October 22, 2024 • 20 mins
Filmmaker Matt joins us on the Dumb, Cool, Weird Podcast to unpack the genius of George A. Romero's "Day of the Dead" from his fresh perspective. This episode promises to shed light on the revolutionary impact Romero had on independent filmmaking and the zombie genre, with insights into the film’s groundbreaking practical effects and non-traditional Hollywood approach. We dig into the nuanced portrayal of zombies versus infected creatures, with parallels to works like "28 Days Later," and explore how the film’s depiction of human dynamics and mental breakdowns has influenced series such as "The Walking Dead."
We also dive into the peculiar and often baffling decisions made by characters within "Day of the Dead.” Imagine zombies piling up at a fence while being kept in a bunker with hardly any restraints—what were they thinking? Bub, the zombie with a touch of humanity, becomes a focal point of fascination, and we ponder his potential journey. With praise for the film’s gripping practical effects, we also share a laugh at the times they go hilariously over-the-top. In the end, our discussion circles back to the challenges of relying on outdated tech in a post-apocalyptic setting, adding another layer to our exploration of this iconic film.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Dumb.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Cool.
Speaker 3 (00:03):
Weird Podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the Dumb, cool, weird Podcast, and we have
a guest today.
We have Matt.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Oh yeah, Matt, that's me.
Yeah, so yes.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Yeah, so you know, last week we watched Dawn of the
Dead and this week we watched,you know, Day of the Dead.
Matt's actually never seen Dayof the Dead, but me and Nick
have, so this is definitely aninteresting perspective here.
Oh yeah, so what'd you think,matt?
Speaker 3 (00:24):
It makes me feel really, really kind of dumb,
because I haven't spent a lot oftime watching these older films
.
I didn't really grow up toomuch with that kind of influence
so, being a filmmaker myself, Itend to look at films like what
can I learn from how they madeit?
I can tell you that I enjoyedwatching it more than a lot of
the newer zombie movies, simplybecause they used practical
(00:49):
effects.
It felt more real in a lot ofaspects, even though visually
sometimes it was a bit cheeky, Idon't know.
It felt like I could look pastthat, because it wasn't
Hollywood just trying to sell mea film based off of their
ability to do VFX, and I thinkit was.
For me, as someone that hasn'twatched a lot of the older films
(01:11):
, it's already gone technical.
That's just the way my braintakes it.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
No, that's fine, you can be technical, I mean.
So one of the things that meand Nick really like about
George A Romero is he doesn'treally play by the Hollywood
rules very much.
He sort of like kind of takesit in a direction where he kind
of has a lot of control of it.
He did another movie called theCrazies.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It's a good one too.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
It's another movie where he really just did what he
wanted to do with it.
He's one of those guys.
He's kind of a pioneer forindependent filmmaking because
he basically made Night of theLiving Dead, kind of on a
shoestring budget.
In his own way it became verypopular.
Unfortunately he didn'tcopyright it properly and he
lost the copyright on it, but hewas able to make you know dawn
(01:54):
of the dead crazies and you knowday of the dead and it kind of
solidified his you know hisimmortality, so to speak, and
you know it's crazy when youthink about that.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
He basically created the zombie genre and then the
infected genre.
Yeah, pretty much.
By doing that because there isa difference.
Zombies are dead, infected aretechnically still alive.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, kind of like a good example would be like 28.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Days Later they're infected Great one, they're
infected.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
They're not actually dead because if you notice by
the end of the movie, one butthey're infected, they're not
actually dead because if younotice by the end of the movie,
they all start dying, starvingto death.
Yeah, essentially so.
There is a big distinctionthere between a ghoul and an
infected person, almost likethey have rabies.
But I will say, day of the Deadis my favorite horror movie of
all time.
It's iconic.
(02:42):
It's one of those movies thatis very dark.
It's got a really goodsoundtrack.
In my opinion it's one of thebiggest influences for future
zombie flicks, including the tvshow the walking dead.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
The creator said that he got a lot of influence from
that, this movie and you canreally tell when you see it,
because the insanity within thecharacters and the irrationality
really shows.
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yeah, you actually mentioned that while we were
watching it.
And the second that you saidthat that was an influence
immediately I could see.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I could see where they were.
You know, like, what individualparts they were pulling
influences from, like, even downto some of the zombie design
and things like that.
Like you know, while theirtechniques and execution wasn't
nearly as advanced as it istoday, you know you could
definitely see where they werepulling influences from, like.
(03:37):
It made so much sense once yousaid that.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, one of the one of thethings that's really important
to remember too is you know, oneof the things that's really
important to remember too isthis movie right here is a movie
in the zombie genre thatdoesn't really focus on the
zombies a whole lot.
It's more about the people,because in Dawn of the Dead they
did that a little bit and thenin Night of the Living Dead they
did that a little bit, butthose two movies focused heavily
(03:59):
on the zombies.
This movie focuses on theinteractions more of the people,
yeah, their motivations.
