Retronauts - 567: Night of the Living Dead

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

Diamond Feit, Bill Mudron, and James Eldred are coming to get YOU with this podcast all about George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead and its legacy as patient zero for modern zombie fiction. Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts

This week on Retronauts, all you can eat barbecue at the gas pump near the graveyard. Retronauts, ooh, it's spooky this week because we are talking about Night of the Living Dead, the movie that's celebrating. It's 55th anniversary, and it's, let's be honest, it's a big anniversary, because this movie has a long shadow that it cast over movies, video games, the culture, everything. It's a big movie. Who am I? I'm not a big movie. I'm a relatively small person. My name's Diamond Fight. I am a legally licensed funeral wreath reseller, so, you know, It's a good gig if you can get it. Man, for someone who claims not to be super movie nerd,

you're really kicking in with the deep cuts here on this movie. Yeah, okay. Who is that? Who just spoken there? Who spoke out of Turner? I'm Bill Mudron. I actually have no real idea why I'm on this podcast other than just being a movie nerd who's from Pittsburgh.

And so thank you for having me on the show. That's enough. We need the Pittsburgh power for this podcast, Bill. We need it. And our other returning guests, not from The Grave from another episode. Yes, I'm coming to get you, Diamond. It's me, James Eldred. Oh, no.

you can't get me you're in the same country as me you're you're hundreds of miles away my doors are locked yeah i i can find you you'll see me coming though because let's be real like i'm too meters tall i know i know i feel bad for not having a bit i should have made it seem like you guys were the only podcasters on the podcast and then i would have stormed up with my wife and my sick child and i'm like what are you guys doing here and there would have been a very terse podcast you know my b bit was going to be i'm not dead but i'm all messed up It was one of the two. I was kind of going back and forth because, like, my hip's a disaster.

They're all missed up. My hip is a disaster. But anyway. God. So, we're talking about a classic horror film this week, which means we need to share our stories of when did you first actually to see this movie. I will go first because I'm the host. And I can tell you that I first saw a version of it, a truncated version on television. And this was a pre-mystasy-Science theater 3,000, like, joking.

show, like the kind of show that would just air old movies that they had the rights to and just, like, you know, basically not so much react to them, but like basically redub them with with dumbass jokes or whatever. So, like, be like in the 80s before Mystery Science Theater. So it wasn't even, didn't even have that template to follow? I think so. I believe this was late 80s. And I don't think it lasted very long. But, so I remember watching this movie, you know, with some people joking about it, they, you know, the only joke I remember is that when Ben goes upstairs and finds the, uh, the decomposing body, you know, the voice is like, oh, the lettuce has gone bad. And like, that's the only joke I remember. So it's kind of what it looks like. That's not like, yeah. Yeah. So it wasn't until, wasn't until many years later, probably like late 90s that I actually rented the original and watched it. And I was just like, whoa, this is awesome. And then I went on to watch the other movies, which, I think are better in some ways, in some ways, you know, less, you know, less rougher on the edges,

which is kind of a downer, but otherwise, a big fan of these movies. The version that you saw, was it edited for time or was it edited for content? Because there's not that much in here, aside from like a naked lady butt and the mom getting stabbed death. And even then, that's still kind of, you could kind of show that on basic cable. I'm pretty sure the TV version, the TV version I saw, I think, was very, very truncated. I think it was a half, honestly, I think it was a half hour show. of just, like, public domain footage, hence this movie, you know? Like, there was another one where it was just like, you know, it was like a bunch of, like, romantic comedy.

So I think there's like, whatever they could get, they would put on the air and, you know, they had these probably, you know, actors working for scale, just dubbing over old movies, you know. I don't think, I would have looked up the show, but I think the show is just lost the history. It sounds like you're watching like Channel 64 UHF or something like that, yeah. I'm sorry, I'm going to shove it all right. But it's okay. It's time for you to share your stories. Bill, why don't you share your story? When did you see this movie? I don't have a particular story. I just, you know, from growing up in Pittsburgh.

I don't know what James's age is. I was born in 1975. I'm 79. Oh, okay. So we're within the... It's ballpark in each other. I just, I mean, it was kind of like when I was a little kid. It was a little bit before videotape was really common, you know, renting and stuff like that. So I probably just caught it on, like, local airings and stuff. But it just seemed like an old crappy black and white movie, so I didn't care about it too much. Because, you know, I grew up reading Fangoria and Starlog magazine, and they would talk about Night of the Living Dead and about how amazing it was.

And, you know, I'd recognize it when I was looking to the channels on TV and just kind of go, and it's just a black and white movie where the soundtrack's just going, bea-boo, and, like, it didn't seem compared to all the other slasher horror movies that were out there. Like, it just didn't seem like that much. And, of course, I think probably in high school, I finally, you know, rented a copy of it and actually managed to sit down and watch the whole thing. I thought was pretty good, but it's still kind of crappy and boring in comparison to everything. I was a little bit older, so I got at least appreciate, okay, like, I could appreciate, and understanding how much it influenced everything that had come after, then I can kind of appreciate what that movie did. But as a kid, though, yeah, it just kind of rolled off me, unfortunately. Well, my history is much different than I think both of you.

My history of this film is neonatal because, literally, because my dad. You can see there? like at the driving no no my dad once i was told when my mom was six months pregnant with me my dad rented a projector and this film oh wow to show his mother-in-law which went over really well yeah that's that's a homer simpson move right there and uh then when my dad had the video store that i grew up well in the 80s i remember this store holy shit that would be a different upbringing my family on a video store sites and sounds home video in toledo ohio and he would put this on the TV's there when I was there

because my dad, as I said, many times in my podcast was not a good sensor. And it really messed me up to the point where like if it was on TV it would, I would avoid reflecting through the channels, I would skip that channel. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah.

And the, we had the Good Times video VHS box with the. The pink. I remember the Times label stuff. Yeah. The zombies in the pajamas and the underwear on the cover and like it would freak. And it was like eye level me at the store and that and the cover to

Day of the Dead would really freak me out and like it got to the point where like Liquid Television did a stick figure theater of this movie and that scared me Oh no. I totally forgot about that. I had to go to therapy because of Night of the Living Dead

and Dawn of the Dead and Therapy and Prozac are wonderful things and eventually I was able to sit down and watch this and and Day of the Dead and Dorn of the Dead and every other zombie film that's, you know, of note and watched them and, you know, it, I got over. Although funnily enough, well, maybe not funnily enough. Interestingly enough, I was held up at gunpoint while watching Day of the Dead.

So, um, in my house. That's a whole other story though. So, yeah. Why zombie? No, I don't know. I didn't get a good look at his face. Was it Bub from Day of the Dead? Did he finally get the gun?

No, Bud's nicer than these, but the, anyway. Yeah, I don't know. But, yeah, and then later on, I moved to Pittsburgh, and I lived in Squirrel Hill, which is about, like, a 10-minute drive away from the mall and Dawn of the Dead. And, you know, living in Pittsburgh, you are, it's a zombie town. And, like, you, I met enough boomers who knew somebody who was in the movie at some point. And, like, you go to Comptoms, and I have seen, like, half the cat, this movie in person. So when were you living in Pittsburgh, too? Like, what, what span?

I moved to Pittsburgh in, oh, geez, probably 04. Oh, so you, we miss, I moved out of Pittsburgh in 2004, because I lived in Squirrel Hill, and I was about to ask you, like, oh, okay, ran into each other at shows or something, okay. I lived right behind Jerry's records. But, yeah, and living in Pittsburgh kind of helped me to get over to the zombie phobia. But still, and yet, I don't like to really return to this movie too much, because it's not a happy film. No, it's dour. It kind of puts me in a bad headspace still. So this is the first time I've watched it probably.

I think since moving to Japan, I've watched it twice, including this week. And this probably will be the last time. Anyway, sorry. That's my story. Sorry, mine is so long, but that's my story about this movie. That's cool. That's great. I'm very glad, James, that you came to terms with the movie and you were able to appreciate it on some level. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that it brings you stress, and I appreciate that you're willing to stress yourself even partially. to join us on the show this week. It's okay. I'll get by. I'll watch

some Muppets tonight. I'll be okay. I don't know. That Muppets Tonight Puppet with the wiry hair and the weird eyes is almost scarier than some of the stuff in this movie. Shut up, though. Okay. Not meet the Feebles. But anyway, go ahead. I'll meet the Feebles. Yeah. Okay. That's a whole Yeah. Okay. I don't know.

You know, it's funny. Social media loves to do that gag of, oh, remake a movie with Muppets except for one human character. And I feel like this movie would be a perfect choice. got to be you got to keep Ben as the human right and then everyone else because I mean I would say Ben or Barbara really Barbara becomes such a non

that's actually kind of funny though I like the idea of her being slapped up by a puppet not because I like the idea of women being hit but like just because she doesn't she kind of stops being a character after the first third of totally we do it make Bob and Miss Piggy and Miss Piggy

would murder the F out of all these zombies she would just karate like there would be no ending in the movie because she would just cry there would be no real problem because you would just karate chop everyone. And it would solve all the feminists with the film. Wow. Actually, Kermit the Frog has been, though. Like, their whole relationship, like,

I don't want to think about that. Anyway, go ahead. People don't go on Diamond. So, before we get to the film proper, I want to talk about a few of the names behind the film, especially the big name behind the film, Mr. George A. Romero. Officially the A is Andrew,

but Quentin Tarantino once said it stood for a fucking genius. So Romero was the director He co-wrote the script He was a cinematographer He edited this movie He probably made some sandwiches For someone at some point

This is very much His baby It was his first ever feature film And that's What an amazing origin story I'm sorry I know a lot of people Get their break in horror

And you know Sam Ramey It got some horror movies And you know I know everyone's tried To make horror movies But the fact To make this your first ever movie

And just Wow What an impact What a what a debut And many years later, he was quoted as saying, I tried early on to do several films that were non-genre, you know, not horror movies. And nine people, nine people saw them. So I don't have the potential. I don't have credentials in that regard.

Have you guys seen much of his other stuff then? I've seen a few pictures. I know Martin, the one where the kid thinks he's a vampire. I thought that was great. I love that one. That's an interesting idea because, yeah, he thinks he's a fan. Well, the movie never quite definitely says whether or not he's a, definitely leans towards he thinks that he's a vampire. That's a strange movie, yeah.

He believes he's a vampire, so he acts like a vampire. Is he really a vampire? I don't know. But if he acts like it and he does all the things vampires do. I mean, he's still hurting people and stuff. Yeah. Morally, he's still, yeah. I've seen all the dead films except survival,

and I've seen Martin and creep show many times. Oh, yeah, creep show, right, right, right. Creep show's great. I still haven't seen. I really want to see monkey signs and nightwriters, but I just haven't gotten around. Nightwriters is hilarious. And the craziest. Crazy's is a great movie.

I need to see crazies. I've never, yeah. Didn't someone recently find a new copy of Knight Riders? Like, they found a restored copy somewhere. Yeah. Yeah, somebody's, like, it's probably like Arrow or something like that. Vinnevigome Syndrome or something like that. Night Riders is great because it's about traveling gangs of, what's the thing when you

motorcycle duelists? Motorcycle jousting. What's the thing you do at run fairs with the horses and the big sticks that they do? Yeah, they do that. And it's just, Tom Zavini's the villain. And it's the first movie starring What's his name from The Abyss? Ed Harris.

Ed Harris. Really? It's one of his early films. It's like a 25-year-old Ed Harris. And he's hot and awesome and badass. Does he have hair? No. Not really.

