Welcome to ZombieStrains, the podcast that watches all the zombie movies. Today we're discussing our second Argentine film, Strange Invasion from 1967.

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

Zombie. What's a zombie?

Just what is a zombie?

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

They are the living dead.

Get me the zombies!

Against an army of zombies, no armies could stand.

Because a Zombie has no will on his own.

What is wrong, what is wrong.

Hey everybody, welcome to your favorite international zombie podcast. I'm John.

I'm Andy.

And I'm Brad.

Hi guys, back in Argentina for the second movie in a row. And I have to say, I started out skeptical, but actually, I think this film has a couple of interesting things to say. What do you think?

Yes. Yeah, I had the same experience.

John, let's be honest. I think before we recorded, you weren't the choice of words was that skeptical. I think you're a little annoyed with me for picking this. at, yes, and I buy little, I mean, maybe a lot.

And yes, however, however, you're interesting. Sponsored episode, right, John? Yeah, your instincts proved true, however, pretty so Brad, because it did end up being, I have a couple of things to say about this, because it's, it is ahead of its time relative to the other things we're watching, as well, say. Well, everybody, let's go right to how this movie came about, Well, Strange Invasion is a 1965 Argentine film. It's also known as Stay Tune for Terror. There's conflicting information about its release date. That's what makes you guys laugh. That was, I don't know why that's so funny, but yes. Clearly, that someone in America can try to come off the title that will be eye catching. There's conflicting information about its release date, IMDB, list 1974, Wikipedia, list 1965. And I couldn't find any backup sources for either one, but what is certain is that the film was made in 1965. All right, it's our second film from Argentina and the second film to be directed by Emilio Vieira. He was an Argentine director known as Latin America's Roger Corman, since he wrote and directed low budget horror in sex exploitation films. Strange invasion is not a sex exploitation film, and I found an online review of Strange invasion in the reviewer Mark Cole thinks this is Viera's best film, and I quote, I suppose you have to work harder when you can't rely on naked women to sell your film. That is as true, then, as it is today. Produced to Brad. Fill up Kirney, and less rental steam, wrote the screenplay. They wrote as a team, and have only two writing credits, strange invasion, and private parts, the 1972 film that was Paul Bartell's directorial debut. Bartell went on to direct death race, 2000 for Roger Corman. Oh, heck yeah. But he is best known for his 1982 film, Eating Rowell. Oh, OK. Um, unlike our last Argentine film, the deadly organ, this film has two actors known to Americans. I know Richard Conte out of nowhere. I'm like, I've never, like, we've watched some cheat movies, and this is a cheat movie, and I was like, hold on a second. I recognized that when, like, I was just so shocked, I recognized somebody. Did you recognize his name or face? His face. Yeah. I was like, I've seen that face in the God. Like, I knew exactly where I'd seen that face. Yeah, he plays Steve Jameson, the investigator from the Communication Department. He was at mostly crime and film to ours in the 40s and 50s, like the spider called Northside 777 and the Sleeping City. But his John said he's best known for his role in the Godfather. He played Barzini, head of the Barzini crime family, and the one who goes up against Don Cornelione. Yeah. Anna Mizrahi plays Dr. Conway. She was born in Venezuela, moved to New York in the early 60s to work at the UN. At the same time, she also started acting in off-off Broadway. She moved to Los Angeles and got a few bit parts on television and in the film, Riot on Sunset Strip. And in 1968, she married the famous acting coach, Lee Strasberg. He used the one who founded the actor studio, one of the schools that taught method acting and his students included Dustin Hoffman, James Dean, Al Pacino, and Marilyn Monroe. It was a Marlon Brando, his first big breakthrough was that somebody else. Marlon Brando was part of the school as well. But there are a bunch of different coaches, so I'm not sure which ones leak coach versus his wife or other teachers. Now, when Marilyn Monroe died in 1962, she left 75% of her estate to Lee Strasburg. When he died in 1982, Anna inherited control of Marilyn Monroe's estate, and she turned Marilyn into a multimillion dollar a year brand. She licensed deals with companies like Absolute Vaca and Blooming Dales. She also sued photographers who tried to sell pictures that they took of Marilyn. She claimed she had so legal right, and she lost these suits in 2007. And in 2011, she sold her share of Marilyn's estate to a company for over $20 million. And, and it's also the godmother of Drew Barrymore. Wow. Wow. I know it's a little movie from Argentina that we didn't know about. Yeah. Marisa Diffarri plays George, the local who welcomes this disturbance in his town. He was in the deadly organ. He played Inspector Loria. Oh, okay. Oh, I did recognize him. The quality of this film was pretty low. So like, yeah. I had to watch it a second time and scan through it to figure out who he was. Because it was, it's hard. Just over and out as we watch in YouTube. And it's an upload from a VHS tape. So it's very poor quality. Yeah. You know, just let me get this right. You watch this in a second time. Well, I scan through it. I watch it and then scan through it. You'll you suffer for your craft produced a bread and we always make. Well, it's only like 57 58 minutes. So it's not that long. It's not the longest movie here. And I don't have much else other than several other cast members were also in the deadly organ and we're clearly part of the era is on trash. Andy, do you have anything you want to add? I have a couple of historical context bits here. Last time, we talked a good bit about the situation in Argentina in the late 60s. So if you're interested in that, you can go back and listen to that. All the way, I think, you said this was made in 65? Yes. I think this came out then before the dictator on Ghana took control and started his repressive relationship. Anyway, I wanted to talk about a couple of themes that were in the air that are related to this movie. So, John, what's something that people really love? what's something I don't know. They love new technology. Why is something new technology? What's something that people fear and hate? A new technology? A new technology. All right. Do you have you ever heard Douglas Adams quote about this? Cause I think it's brilliant. The real pleasure. This guy did the galaxy. He said, if it came out before you were five, it's totally natural. If it came out between the age of 15 and 35, you made a career out of it. And if it came out after you were 35, it's the devil. So okay, that's perfect actually. So yeah, I wanted to talk about because this is a movie about people being hypnotized into a zombie like state by TV. Yes. I wanted to talk a little bit about the history of being scared that