The zombies this movie focuseson the interactions more of the
people.
The people, yeah, the peopleare more the, the, the trauma
and the um.
The problem and insanity comesfrom the humans, not the zombies
necessarily, because everythingthat happened, this movie could
have been totally prevented ifthese fucking people weren't
(04:21):
acting like idiots and actingcrazy towards each other well
and to be very fair, they couldn.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
The Army couldn't trust the scientists, the
scientists couldn't trust theArmy.
The trust issues just boiledover.
Who knows how long they've beenunderground and hadn't
interacted with anybody but eachother for so long, eating that
canned food, drinking Ralph'sbeer from probably 1930.
Yeah, pretty much.
It's probably Prohibition beerFrom probably 1930.
Yeah, pretty much it's probablyProhibition beer.
(04:46):
And the fact is, when you thinkabout it, think about how
stressful it would be if you'rehaving to go and get these
living specimens from the minesof Moria and just trying to make
sure you don't get bitten anddie constantly.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
It would make you go fucking mental.
Yeah, one of the things thatwas the big plot point of this
movie is you have the militaryguys, you have the scientists,
and the military guys are taskedwith making sure the scientists
are able to complete their jobessentially, and there's a lot
of tension going on because themilitary guys just keep dying
one by one and the scientistsaren't really dying off that
(05:19):
quickly.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Well, and that's, like you said, right, because
they're having to help themcomplete the task.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
They got to to do all that dirty grunt work, yep like
it's making them feel retrieval, making them feel a little
anxious and pissed off, you knowI mean, that's understandable
yeah, exactly well, that's whatI'm saying is like.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
it's like everyone was going fucking mental at the
end that when you know they,they knew how to kill the
zombies, but everyone went sofucking wild that they just
couldn't figure out how to aimfor the head anymore Except for
John.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yep, and the biggest thing that you find out, because
most of them are pretty normalpeople.
Aside from like, basically thescientists are relatively normal
.
Some of the military guys are alittle fucking crazy, a little
bat shit, especially the guythat gets his arm amputated.
That was having sex with theother female scientist.
(06:10):
The only female scientist, bythe way, and it's really really,
really just people that arepissed off coming from the
military perspective, and thenthe scientist trying to quell
them, but then you have the onehead scientist, the doctor.
They call him Dr Frankensteinin the movie.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Who's just going insane on his own level, this
guy's insane.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
He was literally just doing experimentation on some
of their dead men and trying tobring them back to life and he's
like oh, you have to offer themthings, you have to give them
rewards to get them to do whatwe want them to do.
To get them to do what we wantthem to do.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Not only that, at the same time, that didn't seem too
crazy when he showed that itworked.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, but one zombie Bub yeah, that's what I'm saying
but one zombie having to getrewarded with human flesh, like
when they don't have that muchhuman flesh that they can go
through.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So it's like, eventually something's gotta
give yeah, not to mention if Idon't know if y'all notice this,
but when he was playing thetape recorder, like the like him
talking, did you notice he wastalking to himself and he was
insane yeah, yeah, he was likemother, hacking away at a, at
one of the men's, like bodies,and then saying father, yeah,
yeah, he was insane, that's whyI gotta give them a treat.
(07:20):
Yeah, that's why they were.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
That's why, uh, you know the like the lady and the
irish guy were freaking out sobad well, yeah, and especially
because, after those two guysdied, he immediately started
experimenting and chopping uptheir bodies yep pretty much I
mean, yeah, that was prettyimmediate yeah, it was like only
a few minutes and then themajor from the morning when she
found the uniform.
(07:41):
It's like dude, if you're gonnabe fucking around like these
fresh corpses, you might want toburn the uniforms.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Yeah, especially if you're not trying to clue anyone
in.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
He was not very subtle.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
And yeah.
So basically this whole movieis just them and they're in
Florida and they're inside of abunker and they're trying to
find a quote-unquote way toreverse it, like the female
scientist says.
And then the other guy isbasically just trying to train
them to be subservient to humansand basically it's all hopeless
(08:15):
.
I mean, you can kind of tell inthe very beginning that this is
really not going to end wellfor any of them, especially when
the one guy goes oh, we're out,numbered one to four hundred
thousand, holy shit I also havewonder where did he get that
statistic If he hadn't been atopside in such a long time?
Well, that's a good question.
I mean, maybe it was just arough estimate.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I get that, but it's just like I feel like he was
just starting to make shit up.
The only real scientist who hadany his head on his shoulders
was Josh, the guy they just blewhis brains out For no reason.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
He didn't do anything wrong, he was innocent 100%
innocent.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
He did nothing.
He was like why the fuck am Iwith these people?
Speaker 1 (08:54):
He picked the wrong assignment.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Really, the only other competent person was John.
Yeah, John was the only one whocould also for some reason,
shoot in the dark really well.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, super well.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
He had a sweet setup too.
He had a trailer down in thecave.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah, the Irish guy and John were living it up.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
The Irish guy is probably my favorite character
as far as acting goes.