He kind of look at him and says, Jesus, this guy ever have hair? Yeah, no, it's totally like that kind of thing. But no, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, I, like, one interesting thing about Romero that I, I, I always found with mentioning is that, like, his influences are definitely not. horror. Yeah. Yeah. No, well, that's, he kind of got pigeonholed. He was way into it. Like, the film that he says makes him want one to make movies is Tales of the Hoffman, which is an opera. There's a anecdote about how supposedly, like, whatever video store that he and Scorsese frequented together in New York, they were the only two people who ever readed that movie, yeah, the Tales of Hoffman. It's supposedly. I've seen it. It's a beautiful, beautiful movie. And I could see why if you were interested in making films, that's a movie. want to watch because it's a very um the way it uses the film specifically to tell an opera is it's a

fascinating film i recommend the tales of hoffman their first person to say that on a metronauts and i know when uh romero died he died uh listening to the soundtrack from the quiet man the john wayne movie where he pretends to be irish for two hours and just something about that always kind of struck me as interesting that like yeah he wasn't really a horror guy now you just kind of became that because that's what it paid what paid the bills and yeah after Night of the Living Dead hit big. He tried to make, I mean, the next movie he made was with the lady who plays his Judy in this movie. A terrible, terrible. I've tried to watch it. It's a movie called There's Always Vanilla. And the movie is as bad as that title. And he tried. He tried it. Like, he was like, okay, now this Night of Living Dead, you know, hit big. I can try my hand at other stuff. I'm not just a horror guy. But nothing clicked. And he just kind of came back to horror as just, I, that's what paid the bills 10 years later with Donna. the dead but yeah i don't think you know i i guess a lot of people don't set out to become horror guys but you know if it if the shoe fits you know if you make you want a horror you can

make a good horror movie for cheap more than you can make almost any other kind of genre movie if you know what you're doing or if you just happen to hit around on even if you don't know what you're doing which is kind of the story of this movie is you kind of accidentally back into something that maybe you don't even understand how what a live wire of a subject matter it is with people between like the racial issues in this movie and just like no one had really done kind of like a violent zombie movie like this before and or I guess maybe a couple people had but no one had really no one was lucky enough like George Romero was with this movie and it was everyone's first movie but he was a very good if you if you go to YouTube and type in like George Romero commercials you'll find some of his old commercials and they're very well done yeah he had a lot of clever stuff yeah very kinetic and fantastic editing which also transfers to this film you know the direction in this is relatively rudimentary because of technical limitations, but the editing is just top-notch fantastic. Yeah, one of his commercials that he'd done, he did like, it was like for like a dish, uh, Calgonne.

Yeah, Calgon. It was like, yeah, for clothing detergent. And he did a whole, well, what's the movie? Is it fantastic forage where everyone shrinks down on the submarine goes into someone's body? Yeah, it's, it's a parody of that. We're done for a soap commercial for like a budget of $15. And it's cute and it's funny. And so he knew what he was doing, but yeah.

Yeah, we should also mention, you know, for trivia purists that, you know, yes, as a man working around Pittsburgh, one of his first jobs was indeed shooting a segment for Mr. Rogers. It's the one where Mr. Rogers goes to the hospital and gets a tonsillectomy. And that's on YouTube. So you can go ahead and watch, you know, a very young Mr. Rogers go to the hospital and with his wife and Romero is behind the, behind the camera and taking care of it. I love Mr. Between this and like Michael Keaton coming through there and, oh, God, who fixes the Donkey Kong machine? Keith David. Keith David.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Between that, like, there's all kinds of weird people go through Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers is kind of like the Roger Corment of Pittsburgh by accident a little bit, just by virtue of like, he's such a long-lived production in Pittsburgh that, like, if you were making stuff in Pittsburgh, you were probably eventually tangentially related to the Mr. Rogers production. And you can look up some of those, not a lot of those segments are on YouTube, but a couple of them are, and that they're worth checking out, definitely. So who wrote the movie with George Romero? It's a man named John Rousseau. Sometimes credited is Jack Rousseau.

I've seen both, so you can pick one. He is still with us. This was his first screenplay. You could see him in the movie. He's one of these zombies. He gets stabbed in the head. So, you know, I guess if you write the movie, you get to play a zombie. Why not? After this movie, he moved on. He did, he started writing some novels, and he adapted his own novels into films.

And I have a note here saying the movies are not so great. And James, they are quote unquote, as according to this note, they are nigh unwatchable, which is great. So, so people, when people think of him, they think of Return of the Living Dead. Yes. And that's only because he, yeah, that's, yeah. And he barely, he barely wrote that. Like, that's based on his book, heavily rewrote it. The title is all they really took in the end. Other John Russo films include Midnight, which is one of the stupidest slashes I've ever seen in my entire life. I've never seen some of the other films he directed.

He directed something called Santa Claus, which is C-L-A-W-S. The Nightmare Before Christmas, Santa Claus, yeah. And The Booby Hatch, which is a soft-called porno. So Jack Ross, he's like the opposite of Romero then Or someone who backed into a good idea But didn't know what to do with his poor talents here A couple nights ago I tried to watch one called The Majorettes

Which was produced and written by him And directed by William Hinesman Who was the first zombie in Night of Living Dead I turned it off Now it was It was fun to watch It was made in Coropolis Coriopolis, yeah.

Coriapolis, why outside Pittsburgh? Which I have driven through a few times, mostly by accident. That's half of anything outside of Pittsburgh. Zeeland O'Pol or, yeah. And it has a little bit of charm, but it's just, it's so ineptly made, so low budget. Nobody can act. The directing is terrible. The script is whatever.

The music was horrible. The audio mix made it hard to listen to. I turned it off. um i i john rousseau strikes me as somebody who really got lucky the first time and well so and what the story is that like he came up with what so were they originally like i guess the idea that they originally came up together was they were going to do like a science fiction like teenagers from outer space kind of thing was a comedy about a comedy thing yeah yeah yeah and that for some reason i think they may have realized that was just going to be too expensive and they were like what can

we film that requires no sets no makeup just people walking around and they kind of like Well, so I guess Jack Russo came with the idea we can do like something zombie related and he wrote like something down. And I guess John Romero kind of riffed on that a little bit. And then, but it sounds like George Romero did all the heavy lifting in terms of like let's, yeah, like, like, he turned it in the movie. I don't know what happened there, but it's the only film they worked on together. Yeah. And then they split the, after this, they decided to take the rights because they were both, you know, responsible for the screenplay. So technically, I guess they decided, well, Jack Russ, so you can take the rights to.

the whatever sequels involve the word the Living Dead, hence he ends up being responsible for Return of the Living Dead, just tangentially. And George Romero, he gets the ability to name any zombie movie after a time of day. And it was, like, his movies are

sequel to the first one. That's a more important thing. Even though there's no direct continuity, every, at least I've never seen anything beyond Land of the Dead, but at least in the first three classic Romero zombie movies, I mean, they can kind of fit together, even though each one takes place a decade separated from each other.

But yeah, you can kind of see, like, you know, evolution of some kind of meta story there. Even though, you know, none of the characters show up from one story there or other or anything like that. But, yeah, John Russo's whole stuff. And when Return the Living Dead story becomes its own little pocket universe and stuff, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I, for what I'm shocked that the director of Scream Queen's naked Christmas is not viewed as an oatement. tour. It's that kind of guy. Yeah. We're, you know, while, you know, George Romero's off trying to make, you know, there's always vanilla. And, like, he's trying to do, like, this artistic stuff. And Jack Russo just kind of jerks off and just, yeah, whatever. We're going to get sued by Jack Russo. I didn't realize he was still alive.

Sorry. This is all parody. This is all parody, by the way. Satire parody. You can just sue me. I'm fine. Go for it. Yeah. I'm making finger quotes. You guys can't see it, but I'm making finger quotes the whole time I was talking about Jack Rosso. I'm giving middle fingers. Yeah. The best, the most legally defining defense in podcast history.

So, not many of the cast would go on to many other things, but I do want to highlight two actors in particular. First of all, the lead role played by a man named Dwayne Jones, who unfortunately passed away rather young. And it's a very significant story because this is a very rare case of a black actor getting a leading role, and it's not really a movie about a black character. The characters are not written this way. They had auditions, and they say that Dwayne did the best audition, so they hired him.

But it did work out in a funny way that just, you know, his performance and just the era, you know, being 1968, again, this is 1968, kind of a big year. It just so happened to add a little extra flavor to the movie that wasn't there on the page. But, yeah, after this movie, he didn't do that much, you know, didn't work that much more. I think he seemed like more of like a stage guy. He didn't really want to do a lot of movies, I think. He mostly worked in universities, and he did help out Romero a couple times, I guess, when they were looking for black actors. He was involved with a theater troupe in New York. I wonder if that's a tie-in to, because I know he hired most of the people for Donna of the Dead out in New York.

I wonder if he may have helped out with that. Yeah, I don't know. But he did. There's an interview with him on a criterion disc, and he said he had never watched any of the Romero film or any of the Dead movies. movie. And it wasn't the, he didn't have any ill will towards a marrow. Like everybody, he seemed to perfectly enjoy making the film. He just didn't give a shit. He just didn't really, he wasn't interested in being, you know, paid into horror. He didn't make an interesting dude. Yeah, he made a few other horror films. There's one I really want to see called Ganja and Hess,

which has him and Marlene Clark. And that's a, I think it's a vampire movie. And Marlene Clark is in, is in one of my favorite bad movies on Beware the Blob. She's also in Swiss, Swiss Play's Sisters, which I've covered on my podcast. But it's a vampire film. It's supposed to be quite good. I haven't got a chance to watch that yet. But, yeah, he seemed like a really interesting, really eloquent guy. Like, I think they'd change the script to make the character more eloquent to match him.

Yes. Yeah. Well, yeah, according to Romero, I guess, he was supposed to be just a generic truck driver. And I guess when Jones was like, I don't want to be a black guy who's like a simpleton. Can I just, like, be like myself practically? And they, they wound up ad-libbing half the dialogue in the movie anyway. way. So it's kind of Dwayne Jones just being Dwayne Jones in the movie, which means he's the bad as well, I guess I can't swear. He's the baddest MFer in this movie. And not in like, oh, he's the black guy. But just, he's just really competent. He's the only person with a real level head in this movie. Kind of at the expense of Barbara just turning into a tomato. As soon as she, like, after the first 20 minutes of the movie, she's just, she's this catatonic weirdo just on the couch. Just Johnny's got the keys. Johnny's got the keys. Barbara is, Barbara is a wreck of anxiety with an asshole older brother named John.

Both things, both things, both things relatable to me. I am nonstop anxiety and my brother is named John. So I'm relatable, relatable content, Barbara. I'm with you, honey. I stand for Barbara. Oh, I'm not taking you terrible. I mean, you also, you know, it's not the actresses Walter. No, no.

Oh, God. We're talking about Barbara. So let's shout out Judith O'Day, who plays. Barbara in the film. She's only 22 when they shot this. She was very young. I feel bad for shit talking her a little bit. Anyway, yeah. But very strange career. She only really took one

more role up to this movie. She took a long break. But then she came back to acting in the 21st century. So she has way more credits this century than last century, which is just an odd arc. I wonder if she, like, retired from what her day job was after this, and then she was like, oh, I can pick up some extra cash by

being in this direct DVD thing where somebody wants stolen valor by, like, they'll pay me $200 just to be in this movie, just as soon as they can say, oh, the lady, we're coming to get you, Barbara, is in our movie. I wonder if it's that kind of thing. I can only hope that she's making, you know, some decent coin on the convention circuit, you know? I mean, if you're in a movie like this, you know, you've got this central role, you know, you're on screen a lot. I feel like you should be able to take advantage of that well under your old age. Just, just, you know, show up and, you know, say your lines and make a face and, you know, get paid by all means. My favorite one of those, like a long break is the actress who plays Helen Cooper, Marilyn Eastman. This is her only film. Then in 1995, she's in the Sinbad Film House Guest. Do you know what she plays or anything like that?

An extra. That's a great gap in the IMDB listing for her then, though. Almost 30 years and then Houseguise. Yeah. She was just really passionate about the material. That's what drew her out of retirement. Yeah. Most of the people who work.

on this one actor's like um well yeah that and that's why you don't see you're hearing much about these people after this yeah like the actor who played the guy who played uh harry he was one of the producers yeah and he was also yeah yeah well and yeah i guess he and the lady you just talked about they were uh two people who ran an industrial film company in in in pittsburg and they're the ones who put up the brunt of the cash for this project and i guess george marro was like we need we need two people to play the couple this you guys want to do it and they're like okay i guess we'll do it yeah totally um really quick i i'm i'm curious uh how many people in this film have you met bill

oh man i like it or a scene in person none i'm trying to think why why how you that makes it sounds like you're taking me up for a story from you like well no i'm just kidding well because if you've got a great tom savini story if we ever do a don of the dead podcast but um but yeah none of the people in this movie you live in pittsburgh you go to you go to covenson's you see these people and like I've seen before he passed I saw the actor who played Cooper and I've seen William

William Hinesman before the first zombie That zombie is great because he just looks so sad and confused all the time Yes he doesn't really life too And I I mean he just doesn't look like a guy He's not really looks like a zombie But yeah

And I met the little girl The little girl sells garden hose With her face on them My My closest connection to this movie is my friend in high school in middle school, his art teacher was that lady. Oh, wow. It was the little girl from night and living day.