TV was going to turn us into mindless zombies. John, what decade do you think we first started hearing concerns and complaints about the effect TV was having on children? I want to say the early 60s, the late 40s, late 40s. It's a thing. TV isn't, it's the TV is still kind of a luxury item, I think, at this point. But by the late 40s, there were already articles starting to appear in magazines and parenting magazines questioning whether or not TV was having a bad effect on viewers. focused kind of thought. They went at it from the angle that unlike radio, TV didn't require you to use your brain. And therefore it was turning into a passive, a passive spectator, I guess, so much worse than radio or books. The fifties, though, is where I think we started to first see what you would call a moral panic about TV. Yep. So there's a famous guy named Dr. Frederick Worthum, who wrote a book, this was not about TV. You wrote a book called Seduction of the Innocent. And John, what medium do you think he was citing as the cause of the innocence of the world being seduced? I think I know this one. It's comic books. Yes, exactly. But he shifted some of his focus to TV. And this is where concerns started to arise that TV was going to contribute to Juvenile Delinquency. Yeah, and this is where you start hearing ideas that it's going to shorten attention spans and things like that. And we know that person was right because of the of Yes, well, as always, so there's this moral critique of the new technology that it's going to do kind of spiritual harm to you. But because it's the 50s and there's a lot of new science coming about and science is being is kind of being incorporated more into everyday life. So this is where you did start to see doctors and educators coming out as well and questioning whether TV is going to have a negative effect on your physical health. And this is where ideas of like, sedentary lifestyle fears of that. So yeah, yeah, because if you think about it, unless you were rich, it was harder to be a couch potato or until like the mid century, I think, from most people, right? Yep. So by the 60s though, this conversation is continuing to evolve, and there is a famous speech by the chairman of the FCC in 1961, where the chairman of the FCC called television quote a vast wasteland, which is kind of funny. And he explicitly warned that mindless programming was going to affect children's minds. You know, it's fascinating about this is, I think this follows as a piece from a like 1950s episode, which is a million episodes ago. But right, we now have people with a lot of free time, they have a lot of money, they don't have as much commitment in terms of work or chores. It all I think would feel to somebody in the United States is like the continuing degeneration of of the teenager, which is recently invented as well, right? Yes. Like definitely, you know, there's always a line that even Cicero complained about how bad the next generation was and it says tail is old as time, but I think it's definitely feeds right into that. So one last point here, in the 60s, the conversation took a turn that I found kind of interesting, what do you think what you think it was about TV that freaked people out in the 60s that they thought was going to have a bad effect on your brain. I thought they thought it was going to hurt their eyes. Sort of. The concern it was less about the moral delinquency of what you were watching. And they were worried that the actual, like, editing format of TV, that the faster pace and loud noises and, like, rapid cuts, we're going to ruin everyone's attention spans, basically, interesting, which is a critique that, you know, I think it kind of went away and was replaced in the 70s and 80s by more of a concern about, like, the garbage you were being, the garbage content. you were being fed on TV. I think it came back in the 80s too with MTV because people talked about the fast pace editing of videos. Yeah, that ruining attention spans too. And today we're talking about it with, you know, Tik Tokeram. Yes, exactly. Yes, exactly. So I think John, I think all three of us have had the privilege of raising kids in the a digital age where we are still having variants of this conversation, right? Yes. But so anyway, sorry for the long-winded thing there. I just thought it was kind of interesting that when this movie came out, it's clearly tapping into a conversation about what is this medium doing to us as a society, right? Yeah, it's a very thoughtful in that way, actually, but, um, but let's not give it too much credit. It's, uh, it's a delicious horror film about, uh, well, it's not even that horrific, anyone. No, not really. So I have one other, if you'll indulge me, I have one other little cultural context thing. This is a little bit more, has a little bit more of a tenuous connection to this movie. However, This movie is about a community, a town or a village where something happens to everyone in the community that kind of separates it apart from the world around it in a way. And I thought it was kind of interesting. I do think this was kind of in the air at the time. The idea of stories where something bad happens to sort of a specific community of people, and the story is watching how people react under that pressure as a community, right? Also, it seems like a similar lineage to like, village of the dam and children of the dam from 1960 and 1964. It's about a strange behavior of it's not the same because these children don't have side powers, but it's a similar like our villages uniquely under attack and our children are uniquely dangerous. Exactly. I was going to mention in village of the dam and if you look in the chat, this is just fun. And listeners, please Google the poster movie poster for a village of the dam. That will paralyze the will of the world. I love that. So anyway, the 60s saw a number of movies and stories along around the theme of a kind of closed-in community Where something bad happens to it. There's a 1960 episode of the Twilight Zone called the monsters are due on maple street. Do you guys remember that one? No It's where a neighborhood is isolated and I it's been a while since I've seen it, but I think they suspect that like there's an alien invasion happening, but of course the true monster is man, right? I think the prisoner in 1967 is kind of is related to this genre. Yeah, and did you guys, did you guys ever read any of Frank Herbert the Dune Guys non-dune novels? I once tried to read the white plague and I didn't make it all the way through. Yes. Well, I didn't, you know, I didn't like that one either, but he wrote a number of short novels and like the sixties that are actually pretty enjoyable. And there's one called the Santeroga Barrier, which is also about a town where like a kind of invisible quote, dome kind of surrounds it. Oh. And then also like under the dome. And Stephen King's under the dome much more recently. Anyway, so there's a lot of examples of that if you go hunting that you can go down a rabbit trail I certainly did but I won't be labor this anymore so no that's awesome alright with that said john we're finally ready to actually talk about this movie so would you do the honors of doing a 60 second or a 30 