He kind of nailed that sort ofcocky, don't-give-a-shit
Irishman.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yep, he's been drinking and smoking since the
apocalypse has happened, yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Just non-stop, can't stop.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
He's like I don't need food.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
I just need me whiskey.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Whiskey in my pipe.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
But yeah, you know and you can.
You know we were talking in thebeginning.
Like you know, one of the worstactors is the guy.
Hispanic guy.
He's one of the worst guys.
Is the guy, uh, I guess spanekguy, the hispanic guy?
He's the one of the worst guysin the entire fucking movie, not
not because he's a badcharacter he's a shitty
character, but also he's just abad actor.
You know, he was terrible.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
He was like from the very first line.
It was like oh man.
This dude is not horrid yep,and like, even, like, even his
mannerisms were like, really,really bad, they were unnatural,
yeah, like when he sat, like inthe very first few scenes, when
he sat down, um, on the golfcart oh yeah you know even the
(10:14):
way he like, slammed his gundown to try to like add an
exclamation point to what he wastrying to say.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Yeah, when he threw his uh, his back, he's like yeah
yep, and the thing is, you know, this entire movie could have
been prevented if they wouldhave just isolated this guy
somewhere, locked him up.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Or, if you know, when Washington decided to send a
bunch of scientists with a bunchof soldiers, they should have
brought more than one woman.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah, that's another one too Like everyone was
sexually frustrated.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Out the ass, you're not wrong about that.
I mean, the only two guys well,maybe three guys were the guys
who were topside who were justlike smoking weed and growing it
, yeah, like they were the onlyones who were really chilled out
and they died unceremoniously.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yep, yep.
And yeah, the way this movieends is kind of the way you
would expect it to end.
The three people that you likethe most, that are the most
likable they end up getting tothe chopper and getting the hell
out of there.
But the main character, she,has tons of horrible, awful
dreams throughout the movie andyou get like a fake out at the
(11:22):
end where you think she's aboutto get attacked.
When they're getting thehelicopter turns out she's like
they're already on the beach onthe deserted island.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
yeah, eating seagulls and fishing yeah well, I guess
I don't know, maybe I, maybe Ijust missed it.
What was the?
What was the motivation of theguy to go and let the zombies in
?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
and like what I mean just nuts, obviously he was
losing his mind, but I think hewas just finally out like
totally gone, batshit, and hecould was convinced that he was
infected, so he was like I'mgonna take this whole thing down
with me that's why I just letthe zombies eat him anyway.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah I was.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
I was a bit confused that was a little weird, though
I was like why is this dudedoing this?
Speaker 3 (12:03):
like, but the level, like, what's the purpose?
What is he achieving by it?
I mean, obviously it was.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Oh yeah, it's one of those things that it shows how
something like that affectspeople differently.
Like his PTSD made him dostupid shit like that.
He probably just was out of hismind.
Honestly.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Oh, mean, everybody was, especially since he had his
especially since he had his armchopped off.
Yeah, he was, he was crazywhich he probably would have
died from that in actualitythough.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Oh yeah, absolutely yeah.
But moving on to like the, thebest part is the dumb, cool and
the weird, and uh, we'll go downthe line here.
What do we feel like is thedumb, like the dumb, the dumb
portions, like the dumbestportion for each one of you guys
.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Oh God, I got to think on that one.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I mean I can.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
I think I know mine, because I actually made it kind
of a big deal while we werewatching.
It's when they put the twocharacters on the other side of
the fence to waste them, it'slike literally.
The fence is like four foottall behind you.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Climb it.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Just climb it and get out of there.
Why did you run into thezombies?
Speaker 2 (13:17):
You literally could have got out, Even if you risked
having to fight the guys, thearmy guys or whatever that seems
like a better fate than runninginto the dark with zombies no,
so the dumbest thing that Ithink of is the fact that they
literally kept the zombies atthe fence without like trying to
cull them, like after a while.
(13:38):
They just let them keep pilingup at the fence top side, to
where they couldn't even fill upthe helicopter with gas.
Or the fact that they had abunch of zombies living inside
of the bunker.
Yeah with them.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yeah, that's what I was going to say With nothing
but a chain.
I was going to say, the dumbestpart for me was when they had
them chained up with one singlechain and not multiple ways to
pull them down like tie themdown.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
And the the.
The next part about that wasthey broke out of their
restraints pretty easily, likethey just had to remove one pin
by chance and then your wholelife is just destroyed.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
I think Bub was the best actor in the whole film, so
would you say that's thecoolest part of the movie is Bub
.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah, Bub is definitely the coolest.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
I think, seeing, I think that sort of.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Kind of tapping into the.
There's something of the leftof the person who was there
before, type of thing.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Yeah, I think that's pretty cool and actually I
believe it leaves room for hisstory and I think that should be
made.