And I had a conversation once with the Chili Billy Cardilly. Oh, Chili Billy. Yeah, no, it says, every time I watch this movie because I grew up in Pittsburgh and Chili Billy Cardioli, which makes it sound, we sound like we're both just losing our minds. What the hell is the Chili Billy Cardilly. Yeah. Chili Billy Cardill, he was Pittsburgh's late night, a horror movie host. You know, like Count Floyd from S&L was supposedly

based off of this guy. I mean, Count Floyd from S&L, it's obviously kind of like a pastiche of that, kind of like, you know, a couple, like, we're going to host the Dracula movie from midnight to 2 a.m., that kind of thing. And he did that in Pittsburgh. He had a show called Chiller Theater, which is kind of most famous

because I guess when Saturday and Life became a thing, Chiller Theater was an NBC, was a show shown in Pittsburgh's NBC affiliate and Chiller Theater was so popular in Pittsburgh that Pittsburgh's NBC affiliate refused to show Saturday Night for like the first two years it was on the air and eventually became popular on if they were like, Chili Billy, we're going to, sorry, we're going to take your show off the air because everyone wants to see Bill Murray. They don't want to see you so much these days. But I don't know if Chiller Theater had started by the time. When I had never seen it. I just knew him by reputation and from this film. He was a newscaster in this. Yeah. He's the, yeah. But if he was the weatherman though, after Chiller Theater got shut down, he became.

that same stations to the weatherman especially imagine grandpa from Grumlins too if after he was the vampire guy he suddenly got a job as the weatherman at that same place that's essentially what happened to well weather in Pittsburgh is terrifying

which yeah sometimes you get tornadoes sometimes you get some pretty crazy weather in Pittsburgh and so I always get really happy when I watch this movie because I'm like oh it's my favorite weatherman he's just randomly just interviewing people on the steps of the Pentagon in the middle of the day, even though this live footage that

we're watching, you know, the people watching this footage is, you know, it's like midnight, but anyway, that's neither here or there, but. He's credited the movie as Chili Billy, so he must have had some, either a program or some reputation before the film was made, because he already... Yeah, maybe he was in his

show had already started by then, because, yeah, because, like, yeah, I know it ended in, like, 1981 or whatever, and his daughter is the star of Donna the Dead. No, Day of the Dead. Day of the Dead. They both start with D. They're the same movie. Whatever. Yeah, I'm going to be doing that this whole podcast. My apologies. Yeah, it's hard.

Well, if we're talking about horror, let's talk about horror what it was like before Night Living Dead. And we need to stress that, you know, we're living in an era. I don't know if it's a golden age or a silver age or some kind of like a tin age. I don't know, but like there is a real horror boom going on right now. An elevated horror. Yeah, well, you can put an adjective on there if you want. But I think it's sick to say that the horror landscape before Night of Living Dead.

is nigh unrecognizable to modern audiences because it's just completely different. Okay? Just because it was all just like spooky castles. I mean, yes, lots of gothic horror, guts of classic novel adaptations. Of course, you've got, you know, way back in the 30s, of course, you had the Universal Monster films, Dracula, Frankenstein, and Mummy. Then years later in the 50s and 60s, you know, you had the Hammer films. Hammers Dracula, Hammers Frankenstein, which I know, James, you've talked about many times on your podcast in Olivia. Oh, yeah.

He also got things like... Yeah, love me some hammer. Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe adaptations. I know I recently saw the fall in the house of Usher. I thought that was fantastic. I loved that movie. I need to watch those more often. Yeah.

Fantastic films. Really great. But like, so these movies, yes, they're scary. People die. There's violence. But like, there's not really any gore. And it's more about the performances. It's more about the mood.

It's more about the atmosphere. You know, if there's a monster, it's probably, you know, just someone wearing a mask or something. Like, there's not a lot of, you know. But it's totally count. Oculus. Like, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's that kind of stuff. I would say the only stuff at the, before not, I'd live and dead that kind of is close to this is stuff that was coming out of Italy. And not, not just Gallo's, but like Mario Bava was making like graphic horror. Was he? Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah. Blood and Black Lace, um, Black Sabbath. Is that like Proto Gallo stuff? Some of it's gala, but like Black Sabbath is, the titleist makes it sound like that, yeah. Yeah, but Black Sabbath is not a gala. It's like a, it's a ghost or anthology that has an absolutely terrifying. saying with Boris Karloff.

But it makes sense that, like, that would be Italy. And the hammer you have, you have, uh, chugging along in the UK. And those are both, uh, filmmaking environments that aren't, uh, stymied by the Hayes code and all this stuff in America that keeps you from really kind of showing messed up stuff at the time in the 50s and 60s, you know. Because Hammer took off once they established their writing system in England. Oh, really? Yeah.

Okay. But, but, but then they had the, the, wherewithal, they could say, okay, we can rate this higher. So we don't have to make this for 10 year old. Okay. But the first Hammer, Frankenstein film was, I got, I think, the equivalent of an X rating. Was it still shown that way, or they didn't have to edit it? They didn't, no, I mean, they didn't edit it.

It was released. That was the draw. The draw was make these movies graphically violent. Well, I know it's also a little bit different because I know America was really unfortunate that when they did establish the rating system here, the MPA, what, like a month after an Island Living Dead came out. Yes. Unfortunately, the ratings set aside for movies like Night of Living Dead, where it's supposed to be violence, the X rating got immediately taken over by porno productions. And so everyone, you couldn't release an X-rated horror movie because everyone just assumed it was pornographic and then, yeah, no theaters would show it. And so, yeah, in America, horror films with real violence were kind of shut out.

And that becomes a big thing with Donna of the Dead. Yeah, Dawn of the Dead a decade. Gone and day, yeah. So on the flip side there, you've also got, I would say, science fiction, you've got a lot of monster movies, like, you know, giant ants, giant bugs, you know, creatures, creatures from underground, creatures from outer space. The Tengler, William Castle, yeah. Exactly. William Castle, a lot of gimmick movies that are based on, you know, spooking you. I mean, kind of doing more interesting things than horror movies of the time, because it's like, well, it's also a new genre with all the, yeah, the radioway, science horror, and yeah, that's a really good point. You know, we think about these films like, you know, Night of Living Dead being the first quote-unquote modern horror film.

To people in the 50s, them was scary. Yeah, I was going to say, yeah. We don't think it's scary now. I watched them. I did an episode on my podcast about them. I watched them when I was a kid and I loved it, did not scare me. When my dad saw them and gave him nightmares, he was like five years old. I mean, you know, Godzilla's reputation of Japan.

Oh, my God, yeah. I mean, what do you guys know about Japan? I'm going to tell you guys about Japan, right? says the one guy recording from 4th of July midnight here in America but yeah But yeah, it's actually It's a good point, but you mentioned

Godzilla and the kaiju movies Those, you know, those start in the 50s So those are already out there But those also got real silly, real fast That only immediately, yeah Yeah, definitely, yeah Well, I mean, to be fair, I mean, that's pretty silly too But it's not, you don't know

Yeah, Day of the Dead doesn't end With like the zombies like, being like, We're going to be the heroes and protect this little kid. And, like, it's an idea. They didn't quite get as goofy as the Godzilla movies did very quickly, but, yeah. And, of course, you know, if we're talking about monster movies, horror, you know, science fiction, we have to mention Ed Wood, because most of Ed Wood's most famous films were intended to be, you know, science fiction, bride of the monster. I forgot that Plan 9 is a zombie.

Plan 9 for Matter Space is about, you know, aliens coming to Earth and resurrecting the recently dead. Like, it was supposed to be scary. It's just not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, died of living dead. that if we haven't mentioned it, it is the first film to have people come back

to life and eat people. Maybe there's something before that that's really small that no one talks about, but it is the first one to really to cover that. They don't call them zombies, they call them ghouls. Well, I guess this is a point we should also point out that technically zombies before and I'm sure

George Romero wasn't the first person to kind of like twist the meaning of the word. I mean, you guys said that they don't even mention the word zombie in the movie, but everyone else kind of like around the movie kind of twisted the meaning of the word zombie for him, but yeah, originally zombies were like a Haitian voodoo thing about resurrecting

dead people and stuff like that. And I mean, I mean, you did have movies like, Bella Lagosia was in a movie called White Zombie. Yes. But that was not about flesh-eating monsters. It was about just resurrected, like, you know, but it's not a living dead

that kind of changes the meaning of the word zombie in Western culture, essentially. Even though yeah, even though they never actually say of the word. And I think there's a weird bugaboo with so many other zombie movies afterwards about whether or not they use the word zombie. I know it's like a big deal even in like Sean of the Dead and stuff

and I never quite understood that. Yeah, they finally say it. Ken 4E says zombie once in Dawn of the Dead. Oh, does he? He says there are about 100 zombies down here. Oh, wow. Okay, never really re-pegged that. But yeah, I've seen other movies make a big production about don't see this, don't say the Z word.

I'm like, uh-huh. In fact, I actually have anything. If you're a zombie movie these days and you actually acknowledge the existence of zombie movies, you've already wanted me a little bit over, because it drives me nuts in so many zombie movies, but they have to pretend that they're in her, inventing the whole zombie genre where they're like, oh,

those creatures! Like, just admit that, like, okay, you guys, these characters live in a... Like, in the Walking Dead, did they ever mention Night of Living Dead or anything like that? No. And they call them walkers. But they never call them zombies. I'm sure maybe over the course of, like, 3,000 episodes they call them zombies, but anyway,

but yeah. Well, I think the problem with that sort of energy is, if you make a horror film and the characters quickly identify what the problem is, then you have to sort of debate, okay, so do, does the fictions that other people have seen, do they exist in this reality or not? And it gets confusing. So I think they try to avoid it. Well, but like, you think about a vampire movie. They'll say, hey, he's a vampire. People know how vampires work. Yeah. I'm assuming that's like what half of that Renfield movie is. Because that seems to be, even though that's supposed to be canonically a sequel to the 1931 Dracula with Bala

Goosey. I don't know how that works out, but um, well, and that's not to turn this into a podcast, but a whole different movie, but that's one of my favorite things about Returnal of the Living Dead. So that movie starts off with a guy saying, hey, did you ever see Night of the Living Dead? That was a real thing that actually happened.

Yeah. And they talk about Nighter of Living Dead and zombies and stuff like that. And yeah, that I love how meta that movie gets. And that's only yeah, that's only like what, like, like less than 20 years out from this movie. Yeah, yeah, something like that. It's a very clever, it's a very clever twist to put on there. Anyway, I have a quote here from Judge Romero on this topic who said

I never thought about my guys as zombies when I made the first film. To me, zombies were those boys in the Caribbean doing the wet work for Bella Logosie. So yes, he explicitly talked about white zombie, which by the way, just to our audience, if you haven't seen wide zombie, it's real good. I've never, it's a good one. I know they watch it Ned Wood, because that's the scene where he's like, she's the honey. Yeah. And you have to be Hungarian and double jointed. Yes. Good flick. He does wet work from Palo Lagosian. That's a great quote.

That sounds like a piece of George Romero dialogue right there. Very Pittsburghian, yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, I know Romero's big influence was I Am Legend. Yes. Yeah, which that's what, not Bradbury. Richard Matheson.

Matheson, yeah. Who is the dad of, God, one of the writers from Bill and Ted's excellent adventure, weirdly enough, I believe? Okay, sir. But, yeah, I Am Legend is just a, it's the world's been telling. I guess everyone's seen. It was called I Am Legend, the Will Smith movie, right? Yes. So you get the gist where it's like, yeah, the world's been taken over by zombies and he's the last human being.

And even though the movie takes a lot of liberties with the book, that's the gist of, yeah, I guess maybe that's inspired. What maybe them to say, hey, let's do a movie about flesh-eating ghouls, I don't know. Yeah, because in the I am a legend book and in the version with Vincent Price from the 60s. Oh, yeah, that's right, yeah. The kind of like vampires and it's like they say in the movie that it's a virus that maybe came from vampires. vampire bats, but the victims of the virus die, then come back. Huh. Which I guess is kind of like

vampires, but also, man, also just love, I love that the Night of Living Dead never really commits specifically to a reason as to why the zombies are coming back. Like, I know they do all the stuff with like the research probe from Venus. Yeah, which I love that. Also, Stephen King kind of steals that

for, uh, maximum overdrive. Maximum overdrive. Yeah, 20 years later. And, but, uh, Yeah, but the movie never really never specifically commits. There's some vague illusions to it when, you know, when they're talking to people in Washington, D.C., but even then, that's kind of very 1950s kind of science fiction justification for what's happening, but they don't spend a lot of time on it because George Romero is smart enough to realize it's not really, no one really cares why this is happening. It's just the fact that it is happening and everyone has to deal with it right now, yeah. Yeah, again, another quote from George Romero says, I thought I am legend was about revolution. I said, if you're going to do something about the revolution, you should start at the beginning.

I mean, Richard starts his book with one man left. Everyone in the world has become a vampire. I said, we got to start at the beginning and tweak it up a little bit. I couldn't use vampires because he did. So I wanted to do something that would be an earth-shaking change. Something that was forever, something that was really at the heart of it. I said, so what if the dead stop staying dead? And that's it.

