Welcome to Zombie Strains, the podcast that watches all the zombie films.

Today's film features Voodoo,

(pounding drums)

A scientist who believes in witchcraft,

“Someone in this village is practicing witchcraft!”

and in Victorian England, the battle between good and evil always begins with a lesson in manners.

“You're being funny.

No, I'm not being funny. I'm just trying to remember my manners. I wish I could say the same for you.”

That's right. It's our first and only Gothic Hammer zombie film, The Plague Of The Zombies. You know, I've seen people act like that in pictures. What do they call them?

Zombies or something? Zombie. What's a zombie?

Just what is a zombie? What is wrong? What is wrong?

Hey everybody, welcome to Zombie Strains. I'm John.

I'm Andy.

And I'm Brad.

Hey guys, how are you doing today?

Couldn't be better. Oh yeah?

Okay.

Maybe I could, but doing fine.

It's spring in Michigan, so we're getting there.

It's like fake spring in Michigan, because in the early June, we could get freezing temperatures and snow again.

This is true.

I will not be tricked.

My father grew up in Ludington, Michigan, which is in the northern half of the lower peninsula, and he has relatives who swear that it once snowed in July. So I cannot confirm this, and I never looked it up because it's too good not to be true. Anyway, we're not talking about the weather in Michigan, we're talking about zombie films. So today we've got an exciting movie. It's called The Plague Of The Zombies. It's a Hammer film, which if you are familiar with, is a very famous film studio in England that produced horror films in the 50s and 60s, which we'll get into when we talk about the film. But I'm kind of excited, and I don't want to spoil anything, but anybody else feel like this was kind of good?

Question mark? I enjoyed this one.

I mean, we'll see when we get to it, but at the end when we ask if this is something we'd recommend to people to watch, I think my answers might be yes.

Yeah, and you know what? I tried something different for this movie, because I'm always trying to do a little better, trying to better my analysis. So what I did, I decided to do, and I didn't know anything about this movie before we watched it. I thought, I'm just going to sit and watch the movie, like you do, and then I'll go back through and skim through and pick up clips and do that kind of stuff with all our notes. I have to say, I almost ended up watching the whole thing twice, because I enjoyed it so much, and there were so many good little bits in here.

I did something really similar. Yeah, I was like, I'm not going to have this be in one small window in the corner of my screen. I'm going to make this full screen, I'm just going to enjoy this.

Yeah, and I think we lucked out. So anyway, again, keep in mind that in any time we recommend a film, it could be Stockholm Syndrome, because we watch Teenage Zombies. So just keep that in mind.

Yes.

All right, so we know we like this one. Without further ado, producer Brad, would you please tell us how this not terrible film came to be?

The Plague Of The Zombies is a British film that was released in the UK and the US in January 1966. It was often on a double bill with Dracula, Prince of Darkness.

Is this a Christopher Lee Dracula movie?

It's a Christopher Lee Dracula.

And Peter Cushing, is he there too?

No Peter Cushing.

No Peter Cushing. Curious. Okay. Carry on. Sorry.

Other films released the same month are the Sci-Fi thriller Agent For Harm. Harm is an acronym that stands for Human Ideological Relations Machine.

Human what? Relations machine?

I had to look it up. It's spelled A-E-T-I-O-L-O-G-I-C-A-L.

Okay.

I have no idea what that means.

I don't know if they market tested that one.

It's a spy movie about stopping a bio weapon that turns human flesh into fungus.

Whoa. Why aren't we watching that movie? That sounds like a zombie film. Sounds ahead of its time.

Didn't I just watch that on HBO? I'm not sure.

Also released was Dracula Prince Of Darkness, the third Hammer Dracula film and the second to star Christopher Lee. Continuing our conversation from the last episode about spy spoofs, Our Man Flint was released on January 16th, 1966. And in case you're wondering if comedy horror films were passe by 1966, Don Knotts and The Ghost In Mr. Chicken was released.

Don Knotts.

Did you guys ever see that film?

I did not, but I've seen many things with Don Knotts in them.

That was one of the films that aired often on the creature feature Saturdays on Channel 50.

Then I must have seen it. I just didn't remember the name. I'll have to look at some stills or something.

I know I've seen it. I can't remember a thing about it, but it's out there. It exists. The Plague Of The Zombies is the first and only Hammer film featuring zombies. Hammer Productions was formed in 1934 by William Hines, a theater owner and comedian whose stage name was William Hammer. Hammer Productions went bankrupt in 1937, but was revived in 1947 by The Sons Of Hammer and his partner Enrique Carreras.

The Sons Of Hammer.

The Sons began producing low budget movies. In 1955, Hammer released their first horror hit, a sci-fi horror film called The Quarter Mass Experiment.

Oh, yeah. Heard of that one.

Yeah, that's a legendary film.

And if you remember last episode, we were looking at this poster, and there's an X next to the title. The Quarter Mass Experiment in the UK, they dropped the E for experiment and only had a capital X, which was to attach it to the X certificate, meaning it was for adults only.

Interesting.

Which is the same for The Plague Of Zombies. This began Hammer's run of horror successes, The Curse Of Frankenstein in 1957 and Dracula in 1958, moved Hammer into Gothic horror. Hammer made nearly 50 horror films before transitioning their horror films into modern settings in the 1970s. These films were less successful, and Christopher Lee was unhappy with the direction, refusing to appear as Dracula after two contemporary versions.

Yeah, I remember him talking about that in an interview. I think it was his sixth or seventh Dracula film and the third modern one, and he was like, that's enough of that. This is ridiculous now.

He's in the swinging London with parties and stuff in the 70s.

Yeah, and Christopher Lee has dignity, it turns out.

John Gilling directed The Plague Of The Zombies. He directed his first film in 1948, Escape From Broadmoor. He then directed B movies in the 50s. He worked with the pre-bond Albert Broccoli on six movies, the best known being the romance film Odongo. He directed several hammer films, The Shadow Cat, The Reptile, which was shot back to back with Plague, and The Mummy's Shroud. He will return to Zombie Strains when we reach 1975 to watch his film, The Devil's Cross.

Oh dear.

Peter Bryan wrote the script. He started his career as a cameraman. He then wrote the scripts for two hammer films, The Hound Of The Baskervilles in 1959 and The Brides Of Dracula in 1960. Gilling later said he rewrote much of the script and dialogue for The Plague Of The Zombies. James Bernard composed the score. He scored over 20 hammer films, including Hammer's first gothic horror film, The Curse Of Frankenstein.

He might be perfectly suited to score hammer films because I enjoyed this score very much, but I would not use the word subtle to go along with it.

It was perfect.

Yeah, exactly.