I think there's a Bub story arcthat needs to be explored.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
He's just going through the wasteland of the
zombie apocalypse, like savingother survivors from vandals and
hooligans.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
With guns though.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah, he leaves the army base with the remaining
firearms.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yeah, and he continues to learn and remember,
and he gets stronger and hejust becomes a god job, yeah, I
think.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
one other thing I think was really cool was I
think they really stepped up thepractical effects, especially
when they're getting rippedapart.
It's like the one guy gets hishead ripped off.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Yeah, some of that's really good.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
It was really cool.
That was awesome, Like it'slike the one guy gets his head
ripped off.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Yeah, some of that's really good it was really cool.
That was awesome Some of it'skind of funny, though, like the
water hose of blood.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Oh yeah, like they were just like let's spray this
blood.
Or when John shot that onezombie in the head and it was
like she became a squirter allof a sudden.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah, that's good, that's good, that's good.
Uh, what was the weird, what'sweird about this movie?
You know, for me, I think, uh,one of the weirdest scenes is
how they kept defending the guy,the one guy, you know, the guy
that like had to get his armamputated, like this guy oh,
(15:55):
yeah, like at every corner hasjust been a piece of shit and
you keep defending him.
I think that's fucking weird.
Uh, you know, yeah, that, andthey never really gave a reason
to defend that guy.
At every corner has just been apiece of shit and you keep
defending him.
I think that's fucking weird,you know.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Yeah because they never really gave a reason to
defend that guy.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
He was terrible from the beginning.
He was a liability from day one.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
There was no redeeming qualities that they
showed that guy at all.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
You know what else I thought was weird?
I thought that scientist saidthat he was weird too.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
He was a weird motherfucker dude.
Honestly, that's probably oneof the weirder things, because
he just did stuff behind closeddoors without anybody checking
in on him no, he didn't.
He didn't report everythingeither yeah, like he was like,
and that's why I mean I'm gonnasay it, I side with the army on
this one of them, like gettingfucking tired of his shit yeah,
no, I totally agree there nolike they're at risk.
(16:39):
They kept having their guys die.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I still think he proved his hypothesis true,
though.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
But on one.
You know what I mean it's like.
Can he recreate this experimentwithout more people dying?
Speaker 1 (16:50):
And obviously he hasn't because he wasn't that
successful, because he was likeobviously he said, like what
happened to that guy?
And he's like, oh, he was toodifficult to deal with, so I
took him out.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
It's like oh yeah, he was like just killing zombies
that weren't cooperating withhim.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, so that just proves that what he was doing
was just a bunch of bullshit.
Anyway, you know.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Unless it was just part of the process.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
I don't know, you never know, because he was also
saying don useful, yeah, it'slike how.
And then you had that weird uhbody in the little chamber.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
he kind of showed he kind of baby, yeah, he kind of
showed how the corpse was stilluseful with the, with the
disembodied uh head the major,yeah, the major major by putting
yeah electricity to itsbrainstem.
It was dead, it was gone but hewas he was still able to learn
things from it.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
So I think I think that's probably what he was
referencing when he says there'sstill well he, if it was like
unhooked, he would have had todrive to drive that drill
through its brain.
So you know, the brain activityis now useless well, we know
logic.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Don't play into zombie.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Clearly he was pulling statistics that didn't
really matter out earlier 1 to400,000.
Are you sure about thosenumbers?
Speaker 3 (18:04):
I mean, maybe he had some information from previous
radio communication.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Maybe, yeah, and that was the next thing, right, it's
like they're asking the Irishguy.
That was weird too.
They're asking the Irish guy totry and use World War II
technology to try andcommunicate with people on the.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
In Washington.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Yeah, in Washington those radio signals aren't going
anywhere.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
But yeah, that was Day of the Dead.
This is definitely one of myfavorite movies, just because
one of the things I really likeabout this movie, too, is the
soundtrack is just across theboard is awesome.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
I actually listen to that soundtrack sometimes what
was cool about it was it justserved the film?
It does it, yes, like if youweren't really.
It wasn't one of thosesoundtracks that just stood out
you know, like you.
It fit in the film if youweren't necessarily paying
attention to the soundtrack.
You didn't even you didn't, youdidn't pay much mind to it.
But once you did, you knowyou're like, wow, this is great,
(19:02):
but it fit in the story, itfelt like it should be there
like oh yeah absolutely like, Imean it was catered for.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
It was catered to that movie, which is great well,
yeah, it was definitely likesomeone sat down and scored the
film.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah yeah, I think it was john harrison.
I think was the name of the,the guy that scored the film.
Yeah, I think his name was JohnHarrison.
I think it was the name of theguy that scored the movie.
But yeah, like I said, that wasDay of the Dead.
Next week we got Return of theLiving Dead, which is an
unofficial sequel to Night ofthe Living Dead.
It's going to wrap up thezombie movies for this month and
(19:36):
kind of get us in and out.
Let us know what you think youknow.
Comment down below.
You know we like thoseinteractions.
They're great.
