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 is, um, Mr. Bill is...

The living dead. They are the living dead. It's an army of zombies.

Because a zombie has no will of his own.

What is wrong? What is wrong?

Welcome to Zombie Strains, the podcast where we watch all the zombie movies. I'm John.

And I'm Andy.

And we are here to talk about two zombie movies today. What are we talking about today, Andy?

We are talking about the HBO show The Last of Us, specifically Season 2, in very spoilerific detail.

Super spoilers on The Last of Us Season 2.

And we are also talking about the recently released movie 28 Years Later. We will be avoiding serious spoilers for that, because we want you to go out and watch it without having it spoiled for you.

Right. And I think, given both, that The Last of Us has a video game story that has been played by millions and also has been out for over a month or more now, I think it's pretty safe. But there's also such a delight in going into 28 Years Later blind. We're really going to try to avoid that so everyone can enjoy it. But we do have one other thing we want to talk about. Andy recently went on a road trip to New Orleans with his teenager. And what did you do while you were there?

So when we were there, I sought out a voodoo priest who offered voodoo-specific tours of New Orleans.

Now, just to be clear, I'm assuming this tour was filled with necromancy, animated dead bodies, and voodoo dolls, and it was absolutely terrifying. Is that correct?

Yes. And terrifying drums were playing in the background the entire time we were in the city. Right.

Exactly. No, I think we wanted to bring it up because your experience was almost completely opposite of that experience.

Yeah. So if you don't mind, I'll take just a quick minute to share a couple of things that I got out of it. This isn't obviously a religion podcast, nor am I a voodoo expert. But the main thing that was just reinforced to me because I already know it, I already knew it, you already know it, our listeners already know it, which is that the portrayal of voodoo, and we've seen a ton of voodoo at this point, John, have we not? In the movies of the 1930s, 1940s, a lot of voodoo. And obviously, I think, for most of us, that is, all of that stuff is just mostly garbage. The scary elements in all of those movies are almost entirely a Western invention.

Yeah, I feel like, I think I said at the time during our, when we were first talking about voodoo, is that voodoo in cinema bears as much resemblance to Haitian or New Orleans voodoo as Catholicism bears to the exorcist, right? Like, it's just not really about the same thing.

Yeah, what's interesting is that, you know, the trappings that these films seized on, like voodoo dolls and wangas and drums and things like that, I mean, those are perfectly real elements that are present in voodoo. But the way that Western filmmakers took them, I mean, they just kind of invented new concepts for them. They invented the idea of the voodoo doll as this threatening, horrifying tool used to harm. They invented the wanga as a, you know, something that if you saw it, you were doomed or under a curse. And this priest who is leading us on this voodoo tour really emphasized that, you know, things like voodoo dolls, you know, these have positive uses, and wangas have positive uses. You know, voodoo dolls are used for healing, you know, in conjunction with medicine, voodoo dolls are used to get rid of negative ailments that someone in the community is suffering, you know, virtually the opposite of the horror movie, Voodoo Doll. And so that, you know, I don't think that was a surprise, but it was something else to hear, to hear those ideas being shared by an active practitioner of voodoo for whom these are things that he uses in his everyday life. I mean, they're just the opposite of sinister. Just like, you know, they're almost mundane and down to earth in the way that they're used in the community. And John, the only, I was trying to think if, you know, I'm a, you and I are both children of, you know, sort of Western Judeo-Christian culture in a way. So I was trying to think of, like, if there's any sort of parallel experience. And my mind went experience of like a, of somebody's religious ideas or artifacts being taken and, and like twisted into this bizarre interpretation. My mind went back to like the days of early Christianity in Rome, there were rumors abounded and accusations were leveled about the Christian practice of the Eucharist, which to the Greco-Roman culture could be twisted to sound like something horrifying and cannibalistic. But if you just asked a Christian about it, they would have told you, oh no, this might seem macabre at first glance, but actually this is a very positive thing and here's what it means. And that's all it really would have taken any of these filmmakers to do. Just ask a person with experience with a voodoo doll or a wanga or something, or drum, any of these things and just say, what, so what is this really for? But none of the movies we watch showed any evidence of these filmmakers being interested enough in the real religion to do even the most basic level of research. What do you think about all that?

Well, I think, sadly, and I think this is the way it always goes, for reasons that feel a little lazy very often. If you are, let's say it's 1930, and if you are predisposed to be a racist, then it's very easy to say, oh, I can take this group of black people who have these ceremonies we don't really understand and turn them into something frightening. And that's an easy way to scare people, because it hits on the things that scare them, the foreign, that kind of thing. So I think that's sort of lazy filmmaking. And actually, I want to lean back into that when we talk about 28 Years Later, because I think there's a fascinating spin on that, but we'll get to that when we get there.