He won an Oscar in 1950, but not for composing. He and his partner, Paul Dean, wrote the story for the movie, Seven Days to Noon, which won the Academy Award for Best Writing.

Yeah.

Okay, let's talk about the cast. André Morell played Sir James Forbes. He is the third actor we've encountered who acted in British TV movies in the 30s. I don't know about you, but I'm still amazed that there were TV movies back in the 30s.

They were live.

That is bonkers.

Yeah. Not all of them, but live TV was a thing. In fact, William Shatner in his early career, did some live TV in the US. We don't really talk about it much anymore, but it was a definite thing.

I did a quick search and I couldn't find any reference to American TV movies back in the 30s. They came later.

Yeah.

Maybe it's a function of it being the BBC and having funding from the government. I don't know.

Oh, interesting.

Morell was also in The Bridge on the River Kwai and Ben Hur.

He's our second bridge on the River Kwai with the guy who played M. What is it? Edward?

Edward Fox.

Edward Fox, yes.

You mean who played the zombie in?

Who played the zombie in The Frozen Dead.

It's something else to add to our big serial killer whiteboard where we've got photos. Directed by lots of string threads.

Now, Andy, take a look at the poster somewhere on your wall because Morell had a long career and one of his last credits was The Voice Of Elrond in the 1978 animated The Lord Of The Rings.

Wow, okay.

Oh my gosh.

I have a lot of fondness for that one.

Yeah.

He would be a great Gandalf too.

What a weird, weird movie that is.

That's such a weird movie. It's so great. He was in Doctor Who as well you've got here. That's amazing.

He did a lot, yeah. Diane Clare played Sylvia. She started acting as an infant, but the majority of her credits are between 1958 and 1967. And in 1967, she stopped acting to focus on her family. Brook Williams played Dr. Peter Thompson. He was a respected stage actor with a few film roles. He was in Where Eagles Dare and played one of the Allied Commando sent on a secret mission into Germany.

He seems, I'm not making this up. When he like, spoiler, at one point, someone close to him dies and he breaks down by like sobbing into his hand. I was like, this guy's a stage actor. Like it just popped right in my head.

Yes.

Yeah, and he was a good friend of Richard Burton and Richard Burton was one of the stars of Where Eagles Dare with Clint Eastwood.

That's right.

John Carson played the villain Clive Hamilton. He starred in many low-budget films and played both heroes and villains, but with his voice, he was more often the villain. He did voice Captain Foster in the 1966 film Thunderbird 6, which is the puppet, The Marinette Show.

Oh yeah.

And does his voice remind you of any other famous actors?

You know what? There was something. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I was worried I was going to have another Hugh Jackman debacle, so I didn't work out who he reminded me of. But you tell me.

He sounds eerily like James Mason.

He does sound like James Mason.

Jacqueline Pearce played Alice. This is one of her first roles. Her career lasted until her death in 2018. She had a lot of roles on British TV, including 29 episodes as Sir Valen on Blake's Seven. In the US., she was in the Phoebe Cates movie Princess Caribou. You guys see that?

Nope. I missed that one.

No excitement over that mention.

Nope.

That was her last film before she left to go raise a family. Louis Mahoney plays the servant of Clive Hamilton. He was at the end of the film. He's one who rescues Sir James Forbes.

He had a bit early and then he showed up later. Yes.

Now, if you watch Doctor Who, you've seen him in one of the most famous recent episodes. In Blink, he played the older version of Billy, the detective inspector, who as a youth gets sent back to the 60s.

Oh my gosh. I know exactly who you're talking about.

That's him.

That's amazing.

Now, in The Plague Of The Zombies, we have several stormtroopers hiding in plain sight.

I saw that in the credits. That's amazing.

Tom Condren played one of the Young Bloods. Those are the servant cult members of the villain, Hamilton. Condren was one of the two stormtroopers who are lying on the Death Star floor, shooting at Luke and Leia as the sliding door slowly opened. His IMD profile picture is of this moment, not of his true face.

That cracks me up when I look at this movie. And you know what, if I were an actor and I died and that was my picture, I would take it.

Yes, I'm a stormtrooper on the right.

Yeah.

Reg Harding is uncredited as one of the zombies. He did stunts for eight Bond films and Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. His IMD profile picture is also of a stormtrooper.

Amazing.

Peter Diamond was also one of the zombies and was in Star Wars. He was the Tusken Raider who threatened Luke and was scared off by Obi-Wan.

No way.

In Return Of The Jedi, he is the biker scout who gets pushed off his bike.

This is all Pinewood, right? These are the people who worked at Pinewood. This is why you see Edmond Viet in a bunch of Pinewood thrillers and stuff.

Yeah. There's a collection of people who just kept working in the same area.

I'm sure. Well, maybe we'll never get to it, but Pinewood Studios is famously the biggest studio in England for many decades. A lot of the Bond films were shot there. They shot driving action scenes inside at Pinewood. Isn't that true, Brad?

I know about that, but it was built for, I think, the spy who loved me in the big water tank that had three submarines inside it.

I have a trivia question about that, and I'm just not going to go there because we're not talking about the spy who loved me.

We haven't finished talking about Peter Diamond.

Yes.

Because yes, he was in those Star Wars movies, but his coolest credit is as Iman Faisal from Highlander. That's the immortal who attacks Kahnemer Cloud in the underground parking structure of Madison Square Garden.

Yes.

And of course, MacLeod wins.

MacLeod, yes.

Now, this is the fifth zombie film we've watched that was set in Great Britain. The first four were The Man From Planet X, Woman Eater, Dr. Bled's Coffin, and The Earth Dives Screaming. And this is the second film set in Cornwall, and both feature the tin mines, the first being Dr. Bled's Coffin.

That's right. I didn't make the connection, but yeah, it's right there. The tin mines play crucial thing in...

The zombies are found in both. All right, John, that's what I have. Do you have anything on history for us?

Yeah, I wanted to put some context around British film in the 1960s. Andy and our episode in the 60s had a very thoughtful review of sort of where American or Western culture was going. And I think we sometimes forget that this actually all sort of started in Britain with the Beatles, like, you know, British culture, the culture used to go the other way, and maybe still does in some ways. But so a lot of the sort of looser attitudes and everything started in Britain, except being Britain, it was less about sort of long hair, though that did show up. But it was its own kind of rebellion, because we've got a nation that was essentially the largest empire in the world, and that ended in the late 40s with the end of the Second World War. One of the things that is interesting is that this is really when there started to be pushback in English culture against the sort of aristocratic culture. There's a term, and I don't know if it's an official term, but it's called deference, which would mean if you were a normal person and you saw an aristocrat walk by, you would hold the door for them or take your hat off. As crazy as it sounds to us, because all of our culture and myth is about common men made good, Abraham Lincoln and the log cabin. We revere him, we don't revere the king. It's just such a different philosophy from what we're used to. One of the things we're seeing in this movie, it is actually, well, a couple of things. First of all, Hammer Films. I didn't know this because they're horror movies, but it turns out they're actually generated for a fairly conservative audience is what I heard, which was interesting to me. But they are sort of gruesome, but they're less risque in a way. But what I found interesting here is when I first watched this film before I did research, in my head, the term battle of the aristocrats popped up, right? Like it's just two rich guys going at it over the fate of this town. But doing some research and getting a different perspective on it, actually, Sir James, who is our hero, is kind of a rebel here. And what is Clive's last name? Hamilton.