Let us know if you think that,like, our takes on this are
fucking bullshit or not.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Hey, here's a real question Do you agree with the
Army or did you agree with thosescientist nerds?
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Yeah, you decide.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
You decide, there you go.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
You decide on that, nerds?
Yeah, you decide, you decide.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
You decide on that.
But, nick, you want to sign usoff?
Stay sexy.
Thanks for watching the Dumb,cool, weird Podcast, where we
cover some of your favoritemovies in 20 minutes or less for
your convenience.
We go over what is dumb, cooland weird about movies and check
out our Wayback Wednesdays.
We do sometimes for other stuff, and please share us with your
friends.
Dumb.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Cool.
Speaker 3 (00:03):
Weird Podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the Dumb, cool, weird Podcast, and we have
a guest today.
We have Matt.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Oh yeah, Matt, that's me.
Yeah, so yes.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Yeah, so you know, last week we watched Dawn of the
Dead and this week we watched,you know, Day of the Dead.
Matt's actually never seen Dayof the Dead, but me and Nick
have, so this is definitely aninteresting perspective here.
Oh yeah, so what'd you think,matt?
Speaker 3 (00:24):
It makes me feel really, really kind of dumb,
because I haven't spent a lot oftime watching these older films
.
I didn't really grow up toomuch with that kind of influence
so, being a filmmaker myself, Itend to look at films like what
can I learn from how they madeit?
I can tell you that I enjoyedwatching it more than a lot of
the newer zombie movies, simplybecause they used practical
(00:49):
effects.
It felt more real in a lot ofaspects, even though visually
sometimes it was a bit cheeky, Idon't know.
It felt like I could look pastthat, because it wasn't
Hollywood just trying to sell mea film based off of their
ability to do VFX, and I thinkit was.
For me, as someone that hasn'twatched a lot of the older films
(01:11):
, it's already gone technical.
That's just the way my braintakes it.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
No, that's fine, you can be technical, I mean.
So one of the things that meand Nick really like about
George A Romero is he doesn'treally play by the Hollywood
rules very much.
He sort of like kind of takesit in a direction where he kind
of has a lot of control of it.
He did another movie called theCrazies.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It's a good one too.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
It's another movie where he really just did what he
wanted to do with it.
He's one of those guys.
He's kind of a pioneer forindependent filmmaking because
he basically made Night of theLiving Dead, kind of on a
shoestring budget.
In his own way it became verypopular.
Unfortunately he didn'tcopyright it properly and he
lost the copyright on it, but hewas able to make you know dawn
(01:54):
of the dead crazies and you knowday of the dead and it kind of
solidified his you know hisimmortality, so to speak, and
you know it's crazy when youthink about that.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
He basically created the zombie genre and then the
infected genre.
Yeah, pretty much.
By doing that because there isa difference.
Zombies are dead, infected aretechnically still alive.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, kind of like a good example would be like 28.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Days Later they're infected Great one, they're
infected.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
They're not actually dead because if you notice by
the end of the movie, one butthey're infected, they're not
actually dead because if younotice by the end of the movie,
they all start dying, starvingto death.
Yeah, essentially so.
There is a big distinctionthere between a ghoul and an
infected person, almost likethey have rabies.
But I will say, day of the Deadis my favorite horror movie of
all time.
It's iconic.
(02:42):
It's one of those movies thatis very dark.
It's got a really goodsoundtrack.
In my opinion it's one of thebiggest influences for future
zombie flicks, including the tvshow the walking dead.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
The creator said that he got a lot of influence from
that, this movie and you canreally tell when you see it,
because the insanity within thecharacters and the irrationality
really shows.
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yeah, you actually mentioned that while we were
watching it.
And the second that you saidthat that was an influence
immediately I could see.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I could see where they were.
You know, like, what individualparts they were pulling
influences from, like, even downto some of the zombie design
and things like that.
Like you know, while theirtechniques and execution wasn't
nearly as advanced as it istoday, you know you could
definitely see where they werepulling influences from, like.
(03:37):
It made so much sense once yousaid that.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, one of the one of thethings that's really important
to remember too is you know, oneof the things that's really
important to remember too isthis movie right here is a movie
in the zombie genre thatdoesn't really focus on the
zombies a whole lot.
It's more about the people,because in Dawn of the Dead they
did that a little bit and thenin Night of the Living Dead they
did that a little bit, butthose two movies focused heavily
(03:59):
on the zombies.
This movie focuses on theinteractions more of the people,
yeah, their motivations.
The zombies this movie focuseson the interactions more of the
people.
The people, yeah, the peopleare more the, the, the trauma
and the um.
The problem and insanity comesfrom the humans, not the zombies
necessarily, because everythingthat happened, this movie could
have been totally prevented ifthese fucking people weren't
(04:21):
acting like idiots and actingcrazy towards each other well
and to be very fair, they couldn.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
The Army couldn't trust the scientists, the
scientists couldn't trust theArmy.
The trust issues just boiledover.
