October 8, 2024 • 14 mins
Can a single film redefine an entire genre? Discover how George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" revolutionized zombie cinema and left a legacy that still haunts filmmakers today. Join Wes and Nick for a spine-chilling exploration of this iconic horror masterpiece, where we humorously critique the bizarre twists of Barbara's cemetery misadventure and Ben's heroic struggle to fortify a house against the undead. We unravel the quirks that give this low-budget classic its lasting charm and why a certain paper mache hand became an unforgettable element in horror history.
Push past the creaky floorboards and into the cellar as we dissect the film's most intense scenes, from the showdown between Ben and the ever-cantankerous Mr. Cooper to the unsettling fate of Mrs. Cooper at her daughter's hands. Our conversation highlights how Romero's work laid the groundwork for zombie narratives, influencing everything from apocalypse settings to the enduring trope of news broadcasts amidst chaos. And as we celebrate the powerful performances of Duane Jones and Karl Hardman, get a sneak peek into our next gory tale: "Dawn of the Dead," where the dead walk when hell is full, and the shopping mall becomes a battleground. Tune into the Dumb, Cool, Weird Podcast for a frightfully entertaining journey through the undead legacy of Romero.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Dumb Cool Weird Podcast.
What's up guys?
Welcome to the Dumb Cool, weirdPodcast.
We're kicking off Halloweenwith the Romero movies, plus a
bonus movie at the end of themonth.
That's not a Romero movie, butit was billed as a sequel to all
three of his movies Back in the60s, 70s, 80s.
(00:22):
Return of the Living Dead yeah.
So we're starting it off withNight of the Living Dead.
Rest in peace, romero.
We're doing this one for you.
Yeah, this was a good film.
Venocine too yeah, so you couldtell that they were still trying
to figure out kind of whatzombies do.
They were trying to experimenta little bit.
You know, they were kind ofgoing back and forth with a lot
of stuff.
You know, basically we'll do arundown of the summary of this
(00:44):
movie.
Barbara and her brother, johnny, go up to put some flowers on
the grave and basically Johnny'smaking fun of Barbara, and then
they run into a zombie and theydon't know it's a zombie, but
he looks pretty rough.
So they could have probablyfigured.
You know we shouldn't go nearthis homeless guy.
Yeah, you know, at either rateyou shouldn't have been like
(01:05):
going near that homeless guy.
But basically what ends uphappening is Johnny gets in a
scuffle, hits his head,basically dies.
She gets in the car, wrecks thecar, because that's always a
fun trope, even though, you know, back then it was probably as
much of a trope, you know.
What's crazy, though, is thatshe really she.
She hit that tree, and shedidn't have to.
There was no, there was a lotof avoiding that tree.
(01:26):
She ran into that tree, sherammed right into it, but
basically what ended uphappening, though, is she ran
and ran through the woods noshoes on, by the way, ends up at
an old, abandoned house and,for some fucking reason, she
fucks off for about eight hours,and then, all of a sudden, we
get a little transition to itbeing nighttime, which was
(01:48):
fucking insane.
Me and April were like what thefuck?
It was eight o'clock.
So here's the crazy part it waseight o'clock, so there's still
light outside.
I don't know why she's Britishnow, but you know.
Then Ben shows up, and she looksmore scared of Ben, because
he's a black guy, than thezombie she was attacked by.
Yeah, by the way, this is.
This movie was way ahead of itstime because it had a black
(02:10):
lead um, which was really coolfor the time.
I remember reading about thatlike back in the day.
But Ben, basically, is justthinking fast on his feet.
This actor definitely carried alot of this movie.
He was a really good actor andbasically what he ended up doing
is he boarded up the house byhimself, by himself, and then
somewhere along the way it turnsout that there's been people in
(02:33):
the fucking cellar the entire,the whole time, the whole time,
meaning even once you showed upthere in the day, yeah,
screaming them, yelling them,arguing them, getting in a fight
and hitting each other.
Ben just clocked her out and hefixed up that house, right.
Well, yeah, and then, for somefucking reason, there was just a
(02:53):
random corpse upstairs that hadhalf of its face eaten off, and
I'm guessing the zombies didthat.
But See, in the Tom Saviniremake they at least allude to
why there was a corpse up.