Hamilton.

And Squire Clive Hamilton, who's the villain, the fact is he represents the sort of mindless, cruel colonial empire of Britain who uses the resources of the world to further their own ends. And Sir James, who we will meet shortly, is represents a sort of rising middle class who will roll up their sleeves and work hard and they're sort of the good guy aristocrats. So one of the sort of philosophies, there's two things happening here. One is it is sort of undermining the idea of aristocrat because we've got Sir James who comes in and he's sort of like a regular person. You know, nobody defers to him. He carries his own bags, you know, that kind of stuff. Whereas Clive Hamilton is incredibly cruel. I mean, you're about to give us a summary, but part of his plot is creating zombies to work in his tin mine. And he has a gang of cruel thugs who help him achieve this plan. He is heartless. And he also came, he spent a lot of time abroad according to the film. So he's like the representative of the colonial empire. And Sir James is sort of the representative of quote unquote modern Britain. And they could sort of get away with this by setting it in Victorian times, which is why all the Hammer films were set in Victorian times. It has this element of rebellion, but it's still pretty tame by our standards, meaning that the argument here is that there's good aristocrats and bad aristocrats, and Sir James is a good one, and the old ones who have no merit other than being landed aristocracy are kind of the bad ones. And so this represents the sort of stake in the heart of these sort of landed aristocrats in England. So anyway, that was a lot. Does that make any sense, Andy?

It does, that's fascinating.

Yeah, I was surprised, because I thought it was such a conservative film and the battle between these two aristocrats. And I'll try to find a link for the reference. There was a big film study done about 10 years ago on British film in the 60s, and they sort of realized that there's actually some subversive messages in here. But Sir James is sort of part of that, right? He's a perfect gentleman. However, he has no time for these old, imperious colonial aristocrats. So it was subtle to me because I'm an American, but now I see it and it's kind of fascinating.

Yeah, that passed by me, another dumb American. But that is fascinating to hear. Not that you're dumb, John.

Yes, thank you.

You're a smart American.

All right. So with that, Andy, now I've mentioned a bunch of characters and zombies and minds and stuff. Why don't you give us a 60-second summary so people know what the heck I'm talking about?

Sure thing. So The Plague Of The Zombies, which has at least two too many instances of the word the, is set in a 19th-century Cornish village out on the Moors, where a mysterious epidemic is killing off the locals at an alarming rate. Sir James Forbes, and can I just say, ever since we watched the recent installment of 28 years later, I want to say Sir Lord James. Sir James Forbes is a respected doctor, and he receives a letter from one of his former students, I think, named Peter. Peter is a doctor out in this little rural village, and he basically pleads, he says, he pleads for James to come and help him figure out what's going on. Yes. James and his daughter Sylvia make the trek to the village, and when they arrive, they find that things are worse than they could have guessed. Not only are people continuing to die off, but the most recent casualty is Peter's beloved wife, Alice. In the course of their investigations, James, Peter, and Sylvia discover that the village squire Clive Hamilton has been practicing voodoo rituals that he learned in Haiti, or as he pronounces it, ha-e-tee. But Hamilton isn't just killing these villagers, he's resurrecting them as mindless zombie slaves to work in his tin mines. The film culminates in a frantic confrontation as our heroes race to save Sylvia from becoming the newest zombie addition to the tin mine crew. It ends with everybody getting exactly what they deserved.

Yes. That's a great way to say it. Yeah. Great summary. I think that's great. So let's get into it. I actually want to get into it because we have yet another scientist or man of science and his daughter, his plucky daughter. This is a trope we have seen throughout films since the 1940s here. They are Sylvia and James Forbes or Sir James Forbes. It starts with them just talking, chatting in the house and I honestly found this charming. I think what we're trying to do here is set up James as a grumpy but warm-hearted dad. So I pulled this clip that just illustrates the relationship between James and Sylvia.

Go to Cornwall, it's miles away. Well, you can fish just as well in Cornwall as here, father. Didn't your school friend, what's her name? Didn't she marry young Thompson? Alice. I suppose your suggestion that we should go to Cornwall has got nothing to do with the fact that you'd like to see her again. Shall I pack your things, father? I don't know why I give in to you so easily. I look out the train times. I don't know why I put up with you at all. I should have drowned you at birth.

I actually love the character of Sylvia through this whole movie. She's a fighter.

She is. She knows her dad can't refuse her, so she's just telling him what they're going to do and they do it. He has that amused grumpiness, which I actually enjoyed quite a bit.

Yes. Well, I was going to say, you know what this movie starts out with? It is a whole friend voodoo drums. Yes. So at this point, I feel like we are experiencing a mid-60s revival of the voodoo drum.

Isn't that interesting?

The general fascination with Haitian voodoo. It went away for 10 straight years. Am I wrong about that?

You're not. There was some stuff, but I feel like I can't remember what our last one was, but was it zombies on Broadway in the late 40s? We took a long spell and then it came back recently with The Man From Uncle, but there wasn't a lot in between there.

Yeah. This movie also features the most enthusiastic voodoo drummer we have seen since I think The Dead One. Nobody has gone to town on the voodoo drums like this guy is going to town on them.

I was worried about him. I'm like, how many takes did he have to do to get that? Because now I want to stop in here. So yes, let me take a step back. I showed that fun relationship, but really it opens with a voodoo ceremony where our practitioner is conducting a voodoo ritual. And he takes a voodoo doll, which is like made of clay with like spikes sticking out of it to represent a person. He takes it out of a little coffin, then he drips some blood from a vial on it. And when that happens, you see who we will learn is Alice, start to have a horrible dream. And we're unsure why he's doing this or what's happening, but he's surrounded by voodoo practitioners. He's got a mask on it and a very distinctive ring. We find out not too far from by the second act, we know this is Clive Hamilton. However, it's been so long, Andy, since we talked about voodoo, I just wanted to give the caveat, this is a film that believes that all voodoo is black magic and evil. And as we know, like I think we said this early on in the podcast, when we were talking about films like White Zombie, obviously that's not true. Using this film as a guide to what voodoo is really like, is like using the Exorcist as a guide to what Catholicism is really like. It's very unrepresentative. And I just wanted to give that caveat again, because it's been 50 episodes since we mentioned it. So anyway, so we know there's this horrible ritual. We see Alice have a dream about it. And Alice is the husband of, excuse me, and Alice is the wife of Peter who wrote the letter calling them to Cornwall. So that's how they get involved in this.