Who knows how long they've beenunderground and hadn't
interacted with anybody but eachother for so long, eating that
canned food, drinking Ralph'sbeer from probably 1930.
Yeah, pretty much.
It's probably Prohibition beerFrom probably 1930.
Yeah, pretty much it's probablyProhibition beer.
(04:46):
And the fact is, when you thinkabout it, think about how
stressful it would be if you'rehaving to go and get these
living specimens from the minesof Moria and just trying to make
sure you don't get bitten anddie constantly.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
It would make you go fucking mental.
Yeah, one of the things thatwas the big plot point of this
movie is you have the militaryguys, you have the scientists,
and the military guys are taskedwith making sure the scientists
are able to complete their jobessentially, and there's a lot
of tension going on because themilitary guys just keep dying
one by one and the scientistsaren't really dying off that
(05:19):
quickly.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Well, and that's, like you said, right, because
they're having to help themcomplete the task.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
They got to to do all that dirty grunt work, yep like
it's making them feel retrieval, making them feel a little
anxious and pissed off, you knowI mean, that's understandable
yeah, exactly well, that's whatI'm saying is like.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
it's like everyone was going fucking mental at the
end that when you know they,they knew how to kill the
zombies, but everyone went sofucking wild that they just
couldn't figure out how to aimfor the head anymore Except for
John.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yep, and the biggest thing that you find out, because
most of them are pretty normalpeople.
Aside from like, basically thescientists are relatively normal
.
Some of the military guys are alittle fucking crazy, a little
bat shit, especially the guythat gets his arm amputated.
That was having sex with theother female scientist.
(06:10):
The only female scientist, bythe way, and it's really really,
really just people that arepissed off coming from the
military perspective, and thenthe scientist trying to quell
them, but then you have the onehead scientist, the doctor.
They call him Dr Frankensteinin the movie.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Who's just going insane on his own level, this
guy's insane.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
He was literally just doing experimentation on some
of their dead men and trying tobring them back to life and he's
like oh, you have to offer themthings, you have to give them
rewards to get them to do whatwe want them to do.
To get them to do what we wantthem to do.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Not only that, at the same time, that didn't seem too
crazy when he showed that itworked.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, but one zombie Bub yeah, that's what I'm saying
but one zombie having to getrewarded with human flesh, like
when they don't have that muchhuman flesh that they can go
through.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So it's like, eventually something's gotta
give yeah, not to mention if Idon't know if y'all notice this,
but when he was playing thetape recorder, like the like him
talking, did you notice he wastalking to himself and he was
insane yeah, yeah, he was likemother, hacking away at a, at
one of the men's, like bodies,and then saying father, yeah,
yeah, he was insane, that's whyI gotta give them a treat.
(07:20):
Yeah, that's why they were.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
That's why, uh, you know the like the lady and the
irish guy were freaking out sobad well, yeah, and especially
because, after those two guysdied, he immediately started
experimenting and chopping uptheir bodies yep pretty much I
mean, yeah, that was prettyimmediate yeah, it was like only
a few minutes and then themajor from the morning when she
found the uniform.
(07:41):
It's like dude, if you're gonnabe fucking around like these
fresh corpses, you might want toburn the uniforms.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Yeah, especially if you're not trying to clue anyone
in.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
He was not very subtle.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
And yeah.
So basically this whole movieis just them and they're in
Florida and they're inside of abunker and they're trying to
find a quote-unquote way toreverse it, like the female
scientist says.
And then the other guy isbasically just trying to train
them to be subservient to humansand basically it's all hopeless
(08:15):
.
I mean, you can kind of tell inthe very beginning that this is
really not going to end wellfor any of them, especially when
the one guy goes oh, we're out,numbered one to four hundred
thousand, holy shit I also havewonder where did he get that
statistic If he hadn't been atopside in such a long time?
Well, that's a good question.
I mean, maybe it was just arough estimate.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I get that, but it's just like I feel like he was
just starting to make shit up.
The only real scientist who hadany his head on his shoulders
was Josh, the guy they just blewhis brains out For no reason.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
He didn't do anything wrong, he was innocent 100%
innocent.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
He did nothing.
He was like why the fuck am Iwith these people?
Speaker 1 (08:54):
He picked the wrong assignment.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Really, the only other competent person was John.
Yeah, John was the only one whocould also for some reason,
shoot in the dark really well.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, super well.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
He had a sweet setup too.
He had a trailer down in thecave.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah, the Irish guy and John were living it up.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
The Irish guy is probably my favorite character
as far as acting goes.
He kind of nailed that sort ofcocky, don't-give-a-shit
Irishman.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yep, he's been drinking and smoking since the
apocalypse has happened, yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Just non-stop, can't stop.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
He's like I don't need food.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
I just need me whiskey.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Whiskey in my pipe.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
But yeah, you know and you can.
You know we were talking in thebeginning.
Like you know, one of the worstactors is the guy.
Hispanic guy.
He's one of the worst guys.
Is the guy, uh, I guess spanekguy, the hispanic guy?