So the thing that I thought a lot while I was on this tour and while I was talking to this priest, I thought a lot about these movies we've watched in the context of this podcast. And in one of our episodes, it might have been our wrap up episode, we talked about what a modern revisiting of the traditional zombie movie in its Haitian or voodoo context might look like. And we said something along the lines of, the way that you could do that and have it be fresh today would be simply to have the perspective in those stories change. So that instead of an outside person being frightened by voodoo, it's a person who maybe who practices voodoo, who lives in that community, who's a local. And that would unlock a whole new set of stories you could tell. It would have the advantage of being much more authentic, right? So I'm all for religious horror in films, and I'm sure we have a lot of religious horror movies coming on this podcast.

Many, many, yes.

But when I think of really good religious horror movies, I feel like they're usually stories told sort of within the context of that religious environment and often told to people living in that context. So if you think of like The Exorcist, right? I mean, not a super true to life depiction of Catholicism, but The Exorcist is a scary story that Christians are kind of telling each other about their own religious mythology. And that's what gives that story weight when viewed within that context. It's this conversation about faith and the reality of evil and all sorts of other things. And by contrast, all the movies we've seen in the 30s and 40s, Voodoo is an outside force that's threatening people who live outside that context. And that kind of guarantees that you will only ever have the most shallow and least edifying possible experience of that religious horror. Does that make sense?

It makes total sense, and I think you've hit it on the head, right? The Exorcist at its core is about a belief in God and God's ability to solve this problem or to keep you safe or keep the young girl safe in the case of the Exorcist, whereas there's nothing positive attributed to Voodoo in the movies we've watched. It's all negative, which is why it seems so ridiculous to us.

So thanks for letting me go on about that. Again, I'm not a Voodoo expert, so go read a good book about this. Seek out a Voodoo priest in your local city if you have one. Yeah, it's fascinating. There's a lot of fun too.

Awesome.

All right. So what are we doing next, John?

All right. Let's get to The Last of Us Season 2. We talked about several episodes ago, we had a little bonus where we talked about the first episode. We're just going to talk about the rest of the series. We're not going to cover the plot. We will spoil things because we're going to cover our overall feelings about the show and what we thought of it, but we won't go beat by beat. Andy, you and I have both watched the entire thing at this point, correct?

Yep. And so just to be clear, we are going to spoil Season 2. So if you are one of the few people that hasn't played the game or watched it or picked it up in the zeitgeist, maybe give this a skip. John, I thought it might be helpful to start our discussion by just quickly going through your four pillars of the zombie movie and applying them and seeing how The Last of Us Season 2, but we can talk about the show as a whole, how it matches up. So are you game for that?

I'm game, let's do it.

All right, so let's go through your pillars. Does The Last of Us Season 2, does it feature an apocalypse?

It does. And what's interesting is I think it features an apocalypse, I think since The Walking Dead, and maybe before, but I think Walking Dead is what firmly cemented this in the consciousness is the apocalypse has occurred, and most of our story takes place after survivors dealing with the apocalypse. It's not over. There's still zombies everywhere or in some places.

Yes.

But there's a new normal that people are dealing with after the apocalypse. It's not about the day of the apocalypse anymore.

I think it's interesting. We're going to get to 28 Years Later in a few minutes, but it's interesting that both of these things we're talking about take place 20-something years after the apocalypse, right?

Yeah, and I find it interesting that, well, we'll get there when we get to 28 Years Later. Let's keep going on Last of Us.

Yeah, you bet. Is there contagion in The Last of Us Season 2?

For sure, and it's a big plot element actually, right? Because one of the key elements is that Ellie is immune to the contagion and she's the only one. So often there's mistaken identity or confusion as she is bitten or somebody sees her attacked and they're worried and they discover she's actually okay.

Yeah, or she even kind of can use that, her immunity tactically to deal with threats, right?

I think more than one, she gets bitten because she's... She does... I like Bella Ramsey and she does a good job of being scared of the zombies, but she clearly also has the goal of saying, okay, if I get bit, it's better than you getting bit, right?

Yeah, there's one specific scene where she... Yeah, we'll get to it. All right, John, is there... Are there tough moral choices in The Last of Us Season 2?

I think so. I think it's all tough moral choices all the way down. It's, you know, again, like The Walking Dead, it's built upon people's choices and the dark choices you have to make in this post-apocalyptic new normal.