Now, did you notice that the letter had an adhesive stamp on it?

I did not notice that. That wouldn't have happened in Victorian England.

What decade do you think the first adhesive postal stamp was invented?

I'm going to say 1900s.

Brad?

I'll guess 1895.

The actual date is 1840.

Oh, wow.

So this is historically accurate that there is an adhesive stamp on this letter. The first commonly used adhesive postage stamp was invented in 1840 in England by, I think, a school teacher. It was called The Penny Black.

Nice.

So this movie is set in, I believe, 1860. So they passed the historical accuracy test.

Very cool. Yeah, I'd like to say also, thankfully, it's 1860. There's no cars and no airplanes, so I couldn't fail to bring that up.

You know what? In these movies that take place before cars, maybe you need to start identifying the horse breeds that we see.

Maybe I will. Maybe I will.

All right.

So they immediately are set upon by this group of what I will call, if I were British, you'd call them lads, right? These unruly boys who are roving the countryside having fun. They're fox hunting. And I'm not going to go beat for beat in this beginning, but they seem to be like a gang of six thugs, and they seem to run this town because they ask Alice which way a fox they are hunting went, and she lies to them because she doesn't want the fox to die.

But John, even though they are thugs, they're all dressed in hunting gear with the red jackets and the white pants and the black helmet.

And the hats and the whole thing. They're aristocratic thugs is, I think, the key thing here. And when they go to town, there's a funeral going on. And the thugs disrupt the funeral, knocking the coffin down into the gully that runs through town. And so you can see the dead person. By the way, did you, what did you think of the expression on the dead man's face, Andy?

He died very surprised.

Yes, and Sylvia is, of course, horrified by this. So clearly something is going on in this town. There are these thugs that run rampant. And then they go to Peter's house. But Peter's not there, but Alice is. How does Alice look, Andy?

Alice looks pretty sickly. So Peter, in his letter to James, says that people are dying. They're becoming kind of lethargic before they die. And then they're passing away and he can't explain it. And what we see of Alice strongly suggests that she has contracted whatever this plague is. She's got dark circles under her eyes. There's a lot of makeup on her. She looks, I mean, almost corpse-like. She's alive and stuff. But, and she's got a weird wound on her wrist that she's bandaged up, that the film kind of keeps focusing in on, so we know it's got some significance. She doesn't look too good, in other words.

And she absolutely refuses to let the doctor, Sir James, or her friend Sylvia, look at it. She absolutely refuses. And so Sir James goes out looking for, it's all very odd, and Sir James goes out looking for Peter, his student, to see what's going on. We cut to Peter in a bar, and Peter is confronted by the villagers because of this plague that's going on, and I have a clip of that here.

What do you think it were, doctor? It killed him?

Aye, it killed him.

What was it that killed him all?

I don't know. You don't know? And you call yourself a doctor? I don't know because you won't let me find out if you just let me carry out one postmortem. Well, no good cutting him up after he's dead.

Too late then.

You're being ridiculous. Ridiculous, is it?

There's my brother lying dead out there, and twelve others like him.

How long have you been with us, doctor? Twelve months, isn't it? That's one a month. Steady, Tom.

So that sort of sets up the tension in the village. Tom there, his brother. So at the beginning, we had a funeral, and that was for Tom's brother. So Tom is really upset and is mad that the doctor can't figure out what's going on. I thought that was a great scene.

I thought so too. I thought it was an interesting plot element that one of the problems is that the villagers refused to give Peter the doctor permission to do autopsies on them.

Yeah, absolutely.

Can I interject here? This isn't a long historical thing, but at this point in history, I think British doctors did have the legal ability to require an autopsy in the case of a suspicious death. However, he's way out here. I think at a couple points, like Sir James says, well, what's going on? Someone says, well, look, we're not in London. I think we're out here in the rural boondocks where some of those legal niceties don't apply.

What is interesting, another thing that I read about in my research was after the war, we had a more egalitarian society in England, so things like the National Health System, the NHS that said every English person can have health care, regardless of who they are, where they live. There was a struggle at the beginning, particularly in the late 40s through the 60s, to get this out into the burbs. It happened in urban areas. But again, there was this old-timey aristocracy and it faded from the inside out, if that makes any sense. The idea of this guy, Squire Tom Hamilton and his thugs running this whole town, and the townsfolk being superstitious and not accepting modern ideas, I think is supposed to be a parallel between this time and 1940s Britain as well.

I think you're right.

In any case, we have a couple of other conversations. There's an interesting one where Alice and Sylvia talk about Clive Hamilton. It's clear that Alice is very smitten by Clive. That's the first time we hear his name. So after that exchange, Peter and Sir James come back from the bar. The two of them have dinner with Alice and Sylvia. It's a lovely time. The doctor is very concerned with Alice, Sir James is, I should say, and they clean up afterwards. And Andy, this is sort of wrapping up our setup of the story in Act 1. The investigation is about to start. How does Sir James propose they investigate next?

Sir James? Well, a couple of things. First of all, how delightful was it that we actually saw James and Peter washing the dishes after dinner? That was just awesome.

Yes.

But Sir James says, look, to figure out what's going on, we have to autopsy a body. And if the locals aren't going to give you permission, we're going to do it without their permission. So come with me into the graveyard and we'll dig ourselves up a body.

Yeah. So the stage is set, and now we're going to jump into the investigation proper. So we've got this man of science, Sir James, his pupil Peter, Peter's wife Alice, and Sir James' daughter Sylvia, and they're in this town and they're trying to figure out what is happening to these people. So the investigation is about to start properly. So we're going to split up here. We've got the boys, Sir James and Peter, they're going to go dig up a body. And then we've got Alice and Sylvia who stayed at home. However, there's a voodoo ceremony that begins simultaneously with James and Peter leaving the house. And what happens is during the ceremony, the voodoo master, who we don't know who it is, but we know who it is or we're about to find out, summons Alice who gets up in the middle of the night and leaves the house. Sylvia is alarmed by this. She sees this out her window. So she leaves the house too and follows Alice. So a lot is going on here. I guess I want to go with the boys first. No, I want to go with the girls first. So-

Can I just say how much this plot feels like the plot of Dracula in some sense?

