 57. Whoa. I don't like that. Am I wrong? Did he die in a dramatic way? He did. He was working on one of these many series and he exited a helicopter and turned the wrong way. Unfortunately, into the tail rotor. Oh my god. Speaking of being 57 though, Charlton has seen his 48 in this movie and kind of puts me to shame. But I guess that's his job, right? How's it been in wife John and Joyce Corrington wrote the screenplay? John earned a master's of arts degree, a PhD in philosophy, and then a law degree. Joyce was an engineer with a PhD in chemistry. Joyce had never the lead character played by Charleston, was created by combining the poetic side of John with the cold side side of Joyce. Interesting. And it was Joyce's knowledge and fear of germ warfare that led to the Mega Man using that as its theme. Together, they wrote five screenplays between 69 and 74. The first script was for the 1969 Roger Corman film, Bun Rick Tulfant and Brown. I miss that one. Same here. Barton Scorsese, he directed their third script, Boxcar Bertha, another Corman production. They also wrote the fifth and final script in the original Planner of the H series, battle for the planet of the apes. After these films, they went back to their regular jobs, John worked at a law firm in Joyce taught chemistry, but they went back to writing in 1979 this time in soap operas. They wrote on the search for tomorrow before creating their own soap opera Texas, which ran for two years in the early 80s. And John died in 1988. Ron Grainer composed the music. He wrote the Doctor Who theme music, which was then arranged by Delia Derbyshire for the series. Oh, wow. This has a really memorable soundtrack. The music was really stood out at times. Yes. And sometimes it was a real hit and sometimes it was a real hit. Yes. Well, his version of Doctor Who is different than what we know. And when he heard Derbyshire's version, he said, I wrote that. And she said, well, some of it. So she made some changes to it. He also wrote the theme to the President or TV series, and he died in 1981. Oh, there's a couple of bangers. Yeah. Russell Metti was a cinematographer. His first credit was in 1934. In over his career, he worked on some famous films. He did bringing up baby with Carrie Grant and Katherine Hepburn. Douglas Cirks, magnificent obsession. Orson Wells, touch of evil, starring Charlton Heston. Yeah. Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus and the first episode of Columbus directed by Steven Spielberg. And he died in 1978. You know who loves Columbus? I do. Yes. But so does Andy's. Andy's my wife. Let's get one more. Yeah. Now on to the cast. Charlton Heston starred as Devil, the military scientist. His first film was in 1941, but his breakout role was in the 1952 film The Greatest Show on Earth. He became known for epic period films like The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, and Elsid. In 1968, he starred in the Planet of the Apes, which led to a series of dystopian and post-apocalyptic films, including the Omega Man and Soilant Green. Soilant Green, can I just interject here? So, Charlton's pivot to genre. I just have never been sure if it is because he was so successful or because the world was sort of passing him by and he grabbed with the genre pictures to stay relevant like like he's sort of a legend now but was this in a period like a phallopyrid frame? I mean this is a big budget picture so I'm assuming not but I was never sure Well, it's not a big, big budget. It's big compared to what we've seen. And I think by the late 60s, his star had dimmed. And so I think he did accept roles. He may not have accepted in the past. Was he considered like a squeaky clean sort of all American guy or not necessarily? Well, one of the quotes from Rosalind Cash, who plays Lisa in this film, is she wasn't concerned about the interracial relationship they were having. She was concerned that she was going to screw Moses and what would the public think? So he played Moses in the 10 Commandments. Yeah, he was, I mean, he's a fairly conservative, squeaky clean kind of guy. They obviously he does his fair share of drinking and whatnot. But, yeah. Hastin died in 2008. All right. Anthony Zerby played Mateus, before the Omega Man his biggest parts were a cool hand Luke and the Colmy Mr. Tibbs. He's a total vet guy. Yeah, he has had a long career as a character actor and if you don't know his name, you know his face. He was the, this one I'm gonna test you guys on. He was the evil inventor and kiss meets the Phantom of the Park. I missed that one. And did you see that? I, you know, surprisingly, I did not catch that one. Well, it was on TV in the sevens. I think you were a little young, but I feel like you might have like kiss at some point in your life. You know, I, like, I grew up a little on the sheltered side, and kiss was on the other side of the line of acceptability, so. All right. So Zerby also played Admiral Dordy in Star Trek and Selection, and Councilor Hammond in the Matrix Related and the Matrix Revolutions. Yeah, I read a quote just looking at him and IMDB like he's born to play a villain and he had a quote where He said one year I was responsible for the deaths of 178 people in the movies and TV shows I was in though. I think 74 of them were in one episode of TV so I feel like I should be able to call to mind his role in Star Trek insurrection, but it's I'm coming up blank, but fair enough. He plays the admiral who ends up being kind of nefarious and I'm trusting, I'm trust worthy. I haven't seen that film in a long time, so that's all I know. I've never seen that film, because I watched the trailer first. Yeah. Yeah, not considered one of the high points of Star Trek motion picture history, but hey, Alright, Rosalind Cache played Lisa. The Omega Man was her second film. Her film debut was a bit part and clute. The Donald Sutherland and Jane Findafillm that was released a few months before the Omega Man. In the 70s, she had guest appearances on many TV shows including the Mary Tyler Moore show, good times, what's happening and star-skinned hutch. She played John M. Doll, the leader of the Black Electroids in the Adventures of Buckaroo Bonsai. That's so exciting. And if you don't remember the Black Electroids were the good ones and the Red Electroids were the bad ones. And here's the fact for the two of you for your next zombie team TV show in season four of Night Rider, cash played Harana, a voodoo princess who steals art and jewels. Well, nice. Are we gonna get to watch an episode of Night Rider as part of this podcast? We might have to do that as our 70s, 80s transition, maybe. I think that would be something fun for you guys. It's not a truths on the episode, so I don't think we should watch it in the main. now mainstream she's definitely one of these people who just became a working actor right like she's in her list of TV shows in the eighties right history blues you know all of the procedures cagnan lacy and then in the nineties is the same thing she just worked like as an actor like you do so and one of her last credits was exactly the producer on the real world for mtv wow Eric, a lot of you who played Richie, the teen and need of Neville's help, is probably best known for playing Luther Hawkins, the orderly on the show, St. Elsewhere. Yeah. He then directed 20 episodes of St. Elsewhere and became a successful TV director. He directed episodes of Head of the Class, that lay law, midnight collar, doogie house, everybody hates Chris, lost heroes, agents of shield, and Chicago fire. Yeah. All right, now, did you notice the Warner Bros. logo in the title sequence? Yeah, it said something else though. It had it, and I didn't write it down, but I noted it at the time. Well, first, the shield itself was different. It was a stylized 1970s version of the WV shield. And below it, it read a Kenny Leisure service. Yes, that was, that was very odd. What is that about? So Kenny was a large corporation that controlled a variety of companies, things like funeral homes, parking lots, and cleaning and maintenance companies. And then in the late 60s, they decided they wanted to get into the entertainment business, and when the first companies they bought was National Periodic Publications. which we know better as DC Comics. Oh, in 69, they then bought Warner Brothers Seven Arts, which was struggling. And from 69 to 72, the Kenny Leisure Service was seen below the Warner Brothers Shield on films. That's amazing. In 72, Kenny divided into two separate companies, National Kenny Corporation and Warner Communications. And so since Warner Brothers is being bought right now, I thought it'd be fun just to go through the other times, we've seen other companies below the Shield. In 89 Warner Bros. merged with Time Inc and under the shield it read a Time Warner Company in 2001 AOL bought Time Warner and it read an AOL Time Warner Company And so now that Paramount Studios is buying Warner Bros, though it's being fought, you might soon see a Paramount Sky Dance Company under the Warner Brothers shield. It's bananas. Yeah, but it just keeps happening over and over. It's interesting, and I think DC Comics, we could probably do something similar, has changed hands a number of times. I know Marvel Comics has as well. So... Well, those are the facts for this film. Andy, do you want to treat us to some history? I do. I have a good chunk of historical context for us, but I will. I am very excited to discuss this movie. So I'll try to move this through this as efficiently as I can. But I I don't have so much as some like