Yeah, it's so tough moral choic e, it's almost over the top with it, I think.

I think so. There's many, many places where they made a choice that I just thought, even in the context you're in, that's too dumb for me to enjoy, to be honest.

Yes, well, save that thought, we'll get to it in a second. Because finally, our final pillar is loved ones turning against you. Is that a factor in The Last of Us Season 2?

I think that fear is ever present, and in this context, it always happens. I don't know that there's a specific example of that, oh, yes, there is. There's a great scene where they know someone's been bitten. It's actually a linchpin of the moral center of Season 2, which is Joel lying about how he treats somebody who's about to turn.

Yes. Yes, that scene is not in the video game, which I've played a couple of times, and so that was brand new to me. So I was kind of delighted that we got not only a new scene, but that it had a lot of centrality to the season.

So let me ask you a question. As a player of the video game, I did not play the video game you did, as you just said twice. How did it feel for you to see it turned into a TV show?

Well, I will be honest, I fell in love with the video game, and I guess because I have a complicated relationship with the video game, because it's not, it's in the same way that the show is a little hard to say that you love the show, or that you're really having fun watching the show. It's a similar thing with the video game. I thought that the video game told the story really well, and I don't think that the show is bringing much that's new to the story. So I'm enjoying the show, but I saw the story first in the video game, and I thought that the actors and the writers and stuff like that told the story excellently in the video game. And so, I don't know. I guess, you know, I'm enjoying the show, but my first love was the video game, and season two hasn't changed that.

Yeah, and season two did not give me, in my opinion, give me enough to make me want to keep going, like if there's, like I might watch a season three, actually I probably will, because I do a podcast about zombies, but I think, so I should say, first of all, I don't enjoy watching TV by myself, which is weird, because I love watching movies by myself, in fact, I do it more than once a week for this podcast. But TV, like I just won't watch a show by myself, I usually watch with my wife or my son, and neither of them have any interest in zombies. So, but having said that, there were things here that, let me say one other thing, Craig Mizan, who was the showrunner of this show, he partnered with, I think, one of the writers from the video game.

Yes.

But he did create one of my favorite shows of the 21st century, which is Chernobyl, which I think is literally a masterpiece of television. And that is a show I will watch by myself, and I don't want anyone to worry about me, but I've watched like four times, so, yeah.

The show, as I think you were referring earlier, has a distinct kind of lack of zombies through a lot of season two, right? I mean, so it does open with a bang, with a zombie horde besieging a settlement.

Which I thought was great, by the way, didn't you? I thought that was fantastic.

That was a fantastic scene. But then for the rest of the season, it's really, except for a couple of specific encounters, you know, they're roaming around in areas that have been mostly cleared of zombies. So it's kind of funny, the video game, you interact a lot more with zombies because you have to have gameplay, right? And so the gameplay consists mostly of sneaking around and evading zombies or taking them out. But you can't just have 50 repetitive scenes of Ellie and Dina knifing clickers, right, for the show. So they give you, you know, maybe one representative scene, whereas in, so the video game feels like the world is much more full of zombies than the show does, I think.

Yeah. And I think, I don't know, but there was some introduction of characters from the WLF.

Yes.

That, and I struggled with that a lot, because they were such good actors, but I didn't really know much about them. Jeffrey Wright, notably, is a great actor, and he has sort of two scenes, one where he kills a bunch of people, and one where he tortures somebody using cookware. And I sort of said to myself, is that all you want to tell me about this character? Like, I couldn't even tell you his name. So I think, as somebody maybe who watched the video game, maybe there was more depth there that I didn't see, but there was nothing that drew me to him as a character other than he's so convincing as an actor.

If anything, he's a little more sympathetic and three-dimensional in the show than he is in the video game.

That's not good.

He's pretty monstrous in the video game. Isaac is the name of that character.

Isaac, that's right.

So John, I wanted to ask, so is there anything in this season that really hit you? We were like, yes, this is what I love in my zombie movies. This right here just captures a certain thing that I love.

There were a couple of things. So I think the big, so first of all, the giant siege at the beginning, right? Like was wonderfully executed. Different kinds of zombies. I enjoyed encountering the different kinds of zombies.

Yeah.

Like the clickers and the giant fungal people and that kind of stuff. I thought that was great. I really enjoyed, there was a, if it's not the last episode, it's the second to last, where there's a flashback episode with Ellie growing up under Joel's parenting.

Yes.