second or a 10 second however there's there's this movie doesn't have the most elaborate of plots it does summary of Strange invasion. It doesn't have the most elaborate plots, but a fairly well distilled sort of zombie style plot. So this movie is about a small town. It could be sort of anywhere USA where a strange signal is broadcast on the TV set that hypnotizes the watchers and as the movie goes on more and more people get hypnotized by it And if you try to turn off the set or take it away, the people watching it become agitated and eventually incredibly violent about being denied the feed of the TV. At the same time, those children, their parents, are becoming restless because they're worried about their children, so it sort of mob starts to form. And in the middle of this, we have investigators from out of town who are trying to solve this problem. before the military can burn down the swamp and kill all the children, and our heroes have to come up with a solution to break the signal and bring the children back to life before that happens. Did I miss any big points? You did not, and I am going to walk us through this discussion, but honestly, you kind of hit most of the big stuff that happens in this movie. Yeah, there's a, there's somebody who's behind it that we don't that like occasionally will call the police. All right. Well, let's start out at the beginning. And I'll go over a few things that jumped out at me. You point out anything that jumped out at you, but feel free to keep us moving along. So we start out. with a uh the camera kind of pans around and we see a group of young kids that are messing around in like a junkyard which is near us swamp and this is going to be plot important much later in the film but in the course of their shenanigans I've been told they say that too much, but there you go. No, it's not. They knock over some barrels into the swamp. So even though I was a kid in the 70s producer, could you imagine our parents letting us, I mean, we went and climbed around in construction sites and stuff, because we lived in the neighborhood where they were building new houses. But can you imagine the parents if they saw us climbing on rusty barrels? I would have lost their minds. Yeah, yes, so that is a that's going to come back to haunt us much later in the film But then we switch the bulk of this film Follows a couple of families and characters in this town We follow one boy in particular and he goes home and as you do when you're a kid Just sit down to watch some TV, but John, what is different about the show that this kid is watching? So the sort of manifestation starts as it's a regular show, but it starts to have these strange lines up here on it, as if the signals and clear, but the lines are consistent, wavy lines, wavy lines, however, it starts out, I believe it's just like overlaid on the show, but it doesn't stay that way, yes. And so for a while, there's a number of scenes where basically people are trying to figure out, like, hey, there's something wrong with the TV. Yes. And so they kind of call around and they quickly discern that it's not just this one family's TV, but this is happening to a bunch of other families' TVs in the town. Yep. And in the course of this, we are introduced to one of our main characters. This is Doctor Sanders. Yes. And so here's where I should pause and say we all watch this on YouTube and it did not have English audio or English subtitles. So we all at least I watched this by turning on YouTube's like auto translation subtitles same here. And let's just say it's a little rough. So it was enough to get the gist of most scenes. But there are swass of this movie where I didn't really, I only had a marginal understanding of what was going on. So if I get some facts on, please correct me by the time. But Dr. Sanders is going around. And by this time, the TV interference has evolved to show a sort of hypnotic pattern. Yes, and a few parents and other people have tried to turn off the TV and at first, they're like, hey, go to your homework and they'll turn off the TV and then they'll leave and the kid or the person will just get up and turn the TV back on. That's how the resistance sort of starts. Yes. But early on, you can kind of snap people out of this. Right. And when they emerge, they can't really explain what they were experiencing. We'll get into that a little bit later. We do get a little bit more details. So anyway, they hypothesize that there's some sort of local interference in or around the town that is causing this. Yes. And we meet when they can't figure out how to fix this or how to identify where the interference is coming from, they call in the government. So they call in what's called the Minister of Communications. I know that sounds awfully sinister. It sounds like a propaganda position, Yes, it does. This is a Mr. Jamison, who is one of our other main characters and will actually be following him around for most of the movie. And his job is going to be he rolls into town and he talks to Dr. Sanders and his job is going to be basically drive around and in one case fly around and try to get a sense for like the scope of this interference. My favorite thing about him is his name is Steve. The movie is in Spanish, and they'll be rattling on in Spanish and go, Steve. And then you're like, and he's played by Richard Conte and he is Richard Conte. Yes. So, um, at any rate, Steve, Jamison, figures out that the interference ends about a mile outside of town. um, at least for now. We're going to find out later that it's starting to spread. But things are getting a little bit worse. Kids are starting to skip school and just staying home to stare at the TV and like you said, John, when it's turned off, they just, they, as quickly as they can, they get back to a TV and turn it back on to stare at it. Yeah, and it does happen to some adults, but not, but it's mostly children. Yes. Uh, so the doctor, thinks that this is, he kind of tells the minister of communication that this is a medical emergency, almost, and it's treated like a pandemic from here on out. Yes. So what would it be like a pandemic? Because pandemic, epidemic, epidemic, I'm sorry. So wait, you hold on. Do we have a John's grammar corner thing here? Because, yeah, when's the last time I corrected you? Do you want Andy to lend you his thing? Yeah, please. Thank you. All right, all right, correct me. No, it's just a pandemic would be something worldwide an epidemic would be more localized. So okay, point well made. So nobody is safe young or old and Jamison calls the government again to report this is unlike anything he's ever seen. So he's escalating this even further up the government. Yes. So I kind of lost track of like who exactly was who at this point, but we were introduced to our last major character. This is Dr. Conway. And I think she's like the woman who's in charge of the government's emergency response or something as well. Yeah, yes. And they don't, you know, they have the classic Don't Take her seriously because they call her Miss Conway. And she says actually I'm a doctor. And Yeah. Yeah, they're pretty sexist towards Dr. Conway continually throughout the in South America in 1965. I know, it's hard to imagine just try to