There was because there was twozombies in the upstairs part,
and the reason people were inthe cellar was because they were
escaping the zombies fromupstairs.
So basically, they find a TVand they're trying to find a
(03:13):
place to go to and there's abunch of people in the cellar.
You got fucking Tom, you gothis girlfriend Judy, you got the
Coopers with their little kid,and that's Karen, and basically,
we end up finding out.
Oh, so, these are the maincharacters of the movie, pretty
much, while we have a bunch ofextras outside who are probably
not getting paid very much andare actually being forced to eat
(03:34):
raw chicken it looks like, yeahand the raw liver and what
looked like a prosthetic arm.
Yeah, yeah, mr Ribeiro, do Ihave to keep eating this?
Yeah, mr Romero, do I have tokeep eating this?
Keep eating it, bitch, I wantto see you chomp at lunch.
Yeah, probably got it likewholesale from the fucking, you
know, piggly, wiggly down thestreet, but, basically, what
ends up happening, though, isBen gets the bright idea to get
(03:56):
the truck and go to one of thesesupposed like safe havens,
because they get a TV to workand the TV, supposedly, you know
.
And the actors that are on theTV TV to work and the TV,
supposedly, you know.
And the actors that are on theTV, they're the fun is funniest
part, cause you can tell thatthe budget was really rushed, so
they're just trying to getthrough their lines as quickly
as possible.
I cannot believe what I amhearing.
There is mass hysteria in thestreets, yep, especially that
(04:18):
scene where they're at theCapitol and that guy's like
trying to get to his car reallyquickly and they're trying so
hard.
And they're trying so hard notto show the general's front part
of his uniform because it'sprobably not even accurate at
all.
They did a pretty good job,it's just.
It's funny because it's like Iwish they went with that
transatlantic accent of likeGeneral.
What is going on here?
Why are the corpses coming backand eating the living?
It's pretty ridiculous.
(04:38):
I don't know, but I will tellyou.
I hope you stocked up onWinston cigarettes and bush beer
.
Yeah, I hope you stocked up onWinston cigarettes and Bush beer
.
Yeah, I'm pretty, our boys inNam can use some help.
After Viet Cong became VietMonch Viet Monch, jesus, I had
nothing for it.
But all I can think of is thefour guys in Vietnam who are
like killing the VC in the NorthVietnamese and they're like,
(05:00):
yeah, they're coming back.
What do you mean?
They're coming back?
I mean they're coming back tolife after we kill them and now
we can't kill them again.
You know basically what ends uphappening.
Right is the TV stuff isbasically just exposition on how
to kill zombies.
That's the whole plot point ofTV and the radio as well, is
(05:21):
basically to push the plot along.
It turns out the zombies don'tlike fire either.
Radio as well is is basicallyto push the plot along.
It turns out the zombies don'tlike fire either.
So what ends up happening isthey get the bright idea to go
out to the back shed that hasbasically a gas pump which, by
the way, that was apparently athing back in the days they had
gas, yeah.
So they try to fill up the gastank and then they end up like
catching the truck on fire.
And then the two kids, judy andtom, are in the car and they
(05:43):
drive the truck up and thenthey're trying to get out and
Nick swears that the girl said Igot my dick caught in something
or something.
Yeah, it was weird.
It was never clear what shesaid she was caught on.
And then the truck explodes.
They drive away for a littlewhile without thinking, hey, you
know, we should probably getout of this truck.
Yeah, the truck just blows up,and then there's barbecue for
(06:06):
the zombies to eat, and then weactually get to see the zombies
finally eating something for thefirst time, and we cut back to
Ben, trying to get him back inthe house.
Mr Cooper won't let him in.
Cooper lets him back ineventually and then he beats the
shit out of Mr Cooper.
Dude, he had that coming right,he really did have it coming.
And he had that coming though,he really did have it coming and
the rest of the movie reallyjust kind of goes downhill from
there.
(06:27):
Literally all that happens nextis the zombies start breaking in
.
They decide to get the brightidea to break in because the
fires have died down andbasically the fucking Mr Cooper
guy tries to steal the gun fromBen and Ben shoots him, kills
him, he goes downstairs and thedaughter's sick.
So we already know she's goingto turn into a zombie.
Because they said she gotbitten.