That's the moment. That's the eureka moment, even though he may have not have realized how much a eureka moment that was. but that's the moment that changes movie horror forever. Yeah, totally. Right. So that's the basic blueprint work with. And it just, you know, this movie is sort of the start. Like you said, it's the start of what happened.

And then in subsequent films, basically, Romero would sort of expand outwards. And, you know, even though this, this movie ends on a note that sort of suggests that they're just going to clean this up and they might, like, they might get back to normal. They are being super blasé about, like, okay, this is just something that happened over, like, one day. And by like, like, one, oh, I did literally. And by like, like, yeah, this is a little. happening on a Friday night and by Monday everything's going to be back to normal I guess but yeah in the sequels it does not go back to normal it gets no that's the best thing it just keeps on spinning out of control and that's the nice thing about the sequel is you can imagine like

okay maybe they kind of fix things in in at that farm house but maybe like you know what's going on in the inner cities and that's what dawn of the dead starts off being and then with a third one it's like well society is gone now we're just living underground and then even land of the dead i still even though i don't care for that movie I like the idea of, you know, it being about, like, what happens once the rich people have kind of managed to create a little oasis for themselves and a pretend, or now pretending that the zombies, the zombie thing doesn't, is not really going on anymore, but, and well, that's kind of the interesting about, not to go off on a tangent, I'm going to shut up after this, but that's one of the nice things I do like about George Romero, too, is that he's more about, he's more interested in ideas than even individual characters. And that's the thing he always said, he wasn't a really a horror person, because the zombies, were just a tool to explore social dynamics. And when he would cast his movies, you know, everyone would be like, okay, what's this character? And he was like, I really don't care about the character.

The character's performing, like, a function just to move the story along. But my, like, so you kind of have free will to do whatever you want, because I just like the way you act and you seem like a good fit for this role. But you're kind of free to make up like what this character is kind of like how they're going to behave throughout the film. Because he's just like more interested in like what happens when in Donna of the Dead when you secure it. Man, they're really going nuts with the fireworks out there. My apologies. Jeez. Yeah, I think the zombies are coming.

They're pulling out the Halgwitzers. But, yeah, he's more concerned about, like, well, even in this movie, like, what happens when just a handful of people have to pull together? And it's just almost like a coincidence that just happens to be about zombies. And that just happens to be an easy creature thing come up with without any, like, real makeup or special effects or anything like that. Yeah, you talk about him not really caring about characters on one of the commentary tracks for this. They ask that someone brings up why does Ben? hit Barbara and George says

well because he has to be out of the movie for the next half an hour yeah like there's no like he doesn't really think about it that far through he's not getting into the

character's heads it's just stuff needs to happen yeah and like he didn't even think about like I guess one of the only things Dwayne was hesitant to do was that scene because the racial dynamic

and George didn't even think about that George didn't even think about that it's like no Barbara has to not Barbara has to be unconscious now because and you know well that's direction for her for most of the movies.

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Yeah, but yeah. You just have to be a non-entity for everyone so everyone else can act around you, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. She does hit him first, though, for the record. To be fair, yes. Yeah. Although it's kind of like a slap, and he does like kind of soccer a little bit. It's pretty, like, I was watching it last night. I had to rewind it. Because I wasn't really paying attention to the movie. I was like checking Twitter. And I heard the good sock. And I was like, what the hell was? I was like, oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't say it's equitable. I'm just saying, you know. Oh, yeah, and we're not defending of. We're just saying that, yeah. She gets real angry.

But the characters are plot devices. They're not really characters. Yeah. Actually, it's funny. You mentioned the characters. So there actually wasn't, I didn't write it down here, but Romero actually once compared himself, he's called himself the Michael Moore of horror, which is kind of a funny, a funny nickname. Okay.

Just because, you know, I guess if your movies are trying to say something, then I get that. I don't know. I mean, Michael Moore, you know, clearly from Flint, Michigan, so a totally different guy, but I don't know. A working class city, though. I would say, I would say, George Amaro has affected more chains society than Michael Moore has, but hey, that's just me. Hey, I have Michael Moore's autograph. I can, I've met that. I love it. It's the fans that can talk about shit. I know that feeling. Yeah, exactly. So I guess we're going to be.

Oh, so I guess we can actually talk with the movie itself, although there's not that much to say, like, beat for beat because it's a very simple story, you know, it, you know, it starts off real fast. I would say in the first 10 minutes you meet, you meet Barbara, you meet Johnny, they're in a cemetery, a man walks up to them, he's, he's dead, he's not happy about it. And Barbara runs away, she runs into a house, Ben shows up like, this is all, this is all in like the first 10 or 15 minutes. It goes very fast. Yeah.

And the movie kind of hits the brakes, and you get a very long, you know, stretch of securing the house, people talking to one another, people telling stories to one another about what they've seen, what's happening elsewhere, they turn the radio on, they hear what's happening in other towns. The big crutch of the second act is that while Ben and Barbara are in this house defending themselves and cleaning it up and boarding it up, they don't know there's a whole, there's five people in the basement. Yeah.

You can totally kind of feel Romero being like getting to the end of that first act and going, well, what's the rest of the story? I've got these two people in a house. Like, what can I do? And then you must have been like, what if there's a whole family hiding in the basement? And that, you know, and that kind of drives the whole drama for the whole rest of the movie.

But, you know. Yeah, and the whole drama is there's a family in the basement. And they think the basement is safe, but. I mean, that's an interesting conversation they have throughout the film. But, like, yeah, it's better to hide downstairs, a better stay up, you know. Just trying to start, normal people strategizing is an interesting thing to see, yeah. Yeah. And it turns out the, it turns out the dips shit in this movie is,

right, Cooper. Yeah. I mean, his, technically, what he's saying in that movie turns out to be. I mean, that's what saved Ben's ass at the end of the movie. It's a really complex story in that, like, the hero, like, I mean, if you haven't seen this movie, go watch it. You can watch it on YouTube or anywhere. If a streaming service doesn't have this movie, they messed up because I'll get to it.

It's very easy to get. The, the most interesting thing about the film is that the conflict is that the hero is wrong. And very stubbornly should so. and every idea the quote unquote good guys have is terrible Oh, to be fair Like I'll

You know This is of course I'm watching a zombie movie You're always going to be thinking Like what would I do in that situation And like if to be If I were honest I would probably be

Doing the Ben thing too And then again I have a lifetime Watching zombie movies So not that real life Is the same thing as a zombie movie But I'd be dead

It's all the best to it So I'm a big fat Dopey white guy I would be I would be one of the fat zombies on the opening credits like oh look at this sad sack like yeah he didn't even pick it past the catering credit in the opening credits but yeah but you got you got cooper and his wife and his kid and then the young couple together and the young couple's kind of like the intermediary trying to work between ben and cooper the useless young couple yeah yeah

who only exists just to die because you have to have someone die but you still need that friction between ben and cooper to keep on going toward you know even to the to the climax of the film. And so, yeah, hot lady, hot generic lady, and then hot, a little fire plug of a man who looks like, who looks like the kid from Jurassic Park, who talks about the Velaziraptor looking like a six-foot turkey. I like in the remake, which has issues, but I like that they gave that character a Steelers hat because... I've never, I've tried to sit through the remake and I could never do it, but... Well, in the remake, that dude is the most Yinser Yinser whoever Yinsered. That's a good idea. That's a good, yeah.

Yeah, Jinser is a Pittsburghian, but yeah, he's very, he's very Yinsery. He's like Pittsburgh dad coming up from the basement. Hey, hey, you guys wanted anything from John Euggle. Yeah, you'll go steal his net. Anyway, sorry, sorry, Diamond. They got zombies at the Kennywood. Yeah. You're going to read that place up.

Anyway, sorry. Red that place up. They're all messed up over there. I'm sorry. If you ever want to know what a Pittsburgh accent sounds like, it's pretty much the, like, I think they call him the sheriff, the guy who is, like, he leading the hunting party. Yeah, yeah. That guy's action is a Pittsburgh accent, where he's just like, it's, the Pittsburgh accent is kind of, it's hard to describe.

It's just such a specific thing. It's so stupid. It's so stupid. Like, I don't have a Pittsburgh, I don't live the tent. My voice is strange for different reasons. I have genetic conditions. My voice is not a Pittsburgh accent, everybody listening at home. No, but Pittsburgh accent is, it's one of those things that, like,

Not everybody in Pittsburgh has it, but when you meet someone in that has it. I mean, I grew up there and I don't have it. Yeah, like, you meet somebody, if they aren't ironically saying Yins, then it's like, oh shit, it's going to get real. Yens is the Pittsburgh version of y'all. That's all it is. Anyway, but Yins in the house have trouble with the zombies, bad things happen. But really, there's a good chunk of the movie where the zombies basically take a back seat.

They're outside of the house. You know, they stick their arm in a window maybe or they break something, but they're basically in the back seat. and the real conflict is between the people in the house. And that's obvious stuff that Romero is actually interested in. Right. And, you know, the zombies... Yeah, that's a good point.

The zombies only resurface the threat because they try to escape, and the escape attempt goes very badly. And then... I... Yeah, because Ben puts down a torch, and then the fire plug guy, he just kind of like whips this gasoline pump around and catches the truck on fire.

And the girl's like, my coat stack! And then they explode, and that's your barbecue at the gas. pump that you mentioned yeah folks there's a reason they say no smoking at the gas pump it's because of this movie oh yeah that's that's you get to see exactly why right there yeah it goes and that's when you get the i think the most infamous scene when the movie came out was that scene because then you see the zombies eat eat them oh yeah you have people just sitting in like you have like naked people sitting in the grass eating raw chicken breasts or like

big bone and ham like cartoon fred flintstone yeah the meat yeah the meat's interesting because it's a combination of it's like it's props like there's an obvious fake arm some of it is real animal bones with like chocolate syrup and silly putty and my favorite though is the intestines are pig intestines but they didn't look alive so they tied the ends and fill them with water and it's a great story again on the commentary that's somehow even worse the commentary for this on the criterion is from the old laser disc in 94 and it's a really good one for Romero. And he's like, he said it was one of the most surreal things you ever saw was it might have been Jack just sitting on the porch pouring water into intestines. And it's like, I thought I walked to a Fellini film.

This is a movie making. Yeah. Well, that became, becomes a thing for future George Romero zombie movies where it's like, okay, I guess we're going to be paying people extra bucks if you're willing to eat these pig intestines. So they've been sitting under the hot lights of the soundstage for like, you know, five hours. Yeah. Which, I mean, those are the money shots of the movie, so it makes sense of the, you know, they're going to have fun time shooting that stuff. Maybe not these people, because they had no idea what the hell they were doing out there. It's really fun when you watch the movie and you see what zombies actually do and what zombies don't actually do. So, like, I know the intestine scene you're seeing, like, two zombies fight over the intestines, and then one of them sort of wins. But because they are intestines, he doesn't actually eat them. He just sort of like, sort of, like, grabs them and puts them towards his face, but he never actually eats them. there is supposedly it's the same lady who plays the mom in the family in the basement there is a lady who's got like a bunch of Play-Doh on her face I guess she's supposed to be like a burn victim I don't know why they had one of the main actors pretend to be another zombie out in the field but yeah she just like kind of stumbles up to a tree and eats a bug

and it looks like she actually eats the bug they don't really cut away or at least maybe they cut away the fraction before she like sticks the bug in her mouth but yeah and for the time very gruesome yeah and that lady always feel kind of bad because she always seems like such a nice lady and they have her like half naked out in the woods eating a bug on a tree and I'm like man I can see why she wasn't in movies for 30 more years after this um and then sinbad yeah and then sin bad yeah because she was passionate about the material um but yeah that's kind of where everything they they kind of come back to the house and the zombies I guess maybe it's because they

that the lures the zombies kind of back to the house that there's one last attack of the zombies yeah and that's when everything really like really pretty much the moment they decided like enact the plan of taking the truck out and that's that's when everything really just dominoes and everything begins to really fall apart but yeah and this is the part when i was a kid that messed me up was when johnny gets barbara at the very end and right when she's this absorbed into the hands of all the zombies well it's weird too because she recognizes it's johnny and i do like i have seen that like the whole reason they have johnny put on the racing gloves at the beginning of the movies they wanted to make sure he was recognizable as a zombie when he comes back later because they know he'd probably wouldn't have his glasses on his hair would be messed up they were like okay well at least when you see the racing gloves you recognize like you know it's johnny and she doesn't she screams but she kind of doesn't seem like she's totally fighting getting pulled away either because she's so i don't want to say she's happy about seeing johnny but it's open interpretation is that is exactly how she's reacting to this he's given up maybe that could be it as much as anything else

but yeah and she just kind of gets dragged and she was the kind of the main character at the start the movie. Yeah. Yeah. The movie is, the movie is nonstop accent for 10 minutes, a lot of dialogue, and then some of the most intense messed up things you would see in 1960. And the soundtrack is all just like, eight-tonal. And you're like, what the hell am I watching? Like, I mean, this is an entirely different kind of film. Because I know people, a lot of people talk about how Psycho is like, what, 1961, 1960? Yeah. And how, I know some people will say, well, that's the first modern horror movie, but that is still a product of the studio

system and has like an original score with a lush orchestra. This is just barely bolted together bad shit stuff. And like just like all these people, like half of them aren't even actors getting eaten alive. You got naked people on the forest pretending

eat chicken press. The soundtrack they've just found from some random library music just going, wah-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-a. It is like surreal as hell. And there's a great review from Oh God, who's the lady Who would yell, Pauline Kale

Where she's all like, this movie She calls out the fact the movie like It's barely competently put together But she also highlights like the artlessness In this movie kind of wins you over Because the artlessness Kind of fuels the horror Because it even feels a little more like a documentary that way

Because it is just so unpolished And messed up and yeah And that really comes to a head Right here at this part of the movie And we're just even like, so, what is it, Cooper? Oh, there's a big kerfuffle over the gun. Yeah. And then Ben kills Cooper.