imagine it. So now they get it's getting worse, so they urge the mayor to get the town to not turn off their to not turn on their TVs at all. Um, we get a couple of, like, scenes of, um, like, scenes of people around town at this point. Like, so we see a scene of a family dinner. People are now, like, desperate to get back to their TV. So they don't want to eat or do anything else. Yes, there's a kid who throws a fit. Yes. I don't want to eat. I want to go back to TV. We see a man who's like kind of frantically turning on the TV with trembling hands, like he's shaking like an addict. Yes. And is this the point where the kids a lot of the kids leave their homes in the middle of the night and like break into the local TV shop and like turn on the TVs? That's coming up in just a minute, but let's talk about it now because what modern movie did this remind you of, John? what modern movie did this week. We covered it on this podcast. Oh, weapons weapons. Yes. So there's a scene where it gets so bad that kids denied their family TVs get up and mass and take to the streets and break into stores and houses where there are TVs that they can watch. But we're interrupted here because we get a phone call. The government people get a phone call from a mysterious and identified caller. His message is that he controls these children, this is his doing, and there's nothing they can do about it. He doesn't actually stay to plan, does he other than he just is villainous? Yeah, later he is going to, he calls a couple of times throughout the movie to kind of restate his villainous, uh, you'll never be able to stop me later. He kind of criticizes the government for not negotiating with him, but he never states any demand. I know. It's just a villain 101. You have to tell us what you want. Yes. I think, uh, and also screenwriting 101 villains have to have something to do, right? Yeah, so this has been escalated so much now that the military show up from Washington, this is ostensibly taking place in the U.S., and the military is probing how high up into the atmosphere, the interference extend. And it now is stated to be, this is a national emergency because what they learn is that the area of interference is growing. It's spreading. So, the police, and again, pop in if I'm missing any juicy scenes, John. Now, I don't think so. I mean, one of the problems with this film is it sort of all flows together because as you're watching it, you're watching these auto-generated subtitles that don't make very much sense or you're trying to infer what's happening and then you're on to the next scene. It's a, it's a bit of a model. Yeah. So anyway, we're kind of barreling through this movie much faster than we usually do here, but the military escalate things even further. The police start going house to house, warning people not to use their TVs. That's right. And some people, though, push back. And John, why don't you tell us about like, what is their attitude, I guess, when they bump into a Yeah, the most sort of the biggest part of the scene is the character we run into there in a bar. and they're drinking and watching the TV being hypnotized by and a policeman walks in and just turns off the TV and immediately one of the patrons starts to give them that skyna black cap that's all I can remember about him. So that's giving me my hard time and then he sort of becomes the leader of the of the quote unquote resistance who was frustrated by you know people pushing them around there's this paranoia or this pushback against authority in general where they're sort of saying hey you can't you elite people you police you Right. Like it's just very interesting class, it almost goes right to like a class argument that they should that the police should be doing this. Yeah. I found this part to be one of the more interesting moments in the movie because he he says at one point he says what this is a free country. Right. Who are you to tell me what I can or can't watch? That's right. Which is kind of interesting, right? Because I mean kind of instinctively we sort of side with that attitude, right? Um, at any rate, things continue to get worse and kids have now started people have now started getting violent when they are separated from the TV. So there's a scene where a kid attacks his dad. Yeah. And he tries to turn off the TV. Everyone's sneaking out. And while he's, while the kid is attacking the dad, dozens of kids are coming in the window at the same time to get at the TV and watch so it's kind of creepy yeah that was a pretty creepy scene he's getting mobbed by kids that what that was probably the most effective like I I we can talk more with this later the movie is not particularly scary but that was one of the sort of effective bits do you know what movie this reminds me of with these kids like this for you it's weapons but if you guys seen the It's about a woman who keeps giving, she has a woman outside her body and keeps giving birth to these kids who instantly grow up to be the same age as her own daughter. And they feed on her emotion when she could say, I'm going to get angry and act on it and goes out into the town and commits violence. Oh, wow. That sounds pretty great. And it is David Kronenberg. It's pretty creepy. Okay. Well, yeah, I guess we should probably note here that the difference in, like, tone between this movie and the last movie we watched by the same director is quite dramatic, there's no this movie manages to be a little creepy at points. Yes, but there's no violence. There's nothing salacious at all. It is a very, very tame movie compared to the one he's going to direct just a couple years later. And like that movie, there are some artful moments to this, right? Like people in silhouette in front of a fire. It's not a movie. It's not a technically terrible movie. There's a good shot where a kid is refusing to work in his dad's shop or something. Yeah. And he's, do you know what machine he's using? The camera, like, zooms out in a clever way from this, like, woodworking machine that kids using. Do you know what he was? Okay. Well, the camera zooms out in an artful way from this woodworking machine that kid is using. I'm not going to rewatch this movie to try and identify what it was, but, you know, listeners, if you know what it was, I'll write it in a let us know. So there's some kind of cool shots. There's there's a lot of shots of young people in their pajamas just walking down the streets. And I should note here, you know, they, when they're watching the TV, they look pretty zombie like they're in a total trance. They're just staring. They're not responsive and it's there's something creepy, you know, you know, people outside in the street in their pajamas is like one of those just seems wrong to us, you know, and so there's some creepiness to some of these scenes. The city is now filling up with hypnotized people and concerned parents who are forming like kind of a quasi mob, right? Yes, and they're sort of two competing, they're not competing, but the two groups that are putting pressure on the government to figure out what's going on. Yeah, and all this time. To clarify that those who are affected by the waves are mostly children and the elderly, the most susceptible, that