He's the one of the worst guysin the entire fucking movie, not
not because he's a badcharacter he's a shitty
character, but also he's just abad actor.
You know, he was terrible.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
He was like from the very first line.
It was like oh man.
This dude is not horrid yep,and like, even, like, even his
mannerisms were like, really,really bad, they were unnatural,
yeah, like when he sat, like inthe very first few scenes, when
he sat down, um, on the golfcart oh yeah you know even the
(10:14):
way he like, slammed his gundown to try to like add an
exclamation point to what he wastrying to say.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Yeah, when he threw his uh, his back, he's like yeah
yep, and the thing is, you know, this entire movie could have
been prevented if they wouldhave just isolated this guy
somewhere, locked him up.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Or, if you know, when Washington decided to send a
bunch of scientists with a bunchof soldiers, they should have
brought more than one woman.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah, that's another one too Like everyone was
sexually frustrated.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Out the ass, you're not wrong about that.
I mean, the only two guys well,maybe three guys were the guys
who were topside who were justlike smoking weed and growing it
, yeah, like they were the onlyones who were really chilled out
and they died unceremoniously.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yep, yep.
And yeah, the way this movieends is kind of the way you
would expect it to end.
The three people that you likethe most, that are the most
likable they end up getting tothe chopper and getting the hell
out of there.
But the main character, she,has tons of horrible, awful
dreams throughout the movie andyou get like a fake out at the
(11:22):
end where you think she's aboutto get attacked.
When they're getting thehelicopter turns out she's like
they're already on the beach onthe deserted island.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
yeah, eating seagulls and fishing yeah well, I guess
I don't know, maybe I, maybe Ijust missed it.
What was the?
What was the motivation of theguy to go and let the zombies in
?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
and like what I mean just nuts, obviously he was
losing his mind, but I think hewas just finally out like
totally gone, batshit, and hecould was convinced that he was
infected, so he was like I'mgonna take this whole thing down
with me that's why I just letthe zombies eat him anyway.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah I was.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
I was a bit confused that was a little weird, though
I was like why is this dudedoing this?
Speaker 3 (12:03):
like, but the level, like, what's the purpose?
What is he achieving by it?
I mean, obviously it was.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Oh yeah, it's one of those things that it shows how
something like that affectspeople differently.
Like his PTSD made him dostupid shit like that.
He probably just was out of hismind.
Honestly.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Oh, mean, everybody was, especially since he had his
especially since he had his armchopped off.
Yeah, he was, he was crazywhich he probably would have
died from that in actualitythough.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Oh yeah, absolutely yeah.
But moving on to like the, thebest part is the dumb, cool and
the weird, and uh, we'll go downthe line here.
What do we feel like is thedumb, like the dumb, the dumb
portions, like the dumbestportion for each one of you guys
.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Oh God, I got to think on that one.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I mean I can.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
I think I know mine, because I actually made it kind
of a big deal while we werewatching.
It's when they put the twocharacters on the other side of
the fence to waste them, it'slike literally.
The fence is like four foottall behind you.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Climb it.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Just climb it and get out of there.
Why did you run into thezombies?
Speaker 2 (13:17):
You literally could have got out, Even if you risked
having to fight the guys, thearmy guys or whatever that seems
like a better fate than runninginto the dark with zombies no,
so the dumbest thing that Ithink of is the fact that they
literally kept the zombies atthe fence without like trying to
cull them, like after a while.
(13:38):
They just let them keep pilingup at the fence top side, to
where they couldn't even fill upthe helicopter with gas.
Or the fact that they had abunch of zombies living inside
of the bunker.
Yeah with them.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yeah, that's what I was going to say With nothing
but a chain.
I was going to say, the dumbestpart for me was when they had
them chained up with one singlechain and not multiple ways to
pull them down like tie themdown.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
And the the.
The next part about that wasthey broke out of their
restraints pretty easily, likethey just had to remove one pin
by chance and then your wholelife is just destroyed.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
I think Bub was the best actor in the whole film, so
would you say that's thecoolest part of the movie is Bub
.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah, Bub is definitely the coolest.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
I think, seeing, I think that sort of.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Kind of tapping into the.
There's something of the leftof the person who was there
before, type of thing.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Yeah, I think that's pretty cool and actually I
believe it leaves room for hisstory and I think that should be
made.
I think there's a Bub story arcthat needs to be explored.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
He's just going through the wasteland of the
zombie apocalypse, like savingother survivors from vandals and
hooligans.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
With guns though.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah, he leaves the army base with the remaining
firearms.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yeah, and he continues to learn and remember,
and he gets stronger and hejust becomes a god job, yeah, I
think.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
one other thing I think was really cool was I
think they really stepped up thepractical effects, especially
when they're getting rippedapart.
It's like the one guy gets hishead ripped off.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Yeah, some of that's really good.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
It was really cool.
That was awesome, Like it'slike the one guy gets his head
ripped off.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Yeah, some of that's really good it was really cool.