actual events or dates that were happening at this time. But I pegged three or so themes that were going on at the time this movie came out in 1971 and are incredibly reflected in this film. So the first and the hugest one I just have in all in the during the 60s and early 70s, there was a genuine rise in urban crime rates. the causes for this are much discussed and very complex. And I'm no expert. They include things like an epidemic of inexpensive heroine, huge changes in what you might call unskilled labor opportunities. But the primary explanation historians give for the crime spike in this time, the specific place in a lot of American cities is simply that there were a ton of kids. the baby boomers were coming of age at this time. And statistically, the vast majority of crimes are committed by males under the age of 24. And there are simply a lot of males under the age of 24 this time. So that's very interesting. This was exploited sometimes very cynically by politicians like Nixon and others, Nixon ran famously on a law and order ticket. Yep. This is the era of white flight where middle-class white Americans were relocating to the suburbs, just as millions of black Americans were relocating to those cities, often fleeing oppression and economic change in the rural south. Yep, in 1968, just before this we had lots of riots, right? There were riots in Detroit. Yes, Los Angeles. So it's a lot of riots with with very over racial elements. And as a result, a lot of many middle-class Americans felt, I guess, quote, besieged in their own homes. This was sort of a time when you started double-locking your door at night, maybe when you only went into the city during the day, when you felt it was safe, etc. etc. And politicians and pundits started pandering to what was called the silent majority. This, if you were a member of the silent majority, you were an honest, hardworking, Godfaring American who is just trying to live your life, that's right. But you were persecuted by hippies, druggies, liberals, and young people with their strange music and strange attitudes. And that is so all over this movie, but if I may interject something, I know somebody who never locked their door. His name was Alan Dumont, father of producer Brad Dumont's. That was true. and look where you are now. Look where you are now. Yeah, I just remember going in the case is my mom would always run back to the house to lock the door and go, I didn't to lock it. I was really leaving for a week. That's great. So all this means that I bring this up because by the early mid 70s, a whole genre of what you might call vigilante fantasy movies springs up. I think this is a good example of it, but this is where like an honest American is pushed too far. Dirty hair. And has to take the lawn to their own hands. Dirty hair. I think came out the same year or very soon after this movie did. And I think death wish is often cited as the culmination of this genre. And then also you got to remember that just a couple years earlier, 1969, were the Manson murders, that's right, which are often kind of looked at and as having revealed the dark side of the utopian sixties dream. And, uh, if you want to read a good book about this, I read a book, a year or so ago called Chaos Charles Manson, the CIA, and the secret history of the 60s by Tom O'Neill, and he goes in and, and, and, um, debunks a lot of the mythology of the Manson murders in a way that's very informative. Um, and, you know, it's something, I don't want to knock you off your groove, Andy, but, like something that I found interesting about this movie is, It's the most overtly political film we've watched by a long shot, and I think that prior to the late 60s, prior to even the mid 60s, which are a big tumultuous time, I just don't think you talked about politics outside of your house. Yeah, like it just wasn't acceptable and then in 1971, you had this movie where this movie is all about politics, you know what I mean? Yeah. In the series, we can talk about as we get in the movie itself, but when you talk about Manson, his followers were called his family. Yep, yes. And in this film, these zombie creatures are called the family oh yeah very this is one of the least subtle movies yes and yes and somehow I was saying this to be the best before he stopped recording I didn't see this when I was like I don't know 10 or 11 or something and yeah missed all that oh right over that it was just Jonathan has some of the gun that's what I was there for Well, I have two more cultural context things they'll go quicker than that first one. I wanted to really nail that crime thing, because I think that has its fingerprints all over this movie. Absolutely. But yeah, so obviously in the early 70s, the Vietnam war is not over yet, but specifically there is widespread discomfort with the way that scientific progress that was maybe exciting and exhilarating and hopeful a decade or two earlier. instead is being used on national TV to kill and destroy rather than improve the world. Part of that was a fear of biological warfare as a potentially civilisation ending threat joining nuclear weapons as one of many ways the world could end. And I think in this time you So you have your Cold War fears that have been lurking behind these zombie movies for decades now. But by this time, well into the Quagware of Vietnam, I feel like our fears were sort of adapting to the merciness of the real world, so whereas in earlier decades, the apocalypse might come In this movie, I don't think it is at all a coincidence that a marginal conflict in a distant part of the world sort of escalates and drags the entire globe into an apocalypse that nobody wants. So, not be a coincidence that this movie came out in the middle of the Vietnam War. No, absolutely not. It wasn't the Russian Russia or Sinai or Yes. All right, the last thing I want to mention, it's a huge topic I'm not going to get into it because I'm not qualified, but this is the era of black power and black's playtation and the weird ways that they clashed with each other and empower each other. Basically, a new generation of civil rights leaders has come along. They are younger and they're more radicalized than people like Martin Luther King Jr. Yep. And black power movements start to displace the more traditional civil rights movements that were represented by that sort of older generation of leaders. this new generation emphasizes things like self-defense instead of nonviolence, and generally emphasize themes of self-reliance among marginalized communities. And when this movement bumped into Hollywood, it created the black exploitation film genre. which this film has at least a couple of toes into for sure and this is a genre film that is sort of leans into these themes of heroes who are fighting a corrupt system and in particular black women finding empowerment and control over their lives is a big theme of these movies. And I think that's going to come up at our discussion of the Omega Man, and with that, I'm going to stop talking. All right. Before we jump into the whole movie, let me give a short summary of the plot of this film, so people can follow along. The film opens with Charlton Heston, who is Robert Neville. He is driving around the city of Los Angeles, and he stops and shoots it a shadow that is in a building. And we learn very quickly that he is alone in downtown Los Angeles, and he is fighting a war against these sort of zombie vampire-like creatures who can't stand the sun and only come out at night, they are led by Matthias, and they call themselves the family. As he's conducting this war, he runs into another woman who hasn't been turned into one of these zombies. We found her name is Lisa, and she's actually connected with a group of other survivors who As the film goes on, they ask Charlton Heston, who is a former army scientist before the Apocalypse, to help them cure one of their own, a kid named Richie. He's able to develop a surm that does this. And it looks like everybody's going to escape and live happily ever after. However, that is not Robert Neville's destiny. And as things start to fall apart, as he tries to rescue Lisa, uh, representative of the world of science to be killed in this new world. And we're left with a kind of not optimistic, but not completely pessimistic ending as the last of the survivors drive off into the sunset with their new serum. So, did I miss any of the big ones there, any? No, I'm, I'm impressed you were able to sum it up that succinctly, actually. All right, well, let's get into this because though there's a lot of politics in this movie, it is a movie, right? Like it is a movie about action stuff. So, it starts with, Trout to it has to just driving around somewhat recklessly. I don't think we get any of this in in last man on earth. I think you do get it in the 2017 abaction. I am legend, but he's driving first of all he's driving a big, so the one thing I'll observe about these cars in motorcycles and there's many of them in this movie. Most of them with a couple exceptions are late model. Like his first car is a 1974 XL, which would have been the new model when they shot this movie. It's a convertible, bright red. Later he trades it in for a 1974 Mustang convertible. uh... hand the first thing that sort of loses in his there's nobody around but then he stops suddenly pulls out a sub-machine gun and like shoots at somebody running inside a building uh... and did you notice the sped up film in this little sequence here yes i did yes special effects they call it you know just for the look