those the adults for the most part, except for the guy in the bar, they're not affected. That's right, you know what and actually one of them, one of the creepy bits are that one of the few scary things I found in here is there's an elderly person who lives at home and they their TV goes off and they start yelling for somebody but nobody comes to help them because they're all hypnotized by the TV. Yes. So the state of the hypnotized people is getting more serious and they're starting to fall into unresponsive comas. Yes. It's like the condition is getting worse. It started out as like they could be snapped out of it pretty easily. uh, and then they got uncomfortable and they were separated from the TV, then they got violent, but now they appear to be just shutting down. And all those time we've been getting scenes of doctors and nurses kind of frantically trying to treat these people, and one of the nurses says they're addicted. It's like a drug. Yeah. Yep. So, a riot is forming though that bar owner we mentioned earlier is kind of leading this riot against the authorities who they say are overstepping their bounds. And there's some tension here because the soldiers have now the soldiers here and they've kind of quarantined off this town. Yes. And so there's a pretty good scene where this line of soldiers facing this mob that's sort of surging forward and guns come out and, you know, are they going to, you know, are they going to actually open fire on the villagers, you know, it's a And this is, we'll get into it in the post game, but like, we know this isn't new because we know this happened in village of the damned, but this idea of a local outbreak is new to us here, and I think it's an interesting trope we're going to see a lot in the future. So. Yes. So, we have, well, this has been going on. We've also gotten one or two more phone calls from the mysterious villain who suggests that he is doing something to control this. We're going to find out. We're going to find out. Yeah, we're going to find, well, we never really learn what his deal is, although we do find out his ultimate fate in a few minutes here. We're coming up at the end of the movie, but they have their first kind of, uh, break through, I guess, and understanding what's going on. So here I got lost and it like how the pieces, there's something about the barrels, something about the swamp, and you see you get lost on how the pieces come together because John, they don't. Yeah, that's right. I like I couldn't, yeah, that's my, that's my problem. You guys didn't think this was a carefully choreographed chess game with all the pieces sliding into place. I, uh, my chess court does not have enough Well, what I wanted to say is something that the nurse that Conway realizes. She realizes she's able to talk or get some information out of one of these zombie kids. And she discovers he describes that while he was watching the TV, it felt like he was just eating an endless amount of chocolate. Yeah. And he was in a state of bliss. And so what Conway discovers is that this hypnotized state is reverting people is trapping them in a pleasant memory or a pleasant fantasy, like to some a blissful experience or maybe even, you know, regressing them to really early childhood impulses in fantasy. Hey, you have any thoughts about that? Yeah, hey producer Brad, when Andy just said that what early 80s movie did you think of? Because I thought of a very specific one. the stuff. Brain storm. Oh, bring up. Well, that's on my list to rewatch. I haven't seen it since the early 80s. Yeah, I haven't heard of it. Let me know that goes. No, so brain storm is a very early like VR based movie where they invite a system that lets you basically engage in any memory or activity you want to virtually. And people get addicted to pornography and everything else inside of this virtual. machine anyway. So what it's also known now as the last film, Natalie Woodmeat. She was making that film when she died. And Christopher Walken is in the film. Yeah. And Christopher Walken and there's they've got a really creepy villain who was a great villain for a few years in the 80s. I can't remember his name. But yes, it's a Christopher Walken joined before he was Christopher Walken. Well, I'll add that to my two-watch list. That sounds pretty interesting. Sorry. I mean, so we're getting a little bit more cultural commentary here from the movie at this point. Because what is the TV's doing? What are these doing? It's infantilizing the viewers. That's right. It's regressing them mentally to a very simple state and pulling them out of the fantasy is traumatizing for these people. And so we see some, I would say genuinely, slightly upsetting shots of these people in the hospitals who are starting to almost have seizures, panic, uh, panicky seizures and can, um, when they're, the longer they're separated from this, and they're all restrained to their There is a kind of funny moment when they are testing this out. They have a kid in front of the TV and have him tied to a chair. Like he's like a kidnapping victim or something like that. Like it's kind of funny. You know what, actually, I'll make a comparison to another movie we watch. The kids are kind of like the kids in the girl with all the gifts, right? They have to be restrained. They'll, they're silent there. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. So at this point, this is where I also started to get a little bit lost that they start to figure out what's going on and there's a lot of kind of incomprehensible techno-babel made. I suspect it didn't make sense in the original Spanish, but it makes even less sense when you have an AI-slop translation going. Yeah. Uh, so it's about the swamp. And I think there's contamination in the swamp from the barrels the kids were playing on, yes, which is impacted these like sea willows seeds that are going to blow into the air and infect other communities. So they've got to burn down the swamp before that happens. That's what I summarize it is. I think that is correct. What's missing from that summary is how the hell television Yes, or how the villain is involved in this way. Yeah, it's like a parallel tracks of terror, but yeah, I can't quite. Yeah, so, so yes, as John said, so what happened those barrels at the kids knocked over at the very beginning of the movie spilled? It's spelled germanium. No, I might mine said silicone on the end. Oh, yeah. Well, it said germanium and it said silicone. Okay. Well, you talk about what the AI translation said or what the barrel on screen. The barrel on screen said silicon. Right. AI translation said germanium. I don't whatever. It doesn't matter. Right. So I think there are two different things happening. What was being spoken and what we see on screen, which is part of the problem of the film. Yes. So anyway, whatever the substance is, it is leaked into the swamp and, you know, blah, blah somehow. This is causing this hypnotic. effect on television, Brian brush cast it. It makes very, very little sense. Correct. Anyway, we, well, they did want to long tangent about diothermal interference. Yeah, I missed that. That was the part I didn't understand at all. I had to look at something I don't understand the science and