Yeah, they did, they mentionedyeah, she got bitten.
(06:48):
And then Ben's oh, who knowswhat kind of diseases those
things are carrying in them.
Yeah, already foreshadowingthat bites are now one of the
main causes of infection, we cutback to upstairs.
The zombies are starting to comein and finally Barbara who's
been completely useless prettymuch the whole movie finally
gets a piece of wood and triesto help.
You know, mrs Cooper, shefucking breaks off, goes
(07:11):
downstairs and she finds herdaughter chewing on her fucking
husband's fucking hand.
Mrs Cooper's arm is likecompletely detached, yeah, and
she's eating it because she's azombie now.
And the most disturbing part ofthe movie happens where she
stabs the shit out of her mom,and with a.
It was a spade.
Yeah, it was a spade.
Yeah, kills her with a spade.
It's really fucking crazy.
But the thing is, miss coopercould have gotten out of that
(07:34):
she.
She didn't even try.
Falls over.
She's doing.
Sure, I'm watching my death inslow motion.
Yeah, didn't even try.
Barbara's getting just taken bythe zombies and her her brother
, johnny, shows back up.
He grabs her, pulls her outside, she's toast and fucking and
they don't even show like she'sgetting eaten or bitten or
anything.
Nah, she's just gone.
Yep, yep.
Ben gets back in the house.
He goes into the cellar, boardsup the cellar, shoots Mr Cooper
(07:58):
in the head, shoots Mrs Cooperin the head, is Cooper in the
head?
The zombies try to break thedoor down, cut.
The next morning, the fuckingthe boys show up with all their
guns and stuff.
Yeah, and the news.
But this was the thing, though.
Right, when Ben gets shot inthe head by one of the good old
boys, when they're doing likesweeping the property and
everything.
But at no point did Ben thinklike saying, hey, I'm alive in
(08:19):
here.
No, he's just, yep, just likein the shadow, like kind of
looking like a, just somethingstanding there, and they're like
, oh, shoot that one in the head.
And they shoot him.
You know, though, he shot himin the head with a shotgun.
You know, obviously they don'thave the capability of doing
that just yet, but they couldhave shown his head explode like
a watermelon.
Yeah, that would have been kindof shotgun, you know.
(08:39):
Yeah, and that really was theend of the movie.
And then we get a bunch ofstill shots of them coming in
and basically picking up thedead bodies, and that's Night of
the Living Dead.
That's really the whole movie.
It's a really good movie,definitely working with a, you
(09:01):
know, with a budget, and youknow some of the visual effects
are kind of wonky.
You know, let's kind of getinto the dumb, cool and weird.
One of the dumbest things forme was that paper mache hand.
When Tom was chopping at one ofhis own, it was a paper mache
hand.
It's so bad.
Oh, you see, this is actuallythe some of the stuff that I
enjoyed, too right.
So that whole thing about thembeing afraid of fire is mostly
(09:24):
from the early zombie films,where the zombies were more like
voodoo, like just people werepossessed by voodoo, and so they
would be like, oh, fire istheir only weakness.
So they would do that in a lotof the early zombie films.
So I thought that was a prettycool throwback.
Okay, and another thing that Ithought was cool with going into
the remake of Dawn of the Deadwas trying to capture the
(09:47):
atmosphere of the original.
It was Night of the LivingDead's news broadcast and then
you know, dawn of the Dead'snews broadcast because they
really put it in as a specialfeature in the newest in the
remake back in 2000.
Which one?
Would that one come out though?
1990.
1990?
That's when the Tom Savini onecame out.
So that was a Tom Savini one.
(10:07):
But they also did the samething with the Dawn of the Dead
remake.
That doesn't have the samelevel.
Yeah, it doesn't have the samerelation as the Tom Savini film,
but I thought that was prettycool.
Did you find anything else dumbabout this movie, man?
(10:28):
You know, I thought it was apretty solid film.
I guess the thing that wasdefinitely dumb, just
practically, you know like allof these zombies are going.
Oh, this is it.
Sorry, this was it.
He kills ben, kills multiplezombies by smashing in their
head with a crowbar, but thenhas to wait until the t and tv
tells him you have to shoot himin the head, even though he saw
that worked when he shot one ofthem in the head and then
smashed their skulls in.