I was going to ask you, Diamond, you're a parent. Yes. How do you feel, when you watch this movie now as a parent and Ben goes downstairs and sees the daughter eating her dad or mom, eating dad first and stabbing mom with a garden with a garden trials? Yeah. Does that hit differently? I mean, I definitely, you know, I've watched some movies in front of my kids that were definitely not for kids, but I feel like at this point, you know, growing up in the era where they've grown up with, I feel like they can take a lot more that I couldn't take at their age, but I certainly did not watch this movie front of them. And I don't know, I don't know how they should be before they see this because, yeah, it's pretty messed up to see the kid come for mom and then she eats dad and dad goes down. quick though like yeah he was already shot he's only out for like two seconds and she cut the mom comes down his arm's already ripped off but when when the mom when the mom says this

oh baby and and like it's just so it's it is still a it's hard for me to watch it and well the reason i even jumped to to this part so quickly is just the sound of her screaming as she's being and the kachunk kachunk even though it's obviously just like bosco hersey syrup just flung on the walls and stuff like that it's still just like the hell am i watching this is not Chocula cobweb bullshit anymore. This is like visceral, literally visceral. Like, yeah, this is, I could see why this stuff caused people to lose their goddamn minds in 1968, because it is just like, and there's no story reason.

There's no moral to any of this. It's just random mayhem and just good people being punished for no reason. It's hopeless. And it's just, oh, man. But it's not like, Grimdard. Romero's not trying to be like, am I blowing your mind? No. He's not being pretentious about it either.

He's just like, this is what happened. Isn't this messed up? And you're like, yeah, this is messed up. I have a great quote from Amero, I think, during dawn, where he was like, he was key as convinced society could break down for stuff like this. Because he's like, go to a McDonald's, order a plain cheeseburger, see if they get it right. They won't. So then imagine that before something that matters. It's the thing that when people start freaking out, it's the thing that you just expect that works every day.

And when that stops working, then you just realize, I mean, what would we know about? about that living through a three-year pandemic now about things kind of like always kind of like feeling like they're five minutes away from falling apart. Which actually that does kind of lend an extra kind of tinge of a little bit yanking the collar here a little bit watching this movie because even though I joked about how as a kid this movie didn't do anything to me because I was like,

oh, it's just silly black and white, just goofy like people goofing around the woods. Yeah, watching it as an adult now. It's a little bit like, and I'm not even a parent in the stuff with the kid and the killing the parents. Although I did supposedly the original idea was that Cooper was supposed to die. And because his daughter was knocked out from her injuries, he was supposed to turn to a zombie and start eating her and the mom will go down there and then stuff would happen. Oh, wow. I don't know if that's true.

I could see that being kind of almost more messed up. That's more messed up. Yeah, because they would have had showing the dad eat the daughter. And that would be even more, for the parents at least, that would be extra just like, oh my. But still, whatever, the finished film just. Oh, man. And it's life of the worst of it. Within the worst of it is the end of the movie.

And that's the extra just most like, what the hell was the Christy the Cloud? What the hell was that? Doc Giff. Yeah. Well, we've mentioned kids, so I think this is probably a great time to mention the very famous writer from Roger Ebert, who documented his experience, watched this movie at a matinee. Yeah, that's right. Because, you know, as we said, horror was not really seen as an adult genre. It was seen as very family friendly. You know, with, you know, with a few exceptions, most of these movies were playing during the day.

And, you know, I mean, by 68, horror was like, yeah, little kids and Boris Karloff Frankenstein masks. It was the monsters. This opened on a double bill With the Peter Cushing Doctor Who movie That's right up there With my neighbor Totero And Craver the Fireflies That is the American version of that

I guess American British co-production But yeah Oh man Roger Ebert You noticed that there was a large number of kids Like more kids in the audience than adults And as he wrote In the story

Which is like late 68, early 69 He says I don't think younger kids Really knew what hit them They were used to go in the movie sure, and they'd seen some horror movies before, sure, but this was something else. This was ghouls eating

people up, and you could actually see what they were eating. This was little girls killing their mothers. This was being set on fire. Worst of all, even the hero got killed. Yeah, because at the end, Bendis gets unceremoniously shot in the head and put on a fire. And no one knows

his story. He's completely anonymous. And just like, I know that's the whole reason why this movie really, especially kind of blew up in Europe, because all the French people are like, oh, he's a black man. He was killed by the white people and their dogs. It looks like Alabama. But they're not wrong.

But like, even regardless of race or anything like that, that is such a damn bleak ending. And even when he gets shot, there's not, is there even a big sting of music? It's just so matter of factly, he gets shot and that's it. And I love when they, right after that, then they just cut to the still photos. So you're almost just like looking at the photos as they would have appeared in the newspapers. And the fact that like, even that monty. with the still photographs at the end starts off with all the guys with the meat hooks

and they don't even show you what they're using the meathooks for but your brain fills in that information you could just imagine them just sinking the meat hooks and all these dead bodies and Ben's being hauled around by the meat hooks and the bonfire and like they have the sound of the the helicopter over the end and just

it's just like it is legitimately fantastic filmmaking there at that end it's just just I still don't think Dr. Romero was that technically good of a filmmaker but He had fantastic instincts, and that it's just pure, I can't even describe it. It's just pure emotional, a live wire of energy captured, especially at the end of this film. That's, that's really hard to communicate to other people.

And I feel it has to be for 1969 or 68, one of the most nihilistic experiences you could possibly experience in a movie theater. Yeah. If Crested the Clown was, what the hell was that? And that was the parents' reaction, the kid's reaction must have been like when the gum old It all gets thrown into the crowd and they start screaming. I'm glad to... GOMO Scream.GIF, yeah. I'm glad that Doctor Who was the second movie.

That's not a very good movie either. No, it's not, but it's fun. Peter Cushing got to play Doctor Who, but... Yeah, it's a fun little bit movie, yeah. Doctor, not even The Doctor, but just Dr. D.R. Yeah. Anyway, um... The end, yeah.

Man, yeah, that's a... Don't want to swear, but that's a pretty... That movie, that's all messed up. Well, for the record, you know, since we do mention the fact that it is, this is 1968, and this is the year that Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed. People did ask about that. And for the record, George Romero said that his movie was already in the can when that happened. So he, they did all their filming. Yeah, they said he was showing it the distributors when they got the news. It was literally,

they literally put it in the can that day. They were taking it to a distributor when they were driving in New York. Although you still had the whole civil rights thing. And like, you know, like, even if Martin Luther King hadn't been assassinated, that, that, that, that, whole movie, it would have still been, but the, yeah, the Martin Luther King would thing definitely put a button on that, though, but, you know, oh, man. Yeah, a lot of the civil rights, like, subtext for this, a lot of it is the audience brings that in. That was not intended by Romero. He, he, he, he wasn't against it, but it wasn't, like, he was not, something he accidentally backed into without meaning to. And, uh, I mean,

what's the Robert Ebert quote that movies are just empathy machines? And that's, right there, that's it. And it's not even like a racial. parable or anything like that's the fact that he's black is it even mentioned at all even like highlighted in the film at all in any way he's just another human being yeah and that I mean that alone is for 1960s regardless of the quality of the movie inside it's a black guy as the functional lead of a film and it's not at plot point it's never brought up yeah yeah even even as Ben and Cooper you know argue with another and they get they get very heated and they start fighting with one other you know one and ain't waiting for something to drop though if you're not if this is the first time you're watching it it's like yeah when does it Okay, when's, yeah. No, it doesn't come up, and Cooper, you know, Cooper is clearly very angry. Cooper very much wants to be right, and he's very stubborn, but you can see there's no, I mean, if you want to put the subtext there, you can put the subject there, but certainly there's no text there. There's nothing there that the filmmakers or the actor seem to have put in. Right, yeah.

And, yeah, I didn't even think about how that, that's kind of remarkable in itself. And a black guy, punching a white guy also, like, in addition to the sea, we're punching a white lady and punching a white lady. and punching a white guy. Yeah, and then being, on, I think it was Jack Russo saw this movie in a movie, in a predominantly black movie theater. And when, when Ben was killed, he's like, I got to get out of here. It's not a bad idea. At least, at least, oh, man, I never even thought about how that must be one hell of quiet movie theater at the end of that. Like, just, I know watching it at home, I was, I was sort of, I was kind of stunned silent at the ending.

I was like, oh, jeez, that's that how it's how good. goes out, huh? That's kind of... But then Dawn of the Dead, ten years later, it's like this rock is super bowl music at the end while the black guy's punching out zombies and jukeing them out and doing Kung Fu. And, like, I do love that, like, at the end of

Donna of the Dead, Romero goes, we can't have two movies on the same way, because that was supposed to be another movie where everyone dies at the end. Yeah. They were like, you know, we just can't. We just can't. Especially because the last guy just arrived at the end of the Dawn of the Dead is supposed to be a black guy.

And there's a whole... People argue as to whether or not this was intentional or just something that Romero, again, just accidentally backed into. But at least in the first four zombie movies that he made, technically the heroes are all black because you've got Ben in this movie. You've got Ken Foray and Dawn. You've got, wait, that falls apart with Day of the Dead, though, right? There is a black guy in there.

One of the survivors is a black guy, yeah. Yeah, he's a kid and I forgot where. But then the zombie, the mechanic zombie in Land of the Dead, who kind of becomes kind of like, yeah, becomes the hero kind of by de facto. But, um, so maybe that, yeah, maybe that there, there is a more argument that because it's not consistent, it's something that George Romero just kind of accidentally kept them backing into. But, um, yeah, that's, oh, it says four white people talking about racial stuff, but, but, well, Bill, you can certainly point out that no, as far as I can recall, none of, none of, none of Romero zombie movies are really focused on white men. You know, I mean, there's, there's, there's, there's white men in the movies, but they're never really the focus, you know, it's usually, it's usually, it's usually a woman or a person of color, usually. That's a good point. You know, you know, I mean, you've got, you know, this movie you've got Ben and you've got Barbara. I mean, that's where Day of the Dead works when that, because the main character is, like, yeah, Bill Cardill's. I can't remember her name.

Linda Cardill? I forget, yeah. And Day of the Dead, but yeah. But, yeah, I mean, does that carry through? Have you guys seen his? Well, no, that's right, because you, you said that you had seen all the other ones except for one of them, right, James? Land has, what's his name? Is that Thomas Jane?

I think, because there's the one mechanic zombie. I know George Romero said that he considered him to be the hero that film. No, not that, no, it's Simon Baker, somebody else, not Thomas Jane. So, that's the mentalist. Yeah, the mentalist is the guy with a mentalist. He's the main character. But it also has, it has, uh, Asiore Gento and John Leggizmo. I forgot John, yeah, Johnny Legg is in there, yeah.

And the bad guy, uh, basically playing George W. Bush is Dennis Hopper. Right, that's right. There was that. And then Survival of the Dead, I don't know who she is, but the found footage one? That's the found footage one. Okay. And the protagonist of that film is also a woman. Okay.

I have not seen, no, that's survive, no, the diary, I'm sorry, that's Diary of the Dead. That's the Found Footage. That's the Found Footage. It would be called Diary. And I have not seen Survival of Dead, so I can't speak for that. And that's one thing like, George Romero seemed to be like a real humanist kind of guy. And it didn't seem to have too many baked in prejudice at least nothing that I've ever heard about. Not to hold him like, God knows, I'm sure he had his own problems and stuff. But, yeah, I mean, that's a really good example of someone who bore none of that era. it was very humanist and seemed to kind of view everything on, like, he didn't have much of an agenda to push in terms of, like, yeah, I like the fact that he was fine with, like, you know, women and black folks and, like, anyone, like, anyone, like, anyone could be a hero.