Yes. In fact, I think there's a shred of Dracula here where the zombie master, I don't think we've actually seen this before. The zombie master is irresistible in the same way that Christopher Lee's Dracula is. He's not only fearsome, but he's charming and women are smitten with him. So Sylvia loses track of Alice, but then as she's near the old tin mine, completely lost, she hears this horrible sound. Something comes out of the tin mine holding Alice and throws her dead body to the ground. What are we looking at here, Andy?

We are looking at this film's first zombie.

Yeah. What a zombie it is.

It is a remarkable escalation of the zombie. This is a zombie that's taking delight in its sinister deeds, I would say.

Yeah. He's got white eyes and his totally green makeup. I think this looks great and hilarious and awesome all at the same time.

Yeah. We have marked through the years as films have done, sometimes a better, sometimes a worse job of putting makeup on their zombies.

Yeah.

The zombies in this film look very much like Night Of The Living Dead type zombies. They've got makeup on them that makes them look like somewhat decayed corpses.

Yeah. They're green and they're all wearing death shrouds.

Yes.

Yeah. The death shrouds here, they look like monks from a medieval text or something. What happens to Sylvia is when she sees this, she tries to go back, but who does she run into? She runs into the lads. They're called the Young Bloods, the hunters who are terrorizing the town and they terrorize her, and they drag her back to what we learn is the Squire's house. They're assaulting her. They're beating her up and they're deciding who's going to sexually assault her. It's very upsetting actually. However, they're interrupted by the Squire, and we get to meet for the first time Clive Hamilton. And we immediately know he's the zombie master. How do we know that, Andy?

The main reason we know that is because it's just always very obvious in these films.

Yeah.

That guy is.

Well, the way they telegraph it here is that the zombie master had this very large ring, even though he was wearing a mask.

Okay, of course.

And when he grabs a glass of sherry or whatever, you see that ring on his hand. So it's interesting because at no point do you not know who the villains are. You know what the villain is doing, but you go along with the characters as they discover it in a sort of procedural way.

Yeah, you know what? So this makes me, we've seen so many movies where they try to be coy about who the zombie master is. Right. And even though pretty much anyone watching would know. And I am just curious, I think of a more modern film like Ritual, where they have a zombie master whose identity truly is a secret until it's revealed at the end.

Yes.

And I'm just wondering, first of all, is this trend going to continue? And are we going to get to a certain year where they start really, truly trying to misdirect us about who the zombie master, who the bad guy is or not?

Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting. Yeah, the tension in this film is all will they save, save Sylvia or not? Can they stop this plague before everybody's killed? Not who's doing it, you know? Well, Sylvia is having a horrible time, and I have another clip here I want to play of our first encounter with Clive Hamilton. What I think is interesting here is going back to that idea of the aristocrat who treats everyone horribly. He makes the young bloods go off, go away. He yells at them. He apologizes to Sylvia. But what he wants more than anything else from her is a recognition that he is innocent. So let's play this because I think it's interesting.

Such behavior is beneath contempt and beyond forgiveness. I only ask that you accept my solemn word that I knew nothing of what was going on.

How do you know my name?

On the arrival in a smaller village as this of a beautiful young lady and her distinguished father could scarcely go unnoticed, Miss Forms. My name is Hamilton, Clive Hamilton.

Will you kindly take me home, Mr. Hamilton?

I fear that you have not forgiven me yet.

Your fears are well founded, Mr. Hamilton. I have not. Now, will you take me home or do I have to walk?

Is there nothing I can do to persuade you of my personal innocence?

Nothing. So, I just found that fascinating Andy in the context of the sort of evil aristocrat. The only thing he cares about is his personal reputation, despite the fact that his young flunkies have assaulted this woman.

Yes.

However, she kind of lets him off the hook and says she's not going to call the police at the very least, and then she walks home, which is kind of amazing.

Yes, it is.

Now, while that's happening, Sir James and Peter are digging up a body.

And not only just the body they chose, if you're going to choose a body to dig up, so the populace of this village hates them. Right. And they are refusing to let them dig up a body. So, the body they choose to dig up is the body of a child. Like, could you just set yourself up for more trouble, is all I'm asking.

And trouble comes in the form of two policemen who find them and are going to throw them to the wolves. However, in a great bit, they get caught. And Sir James just goes, well, if we're caught anyway, we might as well have a look. And he throws open the coffin and there's no one in there. Yes. So this piece of information gets the cops to sort of let them off the hook and acknowledge that something strange is going on here. We'll move along pretty quickly here. Peter finds out about Alice's death. He takes it very hard, like in a stage actory kind of way.

Yes, he does.

They do go to find her body because Sylvia obviously couldn't bring it in from the moors on her own. They find it next to Tom, the one who was threatening the doctor earlier in the film.

Yes, kind of the town drunk.

The town drunk, the older brother of the boy who was killed. And so the cops bring the brother and Sir James into the interview room. There's a lot of investigation going on here. There's an autopsy on Alice, which Peter is forced to assist with. Sir James is like, suck it up, you're helping me with this autopsy on your wife.

Yeah.

A lot of the investigating, I won't go into all of it. But the important part is that they involve a vicar at this point, and Sir James asks if he can access the vicar's library, and he read books about black magic where he discovers voodoo rituals and realizes what is happening. So here is-

I love that exchange because he asked the vicar, do you have any books on black magic and the vicar looks horrified and offended, and then he goes, well, can I go use your library? And the vicar goes, of course.

It turns out he does have those books. I wanted to say during the autopsy of Alice, a couple of things jumped out at me. First, they take a note again that she's got that strange cut on her wrist.

Yes.

But secondly, they put her blood under a microscope, which in 1860 would have to imagine that'd be pretty high-tech forensic science.

Yeah.

But their conclusion is that that's not human blood. It's not explained, but there's something wrong with the blood that they get off of her.

Yes. I was curious about that too. It is interesting. In any case, there's more interviews. The boys go to the tin mines to investigate. Meanwhile, Clive Hamilton comes to town and drops in on Sylvia and tries to charm her. But what he actually is doing is staging something so he can get a drop of her blood. Yes. Yes. He's got this stick where he breaks a glass, then picks it up and accidentally cut somebody with a piece of glass.

He reminds me of the guy from Dr. Blood's Coffin. So if you're a villain, if you're a mad scientist, you need to shut up about talking about how the morals of the world around you don't apply to you. Because Hamilton goes off on a little rant about how he adheres to his own standards, not those petty moral standards of the world.

Yeah. Good work. Yeah. Not suspicious at all.

Right. Yeah. Just keep it to yourself. Write it in your diary. Yeah.

When everybody's back together again, Sir James and Peter and the vicar are back at home, they make a discovery between the library and the tin mine. And we get this description from Sir James about what is going on.

What is the connection with voodoo? Someone in this village is practicing witchcraft. That corpse wandering on the moors is an undead, a zombie.