of this movie one thing i find fascinating and pretty surcharge you might know more than i mean i know you know more than i do but This movie looks like there's another movie that came out this year, right, which are the year before, which is Patton, which is another sort of serious drama, which is another movie I didn't get until I was older. I thought it was a fun movie about a cranky general turns out it's a Vietnam War propaganda, but anyway, When you're inside in these shots, it looks like old studio lighting and shooting. It's just kind of cheap looking to modern eyes. But I feel like in a few years, we're going to get the godfather and all of that changes. And I don't know what I actually changed it. But I feel like we're in this sort of last gasp of the sort of cheap interior shot. Does that make sense? Yeah, that does. I think this was a very striking opening sequence. Yes. I think this is by far our most zombie-esque traveling through the dead city sequence that we have seen yet, our most developed version of this. We've seen smaller versions of this or someone has been traveling through kind of an abandoned city, but this really captures that like this city is dead. He goes through, we needed to go into details. Well, he ends up accidentally crashing his car. He's got to, you know, before we talk about the car crash, can we talk about the gun? He is, you're going to talk about cars and stuff. Yeah, tell me about this gun, Andy. All right, you may be already know this, John, but so. This is an iconic gun, iconic movie gun that he uses to shoot at some quickly glimpsed figures. He stands up in his car and shoots a Smith and Wesson M76 submachine gun. And this is an important gun because it's used in this specific movie made it, and I like a common weapon and action movies going forward for the next decade or two. So, I don't know if you know any of the history of this gun, it's kind of fun. It was really hastily designed for use by Navy SEALs around this time. Do you know they had to replace a gun that another company refused to sell to us, because they didn't want it used in the Vietnam War, can you guess what country refused to sell us a gun? Yes, a famously neutral country, of course, the trademark gun of the Navy Seals was a submachine gun called the Swedish K. But Sweden being a neutral country declined to sell it to the US for use in a war zone. So the US scrambled to make a replacement and they made this. And if you notice, it has sort of a rough and ugly look to it. It has no aesthetic features. It looks like if you took a gun and you just had the metal parts you needed to shoot bullets, Exactly. And there is a reason for that. And that is because of the speed with which they needed to produce this gun, they skipped the phase of manufacturing, where on a normal weapon, hard edges and welding lines would be smoothed out to make it more aesthetically appealing. It's also got this big flare stopper, like it's got a, it's hard to describe, like this. It's not a silencer, but it's designed to cut down on muzzle flare and it's got a giant one. You can't even hold it. Several times he's holding it by that, not really shooting, but I mean like that would get really hot, really fast. Yeah. So this gun wasn't very commercially successful, but it did end up getting used in a ton of 70s and 80s action movies, and it recently appeared in a famous superhero movie, John. Do you know what movie it was featured in prominently? No, I don't. It is the gun that the Joker fires in the dark night. Man, when Batman has just like crashed the Joker's semi-trap. Yeah, yeah. And Batman's like racing at him on the bat, biker, whatever. and the Joker and a kind of memorable shot comes out shooting this particular gun wildly. Yeah, interesting. All right. That's all my gun facts. Let's get back to the meeting. All right. Well, then so he crashes his car just because he's sort of driving him responsibly. So he goes to the car dealership and picks up a 1974 Mustang. Now what's interesting here is that he has started to sort of talk, he talks to himself, but not to himself, like in the corner of the dealership that somebody at the sales desk, and he sort of has his running conversation under his breath. about the car he's going to take is if that person were alive and he does this a lot throughout the first act of this movie and he definitely does it here. I, you know, it's hard to watch this movie and not compare it to the last man on earth. Yes, but I really liked the many touches in this movie, like the many ticks that he's developed just on his own for years. So here's the interesting part, and I like this is the part that sort of tipped me off to the sort of politics of this film. He goes to a movie theater and what movie does he watch, Andy? He's watching the 1970 Woodstock documentary. That's right. And he puts the film on and he sits down to watch it. But I would describe him as hate watching this movie. Like they let the hippies speak about love and connection and all this stuff. And he is like sneering at the screen, because he's surrounded by an apocalypse that he clearly blames on these people. Isn't he? Did you get that vibe too? I do. He knows all the words to the movie. He's speaking along with the dialogue, but he's doing it in a contemptuous way. and you know for a guy who's trying to survive on his own in a big city he loses track of time and this is our first cue. He steps out of the theater. He looks around and he says the following. My god, Joe was dark. They'll be waking up soon. So a panic trout in Heston runs to his car and continues to drive like a maniac. This is seen as similar, we could spend the whole movie comparing this to the last mine on Earth, and I don't want to, but this scene is very similar when he gets home, he's ambushed by some creatures in long black cloaks that we can't see all that well. Yes. These, however, I mean, again, we'll try not to just always compare and contrast to last month on earth, but these ones are a little different than the ones who are mobbing his house in last month on earth. How are these cloaked figures different than the Fierle vampires of last man? Well, they're they're intelligent and they can ambush and plan. They have human intelligence. They're not, you know, in last levels of vampires or zombies, so to speak, there aren't in this one. It's just one level. And they're all intelligent and capable of action and planning. Yes. In their motion, their ability to move hasn't been diminished. Correct. Like in the last man. Yeah. So they have a fairly sophisticated ambush for him, waiting at his house. Like I think one of them, I don't know if it's a Molotov or something like that, but they try to catch them with a fire bomb and then a bunch of others spring out in the ambush, so we're going to have to talk a little bit later about exactly what are the mental capabilities of these quasi zombies, but at least so far they seem like a more dangerous threat than just simple mindless zombies. Yeah, and then we get our first big stunt, too. Like the other thing, I want to point out, this is our first action movie. Like this is an action movie with action in it. It's got stunt driving and shooting. And like the first big stunt is there's one of the zombies so to speak, gets on the back of his car and he slams on the brakes and it flies over the car. into a pile of cardboard boxes and then he shoots it and then the last one, the fourth one escapes. So yeah, it's sort of intense seeing that shows what his life is like. And then we're going to spend a lot of time with him and his bunker. And I can't recall before we get into sort of bunker time, learning about his life inside, is do we get our first look at the family here? or is it after he sort of started to have flashbacks? It's a little bit after. It's like there's kind of a lengthy scene at this point that shows him we get a sense of his daily rhythms in his apartment. And it's at this point that we get our first flashbacker to and we start cutting over to the family where we learn that the the mutant vampire whatever's are quite a bit more intelligent than they were in the last version of the story. Yeah so here's what's fascinating to me so they they have a couple of flashbacks here they're a very explicit like there's this marginal conflict it gets out of hand a bio weapon causing this conflict. As part of these flashbacks, we get a newscaster, a regular normal person, who sort of makes these judgmental newscasts. This is Anthony Zerby, the actor. He is also the leader of the court and court family, Matthias. So we see him before the apocalypse, as well as after the aspect to them. But his sort of alone time here is slightly less desperate. I think the Vincent prices, right? Like he's got his generator going. He's got a he's set up a bust of Caesar with his with his own military cap on it and he talks to Caesar and says chess. I found that pretty charming. Yeah, have you ever seen chess pieces that are taller than the ones used in his These are like six inch high chess pieces. I've had this very 70s to have gigantic ornate chess pieces Well, the world was his oyster. You could have any set. He wanted right. Yes, all right However, as this is going on, we get our first taste of the family, and we get there's an assault on his building, right, which he has fortified, but I want to introduce because we get Matthias and his sidekick having a conversation here, which is our first intro, and they're having an argument about how to kill Neville. They've made it clear that Neville