And, but then again, part of that is because he didn't care about characters so much as, as much as societal breakdown and stuff. He was always more worried about the larger issues rather than individual characters, and which, like, gave his actors a lot of room to kind of do stuff like that, but. equally indifferent. But, yeah, but when people, like, use their, like, I'm, like, I was born in so-and-so age as an excuse for the racism these days. He points people like George Cameron, but like, that guy was made. He made the first modern horror movie in 1968, and, like, he was not even pushing a specific agenda. He just accidentally made this really race, race, conscious kind of film. And, yeah, I don't know, but monkey pants.

So we need to move on to, like the belief on to, like, the belies and stuff. Absolutely, yes. I want to talk about how this movie was, you know, was received at the time because we do have, you know, we've mentioned that Polina Kyle was certainly impressed by it. Roger Ebert was sort of more surprised. I don't think he was necessarily, you know, into movies. He was more freaked out by that, showing than anything about the movie itself. He liked the movie and didn't, was not calling for censorship, but he was different. He used that review to talk about how we need to use the rating system.

Which is the rating system kicked in like a month after night a living game. And he was right. And that was the whole thing is because a bunch of kids could see the movie because it was unrated. And there's a whole, like, I put this in the notes for this episode, but there's a whole thing to be said about how Night of the Living Dead comes at the end of the 60s where, like, the studio filmmaking system was falling apart. And the old Hayes Code system that ruled the content that went into the studio system films was dying. And that's why they had to replace it with the MPA new rating system, like G, PG, you know, eventually PG-13 R-rated and stuff.

And, yeah, it's just funny, that whole decade was such a churn of, business changes in the industry. The death of the studio system, the rise of all these independents, and Night of Living Dead was just right there, just or hit right at the right time, and I'm going to shut up and let the diamond talk. Certainly, the famous critic for the New York Times, Vincent Camby, was not impressed by Night Living Dead. We have a quote here saying, a grainy little movie acted by what appeared to be non-professional actors who are besieged in a farmhouse by some other non-professional actors who stagger around, stiff-legged, pretending to be flesh-eating ghouls.

He's not wrong. No, he's not wrong. But he's a little disdainful. And he's one of the only critics who reviewed it. Oh, that's another point, too, because it wasn't like that above-board thing about, like, yeah, wouldn't, yeah. Yeah, when I was searching to newspaper archives for all of 69, I could find very few reviews of this film. It just was not on their radar. But while it was not on any critics' radar, it was just making Boku bucks.

Well, it is funny. if you look up on the New York Times website to this day, there is a capsule review which cites Vincent Can be so I don't know where he wrote this, but, you know, they say he wrote this and it's a very short revolting garbage, though a camp cult favorite, help yourself.

I mean, that sounds about right. It's not wrong. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is revolting garbage. It's great, but like, yeah. I mean, no real horror movie fans probably going to put up too much an argument about that because that's the whole point. We love garbage. It's, it's, we're, we're, we're, We're sewage rats.

This is where we live. Get the hell out of here if it's a it can be. Yeah. But, well, I couldn't find out any more reviews out. It was fun to look in the old newspaper and find out some box office because

this movie made about $5 million in just a couple of years. God, it was probably made for like, what, like $15,000 or something? Yeah, it was made for not a lot. Yeah. Whatever it was, yeah. Pretty soon they realized they stopped bundling it with Doctor Who and they bundled it

with blood and black lace. It's a very gory film. Wow. The corruption, which is a great Peter Christian movie, he plays a bad guy. And that's not a, not a hammer film. And Andy Milligan's the ghastly ones, which is just a garbage piece of garbage, which I highly recommend. Telling it's scabby over you. Yes.

But, yeah. But then it's really interesting because, like, you can't get any good box of his information after like 71, 72, because then they found out, oops, this film's not copyrighted. Which is funny that took them that long to figure it out. Well, and that's part of the thing that helped its legacy, too, was the fact that then it's kind of like what happened with, um, it must have been the destruction of RKO because RKO made its wonderful life and somehow wonderful life got immediately shunted into a public domain, not immediately, but eventually, so that it could be shown on television by every station, every Christmas, 3,000 million times because they, you know, had airways to fill. And kind of Donna of the Dead wound up kind of benefiting from that in the long run that it'd be, I guess so. Yeah, it was Night of Living Dead. Yeah, because, like, everyone could just show it on TV. It just became a staple of, like, late-night horror classic stuff and just, yeah, for release.

Yeah. Again, George Romo got lucky, even though it kind of robbed him of a shitload of money he could have earned. But the reputation built his, if it hadn't been for Night of Living Dead becoming public domain accidentally, I don't think he gets the career that he gets later on. Because I don't think that many people would have been as interesting. in Dawn of the Dead later on. You can call it a happy accident

with a silver lining so it's like it's had some good points that's a bad points but yeah what happened was this is a fascinating story so

while they were you know it went through many titles there were many different titles as they were working on this but for a while

there they thought they were going to release it as night of the flesh eaters so they had credits made up for the film with Night of the

flesh eaters but short before they released it they found out there was another film that used that name so they had to change their name. That's a pretty specific title, too. I could see why they didn't think to look that up to see if anyone had that, you know? So when they retitled it as Night of Living Dead,

they had to make a new title screen. And in this era, if you didn't actually put the copyright information on your film, it was not copyrighted. That is not the case today. That's not the case today at all. But in 1968, that's how it worked. You had to actually have a copyright symbol on your title. So when they changed the title, they, you know, someone forgot to put that on there and all of a sudden it became public domain and yes this opened the floodgates anyone could anyone could show it anyone could release it anyone could edit it anyone could remake it anyone could do anything with it and as romero said many years later the fact that people were able to show it for free that anybody was able to distribute it did result in lots of people seeing it and keeping the

film alive you know okay well i feel bad for going off on a tangent now because he just made my argument for me then okay yeah yeah in our modern era yeah as we said any video service, you know, it's on YouTube. There's dozens of copies on YouTube. You can watch it in full on Wikipedia. You can watch it on the internet archives. There's many copies. Internet Archive said it is the second most downloaded film in their library

right behind 1938's Sex Madness. So, I own that movie. I own that movie. It's a bad movie. Don't watch that movie. Do you own like the actual physical film reels? No. I will say one thing about public domain, because this happens a few times. This happened with Chorraine, which is a great old like

Kitskoan type movie. Oh, you love that movie. Yeah, great movie. But the, you know, and copyright law in America is, it benefits corporations too much, obviously. Yeah, a little bit. Thanks, thanks, Disney. The one, the one defense I'll say for copyright is so, yeah, I mean, in addition to

Dormero not getting money for this movie that he sort of gotten, rightfully so, for the longest time, if you wanted to watch it, the only copies that were available looked like trash because there was no financial incentive to clean it up. to the point where when Criterion decided to put it out, they had to get, they had to help get funding from like the George Lucas Film Institute. That's the version I watched. I fired up my Criterion disc and at the beginning it says the George Lucas Family Trust.

And I was like, what? And at the end, too, after the movie's over, there was a big burned in like copyright, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They made sure that like, yeah, even aside from whatever's actually on the film print now these days, there's an extra just like, yeah, this is, at least this scan of this movie, this pristine, like, 4K scan. That's copyright. You can't miss with that.

Because they actually went through the hassle of getting the original camera negative and the original audio. And so digitally cleaned it up and everything. But you have to think about it. Like, that's not if you, if you're the financial incentive for that, it's very low. Because why, if you're a regular consumer and you don't know about all this stuff, you'll see. And like what's all criterion's just cost 30 bucks. This disc cost $5. What's the difference?

Well, that's a nice thing about criterion is they know that they have the built-in audience. that'll at least make it worthwhile. It may not make a mint off of it, but at least they know some people. And I was one of those people where I already had four copies of that movie sitting on my hard drive. And I was like, well, I'll just buy this one and rip it too. It'll just be sitting on the top of the pile with all the other ones. But, yeah. I know a restored, remastered copy of the film did it up at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

I don't know if they're still showing it today. Who knows what they're doing, exhibiting it or not. But I know they have a, they have a pristine copy that I think was produced. as part of this restoration process. So they had, at least for a while that they had, they had exhibitions of it in the museum. So that would be, that'd be really cool. Obviously, given this film's legacy,

I think it's absolutely all on your Library Congress lists of, you know, important movies. So at this point, it is rightly viewed as a classic, as a important piece of film history. You know, you can, absolutely, you can buy a trashy, you know, $3.99, you know, gas store DVD copy, of course. But there are also people out there.

making really nice copies, really nice packages out there. It's on DVD. It's on Blu-ray. So if you want to buy a copy, by all means, buy a copy, but just maybe do your homework and make sure it's, you know,

one of the good ones. Well, even going back to the Count Chocula era of horror films, Universal, like, 10 years ago, put out this fantastic Blu-ray set of 4K and maybe they were 4K scans.

That 4K, yeah. But like, Frankenstein and Dracula and all that stuff, and I watch those things every year for the last decade. And they just, the way they digitally just like, um still the frame so you don't have that camera jutter and it's cleaned up it's just like it's unreal how good old movies look old black and white movies can look these days in 4k it is startling they're just genuinely beautiful and maybe night of living dead doesn't look that gorgeous because you know it's a little crummy movie but like it's a different movie than what you may have seen as a kid especially if you grew up like watching it on like you know on rabbit ears antenna tv or on vch s it's like yeah it's an almost entirely different presentation these days

I don't know what I'm going to be. So I wanted to move on to the legacy of this movie because, because the movie was public domain, because Romero didn't get the money that he rightly deserved for this, obviously he was motivated to make sequels, which we'd already talked about. You know, he made many sequels over the years. Although, you know, to his credit, he didn't just churn them out. He usually spent many, many years in between sequels of these films. So, you know, Dawn is like 78, so almost like 10 years later.

Day is like 85, so that's many years later. And then Land of the Dead was a full 20 years later. So he took his time making these films. But in 1990, they made the first full-color remake of this film, which Romero is a writing credit on. And it was directed, notably directed by Tom Savini. I think this is only directed credit, I think. Yes, it is. He supposedly had such a terrible time with this.

He never wanted to direct again. So, yeah. But in case our listeners don't know, Tom Savini is just a. a special effects legend, you know, he, he made some of the, you know, all-time classic films look the way they look. You know, he was certainly, he worked with Romero on many of his other zombie films, not, he was not there for Night Living Dead, but he was there off in Vietnam, yeah, filming, yeah, he was there for Dawn, he's in Dawn, he's there. He's there for Dawn, he's in, though, yeah, he's there. He's in Dawn, he's in, he's there. He's in Dawn. He's in Dawn, he plays one of the Bicene in Dust Till Dawn. Yes, he's the guy with a penis gun and from Dust Till Dawn. I have stood next to Tom Savini while people came out to him and high-fied him. Hey, sex machine! And he loved it.

He was drinking that shit, and it was great. I want to shout out, I recently saw a film, a slasher film from, I want to say, 81 or 82 called Maniac. And in addition to doing the effects, Tom Savini plays a poor sap in that movie who gets a shotgun to the face. That is one of the best headshots in all. That is probably the third best exploding head in film history. Of course you'd have rank. It's like, well, it's chopping mall. No, it's scanners, chopping mall that.

Actually, scanners. That guy's eyeballs and scanners. You slow that, watch that in slow motion. It is hilarious. But anyway. But, yeah, so 1990, we have a full-color, full remake. So Romero has writing credits, so hopefully he gets some money out of this. I would say, shout out to, you know, acting legends, character actor legend,

sci-fi legend, horror legend, Tony Todd gets to play Ben, and Patricia Tallman plays Barbara, and you can tell that they definitely wanted to make Barbara a very different character in this remake. I want to say maybe his makeup, I don't, I mean, because Barbara in the first film shuts down, she gets knocked out, she panics, you know, she kind of-improve. She kind of becomes dead weight, and in the remake, she, you know, she gets a very terrified opening, you know, she gets attacked in the cemetery, she runs away, but they really purposefully made her a lot more active. She gets to carry the gun.

She shoots a lot of people. I would say by the end of the movie, it's her story more than it's Ben's story. And also, Patricia Tallman, not really a famous actor. She's a famous stunt performer. She doubled Laura Dern in Jurassic Park. Oh, she did. I only know her from Star Trek. She shows up as like a background person on the bridge for like 30 episodes.