And I thought that episode was wonderful because what it did, that I think most of the rest of the series didn't do for me, was show me why these characters are worth falling in love with. And then both Ellie and Joel, it's not just because Pedro Pascual was there. And then the horror of their reality when they have to kill one of their townsfolk. Yes. And then how teenage rebellion factors into Joel's choice to lie about killing that person. All of that was interesting. Drama, tough moral choices, people I have genuine affection for, genuinely convincing, loving relationships that make the stakes so much higher. I did like that episode a lot.

That was, I think, a highlight of the season as well. You know, the best zombie movies know that they have to show you, like you say, they have to show you the joy and the love and the humanity that is at stake, that is at risk. You know? Think of 28 Days Later's extended, just that wonderful, wonderful scene where they're in the shopping mall and they're having, they're in the grocery store or whatever. Do you remember that one? And the music is playing and they're riding around on the carts and you can see why these people love each other and why, and you can see what is at risk of being lost, right? Later in the movie when things get bad. And if anything, like, yeah, this, it was an interesting choice of season two of The Last of Us to wait until almost the end of the season to give us that, oh yeah, here is why this is all worth doing and risking and fighting for or whatever. We got that at the very end and it did, it got in there at the nick of time, I think. It worked, it worked. But like it was in the nick of time, so.

So, I mean, if I have another complaint, it's that I actually enjoy the relationship between Ellie and Dina a lot. And they could have, and I think they could have done a lot of similar things with that relationship. I got frustrated when Dina realized she was pregnant and I thought her reason for wanting to continue with the vengeance. They sort of dumped it on us in a one monologue. And I didn't, I didn't buy it. And the fact that Ellie said, no, we should go. Let's go, you're pregnant. Like she wanted to make a choice for life. And my honest thought is, and this is why I struggle with this show and with The Walking Dead, and maybe this makes me too optimistic. If you were really that nihilistic about life, right? Like I'm willing to choose vengeance over the birth of my child. If you're really that nihilistic, then you probably wouldn't survive as long as these people have. Does that make sense? Because that sounds like a series of really bad choices. Is that too judgmental?

No, I don't think so. In fact, so you know what turned me from being fairly sour on this season to deciding that, yeah, I think I enjoyed it, was the character of Jesse in the last episode or two. Jesse appears and he says all of the things that you are thinking, which is that, what are you doing? Like, this is selfish, it's stupid. You simply have to care about other people. And he said all of those things. And I guess it also says something that he has killed almost immediately after dispensing this. But I was really, I was on team Jesse for the small amount of time we were with him, because he said all of those things to the protagonist that I was kind of mentally screaming at them throughout the entire season.

And I think that helped me enjoy the season more. And I think that, look, as you could say that Jesse died because he was naive, I would disagree. I would say he died because he was hanging out with somebody who was nihilistic.

Yes.

And the choice that got him killed was not the choice of life or joy or family. The choice was to hang around with people who had made bad choices.

Exactly. And he made the choice for, yeah. So, John, could we talk about that scene with the character of, oh, I'm blanking on the name. Is it Gene? No. Eugene. The character who, they're out on patrol and they come across Eugene, he has been bitten. So talk about what that scene is in the context of zombie movies.

Well, it's the best tie-in to the early part of the season. I think the show actually doesn't do that super well except for this scene. So what happens is, they discover Gene who's out on patrol and gets bitten. And going back to the first episode, Gene is the husband of Catherine O'Hara's character who is the psychotherapist. And we established earlier in the season that she is angry at Joel for killing her husband. So going back to the end of the flashback episode, and in the second to last episode, I think. So Joel is trying to make a decision. He's been bitten, and Ellie says, look, we could get back in time for him to say goodbye to his wife. And Joel sort of says, okay, but he really has no intention of doing it. And what he ends up doing is leading him to the edge of a lake and killing him there. And Ellie disagrees with that choice. So when they get back to town, Joel tells his lie that he didn't have a choice. And Ellie says, he's lying. He had a choice and he chose to shoot him before he came back here. And that hit really hard. Is that what you wanted to talk about? Like why that was important?

Yeah, to me that is at the heart of just an awful lot of movies. Like what sort of a person are you going to become or must you become to live in this world, right? Are you going to be the Ellie in that situation? Like, hey, we have time. Let's have his final moments be with his loved ones instead of out here in the wilderness. Or are you going to be the Joel, which is that, look, the facts are these. He's going to turn. Bringing him back to town creates all sorts of, is a wild card situation that could lead to all sorts of problems. And so we're going to do the logical thing. And that's my favorite kind of tough moral decision in zombie movies is that, I mean, it sounds pretty simplistic to say it, but what do we do with the people that have been bit, right?