is the last representative of the old humanity, the humanity that destroyed itself through over-reliance on technology. And the family have sworn not to do that, so I've got a clip here where Mattias is explaining this to his sidekick who wants to use modern weaponry to kill Neville, and he's telling him why they can't do that. The family is one, but him, that thing, at the creature of the wheel, at the Lord of the Infernal Engines and Machines. So we're introduced to the family and they're out look on life. What do you think about this? And because now we've said, like, we're about 15, 20 minutes in. And we've had this look at Woodstock. We've had this comparison with the family and contrast it with Charlton Heston and his old life. Like, tell me where we are or where your heads at at this point in this movie. So I had never seen this movie. So I was caught really off guard by the fact that the quote, vampires in this movie are basically they're sort of like a primitivist cult. Yeah, right. They're led by this charismatic Matthias, an obvious stand-in for, you know, the Manson family, I think. Yep. But they represent sort of anti-progress. They, it was science and technology and medicine and tools and electricity that led to, the apocalypse and so they renounce those things and they won't even use those things to kill their nemesis, Charlton Heston here. So yeah, they actually rig up a catapult with balls of flaming pitch to fling at his house. Yes. And they're pretty accurate with it, which is surprising. Yeah, they get it in the window. But they may be they wish to use technology because what is, what is, uh, Neville come out with to blow them all away. This is a very famous gun as well. Neville comes out with a giant chunker of a gun. This is a browning automatic rifle, BAR, and it's like the iconic machine gun of the mid-century. Would you say? Yeah, it's like a platoon in World War II. We get issued one of these to like. most stuff down. Yeah, this gun was around for decades. What famous criminal duo used this in their crime spree? Oh, I don't know. Bonnie and Clyde. Oh, really? I think they saw the barrels down, but, um, but yes. Did they use it in the movie, too? I did that, I do not know. Oh, wow. Because this would be a heck of a thing to carry around. Like, yeah, so this was developed for use in World War I, but it was used all the way through the Vietnam War at the time this movie takes place at this kind of obsolete. It was about to be replaced by the M60. It was reliable and well-regarded, but with all of the stuff that Neville has tricked it out with, which includes a starlight scope and a huge red infrared lamp. Yeah. This sucker probably weighs about 20 pounds, so yeah, it's kind of crazy. So that's right, tucking handle it. Yeah, Chuck can absolutely handle it. Now, yeah, he like picks off a bunch of the family outside with it and basically drives them off. That's right. That's right. So one sort of last flashback here because I want to bring you up because it's also kind of hilarious. So we finally get to know his job, which was he was working. The last thing he was doing was he was a military scientist and we was trying to find a vaccine for this plague. And he, you know, his agreed, let's do one more test. He packs up his bag of vaccine stuff. He gets in a helicopter and what happens in the helicopter, any? Well, while the air flying around, the pilot of the helicopter succumbs to the plague. Yes. So we haven't really talked about this, but when the plague came here. Let's take a look at the plague. Yeah, it's surprisingly non-gory or gross. Like, I think they missed a chance to have people vomiting up through some fluids and getting oils on their faces and stuff. You just kind of clutch your head and within a few seconds you're dead. Yeah. So that happens to the pilot of the helicopter, but then we see that Neville has contracted the plague. He starts gripping his head as if just like every other victim does. So the helicopter, when it's Chuck Heston, he grabs his face. like it's like with this giant hand like and it's just a little over the top. It's just always more epic with him. Even his death. Yeah, the helicopter veers off and crashes. And it doesn't bump on the ground. No, it explodes. And then we see Neville like lying on the ground all bloody. I'm like, I don't think so. But anyway. Yes, that was I noted the same thing. But he crawls to his briefcase, which contained like a test experimental vaccine for the plague. And he just injects himself. And so this is the film's He is immune because alone among humanity, he took the test vaccine that worked. That's right. So we get, we're gonna do, there's a few things I wanna move through here, but so now we know why he's immune. Now we know how he's alone. Now we know why he wants to kill the family. We learned some things about these zombies though, so let me describe them. First of all, they lose all coloration in their skin hair and eyes. They're like two super L by nose. And some of their skin sort of decays a little bit, but they have these white eye contacts in. They all wear sunglasses. They can't stand the light. However, they're not blood drinking or anything like that. They are, they still eat regular food, right? We discover. Yeah, because you talked, you mentioned some forging for food. And and his job what he's going to do now is he's hunting for their nest is what he says. If I can find the family's nest during the day, I can wipe them out, but he can't figure out where it is. And so that's this part of the movie is him sort of hunting around. Look, so I want to talk about the zombies a little bit more. Yeah, I'm sorry, jump first. So, no, it's so is this correct? When you get the plague, you most people just die within seconds. Yeah. Yeah. Some people were later going to learn our resistant, but we'll ultimately succumb to it, like maybe years down the road. Right. Some people, however, once you succumb to the plague, If you don't, if you aren't killed by it, you will be transformed by it into these pasty white things. And so what happens when you become one of these zombies? So it's suggested later in the film that you maybe become a ferole and attack everyone around you. Yes. However, Matthias, who is himself one of these pasty white zombies, is has the role of sort of cult leader where he controls them or as at least subdued them so they obey his commands. Did you understand the mechanism of what was happening here? Yeah, and I think what happens is you retain your sort of human intelligence, but you become much more aggressive and sort of, and maybe susceptible to suggestion, is that the idea? That's the idea. And I think this is a clear knock on hippies. Like if you want to know, What conservatives thought of hippies in 1970, here it is right here, right? It's these people who are all victims of group think, they listen to charismatic leaders who are leading them down the wrong path and they say crazy stuff that doesn't make any sense all the time, right? Like this is, yes. And the lines they say, I think, or what you hear, I think the reason we get to see the Woodstock movie, is to compare the actual things said by hippies to what Matthias and the family says, I think also, along those lines, early in the film, Matthias says sort of seems has regret that they can't return to their human state. Right. It's sort of implied, but then later in the film, he says something when someone says you aren't normal, he's offended by that. This is who we are. There is no going back, we can't go back. And it's implied that not that we choose not to, but we're unable to. And then later, when Lisa turns, Yeah. When she wakes up in this in this in the zombie state, she is babbling like she has turned against Charlene Heston. Yeah. And Mattias isn't around her at the time. So then it's implied that it's the plague that does it. So it's very confusing the rules with this plague throughout the film. Yes. I was a little surprised by sort of what seemed like the done. You know, that's a bit of a handway, but yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. But that's okay. The other thing I want to note is just that the that we talked about was the house when we say he's defending his house. It's like a penthouse apartment and it's in the city, not outside the city. I think that's important. Yes. Like he's he's got a fortress of his own in the city and every people roaming the city who when we foresee them they look it it might as well be footage of like looters right because they're like just mindlessly destructive for no real reason they just love going around and destroying uh things that represent progress so any kind of tool any kind of modern anything they just smash it and set it on fire absolutely So, he, on one of his hunts, he goes into a hotel, which has like shops in the lobby and that kind of thing. He's looking for some new clothes, he's being a bit lousy fare. He does discover a dead member of the family. So I think this is where the plague gets a little wonky too, because we don't know why they're dead. You know, I think they're just setting up the plague does eventually kill you. Yeah. I think the plague after it turns you into a zombie, there is a final state and that is death, right, which will ultimately come for you because at some point someone says Matias, you're not too far, you're very far gone. You're not too far from death or something like that. Yeah, absolutely. However, that's not the interesting bit when he comes back down. He, he awkwardly takes interest in a