So at no point did he actuallyneed to rely on the television
(10:49):
to tell him you need to hit himin the head so they die.
It's like I think that waspretty self-explanatory when
they stopped moving after youdid that.
Yeah, what I thought was what Ithought was really cool about
this movie.
Moving on to the cool part is Ireally enjoyed how the a lot of,
like a lot of the actors youcould tell a lot of them are
(11:10):
classically trained, like theblack guy that played, you know,
ben.
He was a really good actor.
He played a really good role.
I also felt mr cooper waspretty believable as an asshole.
Yeah, pretty good job there,even mr cooper.
Mrs cooper was prettybelievable as, like the wife
who's just tired of mr coopershit.
So so they definitely werehaving to rely heavily on the
(11:31):
interactions between thesedifferent characters and the
situation they were in.
Let's get to the weird part, theweird thing about this movie
some of the stuff that Romerowas obviously having them do,
like them eating raw meat.
It looked like they were eatingraw meat.
I hope that was prop meat, butit looked very real to me.
I think that liver was kind ofreal, looking honestly.
And I think what was weird issome of the some of the things
(11:54):
he had the zombies doing.
You know, it wasn't reallyplaying with the intestines,
think about it.
Right, like he really didn'thave this kind of flesh out 100
quite yet.
This is like the first moviethat had it, so like literally
had this.
He had the zombies doing thingsthat like normal humans would
do.
Like he had the fucking that.
You know, the zombie in thebeginning running after her,
taking something and trying tosmash a window.
(12:14):
I mean, that's not what zombiesdo later on, I mean in certain
movies maybe.
Yeah, but it takes so much moretime.
I think he was just trying tofigure it out and you know,
obviously some of the zombiemakeup was a little wonky, but
you know they probably didn'thave a budget to do like crazy
zombie makeup.
I also like to think, you knowit's black and white, so they
did work with what they could onthat side of things.
(12:35):
But the thing about it, too, isthese are the most recently
deceased people from the morguesand everything, for the most
part, yeah.
So it's not like in the latercoming romero films where
they're decomposing or they'rejust people who were infected
and died in the street somewhere.
I will say, though, one otherweird thing about this movie is
I did find it kind of weird thatBen made such a big stink about
(12:57):
being trapped in the basement,and then it turns out being in
the basement is actually wasactually the best place to be,
and that also goes.
This is another weird thing,ben to be, and that also goes.
This is another weird thing.
Ben was constantly talkingabout how, oh, we boarded up the
house, we're gonna be safe inhere, and then, when the
television's, oh, you could tryand get to one of these like
safe zones, and he's immediatelywe're abandoning the house,
we're gonna go to the safe zone.
(13:18):
That was, you know, nightliving dead it's.
I do have.
One more weird, though, was themost useless character
throughout the whole film.
At no, no point was she worthanything?
She didn't help anybody.
She just kind of existed likethis woman who falls deep in
some acid quaaludes or mushrooms, maybe all three.
She didn't do anything andeverybody was looking at her in
(13:38):
the film like I guess she'sgoing to act at some point.
I mean she was comatose formost of the movie she checked
out.
If I remember correctly, youknow the early 60s is when the
Civil Rights Act happened.
Yeah, and Ben gave her somecivil lefts after she smacked
him.
Classic movie.
It's one of the reasons why wehave so many great zombie things
nowadays.
It's the one that reallystarted it all.
(13:59):
Obviously, you know we weretalking about earlier that there
were other zombie movies before, but this is the one that
really built that wholebeginning of tropes for zombie
flicks.
Stay tuned we are going to bedoing Dawn of the Dead next week
.
Be warned the dead are risingand eating the living.
(14:20):
When there's no more room inhell, the dead will walk the
earth.
Ooh yeah, spooky times and ashopping mall.
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
(14:41):
friends.
Dumb Cool Weird Podcast.
What's up guys?
Welcome to the Dumb Cool, weirdPodcast.
We're kicking off Halloweenwith the Romero movies, plus a
bonus movie at the end of themonth.
That's not a Romero movie, butit was billed as a sequel to all
three of his movies Back in the60s, 70s, 80s.
(00:22):
Return of the Living Dead yeah.
So we're starting it off withNight of the Living Dead.
Rest in peace, romero.