the swamp was in the contamination. The swamp was also creating an interference in the sky that affected. So there's two things happening. The broadcast was being affected by the swamp as well as the contaminated seeds. How those two things happen at the same time, Simon. I don't know. It doesn't make sense. That was a value in efforts, producer Brad. I try. Yeah. So that leads us to this movie's kind of, the final, we're at the final climactic moments of this movie. And the final piece of tension here is the military wants to burn the swamp, which is kind of a funny thing to say. Yeah, so they're, they're going to bring in flame throwers and stuff and just torch the place. I thought, but the our heroes are like, please don't burn the swamp. I don't I didn't tell you I think it was they were suggesting and maybe I just made this connection in my head is that if you cut off the source from somebody going through with draw the like die of shock is sort of what they were saying and unless we can break the grip the TV has on these people then their brains will melt is what I sort of felt like they were inferring okay, I think I like that but I could just be making that up I had thought that they were worried if they set the swamp on fire, which again is kind of funny, that that is what would cause the seeds to go seeds of what it's not explained. Would to go airborne and then spread all over the place. Now, I think they were sitting on fire to prevent that, so that's why they had a deadline, but if they did it before they broke the people of their addiction to the TV, it would like fry their brains. That's how I started. Okay. Well, the military agrees to give them a couple of hours to fix the problem on their own to cancel out this interference on their own before they go in and burn this one. And what's interesting is this is a trope that you see still. Like I'm watching the TV show Monarch and Apple, and the heroes are trying to accomplish something, but they know the military is coming with nukes. You better solve your problem because if you can't, the military is going to There's a there's a movie a Dustin Hoffman movie from the 90s, which isn't very good called outbreak, which has this plot explicitly. There's a bunch of infected people in the government's like Dustin, you have to figure out this disease and or we're going to blow up this town. Everyone. Yes. So, all right, then we get a lot of really boring scenes of, uh, ste- Yeah, for a But at the blah blah blah they have an experiment it almost works, but like they don't want to burn out the machinery Yes, and then we get yeah, but then eventually He they just figure out how to do it right. Yes, I turning knobs and he turns the knobs to make him a siliscope behavior And it works and Everything calms down. I wrote in my notes. I'm not sure what's happening But the mob comes down, the military burns the swamp without any ill effect because their heroes have saved have canceled out the transmission and our last so I was ready to like stop watching this movie. Yes, I figured the credits are rolling but we get our last. like kind of remarkable little surprise. Out of the mob, a crazed man who is the villain who's been making these threatening phone calls, he lurches out of the crowd screaming that they're taking away his power. He swears revenge, but then he jumps into the flames and is consumed. And then the movie ends with Jamison and Conway flirting and hugging. Yeah. But then then movie ends in a cool way by putting the last couple seconds of the film are the hypnotic interference, uh, yes, that you're watching like as if you are being exposed to this deadly hypnotic TV signal. And that is a wrap on strange invasion. And what is it was a Yeah, I don't even, we don't even know what the source of all this is. I mean, I, yeah, what were you going to say, producer brand? I was going to say one thing I did like, when they, when the military burns, the swamp, they actually have a guy with a flame thrower. That was terrifying. That was a real flame thrower, like not some, like that was like a world war to flame thrower. Yeah, and it looked like the lead, the two lead cast members were 10 feet from the guy. I know, that was the spot like, you can't do that. Like, that's not safe. Like, they were actually setting stuff on fire. And it was, there was a chance. Yeah. So, hey, before we move into our usual wrap-up questions, anything I missed or anything you want to call out that we're not going to get to in those questions. No, I think, I think you did a great job of covering it and hitting the important stuff. I think we just need to clarify that it's no way to understand what happens, that it's not clear how the villains tied in with the seeds. It's almost like it's separate stories that just happened. Yeah, I wonder if we spoke Spanish if we could have noodle did out, but I honestly think you're probably right that it's not, it's just not there. Yeah. And I felt like I was, I felt like that was a little bit more of a monologue than we usually do. Yeah. But there is not. This is like, this would fit comfortably into a 20 minute Twilight Zone epicenter. That's exactly what I was thinking. But instead, it's like an hour, a full hour. And so this, this movie's problem is that it's, it's pretty boring, honestly. Yeah, you get what this movie is doing about 15 minutes into it and then you just get keep getting told the same thing over and over until the credits roll. Yes. that said anyway I don't want to be too harsh on this because it was kind of interesting but let's move into our wrap up questions John in strange invasion is there a hero party for sure it's Dr. Conway it is Steve and and I think the other doctor like the nurses and doctors at the hospital but it's really just Steve and they started to have this rotating cast of team members but it's really just them Yes. And how do they do? How many survive? They all survive. In fact, everybody survives except the crazy guy, the villain who jumps into the fire at the end. I was like, we hardly knew you, villain. Yes, at least before you go, at least tell us your plan. Yeah, what was your name was or anything. Tell us how you're connected to this movie, please. Yes. Okay. So are there zombies in this movie? And if so, what kind of zombie are we dealing with, John? Okay, so I am not sure even now that the kids actually as a mob, to behave in a zombie like fashion. They're violence, right? They break into stuff, the town is under siege, right? It feels like an infection that has to be stopped. So there are many zombie-like elements, but I don't think that they're quite zombies. I think they're just sort of hypnotized people. So, but if they were zombies, they would be technologically hypnotized as zombies. But let me ask you a question, John. If you had seen the movie in the context of the movies from the 30s and 40s, would they be zombies? Or are you saying they're not because you're in the 60s? It's a great question, I'm not sure, because they are sort of mesmerized like the older zombies. And so that would make more sense. So I don't know, what do you think, Andy? This is a tough one. This is a tough one. I do think at some point, zombie is going to mean 