mannequin who's dressed in a bathing suit. It's really, it's really, like clearly this is Charlton Heston trying to do his mad voice. He's like, making moves. He is about to fondle a mannequin. He's a fondle a mannequin and he hears something he turns around and he looks at all the other mannequins and there's one that wasn't there before. And it's Rosalind Cash, who takes one look at him and sprints out the door. So I want to stop and describe her character Lisa, because we were talking a little bit about the, about how the, the stamp of sort of black power and those ideas are on this film. And she is the embodiment of that. Yes. Like you can give me, you know, I want you to add to this, but like we look at her. She's wearing a black turtleneck. brown leather pants in a jacket and has a giant teased out afro. She is like the poster child for black power and she has later we see she has a handgun as well. And she, I don't know what she was doing there, but then she flees and he chases her. So tell me about this, what you think of this intro in this first shot of, first of all, it's very silly that she pretends to be a mannequin for a second, which is kind of hilarious. But Hannah, what do you think about this? Her mannequin pose is really awkward. Yes. Like, if you have to stand perfectly still, you wouldn't stand like she's threatening, which is like with her legs bent and one leg up, I think the person. Yes. Anyway, she made a bad decision, but yeah, no, he chases her cross and I did like that like she loses him. Yeah, but I did like that he he imagines that he's just he's going crazy that he's made that he's got he's so far gone that he just chased like a fake man again across the city. Yes, but no she is a And she's going to be in this movie a lot if you just think of like a black power female protagonist. It's who this is. Yeah. You described her appearance, which very much matches the stereotype. And she also talks. She has the attitude that you expect from this sort of heroine. Right. She's smart talking. She's sharp. She's aggressive and in control. Yeah. She's a really charismatic screen presence. I should mention that the writer Joyce, right before this film was made, she was teaching at an all-black college. Oh, interesting. Xavier University of Louisiana, and she thought that the Black Panther vibe and that student she was around will be a great chemistry in this film, so it's her idea to insert her with Charlton Heston. Yeah, and it's really interesting because though this is a very conservative film, we do have a interracial relationship here that everybody seems to be totally cool with. So I found that interesting. But let's keep on with the plot and we'll come back. Yeah. So what happens almost immediately following is he goes and picks out another Philly shirt with poofy sleeves that he can wear around. And he's he's going he goes into the Yeah, let's talk. This is like, this is like from a sign filled up. I'm watching that and I'm thinking, what actor, what manly actor wears a puffy shirt on Ironically? I also just watched the search for Spock and Kirk does the same thing William Shattner wears. It's the same shirt. It's like the same shirt. That's right. And it's meant to be heroic in these films. And I don't remember it ever being heroic. I don't know how it got past everything. Yeah. I don't know. But it's it's pretty hilarious. But he goes downstairs to get some wine. and is assaulted by members of the family there and captured. This is the second time he's been ambushed in like the first 30 minutes of this movie. Is it believable that he has survived the two years this movie wants us to if he he falls for all their tracks. I know I wonder if he's just gotten careless or tired or something over time or yeah. I would totally buy that as a legit answer like that. He is just starting to make mistakes. But yeah, he gets ambushed and captured by the family. You can also tell this is a conservative movie because while they're interrogating him, he takes a poke at the IRS, which is pretty great. But they have a sort of discussion about the future and how he's not part of it. And they're going to make an example of him, and they're going to kill him. uh... the clip from i think the beginning of the intro where he said coffins that's all you need i believe he says that to them in this exchange uh... and then they passed judgment on him and they're going to kill him and there's a very exciting action sequence coming up, but first I want to talk about Heston's outfit when they take him out in the cart to be taken out and crucified. What does he have on his head, Andy? Well, he has like a dunce cap or maybe like a something that evokes like the KKK hood almost. I couldn't, yeah, I couldn't, it's like a wizard hat or a dance cap or maybe the original like old fashioned KKK hat or hood, it is bizarre. Fortunately, it doesn't happen on for very long. Yeah, it falls off really quickly, sorry. So they're gonna take him, I think it's into the Rose Bowl, but did you recognize it, producer Brad? touch or stadium Dodgers Stadium. All right. And they're going to they're going to set them on fire. They're going to burn them in effigy in the middle of Dodgers Stadium. Can I just make a side comment that for a group of people who can't stand light. They certainly love fire. Yes, they do. However, he saved when the Dodgers Stadium lights come on. and two people run in and grab him and flee. We have a new character Dutch who will talk more about later, but who's the other character who's in to rescue him? Lisa, though, woman he chased earlier. Yes. And she has a very much like, you listen to me, pal. I'm taking you with me and you are my prisoner. So it's not just an escape. She wants something from him. And this is one of our big action scenes in the movie. He's writing a motorcycle down the steps. This also is a 1970 Honda 350, which is kind of fun. This is a, if you're a motorcycle nerd. This is like the period of the small body Honda, like everybody has these things throughout the world. Like these Honda 350s is like, They explode. There's a gazillion of them everywhere through the 70s. But anyway, I enjoyed this scene with him right now around. And there's a bunch of scenes of him driving down big stairwells in the motorcycle, which I enjoyed. He charges on the motorcycle past a bunch of cultists and no one thinks to just like give him a shove. Yeah, as he drives by. I mean, I get wouldn't really be that hard to crash someone on a motorcycle if you needed to. Yeah, but Yeah, and it's it's a it's a fun chase. It's also bizarre at one point. They they stop and And he he turns to her and she like he's gonna make a move and she cracks him on the back of the neck with her with the butter for pistol Like don't mess with me, man, you know She's coming across as really tough and her buddy Dutch is you know who he reminded me of was the crazy pilot in mad max like he's just he's got this floppy hat and he's riding a Harley Like a custom Harley chopper and he's got a Thompson submachine gun and smoke bombs and he's wearing a jacket and on the back of it is the picture of like a hand with the middle finger. Yeah, a red hand with the middle finger. They end up escaping and making it in a cool slow motion motorcycle jump. Yes. Yeah, straight out of Duke's hazard or something for sure. And so then. They pull up to their compounds. This is the compound that this man Dutch and Lisa have. And they get off the bike, and here's the exchange they have. So it'll give you a sense of Lisa's character here. I thought we'd gotten past that. Yes, sweet. It's okay, Tommy. This is the man, and I mean the man. But he's cool. It's okay. Come on, man. Yeah, and what's interesting about this is she says, this is the man, and I do mean the man, and then she finishes it off with, come on, man. Like it's just a funny slice of her character in bodies, everything about the 70s, that this film is kind of about, he's the man, but come on, man, you know, like it's just, it's kind of perfect. And he is, you know, he is the embodiment of the establishment. Yes, right? Yes, but then we found out why Lisa has brought him here. She has a I think it's a little brother. Yes, it could be a child, but I think it's a little brother who has the plague and he started to transition into one of these zombie creatures. Yeah, we should note, so all of these survivors have the plague. Yes. And so this is kind of where we learn a little bit more of the somewhat murky mechanics where you can be resistant to the plague when you catch it. Right. And so you won't turn right away, but it is an inevitability. But some people they say Dutch is very critically some people turn in a moment's notice and you never know who that's going to be and he actually knows Dr. Neville, Robert Neville, from prior to the war because Dutch was a medical student read one of his papers and that's why they picked him out and recruited him once, once Lisa had discovered him. So let's pause here. This is a definite contrast. in story from I am legend or the last man on earth. Because in those stories, the woman he runs into is actually part of this new breed of vampire society. And that is sort of sent to lure him into his death. And that is not here. Like, genuinely Lisa and Dutch are on his side at the beginning and want to help him, or they want his help to cure Richie, this kid. And later when he succeeds, they take a liking to him. And they've, they're going to, he's become part of their group and they're going to get this serum and they're all going