Right, that we love, that we think are great, that are our family members and community members. So I think that zombie movies are the best when they create stakes where we like people, and then create great emotional moments where we have to make those choices about them.

Yeah. What do you think, John, about having different strains of zombie within, substrains of zombie within the same show? So we've got your zombies that run around, we have the more advanced clicker ones that are the more fungassy looking ones that walk around by echolocation, and they're a lot tougher. You have those, this season introduced the new sneaky smart ones that can flank you. And I love how terrified the characters are, by the way, when they encounter those things and they realize they're up, they're no longer, for 20 years, they've been killing these mindless zombies. And here are some that could throw the tables on you.

And that was a great scene, actually, when Ellie sees the first one, and it's looking at her from around a corner, and she says, come at me. And she's shocked when it doesn't. And she's like, what are you doing? Run at me. And that was a great moment where we see the fear of one of our characters realizing something's not right.

Yes. So, do you enjoy that? Does it break your immersion for you? I think on the negative side, there's a certain video gamey feel to it. Like, oh, this is the boss type. This is the fast type. This is the mini boss type of zombie. Or does that not bother you?

It doesn't bother me. Not so much for video games, but for role-playing games, I sort of accept those roles as part of the game. And so I actually, it made the show more fun for me.

Yeah, okay, good. They didn't, there is a big, disgusting boss zombie that did not appear, has not appeared yet in the show. That's in the video game, the hospital sequence where she tortures Nora to death, which is the worst part of the video game, like it was probably the worst part of the season of TV. But that's more extensive and it involves a giant, like mutated rat fungus thing, so yeah, so. Okay, well hey, should we move on to 28 Years Later, or is there more that you want to say?

Yes, please.

Okay.

No, I guess I would just wrap it up by saying, like, I don't think The Last of Us season two is bad. It has a lot of good moments. I loved the beginning with the siege. I loved the flashback episode with Joel. I didn't love, now again, we said full spoilers, I didn't love the killing of Joel. I honestly feel that that was once an edgy choice that shows could make, but now I feel like it's just a matter of course that shows make that choice, and so it doesn't feel special or interesting to me. Now, I know it's in the video game, but I just sort of roll my eyes at that and say, oh, how brave, you killed the main character. Like, we haven't seen that a bazillion times before.

When this story came out, The Last of Us part two, I think it was part of a trend to show maybe consequences or the negative repercussions of allegedly heroic stuff in media. I want to say, you know, like the Captain America Civil War came out, and the whole plot of that is a lot of hand-wringing about collateral damage that these heroes do. You know, we've seen 25 of these movies, but suddenly the mood was right to talk about like, oh yeah, what did happen when that building got pulverized in your fight with whoever, right?

Right.

So I think that that was just in the atmosphere at the time, that idea of like, well, Last of Us 1 was pretty fun, ended on kind of an ambiguous note. What if we just really, really dug into like the, what if we made it as hard as possible to be happy about what these people achieved in season one, right? So, yeah, okay.

So I just, it didn't feel like a, it didn't feel like a edgy choice to me anymore. It just felt like something kind of gross.

Yeah. And you know, after Game of Thrones, after Walking Dead, it's pretty hard to, I don't even know what you have to do to be really edgy anymore because I almost feel like they, like, like they maybe didn't want to do it.

And this dude is like, well, you got to kill somebody, right? Like this is an HBO show for God's sake. So, yeah.

So I have a few more things to say about this, but I want to same kind of in comparison, contrast with 28 Years Later. So let's move on to that movie. Yeah.

Can we just, can we just geek out for a minute here? I have a, let me just, I have a brief prepared statement. I don't know what's going to happen the second or third time I watch this movie. And there will be many more times where I watched 28 years later because I loved it so much. But going to the theater, you and I have been watching zombie movies for a long time now, before we even started this podcast, but we've been watching them weekly. Going to the theater and seeing something fresh and new and surprising and punk rock was just so great. And I loved the entire experience of 28 Days Later. And I'm sure on supplemental viewings, it'll be like, oh, they didn't really follow up on this, and this was kind of weak. I'm sure I will think of a dozen things that aren't good about it, but just my initial review is, man, I wish every movie could feel like that in the theater.

I, yeah, so I sign off on that statement as well, if you're collecting signatures on it. Yes, that was the joy of this movie, was not knowing where it was going.

Right.

Because watching the first two movies in this series, I hate the word franchise, but I guess I got to say, right?

Yeah, it's a franchise take, but.