That. So we have the word. He said zombie. Unfortunately, I didn't have Brad cut the bit where he says Haiti, but he doesn't say Haiti, he says Haiti. Do we think British people in the 21st century still say Haiti or do they say Haiti?

I'd like to think that they do.

I hope so, like aluminium or something like that.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay. Now, can I get us to the best part of the whole movie here? Are you ready?

Well, first, could we pause? Yeah. We also learned that the backstory of this tin mine, which is important in conjunction with the zombie revelation.

Yes.

This tin mine was very lucrative, but it was shut down because there were so many accidents, it was too dangerous. Hamilton is now the owner of the tin mine. He's very wealthy, but no one can say where his money is coming from.

Right, because he doesn't employ anyone in the town to work it.

If you've seen White Zombie, your mind immediately went to, well, he's obviously using the zombies to work the mines, right?

Yes, absolutely.

All right.

So here's the best part of the movie, in my opinion. You can disagree with me, but in terms of a zombie artifact in the middle of this movie, it is amazing. So they figured it out, right? That Hamilton is doing something to the people of the village, and he sort of summons them and turns them into zombies. So they're going to go guard Alice's grave. Alice has just been buried. The vicar, Sir James and Peter are going to go guard the grave. While they're doing that, there's some shenanigans where they get lured away by an attack on the vicar, and Clive and his young blood, his henchmen, break in, dig up the body, and perform a ritual, put some blood on it to turn it into a zombie, and then they're scared off once Sir James and Peter figure out there was a ruse. And as James and Peter watch, Alice rises out of her grave. It is so good.

Yeah, it is.

You see them watching in horror as Alice rises out of the grave and walks towards them. Her face is green, her hair is long and lanky, she's wearing a shroud, her eyes are white, and we see like a handheld camera as they stumble away from her in horror. And Sir James trips on something. What does he trip on, Andy?

He trips over a shovel.

What does he do with the shovel?

He uses the shovel. What a swing, man. Because he uses the shovel and he beheads Zombie Alice with it. Yes. It's so good. So Zombie Alice, she's coming at you directly at the camera until her face just fills the camera. And at one point, she has what looks like a sinister smile on her face. Yes.

It's a total change. The actress who played Alice was amazing here because she sort of seemed like this wayfished thin, weak, forlorn woman and now she's absolutely terrifying as this sinister zombie. It's perfect.

It's great. So yeah, they chop her head off.

Yeah. And here we are, decapitate the zombie and Peter faints. And while he's out, he has a dream, you don't know it's a dream, but you find out it's a dream, of Alice's body still being there, but all the other corpses in the graveyard rising out of the dirt and we get to see a horde of zombies here threaten him, and then he screams and wakes up. And I just wanted to pause there because it's so good and such a great piece of zombie dumb.

It is. We get a couple of great tropes here. First of all, we have had previous films have shown us like hands and stuff digging up out of the dirt, but we get a ton of it here. It looks great. At one point, we see a zombie pushing its head out of the dirt, like shaking the dirt off. It looks so good. And then it's like that classic scene. I mean, if you've seen The Walking Dead, you've seen it 157 times of a zombie horde pressing in on somebody. It's just a really classic zombie moment.

Yes. We'll get to it at the end, but we're going to have a lot to say about this.

Now, the zombie movie Encyclopedia has a great description of this because it describes the zombies as Friar Tuck zombies.

They are. That's what the shrouds look like.

Because of the haircuts and the shrouds and everything.

Yes. But they're amazing. I just wanted to pause here because it struck me is that the cultists in this movie, you know what this reminded me of, Andy, actually? English cultists in the countryside. It reminded me of a Cthulhu story where there's this evil in the small town cult. Like the cult at the root of a small town where the town leader, I don't know, it just had that feel to me. You know what I mean?

Totally.

Yeah. We don't need to get into Cthulhu stories here. That'll be our next podcast. But then that's wrapped up of Act 3. We know the stakes. So after Peter wakes from his dream, he tells them what his dream is and this drives them to action to dig up the graves and discover they're empty. So here's a clip of Peter telling them about his dream.

Would you care to tell me about your dream, Peter? It sometimes helps. I dreamed I saw the dead rise. All the graves in the churchyard opened and the dead came out. All the graves were empty.

Yes. So they go and they dig up all the graves. They're all empty. Silvio is starting to show signs. She won't let them look at her cut. They find out that Tom, the prisoner, is also gone, and he had an interaction with Hamilton earlier that day, where Hamilton broke a glass. What do you know? The guy's got to get a new shtick. There must be some other way to cut people.

I know. It's like his calling card. This wouldn't hold up to a modern investigation.

Yes. Now, there's a wonderful scene where Sir James goes by himself to confront Hamilton and his young bloods. They have this wonderful exchange where Hamilton is just rude to him. We played our clip at the beginning about manners, that is Sir James speaking to Hamilton about how rude he is. Essentially, Hamilton throws him out. But Sir James is crafty, and he unlocks a window while nobody is watching him, so that he can sneak in later. Now, the pace really gets to pick up. I don't know that we need to go beat by beat here because it's so fast paced. But yeah, we're racing towards the end. I mean, I think that's another thing we really liked about this movie.

Yes.

It's paced really well. There's an investigation and as soon as they solve the investigation, it gets right to figuring out how to stop them.

As soon as they figure out what's going on, they had right to Hamilton to confront him, which is very appealing.

So the final set piece here is, the zombie ceremony starts, Peter is supposed to be at home keeping Sylvia from escaping, but when he goes to get her a glass of water, she sneaks out, summoned by the ceremony. Sir James sneaks into Hamilton's house while the ceremony is going on, trying to figure out what's going on, and Peter follows Sylvia. So now we've got all of them converging on Hamilton. Sylvia, because she's being summoned by the ritual, Peter is following Sylvia, and Sir James has snuck back into the house after the ritual has started. Sir James is rooting around in the house. He finds Hamilton's office, and he finds a secret drawer that we've seen before. We didn't mention it, but we had seen it, that's filled with these little coffins with these little clay voodoo dolls in them. He takes them as evidence, he puts them in his bag, but before he can escape, one of the Young Bloods comes out of the secret passage that leads to the mines where the voodoo ceremonies take place, and there's a fight between Sir James and this guy. Sir James wins and knocks him into the fire, and the whole house catches on fire. However, in the fight, accidentally, the fire is started and he dumps the voodoo dolls into the fire. Now, as that's happening, Peter bursts in on Hamilton about to sacrifice Sylvia in the tin mines. Okay, so we have these two things going on at once. Here's how they sort of solve it. As the voodoo dolls burn, the zombies in the mine catch fire and disrupt the ceremony. I just thought that was amazing.

I thought it was great, too, yeah.