to escape together. I thought it was interesting that the reason, like Lisa ran from him earlier and the reason they've kind of approached him really cautiously and almost kidnapped him. They rescued him, you know, but they, but they did it by making him their prisoner, is that they are kind of scared of him because in the earlier in the noveline legend and in last man on earth, you know, you find out that from the perspective of the vampires, the Neville is a monster. He's a dangerous terror that comes at night and kills you. And that is this is the part of this movie that taps into that theme because at one point Lisa said like between the family terrorizing everyone at night and you shooting everything that moves during the day, we've been scared to approach you. Well, that was a sort of gacha twilight zone kind of moment at the end of I am legend and it last man on earth where where the main character realizes they are the legend they're the monster. That is spelled out by Matthias and the family in the first act of this film. There's no twist here, where we find out that that's the case, you know what I mean? Yeah, it is an interesting tweak on this by now fairly familiar story. Yes, yep. Now, I want to move us along here a little bit because we're getting to the meat of the movie and though this sequence is good, it's very long, it's like the second act, it doesn't really advance too much. So I'm going to sort of talk through this, but if you want me to stop and play a thing out, let me know. I'm just my only thing I'm going to pull out is that at one point Charlton has to pronounce his antibiotic as antibiotic. I think he doesn't more than one. That's right. So they decided to take Richie, who's a kid, who's got the plague back to his sort of fortress because he thinks he's got what he needs to cure him and he does. He makes a serum from, Neville makes a serum from his own blood since he's immune, transfuses into the richie. And over time, the time is sort of compressed here, but Richie is cured or feeling better. Well, this is happening. Romance start strikes up between Lisa and Neville and in the middle of that sort of romantic moment. They get attacked, but there is a great, I also wanted to give Lisa a little more space here. So this is actually probably a good 20 minutes from where we are, but as Richie is recovering and stuff, Lisa has made it very close. She's interested in Charlton Heston's character. She's wearing a sexy outfit, so something's about to happen. But they have this sincere conversation. And she explains how her and Richie have a relationship with the family, which I thought was interesting. Richie and I, we had our supplies in the back of the furniture store. One day, we hear this bell. We go out to see, and they are people there. We thought we were alone. Just me and Richie with millions of courts. But there was Matthias and other people. Well, anyway, he gave us the family for a while. And then she goes on to say like, uh, he started sort of talking crazy about destroying everything, how it was a group that was helping and supporting each other. And so her and Richie snuck out one night, uh, and that's why she left the family. I really liked this whole sequence of the movie. It's quiet, you know, it does get interrupted by an attack here and there, but it's quiet. And I think really one of my favorite sequences was Neville and Lisa just sort of awkwardly flirting with each other. Yeah. And to Charlton has since credit, he, he does portray a man who has, been so long without being around other people, let alone any sort of intimacy with other humans, that he has almost forgotten how to relate to a person like this. And I thought this wasn't a strong part of the film. Yeah, and I think, you know, you know, they throw romance in films because sometimes they feel it's required. But as far as all the cynical sort of positions this film takes about hippies in the 70s and the late 60s, This seems very genuine, like I think it's a bit of a stress to think Lisa would be interested in Charlton Heston, however, because he's so much older, but he does save her brother, right? So she has clear affection for him. It seems, it feels organic and real, and there's no like, there's no like cynical take on their relationship. It's an interracial relationship. I don't see. You know, no. I would definitely agree. The other thing I just wanted to say about this middle section of the movie and then we can move on John to whatever you want to hit next is if you think that the movie is if you if you have picked up on maybe some possible religious elements of like Neville saving humanity with this blood. Yes. The movie is pretty sure you didn't pick up on those because, uh, because the least some of the least subtle symbolism I've ever seen in the movie is coming our way. Yeah, very soon. Carry on. So there's an attack. Um, and in fact, the sidekick who was telling the Matthias early tries to use a gun to kill Neville and he is and he ends up dying and falling to his depth in a very villain way. He gets kind of shot up. It's a little gory, and then he falls and he gets in pale, but I think on a fence or something. And I think there's a message here that because he tried to use technology to end Neville, like he is punished more and more. I really like this. Yeah, I loved that he was using a gun like and I wish they had I wish we had gotten a few more lines of dialogue between him and Matthias because what he's doing is like using, you know, using the very tools that they hate. to get rid of their enemy. And I think there's like a neat irony or hypocrisy or a decision to sacrifice his own purity towards a greater goal. But I thought it was pretty interesting. Yes. But it kind of just ends in him falling and getting him held on offense. Yeah, absolutely. So then there's a sequence where, so then everything's good. Richie's better. They're gonna head back out to the compound. They just need to get a few things. So she's gonna go into town and pick up some things. and Charlton and Richie have this debate on the rooftop. First of all, they're on this fortified rooftop of this place, and they have these machine guns. I look about, they're actually like designed to go in airplanes, like fighter planes, they're these giant 20 millimeter canyons, and he's got them just sitting on his roof like, let's go. And Richie tells them a few things, first of all, it tells him, This is where they are. He gets the info. He gives the info that we think Neville's been linked for this whole time. This is where their nest is. I know we were there. We're a part of the family. Tell me what you think about this debate. I thought it was really interesting. So this is, you know, Richie is like the naive moral heart of this movie. Yeah. I think, and what Richie, Up to this point, we have not really been given any reason to not look at Neville as a hero. Just straight forward hero. This scene is the first time where Neville is challenged. And Richie says, Okay, so now that we know that your blood cares people, are you going to cure the family? Right. And Neville says basically, no, they're, first he's kind of like, well, no, they're murderous jerks. You know, I don't know, but towards the end of the conversation, he's saying some really harsh things. And he says something long lines of like, you know, they're, they're irredeemable. They're just monsters. They're, they're just, they're just, they're just, they're just, yeah. Yes, they're half dead already. And you can see, and this is going to set the final sequence of the movie in action is Richie doesn't want to accept that sort of utilitarian moral practicality, I guess. No, and Richie sort of says, what if you're not going to help him want to just go wipe them out? You know, he has a sort of very black and white view of what's going to happen there. Now, immediately following this so Lisa's out on the town she sort of wrapped her head in a scarf and put on sunglasses we'll find out why in a moment however a very naive richie with this information he writes a note and leaves it for Lisa and Neville and he says and he doesn't say this but what we've decided is he thinks now that he knows there's a cure He's going to, he knows where Matthias is, he's going to go tell Matthias in the family, hey, this is, there's a cure. So he goes by himself to this dark building right at nightfall without a flashlight to talk to Matthias. Not the smartest move in the movie from a character, but he is a kid. So he's sort of like foolish decision making felt more natural for a kid. They have a, he has another debate. Richard really is the moral center of this movie, right? Because now he's debating Matthias about what they should do. And he says, well, look, you don't have to conduct this war anymore. You can get healed. This can all end. However, Matthias, you can return to normal. He can return to normal, he says. Matthias does not care for this. In fact, this is what Matthias says to that. He says! Hi, yes. He sent you. to offer us something from his world to change his back to the creatures we were. A trick, a trick to weaken our resolve. I was almost like you, but he saved me. He brought me back. And he wants us all to go away from here. You have been damned, Richard. Don't you see that? Don't you? Yeah, it's a good exchange. Never now has found the note from Richie. He realizes what Richie has done. And so he puts on, this is an interesting scene, it's like, it's like our first zombie movie hero like suiting up, yeah, you know, he puts on a like a Air