Will not prepare you for this movie, because this movie doesn't follow the template of either of those first two movies.

No, and it tells you everything you need to know about those first two movies in a title card in 30 seconds, and you're fine and you're off to the races.

Yeah, I mean, how do you make a zombie movie feel fresh? I mean, I would have been fine if this were basically just a rehash of 28 Days Later. I would have been fine with that. How delightful that somehow this genre still has new stuff it can throw at us, huh?

Yes, I mean, I just, I was, it's interesting because this is the one, I think the first point that I wanted to make, and this is not too spoilery, but it does take place, as you said, 20-something years after the apocalypse. We don't need to go into a lot of detail here, but in many ways, it's covering the same kind of ground that The Last of Us covered, but it's doing it in a very different way.

20 Years Later is a movie that just really celebrates the humanity of its characters, I think, rather than putting that humanity perpetually on trial, right?

Yes, like there are choices that some characters make that you are disappointed in those characters, but even then, I was like, well, that just feels like a very human thing. Like, if I put myself in the shoes of that character, it's not a great moral choice, but I could see myself making it, you know what I mean?

So do you want to just quickly go through the pillars on this one, too, John?

Let's do that, yeah. Let's go for it.

Is there an apocalypse in this movie?

Yeah, it's in the distant past, but absolutely you do, at the very beginning, you do get a reenactment of that apocalypse, and if anything, it's scarier than 28 Days Later was. I was absolutely terrified by the opening of this apocalypse.

This movie opens at like 70 miles per hour, I will say.

I think when I said, when somebody asked me how I liked it, I said I loved it, and I said it was fierce, surprising, and punk rock. It is just off to the races with something absolutely visceral right out of the gate.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, yes.

Is there contagion in 28 Years Later?

For sure. If you get bitten by one of the infected, they call them the infected. That's the name for zombies. Actually, notably, they don't use the word zombie in 28 Days Later. They do use it once in here. They put it in the mouth of a foreigner who just sort of spits it out like as a dismissive word. But for sure, yeah, the infected, you can get bitten by them. If you get blood sort of in your mouth from one of them, it can infect you. So for sure.

Yeah. Isn't it interesting that that word makes you feel defensive on behalf of the infected almost? When it's uttered at that point in the film, you have learned enough about the infected to no longer maybe view them quite the way you thought you were going to going into the movie.

Yeah. It's almost like the infected now have nuance, which is just an absolutely bizarre thing to say. But there's more complexity to the infected and their life cycle than in previous zombie movies, for sure.

Yeah. So I want to talk about the strain of zombie in a minute, if we can do it in light spoiler mode. But are there tough moral choices in 28 Years Later, John?

There are, but they're not the ones you expect. You think that it's going to be the very sort of similar Last of Us Walking Dead tough moral choices, but they're very different and they actually are about choosing life in a very bizarre way.

And then lastly, does this movie feature Loved Ones Turning Against You?

It does. It's more of like the constant threat of that hanging over everything, more than anything else.

The opening scene, I think, it has our most traditional incarnation of that trope.

It's like Danny Boyle saying, you want a scary zombie movie about Loved Ones Turning Against You? Here's five absolutely terrifying minutes of it right out of the gate.

That's right. What would be the worst way for a loved one to turn against you? Well, here it is. I enjoy it.

Yep, exactly.

So let's see. So what do we want to talk about? Do we want to... I don't want to spoil this movie. Part of the joy of this movie is just learning what we do about the infected and not in a like M. Night Shyamalan like, oh, twist ending. I'm radically reinterpreting what the zombies are. But just more of like a... I don't even... They're not humanized. They're not... I'm searching for the word. We just, we learned that, like you said, there's this nuance to the infected. It doesn't change the fact that they're a terrifying threat, but it does change the way you think about the entire setting of the film.

Yes. It does.

Did you have any non-spoilery comments about how the infected are portrayed in this film?

Yeah, there are infected that are not simply mindless killing machines. There's two or three, not unlike Last of Us, there's two or three new varieties, which add complexity to the whole business. I appreciated that a lot.

I was really surprised that this movie introduced subtypes of infected. That was interesting.

I was too. Again, it's like you can make a parallel to The Last of Us. There's subtypes of infective. It's about a community surviving after an apocalypse, but the whole thing just has a completely different vibe, for sure.

What's interesting to me is how... There's a lot of infected in this movie, a lot of tense scenes involving the infected. But like The Last of Us and like The Walking Dead, we really... This is a movie, the plot is not related to the infected. Like the driving, the choices that drive the story are not choices made, they're not choices directed at the infected. They're not even reactions to the infected. They are... You could tell a version of this story that didn't have any zombies in it, and it would be a moving story with a lot of heart. Do you agree with that?