We're doing this one for you.
Yeah, this was a good film.
Venocine too yeah, so you couldtell that they were still trying
to figure out kind of whatzombies do.
They were trying to experimenta little bit.
You know, they were kind ofgoing back and forth with a lot
of stuff.
You know, basically we'll do arundown of the summary of this
(00:44):
movie.
Barbara and her brother, johnny, go up to put some flowers on
the grave and basically Johnny'smaking fun of Barbara, and then
they run into a zombie and theydon't know it's a zombie, but
he looks pretty rough.
So they could have probablyfigured.
You know we shouldn't go nearthis homeless guy.
Yeah, you know, at either rateyou shouldn't have been like
(01:05):
going near that homeless guy.
But basically what ends uphappening is Johnny gets in a
scuffle, hits his head,basically dies.
She gets in the car, wrecks thecar, because that's always a
fun trope, even though, you know, back then it was probably as
much of a trope, you know.
What's crazy, though, is thatshe really she.
She hit that tree, and shedidn't have to.
There was no, there was a lotof avoiding that tree.
(01:26):
She ran into that tree, sherammed right into it, but
basically what ended uphappening, though, is she ran
and ran through the woods noshoes on, by the way, ends up at
an old, abandoned house and,for some fucking reason, she
fucks off for about eight hours,and then, all of a sudden, we
get a little transition to itbeing nighttime, which was
(01:48):
fucking insane.
Me and April were like what thefuck?
It was eight o'clock.
So here's the crazy part it waseight o'clock, so there's still
light outside.
I don't know why she's Britishnow, but you know.
Then Ben shows up, and she looksmore scared of Ben, because
he's a black guy, than thezombie she was attacked by.
Yeah, by the way, this is.
This movie was way ahead of itstime because it had a black
(02:10):
lead um, which was really coolfor the time.
I remember reading about thatlike back in the day.
But Ben, basically, is justthinking fast on his feet.
This actor definitely carried alot of this movie.
He was a really good actor andbasically what he ended up doing
is he boarded up the house byhimself, by himself, and then
somewhere along the way it turnsout that there's been people in
(02:33):
the fucking cellar the entire,the whole time, the whole time,
meaning even once you showed upthere in the day, yeah,
screaming them, yelling them,arguing them, getting in a fight
and hitting each other.
Ben just clocked her out and hefixed up that house, right.
Well, yeah, and then, for somefucking reason, there was just a
(02:53):
random corpse upstairs that hadhalf of its face eaten off, and
I'm guessing the zombies didthat.
But See, in the Tom Saviniremake they at least allude to
why there was a corpse up.
There was because there was twozombies in the upstairs part,
and the reason people were inthe cellar was because they were
escaping the zombies fromupstairs.
So basically, they find a TVand they're trying to find a
(03:13):
place to go to and there's abunch of people in the cellar.
You got fucking Tom, you gothis girlfriend Judy, you got the
Coopers with their little kid,and that's Karen, and basically,
we end up finding out.
Oh, so, these are the maincharacters of the movie, pretty
much, while we have a bunch ofextras outside who are probably
not getting paid very much andare actually being forced to eat
(03:34):
raw chicken it looks like, yeahand the raw liver and what
looked like a prosthetic arm.
Yeah, yeah, mr Ribeiro, do Ihave to keep eating this?
Yeah, mr Romero, do I have tokeep eating this?
Keep eating it, bitch, I wantto see you chomp at lunch.
Yeah, probably got it likewholesale from the fucking, you
know, piggly, wiggly down thestreet, but, basically, what
ends up happening, though, isBen gets the bright idea to get
(03:56):
the truck and go to one of thesesupposed like safe havens,
because they get a TV to workand the TV, supposedly, you know
.
And the actors that are on theTV TV to work and the TV,
supposedly, you know.
And the actors that are on theTV, they're the fun is funniest
part, cause you can tell thatthe budget was really rushed, so
they're just trying to getthrough their lines as quickly
as possible.
I cannot believe what I amhearing.
There is mass hysteria in thestreets, yep, especially that
(04:18):
scene where they're at theCapitol and that guy's like
trying to get to his car reallyquickly and they're trying so
hard.
And they're trying so hard notto show the general's front part
of his uniform because it'sprobably not even accurate at
all.