I love that bit. So there are these poor stuntman. How many takes did this guy have to do with his arms on fire? It's clearly the guy who's supposed to be Tom, but he's got an extra mask on. You can tell he's wearing fire-protective gear. Throughout the scene, his arms are on fire, and he's swinging them around, setting everything on fire. It's great effect, but also I just can't help but think, that poor guy, that must have sucked. In any case, we're racing towards the end here. The zombies go into revolt against the overseers. They kill the young bloods, and Sylvia, Peter, and Sir James make it to the service elevator that leads to the mine, and as they ascend away from the chaos, Clive is like clutching at the exterior of the elevator, saying, no! And then everything catches on fire. They escape, the mine collapses.

A zombie grabs him from behind.

A zombie grabs him from behind. It's amazing. You know, the end. So yeah, I love this movie.

There is no epilogue. The end is just them turning to look at the burning mine.

Yes, and walk home. Yeah.

I have to say, I think this final scene was, of all the films we have seen that were made before 1966, this was the most tense. I really felt tense watching it.

This is like a competent film with great modern pacing. It just was great in that sense.

Yeah, the end scene is a big production. Like it's a big set piece that works. And I just don't know if we've seen, I feel like earlier films just haven't had either the ambition or the budget to try and stage a final sequence like this.

And I think it's interesting. I mean, I think the other thing is they're employing more novel techniques. I mean, I think spy films and such have been doing this for a while, but they have multiple threads that are coming together in a way that makes it tense and interesting. And a lot of our stories were lazy in that way. And that's why this one stands out, I think.

Yeah, it's really common for the final scene to involve all of the heroes converging on one place. But this one just makes all those scenes kind of interconnect with each other in a way that really works.

Yeah, absolutely.

So John, should we wrap this up with our usual closing questions?

Let's do it.

All right, John, in The Plague Of The Zombies, is there a hero party?

Yes, I think it's, well, it's Sir James, his student Peter, Alice, Peter's wife, Sylvia, and I would throw the vicar in there too because he does help.

I'd call the vicar a sidekick at best, but yes, for sure. He's around. How does that party do? How many survive?

Only Alice dies, but she dies very horribly.

Yes.

By being turned into a zombie, by the way, which will come up in a few questions.

I do like the hint. So two of the zombies we see smiling or grinning at the camera, and I do like the hint that it's a little fun to be a zombie.

Yeah. There's a perverse fun in it. Yeah.

So what kind of zombie are we dealing with in this movie? First of all, what's the strain and how is it created?

It's interesting because I think they're mystically magically created zombies. However, at one point, Dr. Forbes or James Forbes makes the case that this is actually a scientific method to this ritual. I don't know how much I buy that, but it's certainly there. But no, I think they're just mystical voodoo zombies, but they don't look like the voodoo zombies we're used to. They look like newer, modern, decomposed, evil zombies, like something out of The Creature With The Adam Brain or something. You know what I mean? They look like monsters.

Agreed. It just suggested that there's a little bit of malice in these zombies. They're not just blank slates that do the bidding of their master. Because when the zombie chucks Alice's corpse at Sylvia, it's got like a look of glee on its face.

Yes, it does.

And then we see a definite smirk that Zombie Alice gives. So I think, you know, we are... These are dangerous creatures.

Yes, I agree.

I would just add that they're Haitian, too. Very specific. They say that Hamilton went to Haiti.

That's right.

How are these types of zombies destroyed or killed, John?

I think if they absorb enough punishment, they can be killed. But decapitating them certainly works.

Yes. And possibly setting them on fire. So yeah, probably normal damage to the human body.

And destroying the voodoo doll.

And destroying the voodoo doll.

Oh, that's right.

Yes, that's right.

All right, in this movie, is the world threatened?

I mean, at the sort of global level, no. This whole Cornish village is threatened. So I mean, no, at the end of the day, but it is an existential crisis for this village.

This movie is definitely before whatever the point is, where the zombie threat becomes like an inherently global existential one. These zombies won't spread outside of this Cornish village.

Yeah, because so far we were, I think we were thinking that once we saw Invisible Invaders, we would start to see the apocalypse was just here now. But it didn't take quite yet. And I think maybe it'll take until George Romero brings it around that it becomes the staple that it is today.

Yeah, so I skipped over a couple of questions I want to circle back to real quick. So, what is sort of the kill count? I think we're starting to get an era where we can start asking for the zombie kill count. So, what havoc do the zombies wreak?

Well, if we count the zombies as those killed, right? Because they're sort of done in one by one. We've got a dozen. And then we've got Alice and then we've got Tom. So that's 14 plus the lads, the Young Bloods. There's six of them and Clive Hamilton. So, almost 20. Okay.

So, that's a pretty big number, I would say. And these are people that have mostly appeared on screen that we've seen. So, it's not like backstory deaths. Yeah. Can these zombies return to being human?

No, they're dead. You gotta be dead to be one of these zombies.

All right, John, at the beginning of this podcast, we, or you, identified four pillars of the modern zombie movie. Let's find out how many of them are in The Plague Of The Zombies. John, in this movie, is there an apocalypse?

I'm gonna say a soft yes, only because, again, this is an existential crisis for this village. So, I would argue that it's sort of setting the stage to make that a larger crisis. You know what I mean?

Yeah, it is interesting. Hamilton is kind of cannibalizing the village. He's going to destroy the village at this pace, right?

Yeah, and I don't think he cares. I think one of the sort of hidden messages here is that Hamilton is like a colonial aristocrat who will destroy anything to get the resources he needs, and he doesn't care about the people who live there, and I think that's important.

I think so, too. All right, in The Plague Of The Zombies, is there contagion?

There's not contagion, exactly. They have to be made by Clive Hamilton. There is a bit with the blood where he summons them and seduces them, but you can't catch it from another zombie, so no.

Are there tough moral choices in this movie?

Yes. Many, including Sir James cutting off poor Alice's head. That was a tough moral choice. There's several, and so yes, it's starting to get a little wobbly in terms of clear morality.

It is so Dracula-like though. I mean, all the plot beats are there, because Alice is basically Lucy Westra, and they have a similar thing where they... Lastly, the fourth pillar you identified was, Loved Ones Turning Against You. Is this a feature of The Plague Of The Zombies?

Yeah. It's the point of the movie. Alice Turning Against You is the centerpiece of this movie, and it's absolutely terrifying and delightful.

It is a fine scene, I agree, yes. All right, well, in that case, I'm gonna turn it over to you to ask me a few questions about this film in relation to the 1960s.

So we talked about how many kills. Would you say that we have an increase of violence and grittiness in this movie?