I do agree with that, because ultimately it's a coming of age story about this kid Spike, who's the star of the show. And it's about his relationship coming of age with his father and with his mother, and how he sort of, not resolves, but starts to figure out those two relationships. And in both cases, as a father, I found it moving, though the father is complex and a jerk in many cases. Like, I still found that relationship believable, and his rediscovery of his relationship with his mother is also incredibly moving.

Yeah, even the father, you come to not think very well of the father, I think, as the movie progresses, but he remains a realistic and believable person. And you could even understand why he's acting the way he is, to some extent, at least.

Yeah, he wants to teach his son to survive in this horrible world. That's what the father is trying to do. And that includes some uncomfortable truths, and that sort of makes him unlikable in some ways.

So John, what do you think... I'm curious about these subtypes, I keep coming back to this. In both Last of Us and 28 Years Later, I'm just curious, what do you think is the role in the film of having different infected types? So like in 28 Years Later, why do we have different types of infected that behave by kind of different rules? I'm just curious what you think that brings to it and why that feels kind of newish.

I think because it gives our characters different problems to solve, right? Like a plan maybe somebody could come up with for solving a traditional, even a fast moving zombie, now there's a new kind of zombie, and your traditional methods won't work and you've got to come up. So having new problems for our characters to solve, solving the same like, oh no, we're going to get chased by a horde of zombies problem over and over, can be a little tedious. And in fact, even around the fast moving infected, they show some of the techniques that these survivors have come up with using primitive weaponry to fight them, which actually made the movie interesting to me too. It was sort of procedural in that way. But having different types just creates different problems to solve.

Yeah, I think well designed kind of substrains let you exploit different fears, right? So there is one type of infected in this movie that is, if you are scared of something creeping up at you in the dead of night, this type will set that off. If there's another type, if you are scared of just, you know, feral rage, if that is upsetting, then you will be upset during a number of scenes with a certain subtype of zombie. So, yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it, that lets you solve different problems.

Yeah. So, I don't want to get into the details of the plot. I want to, but there's a theme in this movie. Let me take a crack at this without spoiling anything. There's a theme, and maybe we've, maybe there has been this in other zombie movies, and I just haven't seen them yet. There's a theme about acceptance, and about the reality of how, you know, life, you know, death is part of the evolution of everything, and that acceptance that I think, so here's what I, I've been reading some reviews. Some people just think it was kind of lame and melodramatic. I disagree, but I thought it was great, but it was a completely different emotional tone than any zombie movie I've seen before.

Yeah.

Is that enough to go on for me to ask you how you felt about that part?

This is a movie that felt like it had something to say beyond the genre that it was in.

Yes.

And if we look at our movies that we have been watching in this podcast, I don't know if I can say that about more than one or maybe two or three of them total.

Right, like Awanga, Girl with All the Gifts, I'm trying to think of a third one.

Jacuzzi, maybe The Walking Dead, yeah.

Yeah, no, I just loved that it had the scares, it had the jump scares, it had the creeping fear, and then it had this other part that was about just the nature of love and death and life, that I think a lot of cynical people will be like, that was really dumb, and I could see a cynical person not liking that part. I loved it. As somebody who loves an affirming story that was like this very, I will use the word sublime, because it's not totally positive. It's absolutely bizarre, but it just worked for me.

So yeah, it's, it's, you know, it's definitely an echo of a feeling, the feelings that you get in some way, other favorite Danny Boyle movies, like, yeah, like Millions, for example, a very different type of movie, but the feeling you get from it, that sort of heartwarming humanity is, is very identifiable there.

Yeah. Can I, can I just say one quick thing about Danny Boyle because he did come back to the zombie genre. And in fact, he hadn't made a feature film in maybe a decade or more. But after, you know, he went on a tear, right? He went shallow grave, train spotting, 28 Days Later, then it was Millions, Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours. I know there's another really good movie.

Sunshine, did you mention?

Sunshine. Some people are split on Sunshine. You and I are not split on Sunshine.

We love that movie.

But what I like to say is he's popular. He's just a really eclectic director. You know what I mean? Without making a judgment. With Zack Snyder, you know what you're going to get. But Danny Boyle continues to surprise. You know what I mean?

Yeah. I won't be specific, but there were filmmaking choices, especially in the first third of this film, that were truly remarkable to see them being done.

Absolutely.

Like, yeah. If anything, I wanted that to persist more heavily as the movie went on.