Force jumpsuit and he puts on his old military hat and gets all his guns and it gets in this old 1945 like Army vehicle, like from the old days, and he's going to go rescue Richie, and he's going to go find Lisa. However, things go south, very quickly uh first of all what does he find when he gets to the location richie told him about does he find any of the family he finds with a family have left and he finds the dead body of richie he's been murdered by the family yes and then we see Lisa. So one thing that is sort of, I mean, like, we're, I think this movie is really interesting to us, but there are a lot of dumb choices that make this movie kind of frustrating. One of them is it's nightfall. Everybody knows nightfall's bad, but Lisa is wandering out of the shopping center at nightfall. And Richie has gone to see the, the family at nightfall. And the only one who's kind of smart about it is is Neville who gets armed to the teeth to go chase them down. I groaned when they make such a big deal when they're all going to leave and it's all going to end happily. Yeah. And then Lisa makes such a big deal of like no, I really need to go on one last shopping experience. I know. It's like so forced. It's like no one would do this, but anyway. But it is a wonderful reveal. So she comes out of this shopping center. She's had a wrap on her hair and sunglasses. She takes it off and in just that short amount of time, as predicted by Dutch, she's completely become one of these pale skin zombies. And immediately become sympathetic to the family as part of that transformation. Yeah, this is where I was trying to figure out how the mechanics of the zombies. I mean, why are they inherently, do they seem drawn to Matthias and the family? You know, I mean, there's probably an explanation in there. And maybe there's a little bit element of like a hive mindy sort of instinct that kicks in when you get zombified. But yes, it's a little murky. I was wondering if the movie, I mean, at this point, you know, the big reveal of the novel and the previous film adaptation was, you know, the woman kind of turning against the hero. Right. And I was wondering if this movie was going to have that or just skip that plot element entirely. But we do have a little bit of that. Yeah. She's a zombie now. So. So in any case, there's a running battle with the family, he decides to go back to his apartment, but Lisa has led Matthias there, let Matthias in, and they're all they're waiting for him. So they capture him again, and before they kill him, they hold him still and make him watch where they do what? They trash his home and his lab, like Azista, they very explicit to say, we're going to make you watch as we tear down the last pieces of the old world. That's right. And he escapes quite easily. He grabs a gun. He escapes. He takes Lisa. He runs across the street to the fountain and the friend's fountain, apparently. And he's calling, you know, there's a sort of battle And she starts to walk towards him and Neville's saying, don't go back into the light. And then Mattias reveals himself as an Olympic level javeling thrower. He takes a spear because the family doesn't use any minor weapons. So he takes a spear they've crafted throws it at Chuck Heston, right in the heart. It's like a 150 foot throw. Yeah, yeah. and he crumbles. Now, and then there's a great sort of exchange between Matthias and Lisa and Chuck Heston, who's just sort of there. So this is our last clip for the movie. The bad dream is over, Ben Neville. Now we can sleep in peace. I'm part of the family graphic. I'm sorry. The family graphic? You don't understand. we haven't talked about the music but you got a little glimpse of music which sometimes sometimes works quite well like it weren't seen well there and other times it couldn't be more like discordant with the sequence yeah it worked pretty mostly the action scenes the music does not work is that's the flaw in this film so he doesn't die yet Dutch comes back in the morning he finds him what he finds him at the fountain Yeah, so Dutch drives by the next morning with all the kids and the survivors because remember they're, they're going to meet up at all head out in the city and live in peace. And he finds that Dutch is still, or I mean, sorry, that Neville is still barely alive. He's still impaled. He's managed to fall into like this cruciform pose and a fountain filled with his blood. Yes, and his blood is circulating through the fountain and dripping out the top back on the So, yeah, I mean, his, the last thing he does is he hands to Dutch and the survivors of vile of his blood that he's in carrying, which is, you know, contains the cure, yeah, and then they drive off. And Dutch and they actually take Lisa and they drive off. They don't seem to have a lot of hope and we're left. Oh, yes, that's right. They take Lisa with them. Yeah, and they drive off and then we're just the, we're sort of a, the film goes negative on a shot of the crucified Robert Neville who has shed his blood for the world. Yes. The end. The end. So that is the Omega Man, an interesting movie. Yeah. And it was interesting. Political commentary, a movie more of its time than any movie we've watched so far. Yeah, you know, we've talked a lot about it. Let's just let's get into our questions. I don't think we'll do 60s questions today. But as a as a aside on that, Andy and I are getting ready to record our 70s episode. We've both been doing some really fun research. So we'll soon have some 70s questions for you. Yeah, and we talked all about a lot of the 70s themes up front in this episode because this is a Meaty film in the sense that if you are interested in like the early 70s They're just a lot to pull out of this film in animal absolutely now. I want to say like John I saw this as a kid Yeah, I think on channel 50 Detroit on the creature feature and This was the first film that terrified me interesting because when you're seven years old and you're watching a film where there's one man left and there's these people and come out at night and they've lost they have they're all white with the white eyes it was just terrified yeah none of the political stuff landed nothing else landed but the terror being alone and there's these creatures hunting you well and we're gonna talk about this in depth in our you know 70s episode any but i want to make a quick point here that will elaborate on there this movie is for adults Yeah, our previous movies have not been for adults by and large until you get to night at a living dead or last man on earth prior to that, they're almost all for kids with a couple of ringers in there like I walked with a zombie, but for a large portion, these have not been adult films. This is definitely an adult film. I agree. All right, well, hey, John, in the Omega Man. Is there a hero party? There is. It just starts to start his Chuck, has been by himself, but then he picks up Lisa and Dutch and a bunch of kids, and they're a happy party who's going to happily cure the world and leave and be happy. It ends so well for them. Yes, so how do they do? How many survive? Well, most of them survive actually if you can't Lisa's survivor, it's really only Robert Neville that dies. He sacrifices himself for all of them. It seems a little grim. Well, Richie dies too. Richie dies too. That's right. This movie, I mean, ostensibly it ends on a note of modest hope because the survivors are taking the blood with them. However, it has been established in the movie that it is a lot of work to do that blood transfusion and it takes a lot of time and expertise. So I didn't feel real great about the chances of the surgery. No, to be honest. Well, I actually did because Dutch was a medical student and they've already tied him to levels. So the fact that he grabbed it, he knew what to do with it. He's like the Neville Junior. Yeah. I felt like something good was going to come from that. Yeah. As long as they can find a hospital with some medical equipment, I guess they'll be okay. Yeah. Okay. Let's see, what sort of zombie strain are we dealing with in this movie? If we are dealing with zombies, it all. So this is a strange one. I think these people are alive. But they're clearly changed and have of zombie like hive mind, but they've retained their intelligence. It feels like no zombies we've quite had before, but I think the R zombies by our definition because they have this sort of group mentality and they're changed and don't really control their own actions. Yeah, it's suggested also that they are sort of instinctively hostile on some level. Yes. And when one of them tries to act independently, Yes. And their reduced mental capacity is represented and them seemingly being really vulnerable to manipulation by like a clever zombie mass. Yes. Yep. Absolutely. So they're pretty, they're pretty menacing zombies. I mean granted, uh, Neville, Mozum down, you know, by the, uh, by the bucket fall in this movie. But they're pretty scary. Yeah. how are these zombies destroyed or killed? They can be killed by normal, any way you could kill a normal human. They have less regard for their lives than a normal human. Yes, and they'll inevitably eventually be killed by the plague that has omified them. Correct. Is there a zombie hoard in this movie? Absolutely. Giant one. Is, let's see, are there any zombie Well, I feel like the intelligence zombie is it feels like another evolutionary strain that's not gonna proceed past this movie, right? Because they are zombies, they've lost their will to some extent, but they have not lost their ability