I think that we do, yes. The gore or grossness is not that much higher than the last couple of movies we've seen. Although the zombies do look more realistically decayed than they have in the past, I would say. Yes. I mean, but what can you say? This is a movie that shows someone decapitating a zombie, right? You don't actually see the shovel going through the neck, but you see everything except that moment, right? You know, you see the head flying, the head flopping onto the ground and...

Well, yeah. I didn't mention it before. There was an act in 1959 in Britain called the Obscene Publications Act. And I'm not going to get into all the details because it's complicated, but the general outcome of that is that there were more permissive attitudes towards violence and sex in film, if you could claim artistic merit. So I think we're starting to see horror films jump on that opportunity.

I do also think the scene in which Sylvia is captured and assaulted, and almost sexually assaulted by the Young Bloods, felt like something we would not have seen a couple of years ago. It's not graphic. It is really uncomfortable. Like it really makes you feel the awfulness of what they're planning. And that feels like something of the mid-60s.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Do we question authority more here?

We do, and for the reasons you state, I think. Sir James, he is not an everyday common man. He's not a car mechanic or a plumber or something like that. No, he's a doctor. He is a professional man, but the message of this is pretty clear that Clive is the old authority that could just do whatever it wanted. It runs the village, he has power over the police, he can do whatever he wants. He uses the people that he is supposed to be protecting as just resources to make him money. That is old England in stereotype. And so this movie is very much about knocking him down.

And what I love about Sir James' approach is he does it with classic English verve, right? He's like, I'm more of an Englishman than you are, and I'm going to show you what it really means to be an Englishman and I will put you in your place, even though he's the middle class guy. So I kind of love that.

It is, yeah. Sir James, in a different movie, might have had him be a rebellious young person, but it doesn't. And I think that is an interesting choice. Yeah.

And I think, yeah. So what about focus on hero's inner lives or more personalized horror?

Not a ton. I mean, the horror is fairly personal. Yeah, the horror is personal in the sense that these are your loved ones who are being turned into zombies. That said, it does not have that psycho element of psychological angst that is being manifested as the horror.

Though I suppose the dreams have a bit of that in them. But yeah, it's not the strongest theme, I guess I would say. Yeah. Fear of crime, societal chaos, and anarchy?

No, I don't think so. If anything, this movie is pointed in sort of the other direction at the authority figures.

Is there a sense of looming apocalypse and psychological stress? Maybe that's where the dreams come in.

Yeah, I mean, to some extent, the movie doesn't lean into it too much, but it's suggested that at some point, the whole village is just going to be zombified, right? He's creating a zombie at a rate of about one a month. It's not the biggest village. How long will this village be around? In a couple of years, it will have just been completely zombified.

You know what it reminds me of?

What's that?

It reminds me of Salem's Lot, actually, which is what was written in 74, right? So I think this kind of vampire that's slowly taking over the town, which is what happens in Salem's Lot is, I don't know that Stephen King took the plot from here, but it feels like the same plot.

I agree, yeah. So there is that sense that this is all on the clock, I guess.

Yeah, yes. Yeah. Are there horrors without solutions and a lack of clear villains to defeat?

So this one, no, I mean, I think there is a pretty clear villain and defeating him solves the problem. So this is not a movie that has a lot of, like, angst about problems too big for people to solve. This one can be solved by killing the right person.

Yes, yes, exactly. All right. Well, bring us home, Andy.

All right, John, would you and I survive in the zombie world of The Plague Of The Zombies?

I don't think so. This guy is pretty evil. And, you know, like, I think he could get me pretty easily. Like, I don't have a ton of confidence in my ability to avoid him.

What are you going to do next time someone breaks, like, a drinking glass while they're visiting with you, John?

Yeah, I'm going to say, I'll take care of it later. And then if they don't, if they still were, I'll punch them in the face.

I think Clive could get me too, yeah. And with that roving band of thugs, I mean, that's...

I know, those guys are horrible.

Yeah. Is this a zombie movie or is this a movie that happens to have a couple of zombies in it?

This is absolutely a zombie movie.

It is, yes, all right to the core.

It's sort of the most zombie movie we've had in a long time. Like, it's got zombie in the title, it's full of zombies, there's a horde of zombies, it's all zombies all the time.

Yeah, absolutely. And so lastly, do you recommend this movie, John, first as a general movie that people should go out and check out next time they're looking for something to watch? And secondly, do you recommend it specifically to the zombie loving listeners of this podcast?

Yeah, I'm going to be a strong yes on both. This is a generally enjoyable movie, don't you think?

I totally agree. Yes on both for me.

And then for zombie lovers, like, absolutely. Like, there's so many iconic things, specifically the Alice rising out of the grave stuff. That's a scene we're going to see a hundred times between now and 2000. You know what I mean?

I think that Alice scene holds its own against a lot of even the really good iterations of it that are going to come in the future.

Yeah.

It's a really, really good take on a zombie attacking a loved one. It's really...

Yeah, the horror, the realization on the loved one's face, the slow creep of the zombie coming towards you. Yeah. It's really well done.

All right. Well, that means it's time for the scariest part of this episode, which is when Brad tells me and John what zombie movie we're going to be watching next. I feel like we're on a high right now, so there's only one way this can go, but let's find out.

I think you're right, Andy.

Let's go sideways.

Okay.

All right.

Let's do something different. It's March, March Madness, so I think we need to build a bracket, a turnip bracket of all the zombies we have experienced up to 1966 and do an episode where we go battle by battle and see which zombie is the last one standing.

I'm here for it. Let's do it. Yeah, Andy, this is what happens when you do a podcast with you guys who like sports.

So every year, my coworkers are always like, join our March Madness brackets or whatever. I don't know how they work. I don't know how. Yeah, I'm going to learn a lot in this next episode.

Yeah, it'll be fun.

Well, what we'll do is we'll publish the bracket before we do the episode, and you can give it to your coworkers, have them fill it out and see how they do.

Excellent. I love it.

All right.

Well, join us next time as we draft, are we drafting the greatest zombies of all time or the greatest zombie movie of all time?

The zombies themselves.

Okay. We are drafting the best zombie of all time.

We're not drafting because it's not a draft, it's a tournament, single elimination tournament.

So is this tournament eliminating movies and deciding the best movie or deciding the best zombies, producer Brad?

It's going to decide the best zombie.

Okay.

Single elimination tournament.

Okay.

Join us next time as we will be pitting the zombies from the various zombie films we've watched so far against each other to see who is the maximum zombie.

I can't wait.

Excellent.

All right.

We'll see you next time, folks.

You've been listening to Zombie Strains. We'll be back next episode to talk about another zombie movie. If you enjoyed our podcast, please take a moment to rate us in your podcast app of choice. Tell a friend. Follow us on Instagram at Zombie Strains. All of this helps like minded people find the show. See you next time.