100% undead. Right, right? Like, we have seen a quite a few movies where a zombie is a living person that's just put into a trans-like state or controlled or have their will stripped away through some mechanism. At some point, I think that is going to branch off into its own thing and no longer really feel like a zombie movie. Right. And I think we might be around, I mean, it might be around the night of the living dead, you know, that this starts, that zombie starts to mean something a little more consistent. And yeah. Yeah. Yes. Actually, though, this movie, I think has something more in Don't have the dead, but we can get to that once we get through these questions. Sure, okay. So how are these zombies destroyed or killed or stopped? They're still normal humans. So you could stop them by killing them just normally, but nobody wants to because they're children. Right. And so they can return to being human, I guess, or to a normal state. Right. Is the world threatened? Yes, it is. Because if this could spread to other towns, the military's worried that these seeds could spread to other towns, and they could take over the whole world, they said it explicitly in the movie. Yes. All right. So, John, at the beginning of this podcast, you laid out four pillars of the zombie movie. Let's find out how many of them are in strange invasion. All right. When might end up scoring pretty well in this segment, despite, despite being kind of an odd ball movie. Yeah. John, in strange invasion is there and apocalypse. I'm going to say yes. There is because people get taken over by a force outside of their control Is there contagion? No, you can get turned into a zombie, but another zombie doesn't turn you into a zombie. Yes. There is something, it's, it's contagion adjacent. Yes, exactly. It feels a little contagion close. Yeah, but it's not. Yeah. It's that person, a person, it's TV to person. Yes, exactly. And these seeds are in there somewhere, but again, that's a, it's an external source. So, yeah, not quite. Are There are. The plot. The main end of the film is how can we save these kids? We have to choose between these kids in the world. We have to burn down the swamp. How much time do we give this doctor to save these children before we have to do that? I think that's a tough mulch choice. I think so too. Yes. And are there loved ones turning against you? Yeah, because the children attack the parents who turn off the TVs. So, for sure. I think in a better movie, you know, children attacking parents is, is some pretty raw stuff of horror. It's, it's only mildly creepy in this movie, but I think, I mean, even in Night of the Living Dead, we're going to see that weaponized against the viewer very effectively. Yeah. Absolutely. All right. Let me turn the tables on you, Andy, and ask you some questions about movies in the Does this movie each feature an increase in violence or grittiness? It does not. It has... So this movie has essentially no serious violence in it. We see a couple of kids kind of rustling with their parents. Right. That's about it. That said, any movie where It is always chilling to me anytime, you know, you see a row of soldiers with their guns facing a crowd of civilians. Yep. So there's nothing gory or violent on screen, but there is that that tension of kind of that tension of violence that could break out. that is kind of a classic upsetting visual to see the military flame throaring something, right? Yeah. So no, no increase in violence and greatness, but this movie is kind of haunted by and by the threat of violence that I think was more on people's minds in the turbulent 60s. I think so too. Now here's a good one. What do our characters question authority? So this movie questions authority. Yes. It's not our heroes so much. Well, yes, they do. So we have a couple of people questioning authority and making what I think are, you know, somewhat reasonable points. One is the locals who say mind your own business. If we want to watch the hypnotizing TV, that's all right to do so. Right. Stay out of it. And then we have our own heroes who, you know, if if the government sweeps in and solves this, we know they'll do it in the worst, overkill way possible. Right. So our heroes do push back against that bureaucratic government solution that will, you know, save the village by burning it down. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. Now, do we focus more on the inner life or is there more personalized I'm going to say no, I do think the effect of the hypnotizing TV transmission, I think that reverting you to a sort of state of infantilization is kind of interesting, but it's not really personal, and honestly none of these characters are deep enough to even, I mean, these are all characters that can be described in one sentence. Yeah, and it's really that kid reflecting on how it's like eating chocolate all the time is the closest we get to that in this episode. Yes. about a fear of crime societal chaos or anarchy. So, yeah, so I think this movie is playing with this with its scenes of angry, uh, angry people in the streets and, you know, facing down a row of, uh, gun-wielding soldiers. Yep. we don't see sort of the breakdown with like, you know, looting and violence in the streets and Molotov cocktails and stuff that you might see in later movies that do this sort of thing. But to do see zombie children breaking into people's homes. Yes, yes, you do. So, you know, these are these, Uh, youthful delinquence of the 60s that are watching too much TV and now they're loose in the street, breaking store windows. Uh, maybe. So we'll give this one a yes. All right. Um, is there a looming sense of apocalypse and psychological stress? So I think, you know, the threat that this is going to go global is kind of looming in the background of the movie. The movie isn't executed in a way that that fear ever feels terribly real to you, the viewer. But it is technically there at one point the villain calls in and he Although we now know that the villain has only a marginal connection to what's going on, the villain says the end is near, as if he knows that all of this is building up as the hypnotized people symptoms worsen, it does seem to be leading up to something that fortunately the world never has to see, right? That's right. Now, are there horrors without solutions or lack of clear villains to defeat? And let me caveat this question by saying, just because the film was incompetent, doesn't mean it gets a yes on this. Just because the plan is unclear, does it mean it's an automatic yes? So I think this is also a yes. This is, First of all, the villain they defeat, you know, doesn't really, again, this might be a a film-making competence thing, but it's not clear that the villain really was the villain. I mean, he could just be a diluted person, right? You don't even know if he wants anything. right. So I do think, you know, in the sense that this is this movie is about the fear of this new technology and these new, uh, these new ideas and mediums that our kids are absorbing goes well beyond something that can be solved by just defeating the enemy or cleaning up this one spot of Well, do you want to bring us spring this horse back into the barn here, Andy? I do indeed. We always close