They did a pretty good job,it's just.
It's funny because it's like Iwish they went with that
transatlantic accent of likeGeneral.
What is going on here?
Why are the corpses coming backand eating the living?
It's pretty ridiculous.
(04:38):
I don't know, but I will tellyou.
I hope you stocked up onWinston cigarettes and bush beer
.
Yeah, I hope you stocked up onWinston cigarettes and Bush beer
.
Yeah, I'm pretty, our boys inNam can use some help.
After Viet Cong became VietMonch Viet Monch, jesus, I had
nothing for it.
But all I can think of is thefour guys in Vietnam who are
like killing the VC in the NorthVietnamese and they're like,
(05:00):
yeah, they're coming back.
What do you mean?
They're coming back?
I mean they're coming back tolife after we kill them and now
we can't kill them again.
You know basically what ends uphappening.
Right is the TV stuff isbasically just exposition on how
to kill zombies.
That's the whole plot point ofTV and the radio as well, is
(05:21):
basically to push the plot along.
It turns out the zombies don'tlike fire either.
Radio as well is is basicallyto push the plot along.
It turns out the zombies don'tlike fire either.
So what ends up happening isthey get the bright idea to go
out to the back shed that hasbasically a gas pump which, by
the way, that was apparently athing back in the days they had
gas, yeah.
So they try to fill up the gastank and then they end up like
catching the truck on fire.
And then the two kids, judy andtom, are in the car and they
(05:43):
drive the truck up and thenthey're trying to get out and
Nick swears that the girl said Igot my dick caught in something
or something.
Yeah, it was weird.
It was never clear what shesaid she was caught on.
And then the truck explodes.
They drive away for a littlewhile without thinking, hey, you
know, we should probably getout of this truck.
Yeah, the truck just blows up,and then there's barbecue for
(06:06):
the zombies to eat, and then weactually get to see the zombies
finally eating something for thefirst time, and we cut back to
Ben, trying to get him back inthe house.
Mr Cooper won't let him in.
Cooper lets him back ineventually and then he beats the
shit out of Mr Cooper.
Dude, he had that coming right,he really did have it coming.
And he had that coming though,he really did have it coming and
the rest of the movie reallyjust kind of goes downhill from
there.
(06:27):
Literally all that happens nextis the zombies start breaking in
.
They decide to get the brightidea to break in because the
fires have died down andbasically the fucking Mr Cooper
guy tries to steal the gun fromBen and Ben shoots him, kills
him, he goes downstairs and thedaughter's sick.
So we already know she's goingto turn into a zombie.
Because they said she gotbitten.
Yeah, they did, they mentionedyeah, she got bitten.
(06:48):
And then Ben's oh, who knowswhat kind of diseases those
things are carrying in them.
Yeah, already foreshadowingthat bites are now one of the
main causes of infection, we cutback to upstairs.
The zombies are starting to comein and finally Barbara who's
been completely useless prettymuch the whole movie finally
gets a piece of wood and triesto help.
You know, mrs Cooper, shefucking breaks off, goes
(07:11):
downstairs and she finds herdaughter chewing on her fucking
husband's fucking hand.
Mrs Cooper's arm is likecompletely detached, yeah, and
she's eating it because she's azombie now.
And the most disturbing part ofthe movie happens where she
stabs the shit out of her mom,and with a.
It was a spade.
Yeah, it was a spade.
Yeah, kills her with a spade.
It's really fucking crazy.
But the thing is, miss coopercould have gotten out of that
(07:34):
she.
She didn't even try.
Falls over.
She's doing.
Sure, I'm watching my death inslow motion.
Yeah, didn't even try.
Barbara's getting just taken bythe zombies and her her brother
, johnny, shows back up.
He grabs her, pulls her outside, she's toast and fucking and
they don't even show like she'sgetting eaten or bitten or
anything.
Nah, she's just gone.
Yep, yep.
Ben gets back in the house.
He goes into the cellar, boardsup the cellar, shoots Mr Cooper
(07:58):
in the head, shoots Mrs Cooperin the head, is Cooper in the
head?
The zombies try to break thedoor down, cut.
The next morning, the fuckingthe boys show up with all their
guns and stuff.
Yeah, and the news.
But this was the thing, though.