Yeah. I love that. People don't make choices like that anymore. I mean, just to not spoil anything, there are moments, there are montages in the early film that actually include cut footage from other films. Not films you've seen, just old sort of archival films. And it's riveting and fascinating. And that's such a rare choice in this sort of cookie-cutter movie market that we live in right now, you know?

I keep... John, what you said about finding acceptance in this world is it stuck with me. You know, it's so different than at least the early zombie movies we've watched. But to some extent, both The Last of Us and 28 Years Later, they both are about, you know, this is the world. How will you make peace with it? Or, you know, in the piece of The Last of Us, maybe it's about failing to make peace with it, or failing to rise above your own nature. But that is an interesting theme. It feels very modern. I'm sure we'll hit this, like, you know, I'm sure we'll hit this long ago, you know, in our zombie podcast journey. I'm sure we'll hit it soon. You know, we're in the 50s now. But this just feels like a modern approach to it. Like, the plot is not to find a cure. It's not to defeat the zombies. It's not to escape the zombies. Or even to, like, make yourself totally secure against them. Like, those aren't really the goals. This is the world. I mean, there's, yeah, I don't want to say too much more specifics to avoid spoiling. But a very different relationship that these characters grow into with their environment than in, I guess, a more traditional movie.

Now, I will like to say one thing. So, you and I both went into this movie, and I think you and I both did the same thing, which is we saw the first trailer, and then we said, it's Danny Boyle, this trailer looks awesome, and we shut out the world around this movie.

That's exactly what I did, yes.

So, it is, I discovered, after watching it, part of a, there is a planned sequel, and I think a planned trilogy.

Yes, it's a planned trilogy. I did not know this, and it was, I found this out like the afternoon I went and saw the movie.

Right, and the sequel is set up in the first movie, I think, so again, without spilling, there's this just wonderful, bizarre, like again, punk rock moment that wraps up the movie, where you're like, what is happening? It's fantastic, and now I'm excited for a sequel. It's not gonna be directed by Danny Boyle, Nia DaCosta, but she's great, and I think I am optimistic about this sequel.

I am too. I've heard just a little bit about it from a friend, and what I heard made me think it's gonna focus on the themes that I liked in this, in 28 Years Later, so I'm excited about it too. That final scene is a good example of just, it's a choice, right? I mean, I...

It's a choice.

I think it would be very valid to hate that scene and to think that it ruined, like retroactively ruined, most of the movie up to that point. Yeah.

I don't think, I don't feel that way, but I could see some of it.

I don't either, but you know, it's an example of like, of making a choice. And yeah, it feels, it sure feels good to watch stuff like that.

It does. I think, I wonder how much we're sort of jaded by the sameness of a lot of movies these days. And again, that's why I said early on, like, when I watch it again, why I still feel this way, because what I felt here is just surprise and delight at not knowing what's going to happen.

Yeah, I have learned to just enjoy watching movies. And I love watching movies. And like, just to keep myself humble, I remember walking out of Attack of the Clones, thinking I had just seen a brilliant film. That faded upon my first rewatching of it. But yeah. So, John, is there anything else you like to say about either of these or both of them, or shall we just encourage our listeners to for sure watch 28 Years Later and then maybe think about watching Last of Us?

No, that's where I'm at. If you get a chance, when this podcast comes out, hopefully 28 Years Later, still in theaters, I really recommend you see it on a big screen.

Yes, for sure.

That's not an option with the last. I mean, I suppose it's an option if you have a big TV, but Last of Us is a TV show. I didn't hate Last of Us, but I absolutely loved 28 Years Later.

Yeah, that matches my feelings exactly.

All right. Well, thanks everybody. This is our last episode where that fool Brad has left us to our own devices. We'll see you next time, producer Brad. And please let me remind everybody, if you enjoyed this, if you enjoyed our previous episodes, please rate them in your podcast app of choice. Subscribe, tell friends, we love doing this and we would really hope that you will share it with other people.

Absolutely. And if you are impatiently waiting for us to get back to the meat and potatoes of this podcast, that is coming up very soon. We will be back to our normal agenda very quickly. Thanks for bearing with us through this and then our previous episode about the 1950s where we took a step to the side and talked about what we are doing here in a slightly more meta way.

Absolutely. Well, thanks everybody. We will see you next time. We return with the serial Zombies of the Stratosphere. So tune in to listen to us talk about that movie serial.

Spoiler, John loved it even more than 28 years later.

Sure. All right. Take care, everybody. You have been listening to Zombie Strains. We will 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.