Yeah. She did a lot of stunt performing on television, like Star Trek and that's like that stuff. So she's more famous for being a step performer than an actor. So the fact that she played Barbara in the night of the living remake really shows how they wanted to make Barbara a little more, you know, kick ass. Like it's almost like... You're convinced me to watch that now. It's like a pre, you know, this is 1990. So it's almost like a pre-Linda Hamilton T2 kind of thing.

Like, you know, all of a sudden, oh, Barbara kicks ass now, you know? I remember, because this is back when I was so terrified of zombies. And I remember watching the... Okay. I remember watching the Marshall Warfield talk show. There was a Marshall Warfield talk show? Yes. And when she was saying that makes people laugh.

And she was on it and they showed the clip of her. There's a scene in a movie where she's suiting a zombie to prove it's dead. She's suiting him in the chest. Is he dead yet? He's dead yet. And that I was 11 and it's like 1030 on a Tuesday on the summer. And that freaked me. That freaked me the shit out.

And I had to stop watching Marshall Warfield. I was so sad. Um, but I, that remake is not, that remake is well made. I've heard good things. It's, it takes some liberties with the ending. Yeah. Uh, that I think are interesting. I read the synopsis last night in preparation for this and I did see that they,

they complicated it up more. Yeah. And I think they do a lot and it definitely, it does give me a much better, bigger Pittsburgh vibe than the original, which I. Well, you say there's a yunzer in the basement. There's a yonzo in the basement. And it, it, it is the, the special effects are gruesome. so yeah which makes I did I did watch the beginning on YouTube and they do a whole thing of like oh there's a zombie in the cemetery no it's just an old man with a head wound for some reason but then a Tom Savini caliber zombie shows up and you could tell like Tom Zavini directed you can tell they tell this part okay yeah this is top Zavini going nuts but yeah yeah I believe they purposely didn't have much makeup on the zombies in the first film just because it was it was expensive they wanted they really didn't have the have the budget for kind of thing so when they make the remake the zombie always look a lot more gruesome.

And also by that time, Tom's, I mean, was so known for his gore makeup. Oh, yeah. They had to just go nuts with that, yeah. I would say it's enjoyable. I enjoyed watching it. It is certainly not on the caliber of the original film, but, you know, I also think one of the most notable things for me is I thought the music was pretty terrible. I mean, you know, we've talked a lot of this episode about how the music for the first

film was strange and almost a tonal at times, but the music they slapped on that 1990 movie, I think was pretty bad. I'm not impressed. Was it like a score? Was it like synth? It's like a proper score and I just think it's not good. And according to Letterbox, the composer that did the music for Majorettes and man, Majorettes has really bad music. So that checks out. That checks out okay. Yeah. They should have just had a score like Return of Living Dead where it's all just like, you know, the cramps and stuff. It's one of the only films produced by Golan after Canon broke up

too. I saw that. That does not bode well. No wonder Tom's meaning he never wanted to direct again. If he had to wrestle with the Canon Films guy, everyone go watch. If you don't know, go see the electric boogaloo, the story of Canon Films, just to get a beat on that guy. Oh, my God, yeah. Well, anyway, knock him going. But we also need to highlight the 1999 30th anniversary edition. And is this when they started adding, like, people started doing their own version?

Like, yeah, not just like reissues, but like. So not only is that the wrong year to make a 30th anniversary edition. I want your notes that says quote unquote directed by John Rousseau. I don't mean to burst your bubble, but like the way you presented even the notes is funny. I'm sorry. It's just, it's not good. So, yeah, John Rousseau took the original movie, quote unquote, directed a new version by shooting new footage in black and white and cutting it into the original, cut some stuff out. In 1999?

Yes. So his version runs 92 minutes with new footage, which means dismissing this stuff from the old movie. you could cut some stuff out of that movie but I doubt he did it the right way but yeah this only music guess what not good music the new scenes are bad

you can watch this stuff on YouTube it's pretty it's pretty repulsive no one looks at it from the 60s it just it's just you know the ending is totally different and it's awful I really do not

do not bother with this one please don't I would say yeah I'm watching it now and there's like more stuff setting up the zombie at the yeah it's bad It's very bad. Yeah.

The sad thing, it's not the worst thing to have Night of Living Dead's name on it, but it's really up there. Which speaks to how bad everything that's come in the wake of Night of Living Dead in terms of, like, cashing in on that direct property. Yeah. I don't know much about this. All I know is they put out a terrible animated version like a year ago. That looks terrible. There's the... It's all Flash animated and, like...

There's Children of Living Dead in 2001 that's produced by John Russo, which is bad. There's Night of Living Dead 3D with Sid Haig, which is... is just horrible. I don't know much about Sid Hague, but yeah, that sounds like you can either be really really bad. It's really bad. And there are two different animated ones that are bad. There's a remake set in

Wales that came out in 2012. Why was it, Night of the Living, yeah, why not? And then in 2021, they announced Night of Living Dead 2. Oh, your highlight, yeah. Yeah, with, with, with, The cast of Day of the Dead? Yeah, the cast of Day of the Dead.

Like the original Day of the Dead? Lori Cordellie. Is Chloe Cardell supposed to be in this? Oh, Lori Cardi. Okay, yeah. There's a trailer that has this one picture. And it's, as far as I can tell, it's never been made. This was two years ago.

Nothing, nothing new. So all those actors are going to be like 70 years old. Who wants to? Oh, no. I don't know anything about it. They probably all broke their hips at the same time, signing the contract to be in the movie, and that canceled the movie. So, yeah, a lot of, a lot of, um. capitalizing off the name.

Yeah, your notes here are just lengthy and just... Sorry, I do that. No, I'm not complaining. It's just, it's just like a field of carnage. It's the Gettysburg of what they did to the night of the night of the living dead light. So isn't, oh, so who wants the rights to the night of the living dead now? It's public domain. It's still public domain.

Okay, yeah. It's not like anyone attempted to, like, reclaim it somehow. And this is not a new problem. Like, the Fulci film, Zombie was released. Oh, that's right. Yeah, okay. It was released in Italy as zombie too, because Dawn of the Dead in Italy is called zombie. And so Fulte's like, I'm going to make a sequel.

And is that the one with a shark fighting the zombie? Yes, I mean, my housemates and I went around into that once, and that's the big thing we came away with it from you. It's a fun movie, but it's not a sequel to Dawn of the Dead. But it's not, yeah, it has nothing to do. It's just, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Ooh, a do. Yeah.

Also, we mentioned both by name earlier, but I want to highlight them again just because they're both really good movies that sort of, expand on the Night of the Living Dead formula. As we mentioned, 1985, return of Living Dead takes place in a universe where there was that movie, but it also really happened, so zombies exist, except

in this movie, in this version, the zombies come back and they're basically indestructible. The best zombies ever, they're fast and indestructible. It's a really wild watch. It's a comedy movie as much as a horror. It may be my all-time favorite horror movie.

No, people say it's a zombie movie. People say it's a comedy, but, like, the existential dread that film gives me way outweighs. Because, like, movie is also, what the hell was that crusty doc give? Yeah, and just the scene where they interview, they ask a zombie, why do you eat people? And it's like, because it stops the pain of being dead. Like, oh, that's a good existential crisis. Thank you, Phil.

And that's the movie that introduced the idea that, uh, the zombies eat brains. And that's the justification for why they eat brains. Absolutely. If you've ever seen a movie where someone groans brains, it's from that. It's not from, it's not from that I lived in. The zombies in night and Dawn don't really talk at all. And in day, he says one word, I think, maybe, but. Something like that, yeah.

And, well, speaking of Romero, too, this is the way. He kind of got his teeth kicked in because he was unfortunate enough to release Day of the Dead, his third zombie movie, right around the same time Return of Living Dead came out, and Return of Living Dead kind of kicked the shit out of it at the box office. Well, because they had to release Day Unvaded, which probably heard it. Oh, I didn't even think about that. It's so violent. It's so violent.

Also, Day of the Dead is also kind of a little bit of a chore. It's not bad. But if you're expecting, like, a Dawn of the Dead, you're not going to get that because it is just miserable. It is just sad and just like, I mean, my favorite is dawn. And like, Dawn's the one I can watch and it does not give me anxiety. Dawn is, that's always the, that's the popcorn favorite of everybody because that's just so stupid and fun and great. But, yeah, yeah. I feel kind of bad because a Day of the Dead was Romero's personal favorite.

And I can kind of see why, because it deals even more with, like, social issues and how, like, a little miniature your society falls apart but it's also just not that fun because it really is just some military asshole just screaming at everybody else for two hours before he gets his guts ripped out I do like Land of the Dead I'll have to see you. I had a good time with that one. I saw it once and never went

revisited. And I even like diary is not great but it's a very good commentary on social media. And also like an 80 year old man has probably the darkest ending of any of the movies. Oh boy. Yeah it's a beautiful. Well I'm assuming if they were doing

a Blair Witch thing. If they take after Blair Witch, which, you know, that had to talk. No, it's its own thing. It's its own thing. It's a unique film. It's not great, but it's different. Okay. And survival is supposed to be terrible. I have not seen that. So. Okay. Yeah, well, one thing we certainly highlight is, as probably the lone

great feeling, you know, happy ending, is 2005 Sean of the Dead, which is a loving tribute to the Romero films, officially known as a Rom-Zamcom, a romantic zombie comedy. But it still has you know, has some, has graphic violence, it has intense moments.

It is not, you know, it's not all lighthearted, but certainly at the end of the movie, I think you feel like a million bucks, so I cannot recommend that movie enough. It is fantastic. It definitely gave Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright a huge kickstart in their careers. And of course, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright would both appear in Land of the Dead as zombies as a sort of as a tribute, because Romero loved it. Romero loved that movie, so he gave them, he gave them zombie chemistry. My favorite joke in that whole movie is they named.

Simon Pegg's mom Barbara And there's a scene where they're going to go pick her up Because they don't want her to get eaten by the zombies that are You know attacking you Barbara Yeah, Nick Frost yells into the phone We're coming to get you Barbara But they don't even do like the Karloff voice It's just

But it's still just like the fact that you're yelling It's just that movie's my top three zombie movies It's got to be the Holy Trinity of Donna of the Dead Return of Living Dead and Sean of the Dead My favorite joke in that movie is It's not hip-hop, it's electro but that's just. White lines.

Yeah, that too. Anyway, sorry. I haven't even seen that movie in five years, but I still, and it's not like I've seen it a million times, but it's that memorable. But just, yeah, anyway. Video games? All right, yes. In interest of our long-term listeners, we should probably talk with some video games

because this is technically a video game podcast. And, you know, right up front, there is no official Night of the Living Dead video game. We'll put that out there. There is no official night-line video game. That's a shocker. They just came out with a Blair Witch game along. However.

The Groundhogs Day game. However, video games love zombies. And almost every video game zombie... Oh, I know where you're going with this. Okay. Is a Romero zombie. I mean, let's be honest. Almost all video games are using a Romero type zombie in their video game.

So its influence is unimpeachable here. You cannot ignore what Night Living Dead means to zombie games as a whole. And there are just so many zombie games. But if you want to get specific, we can mention the fact that a lot of Resident Evil is about trapping players in a close base. with zombies, and those zombies love to stick their arm in, you know, bordered up windows and try to grab the hero. That happens a lot. You highlight the fact that in the remake, the 2002 remake, you know, the interest the new mechanic

where you have to burn the zombies to make sure they don't get up. That is absolutely a key factor here in Night of Living Dead. And also, I think this is a deep cut. Just maybe it's, you know, I'm crazy here, but Resident Evil 2, the opening of that movie, they've got a gas station, you know, crisis. Yeah. You've got a runaway truck that crashes in the town and causes the big explosion. I feel like that's heavily borrowing from the story that Ben tells in this movie about the diner.

That's a really good point, actually. Would not be surprised. Somebody was paying attention to that movie in ways that not a lot of the people actually do. Yeah. That's the original and the remake, by the way. They both have their runway. I still love the idea that they thought like, well, we, because I think they've come out since then and said, okay, yeah, Resident Evil is supposed to take place in, like, somewhere in Pennsylvania. I still love the idea that they thought Raccoon City was a good name for, like, city and,

Pennsylvania of all places, but yeah. Yeah, I think, I used to joke that for a good few years, every video game was either a remake of Night of Living Dead, aliens, or of Simon, of Ryan, or some combination of thereof. I kind of wonder if it's the fact that, like, no one owns the copyright, the Night of the Living Dead

would make it hard, because say you made a Night of Living Dead video game and it took off, anyone else can maybe swing in and do a sequel, because you don't own, specifically needs, like, controlling the IP for that as a video game might be more difficult. then it's worth. I would imagine that's the only reason why there aren't like 50 million, like, even just terrible Night of Living Dead Games on Steam or something like that.