with three traditional questions. First, John, would you and I survive in the zombie world of strange invasion? I think so, because most people survive. Yeah. Yeah. We might get hypnotized. We might have become an angry mob. We might get punched by a We're both firmly in middle age. Do you think that we are old enough to be, you know, as Brad pointed out earlier, the window of vulnerability is being young or being old? Do you think we get glued to our TVs and hypnotize John? Well, that I do, I could actually know, I don't think I do that anymore. I used to, I get glued to YouTube, does that count? Yes, it it does. Okay, then yeah, 100% counts or would you be in the streets yelling about the government trying to stop you from watching TV or something like that? I'd like to think so. All right, you are good. All American. That's good. John, is this a zombie movie or a movie with zombies? I'm going to say it's actually and I don't think I would have answered this when we started this conversation. I'm going to say it's a zombie movie because it does have zombie things to say even if technically I'm not sure there's zombies. I also have, I'm going to say yes and I have been moved to say yes by this discussion. I think going into this discussion, I was planning to say this was like a movie with out zombies. Yes. All right. All right. Lastly, John, do you recommend this movie? First, just generally, is something that's worth watching. And secondly, does this have special interest for our zombie living listeners? So I'll do what I've been doing lately, which is take the second question first. There's something really interesting about this movie that I wasn't expecting to see yet. This is a piece of social commentary about the impact of a new technology or a new cultural wave on a society that is more in line with Dawn of the Dead and its theme about consumerism, right? And the sort of shell on a sub-modern American culture, and that and we haven't had a movie do that yet so that is really interesting to me that were there well before I thought we'd be there however the quality the difficulty in watching it and the fact that I'm not quite sure there's zombies I don't think I can I think there's a couple of interesting pieces here but I don't think I can recommend it in either case ultimately English subtitles or an English dub that we could recommend to people. I might say yes, but I don't think I can in the current environment. Yeah, I mean, I would just second everything you said, this is a pretty boring movie I thought with some surprisingly interesting themes. Yes, that will become part and parcel of the zombie genre in future years, but it's kind of I guess I didn't expect them to crop up in this weird little niche film. Yeah, I was surprised, it took a big swing and I think it technically couldn't, you know, match its eyes were too big for its stomach, but it certainly tried. I think to say something interesting. Well, but all right. Well, that means it's time for the scariest part of the episode. And that is when producer Brad reveals to me and John what zombie movie we'll be watching next. And if we actually get closer to an idol living dead or if he's found some other South American delight to put in our way, there are other continents we haven't visited. Oh dear. Hold your tongue. Oh boy. Okay, get it to us. So I will play you a clip from the trailer for this film and then we will see the posters. So first up here is the trailer. Terror stalks the streets. As a scientist, human transplantation experiment runs a mock. The Astral Zambis. Nice. John Kennedy and Wendell-Corees star is one of the most frightening horror films ever made. Watch and terror, scream in fright, thrill to breathless excitement as these skull-faced astros zombies strike blindly at living flesh. Terry, whiffing and killing with flood-race fury, unbearable suspense and sadistic terror grip the senses. These human transplants threaten the safety of a city. This is a very delicate situation. We are concerned with the mutilation murders. They're required of a fast six month. The beautiful delptuous deadly vicious satanah, a woman who would stop at nothing to gain control over the Astro zombies whose creed was kill, kill, kill. This this that trailer kept ramping up the volume. This is all over the place. First of all, I like to state for the record that I am no relation to the Wendell Corey who stars in this film. There's at least as far as I know. How do you know John? I don't know. Maybe I should look it up. But John carried in again. I mean, you got to give it a shot of John's in it. You know what I mean? So here's the poster. You love a, there's always a certain tri-hard vibe to these trailers that like insist on how scary and terrifying movie he's going to be. It's, you will say this is our, I, in a, over the years we've seen movie posters get a little bit more allure and risk a, this is our most grotesque poster yet I think you want to describe it John. Yeah, it looks like it's drawn by maybe a middle schooler who's really into heavy metal. uh... it says dismembered bodies transplant organs are used to create astrosambies i have to ask if there's the original poster because it's so weird but we see like a tattooed woman in a zombie like with a woman in its mouth holding up a severed screaming woman's head uh... and it's green and red and all primary colors and looks like a cartoon It does look like a modern poster drawn for Campy Retro abuse, doesn't it? It has that vibe. That said, I would be delighted to learn this as original. It's listed as at the Atrical Release poster. That's a May 68. Okay. All right. Your parents would not have let you watch this. I thank you. No, I don't think so. Oh, thanks for this poster. All right. Well, I'm here for it. What's the countdown, Brad? How many films remain fading in? So we have two. We had another one in here, but it's a film that has multiple release dates and multiple cuts and multiple edits. So the version we're going to watch is from the 70s. So I pushed it. OK, so that means so on. We have Astros on, which is one other movie, and then we're at night at a living den. OK. This is the first time. Is this the first time Brad has stricken a film from the list? Because he keeps finding ones to add. Yeah, I don't know. Well, this is the first time we've had a countdowns where I've had to acknowledge my mistakes. You should have just escaped by in that telling me one. Also, I would like to say he's not cutting it from the list. He's just moving it in the schedule. That's good. Well, we have to, it has John Kerryn as well. Oh, my gosh. OK. Well, thanks for listening everybody. Remember, you can email us at zombie strains podcast at gmail.com. We'd love to hear your questions or thoughts. Follow us on social media. We're zombie strains on Instagram. And we hope to hear from you there. In any case, join us next episode for Astros Zombies. You've been listening to zombie strains. We'll be back next episode to talk about another zombie movie. If you enjoyed our podcast, please take a moment to rate us in your podcast Apple Choice. Tell a friend, follow us on Instagram at zombie strains. All of this helps like-minded people find the show. See you next time.