That was awesome Some of it'skind of funny, though, like the
water hose of blood.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Oh yeah, like they were just like let's spray this
blood.
Or when John shot that onezombie in the head and it was
like she became a squirter allof a sudden.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah, that's good, that's good, that's good.
Uh, what was the weird, what'sweird about this movie?
You know, for me, I think, uh,one of the weirdest scenes is
how they kept defending the guy,the one guy, you know, the guy
that like had to get his armamputated, like this guy oh,
(15:55):
yeah, like at every corner hasjust been a piece of shit and
you keep defending him.
I think that's fucking weird.
Uh, you know, yeah, that, andthey never really gave a reason
to defend that guy.
At every corner has just been apiece of shit and you keep
defending him.
I think that's fucking weird,you know.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Yeah because they never really gave a reason to
defend that guy.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
He was terrible from the beginning.
He was a liability from day one.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
There was no redeeming qualities that they
showed that guy at all.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
You know what else I thought was weird?
I thought that scientist saidthat he was weird too.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
He was a weird motherfucker dude.
Honestly, that's probably oneof the weirder things, because
he just did stuff behind closeddoors without anybody checking
in on him no, he didn't.
He didn't report everythingeither yeah, like he was like,
and that's why I mean I'm gonnasay it, I side with the army on
this one of them, like gettingfucking tired of his shit yeah,
no, I totally agree there nolike they're at risk.
(16:39):
They kept having their guys die.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I still think he proved his hypothesis true,
though.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
But on one.
You know what I mean it's like.
Can he recreate this experimentwithout more people dying?
Speaker 1 (16:50):
And obviously he hasn't because he wasn't that
successful, because he was likeobviously he said, like what
happened to that guy?
And he's like, oh, he was toodifficult to deal with, so I
took him out.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
It's like oh yeah, he was like just killing zombies
that weren't cooperating withhim.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, so that just proves that what he was doing
was just a bunch of bullshit.
Anyway, you know.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Unless it was just part of the process.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
I don't know, you never know, because he was also
saying don useful, yeah, it'slike how.
And then you had that weird uhbody in the little chamber.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
he kind of showed he kind of baby, yeah, he kind of
showed how the corpse was stilluseful with the, with the
disembodied uh head the major,yeah, the major major by putting
yeah electricity to itsbrainstem.
It was dead, it was gone but hewas he was still able to learn
things from it.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
So I think I think that's probably what he was
referencing when he says there'sstill well he, if it was like
unhooked, he would have had todrive to drive that drill
through its brain.
So you know, the brain activityis now useless well, we know
logic.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Don't play into zombie.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Clearly he was pulling statistics that didn't
really matter out earlier 1 to400,000.
Are you sure about thosenumbers?
Speaker 3 (18:04):
I mean, maybe he had some information from previous
radio communication.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Maybe, yeah, and that was the next thing, right, it's
like they're asking the Irishguy.
That was weird too.
They're asking the Irish guy totry and use World War II
technology to try andcommunicate with people on the.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
In Washington.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Yeah, in Washington those radio signals aren't going
anywhere.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
But yeah, that was Day of the Dead.
This is definitely one of myfavorite movies, just because
one of the things I really likeabout this movie, too, is the
soundtrack is just across theboard is awesome.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
I actually listen to that soundtrack sometimes what
was cool about it was it justserved the film?
It does it, yes, like if youweren't really.
It wasn't one of thosesoundtracks that just stood out
you know, like you.
It fit in the film if youweren't necessarily paying
attention to the soundtrack.
You didn't even you didn't, youdidn't pay much mind to it.
But once you did, you knowyou're like, wow, this is great,
(19:02):
but it fit in the story, itfelt like it should be there
like oh yeah absolutely like, Imean it was catered for.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
It was catered to that movie, which is great well,
yeah, it was definitely likesomeone sat down and scored the
film.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah yeah, I think it was john harrison.
I think was the name of the,the guy that scored the film.
Yeah, I think his name was JohnHarrison.
I think it was the name of theguy that scored the movie.
But yeah, like I said, that wasDay of the Dead.
Next week we got Return of theLiving Dead, which is an
unofficial sequel to Night ofthe Living Dead.
It's going to wrap up thezombie movies for this month and
(19:36):
kind of get us in and out.
Let us know what you think youknow.
Comment down below.
You know we like thoseinteractions.
They're great.
Let us know if you think that,like, our takes on this are
fucking bullshit or not.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Hey, here's a real question Do you agree with the
Army or did you agree with thosescientist nerds?
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Yeah, you decide.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
You decide, there you go.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
You decide on that, nerds?
Yeah, you decide, you decide.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
You decide on that.
But, nick, you want to sign usoff?
Stay sexy.
Thanks for watching the Dumb,cool, weird Podcast, where we
cover some of your favoritemovies in 20 minutes or less for
your convenience.
We go over what is dumb, cooland weird about movies and check
out our Wayback Wednesdays.
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