Yeah, that's probably a safe bet there. I do know that when I moved to Pittsburgh in the early 2000s, there were some people at CMU for a class project made a Night of Living Dead Game. Oh, wow. And that never got released, obviously. But I think they even were able to get some of that people in the movie to do voices. Okay. And it's funny you imagine CMU because that's Romero, he was born in New York City and only. made, only wound up in Pittsburgh because he went to, you know, he studied that CMU filmmaking, but yeah. CMU being Carnegie Mellon University, just for the rest. Exactamundo. Yeah.

Well, we know that Capcom and Romero did try to work together a couple times. Yeah, unfortunately, it didn't work out. He, uh, he wrote a script, he wrote an early script, I think, for a live action version of Resident Evil, which unfortunately ended up not getting produced, probably because his version was, A, more violent, and B, kind of dark. Um, I want to shout out there's a... There's a fan out there. There's a fan out there, October Kagan, who is adapting the Romero's script into a comic.

Oh, that's cool. Yeah, okay. Which is slowly being released online. I just want to shut that out. It's an interesting take on Resident Evil. It's obviously a different version. So the script is out there at least then. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, you know, he's not going to make it. He's passed, unfortunately. I love the idea that, like, he wouldn't have a script, so he's just kind of like, what, what, he's just taking screenshots from Night of Living Dead and just adding, like, Resident Evil, just HUD elements to it, you know. But George Romero did make a live action commercial for Resident Evil 2, which I think, I think Errolene Japan. And the wild thing about that is Brad Renfro, the late Brad Renfro, appears in the commercial as Leon Kennedy. Oh, wow.

So, wait, so is this what he was doing instead of making a new zombie movie? I wonder if actually just the money he got from Capcom for all this. I wonder if he didn't have to make a movie there. Maybe that's why he skipped a decade because he was too busy getting jerked around by Capcom. It could be, you know, if you're locked into development hell for long enough, maybe you just, you don't want to make zombie movies for a while. I'm actually going to have to Google Brad Renfro to see you exactly who that was. And, you know, when Merrill made a lot of movies, but a lot of them weren't hits.

So, like, that probably hurt his, like, I know because, like, around the 2000s, he had a really hard time making movies. Because, like, you know, monkey shines and dark half, not huge. As a kid, again, reading Fangoria and Gorzode and stuff like that, there was always interviews with George Romero, and he's always talking about what his next movie is, and it never turns out well. And, of course, we have to mention Dead Rising, because Dead Rising is about a, you know, a bunch of human survivors during a zombie apocalypse trapped inside a shopping mall, which, spoilers is basically Dawn of the Dead. And it is so much Dawn of the Dead that they actually had to put a disclaimer on the box at one point. to indicate that George Romero was not involved because people apparently were bringing copies of the game and having Romero sign them.

And he was like, I didn't make this. What are you talking about? What the hell is this? Yeah. You know, especially when he saw it was Capcom, he must have been like, oh, those, they wouldn't make my movie, but they're going to make my movie into a game. Yeah. I know they said it wasn't actionable.

And, again, I'm not all for, I'm not for frivolous copyright lawsuits, but come on. Yeah, that's a man of some bucks for that. Especially because they work with them. That was like right after. And, and, you know, I think Capcom really caused like the second wave of zombie pop culture. Really, they did. With Resident Evil. And this may be.

I mean, Sean of the Dead started off as there's an episode of Spaced where he's playing, Simon Pegg is playing Resident Evil. And there's a whole Resident Evil themed episode of Space. And that's what essentially turned into Sean of the Dead. And, you know, I might have a controversial opinion here. But for me, Night of Living Dead, one of the greatest movies, made, but it's going to sound strange. It's him me out. So kind of a lot like Van Halen in that

it's great, but most of the stuff that influenced is dog shit. I mean, that's just most zombie stuff in general. Like, if you see anything zombie related, it's almost 99% sure to be bullshit. Especially since, like, the year 2000. Just like countless straight-to-video

zombie movie, this complete garbage. What do you think of the Don of the Dead remake? I like It's not a very good horror movie, but it's fun. I thought it was okay, but I wasn't like, I've never seen it since I saw it in theaters, okay, yeah. I like Sarah Polly a lot. I forgot about that. Sally Salt is in that movie.

And I, um, and Ving Rames and it's, it's a well-made film. It's got a cast. Yeah. It has a fantastic opening. I mean, that's what's his face is. That's Zach Snyder, right? And that's the whole thing is like, that's always the best part of every each one of his movies. It is, it is the best remake of any of the, of the dead films.

Because like, there's a, there's a, there are allegedly, there are allegedly day of the dead remakes that have nothing to do with the day of the dead They just take the name and just Those Night of Living Dead ones we talked about earlier It is that's kind of the weird thing You think somebody by now would have done like a Planet of the Apes thing Where they go back and remake the movies Kind of old George Romero was talking about

Was the inspiration for Night of the Living Dead anyway Where you go back and you tell the story of how this all happened And you build out from there Kind of like what they did with the Planet of the Apes Remakes where they went like okay How it is the World of the Planet of the Apes happen Which is something that the original Planet of the Apes movies eventually covered

but like when they just started remaking not the Tim Burton movies but the good ones later on they kind of asked that same question I'm kind of surprised I mean me again maybe just be a rights issue but I'm kind of surprised no one has sat down and said okay let's do some remakes of at least the first

three Romero zombie movies and let's do it right where there's like continuity between the films they're well made yeah I don't know well a lot of zombie fix and it doesn't like to focus on the why and that's another thing that I think is kind of lazy like I get why you don't do it especially like that Romero didn't do it because it definitely doesn't matter.

But at least he had a bigger agenda. It's not like he didn't do it just because he didn't care. But yeah. Yeah, but like when you see something like, I don't, I'm just looking at a list of zombie films. Like, I don't know, uh, plaguers or like countless zombie films. They just have no reason for the zombies because they don't care. They just want to make a zombie movie so they can make some money. The thing that made it so, I don't want to say it was easy to make Night of Living Dead.

But the thing that made it so affordable to make Night of the Living Dead is what also makes it so affordable for anyone to make their own zombie movie because all you need is some friends willing to like eat some raw chicken breasts and some fake blood and technically you can make a zombie movie and that's kind of like that's unfortunately that's also a big part of the legacy of the night of the living dead

unfortunately for better for worse yes and clap like flight of living dead yeah I would say here in Japan especially there are so many movies that are just noun of the dead and a lot of them are cheap to produce a lot of them have terrible terrible reputations

some of them turn out well I mean the international title of Don't Stop the Camera Camera Tomorrow was called One Cut of the Dead Which is an excellent movie That movie is incredible Oh I've heard of that but I've never actually Oh wait no is that the thing about the camera crew

Yeah I started that and I fell asleep Because I started at like 1 o'clock of the morning I need to finish that Last Halloween Okay yeah yeah That movie made me cry Okay really

The movie is fantastic It's absolutely fantastic I'm writing notes about all these recommendations right now Hard recommend. But for that movie, you know, for one of those, you've got like sushi of the dead, toilet of the dead, like all the, like anything. Anything that could be made has been made. And a lot of it is just cheap garbage. I mean, we're kind of in a zombie movie lull right now, aren't we? Thank God. Yeah, it seems like everything has gone, like, what, the possessioning or whatever the hell, like, all the, like, the possession movies, haunted doll movies. I mean, you've got the A-24 quote-unquote elevated horror stuff, but then you've got, like, all the, like, all the horror movies with the trailers, not to have this turn into old man nails, like, Cloud Corner, but just like, yeah, it's all just like, well, a big shock scare as a girl, 12-year-old girl, like, walks backwards on our hands and knees at the camera, and that's like, yeah, whatever it is, it's not zombies, so I guess, I guess possession films are kind of the flavor of the day right now, when it comes to the cheap schlock bullshit.

Well, one thing we know for sure. status. We know zombies are here to stay. Zombies are going to outlive us all. No, we'll come back. That's the best thing about zombies when they come back. They always come back. They'll be making zombie movies in 2168. You know what I mean? So. And you know what? I'm kind of curious to see. I know you're trying to wrap it up. You obviously and I couldn't. But just one last thing just with like, I'm very curious to see what the next phase of when zombies do come back and after the pandemic and everything like that. Because now you have a whole kind of new anxieties you can tap into that are just simmering out there waiting for. someone waiting for a new George Romero, just like the racism stuff back in the 1968, there's some new flesh to be eaten if you want to make a good zombie movie these days. And I'll be curious to see how that starts happening in the next decade or two. I'm guessing someone's already working on Woke of the Dead. Let's be honest. Oh, no, you're absolutely, if that doesn't come out before the next presidential election,

we could almost make a monetary bet that's going to happen. Oh, Dad, they wouldn't just call Woke of the Dead because it doesn't make any sense. woke of the dead. What are their pronoun? Yeah. The pronouns are I think we just wrote the movie. Well, now if anyone does make that way,

we could sue because we could say this podcast is essentially us mailing us a good idea to us in the mail. That's a poor man's copyright. That's what this podcast is right now. Anyway, we've successfully podcasted about Night of Living Dead longer than Night of Living Dead. We're coming up on two hours here.

So let's wrap this up. You know, the sun's coming up. The posse is going to shoot us in the head soon. So why don't we go around the table? Bill, where can the Internet find you? Oh, God, I even think about this part. I'm just, my name, Bill Muddron, M-U-D-R-O-N, just like Google me. I'm on Twitter.

Oh, I guess Twitter's dying. By the time this comes out, Twitter, baby, just not a thing anymore. I have a website. I have a big cartel web shop. I'm always, I'm a freelance artist, so if you need, like, video game, Matt prints and stuff, go check out my, just Google my name and check out my store and my website and stuff like that. So, yeah. Fabulous artwork. Always good. Always good to have a Bill Mudder drawing on something. Yeah, I'm doing a lot of work with Jeremy Parrish at Limited. You've run games right now doing some cover art and things for those guys right now. So, yeah. What I've seen I love. What I've seen, I love. Thank you very much. It's very appreciated. How about you, James? Well, I have another podcast. I have a cinema oblivia where I talk about weird old movies. Diamond, you've been there. And some people from, you know, retronauts and other gaming podcasts have been there, too, like Alex Navarro. So if you like weird old movies, check that out. And you can find me. You can find me on pretty much every social media service as Lost Turntable.

We are recording this in July the same week that Twitter introduced the rate limit fiasco. So who knows what's going to be happening? But I am on Twitter, Blue Sky, co-host, I don't know, whatever, everything, Lost Turntable. That's me. Again, thinking about simple things that you don't realize how can impact your life until it suddenly falls apart. Yes. I mean, Twitter, that's another... You can make a zombie movie about the death of...

Like an online zombie movie about the death of social structures. Hashtag zombie. Go ahead. Yeah, I have to shout out Cinema, Olivia. I've been a guest on the podcast multiple times. We've talked about some really fun movies. Including, we did one that was not a zombie movie, but we did that, we did that monster. Was that Monster Express? Horror Express, yes. Right.

With Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Did you do this stuff with me? was that you we did we did we talked about we did we talked about cue but we also talked about larry cohen yeah yeah i did stuff of some i think i might have done not i didn't do stuff but yeah yeah yeah always that always want mole kind of kind of a zombie film stuff a zombie ice cream yeah actually yeah i mean it kind of turns people into like acolytes of the stuff yeah and they even take down poor chocolate chip charlie actually the death of chocolate chip charlie in the stuff is one of the if you want to talk one of the few things i got me as a kid anyway

Anyway, moving on. Spoilers for the stuff. They're not expected to bring up the stuff on Retronauts, but here we are. Exactly. What podcast does this turn into when we're talking about the death of chocolate chip trolley on Retronauts? But what is Retronauts, if not a podcast, that brings things back from the grave? Hey? How's that for a segue?

So if you like this kind of stuff, by all means, of course you can listen to us for free. Thank you very much for looking at Retronauts. But if you go to Patreon.com slash Retronauts, you could support us. For $3 a month, you get episodes one week early, and they're at a higher quality. But for $5 a month, which is just $2 more than $3, it's fact, you get exclusive episodes every month. You get exclusive stuff from me every week. I write columns. I read them to you as a podcast.

We also have a community podcast where we talk about what's going on in the world of retro video games. We also have a Discord where we hang out and talk about games, movies, whatever you want to do. We've got that, too. so by all means if you listen for free we thank you very much but if you go to Patreon we really appreciate it

as for me personally you can find me around the internet as Fight Club F-E-I-T that's my last name C-L-U-B that is a blunt object

with which you can cave in the head of a zombie so last words I guess everyone let's start moaning uh

chicken chicken rest. Good night. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.