to reason or plan. So we've gotten a couple of intelligent zombies in the last like five years. Yeah. And it does feel like there's so some momentum with this take on the zombie that is ultimately going to fizzle out. Yeah, I think you're right. There are also germ warfare and sort of accidentally created by me and I'm trying to think of another film. Yeah, that was sourced this way. or of party beach had toxic waste that created zombies. That's true. Let's mention our method was organic, though. It was just a plague that happened. Yeah. So this would be the first term warfare created by war directly. Yeah, I think so. I think so. Oh, yeah. Yeah. All right. Can these zombies return to being human? I think so, actually. I think part of the point is that it is possible through great effort. Yep. All right, John, at the beginning of this podcast, you identified four pillars of the zombie movie. Let's find out how many of them are represented here in the Omega Man. John, in the Omega Man, is there an apocalypse? Absolutely. Yep, a textbook zombie. Well, it's not a textbook zombie apocalypse. Is it a textbook apocalypse of the sort you see in a zombie movie? Yes. All right, you know what is kind of interesting in this movie and the handful of other films where we've seen a global apocalypse. Like the apocalypse kind of clears everything out and then the zombies arise in the aftermath. Yes, I am interested for when we see, I guess we saw it not in the living dead. A movie where the apocalypse creates zombies and then these zombies laid in an act or complete the apocalypse. Yes, the apocalypse is the zombies to some extent. All right, John, in this movie is their contagion. Absolutely. The only person who's immune is Neville. Everybody else is still vulnerable to the plague. And everybody else has basically just contracted the plague just by virtue of living on this planet, which is inundated with it essentially. Yes. are their tough moral choices in this movie. Absolutely. Like I think that's what Richie and Neville are talking about the whole time. Does Neville, who does Neville save? You know, he wasn't going to save the zombies, but now that Lisa's a zombie, he wants to give it a shot. He wants to save her. So a tough moral choice is a bound in this film. Yeah, and this movie, some moral choice is kind of get at that juicy, classic zombie movie choice of, you know, what price, what price are you willing to pay, you know, for your survival? You know, are you, are you, what of your humanity are you willing to give up to survive and thrive in this world? And what's interesting is that, and Neville's ark is that he's given all of it up to kill these guys, right? restore a little faith in humanity now he wants to try to protect them and that ends up killing him. I do think this movie that theme might have worked if better if they had not pitched him as such like a likable hero for the first half of the film. Yeah, I agree. I wish they had seen it a little bit more this idea that like he has gone a little bit over the edge, but anyway. And I wish he had gotten smart and realized if these zombies have a ticking clock, why not just wait a moment? Yeah. Why go hunting? Why put yourself in a good question? All right, and lastly, does this movie feature loved ones turning against you? Yes, absolutely. You know, they turn against Richie, leads to turns against Neville. It's very sad and happens all over the place, for sure. Yeah. Okay. Well, we typically close with three questions about each zombie movie we watch. John, would you and I survive in the zombie world of deal make a man? Oh, I'm pretty sure not. I have no useful skills. I don't know how to fire a gun. I'd probably come a member of the family, but not like an important one. That's my, that's my guess. You'd be the guy burning from torch on the rice. Yes. They're from the right. Yeah. Third burning guy flailing around from the right. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. There's too many ways to die here. So assuming the plague doesn't get me, I do feel like the family could probably try a little harder to get at Neville than they do. I, when they wheeled that catapult in at the beginning, it's kind of like, is there really no more like practical way to just charge up to his apartment? Yeah, but I do think that that's too many ways I could get killed. So Yeah, and like at one point he has to fix a generator and he realizes this is not primed so he's got a primate and like, as soon as the generator didn't turn on when I pressed the button, that's it for me. Yes, like, yeah, it doesn't work. And then he goes to a different part of the machine and starts some of the people that he liked again. Like he'd lost me already. I just know how to press the camera. You're a genius. It's a miracle. Yeah. So, all right, John, is this a zombie movie or is this a movie with zombie? This is a zombie movie, for sure. Yeah, I think so. Though they're not zombies, but they are. So. And lastly, John, do you recommend the Omega Man first just to a general audience? Is this a movie people should make time to check out? And secondly, do you recommend it specifically to our zombie-loving listeners as an important milestone of zombie cinema? As much as I enjoyed this movie, I mostly enjoyed it because of its sort of cultural lack of cultural subtleness. It's like big swing caricature of the 1970s in the end of the 60s. I don't know how ancient that is to other people. I loved it. It's a decent movie. It's not like terrible. Yeah, so I'm going to like soft yes on general audience, hard yes on zombie fans. I think I'll agree with that. Yeah, I did enjoy watching this. I do think that much of my enjoyment was how 1970s it is. Yeah, like if that, I could see a lot of people being like, this is dumb, you know, like not enjoying that part of it, but I just, like the other thing that we're running into here, Andy, and this is going to happen to you soon. It just happened to produce a bread and I. Brad and I were alive when this movie came out. It has actors that we recognize from today, like, like, this is this is new territory for us. Actress from our favorite films and our teens are in this film. Yes. So this is new territory for us. And you're a few years younger than Brad and I, but to soon, you will be there as well. Yeah. Okay. Well, with that, it's time for the scariest part of every episode, and that's when producer Brad reveals to me and John, what zombie movie we will be watching next. John, do you have any sort of a gut instinct about where we're going up down? I mean, it's got to be down. Well, for our next film, we are going to do something different. Oh, oh. Many of the films we have watched were released on a double bill, and we watched only one of those movies. Okay. I think it's time we had a double feature. Okay. So, here's the trailer for our next films, and then I'll launch right into the poster, and you can describe it after the, all right. Here we go. I drink your blood, and I eat your skin. Men become animals and eat their victims. I drink your blood, and I eat your skin. Did this have to be too many? We're laughing because of the posters. I don't know how you don't watch these together. Yeah. OK. So when tap it says, two great bloodhors to rip out your guts. And then it has some terrible drawings. It's got a decapitated head and a zombie face. And like it says, I drink your blood and then in small letters it says, and. And then it says, I eat your skin, which has like a skull and zombies with axes. This is what we were worried about the 70s, Andy. This is coming right there. Yeah, oh boy. We're not planning around this time. Is one of the people in pale through the back of the head with an arrow coming out of their mouth? In the top right hand corner, is that what that is? It certainly looks like it. It's very possible. That's the case. There's a lot of decapitated heads on this post. Yeah, I'm curious to see this because another famous thing about the decapitated. There's a hand that's been chopped off too. Oh, yeah, with the thumb is like missing. So do we need to keep track. and tally decapitated heads and posts this one has one two three three three of them I think plus a hand maybe we're gonna um the other thing about the 70s is this is when stuff gets real right the 70s have last house on the left in the Texas chainsaw masquer and yeah all that kind of stuff so I wonder if we're getting a little preview of that kind of action so And the 70s are when I have to find it. I have a book from my childhood called the Gore score. Yes. And it came out in the mid 80s and it was a guy loved horror films and he raided movies from the 70s and they're early 80s strictly by the amount of gore. Ah. So, so I need to find this. You're not going to tell us what these guys are. How they rank on that, uh? By well, so as I find the book, yeah. I like to think that this is an incredible leap in technology. How about that? I don't know. Incredible leap is a phrase we're going to be using for this one, but you know I could be surprised. All right, for is this going to support Mattis's argument for the failure of technology. I think it might. Alright folks, well if you haven't had a chance to rate our podcast on Spotify or Apple podcast, we would love it if you would do that. It really helps us out. We will see you in our next episode for I Drink Your Blood and I eat your skin. You've been listening to zombie strains. We'll be back next episode to talk about another zombie movie. 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