Right, when Ben gets shot inthe head by one of the good old
boys, when they're doing likesweeping the property and
everything.
But at no point did Ben thinklike saying, hey, I'm alive in
(08:19):
here.
No, he's just, yep, just likein the shadow, like kind of
looking like a, just somethingstanding there, and they're like
, oh, shoot that one in the head.
And they shoot him.
You know, though, he shot himin the head with a shotgun.
You know, obviously they don'thave the capability of doing
that just yet, but they couldhave shown his head explode like
a watermelon.
Yeah, that would have been kindof shotgun, you know.
(08:39):
Yeah, and that really was theend of the movie.
And then we get a bunch ofstill shots of them coming in
and basically picking up thedead bodies, and that's Night of
the Living Dead.
That's really the whole movie.
It's a really good movie,definitely working with a, you
(09:01):
know, with a budget, and youknow some of the visual effects
are kind of wonky.
You know, let's kind of getinto the dumb, cool and weird.
One of the dumbest things forme was that paper mache hand.
When Tom was chopping at one ofhis own, it was a paper mache
hand.
It's so bad.
Oh, you see, this is actuallythe some of the stuff that I
enjoyed, too right.
So that whole thing about thembeing afraid of fire is mostly
(09:24):
from the early zombie films,where the zombies were more like
voodoo, like just people werepossessed by voodoo, and so they
would be like, oh, fire istheir only weakness.
So they would do that in a lotof the early zombie films.
So I thought that was a prettycool throwback.
Okay, and another thing that Ithought was cool with going into
the remake of Dawn of the Deadwas trying to capture the
(09:47):
atmosphere of the original.
It was Night of the LivingDead's news broadcast and then
you know, dawn of the Dead'snews broadcast because they
really put it in as a specialfeature in the newest in the
remake back in 2000.
Which one?
Would that one come out though?
1990.
1990?
That's when the Tom Savini onecame out.
So that was a Tom Savini one.
(10:07):
But they also did the samething with the Dawn of the Dead
remake.
That doesn't have the samelevel.
Yeah, it doesn't have the samerelation as the Tom Savini film,
but I thought that was prettycool.
Did you find anything else dumbabout this movie, man?
(10:28):
You know, I thought it was apretty solid film.
I guess the thing that wasdefinitely dumb, just
practically, you know like allof these zombies are going.
Oh, this is it.
Sorry, this was it.
He kills ben, kills multiplezombies by smashing in their
head with a crowbar, but thenhas to wait until the t and tv
tells him you have to shoot himin the head, even though he saw
that worked when he shot one ofthem in the head and then
smashed their skulls in.
So at no point did he actuallyneed to rely on the television
(10:49):
to tell him you need to hit himin the head so they die.
It's like I think that waspretty self-explanatory when
they stopped moving after youdid that.
Yeah, what I thought was what Ithought was really cool about
this movie.
Moving on to the cool part is Ireally enjoyed how the a lot of,
like a lot of the actors youcould tell a lot of them are
(11:10):
classically trained, like theblack guy that played, you know,
ben.
He was a really good actor.
He played a really good role.
I also felt mr cooper waspretty believable as an asshole.
Yeah, pretty good job there,even mr cooper.
Mrs cooper was prettybelievable as, like the wife
who's just tired of mr coopershit.
So so they definitely werehaving to rely heavily on the
(11:31):
interactions between thesedifferent characters and the
situation they were in.
Let's get to the weird part, theweird thing about this movie
some of the stuff that Romerowas obviously having them do,
like them eating raw meat.
It looked like they were eatingraw meat.
I hope that was prop meat, butit looked very real to me.
I think that liver was kind ofreal, looking honestly.
And I think what was weird issome of the some of the things
(11:54):
he had the zombies doing.
You know, it wasn't reallyplaying with the intestines,
think about it.
Right, like he really didn'thave this kind of flesh out 100
quite yet.
This is like the first moviethat had it, so like literally
had this.
He had the zombies doing thingsthat like normal humans would
do.
Like he had the fucking that.
You know, the zombie in thebeginning running after her,
taking something and trying tosmash a window.
(12:14):
I mean, that's not what zombiesdo later on, I mean in certain
movies maybe.
Yeah, but it takes so much moretime.
I think he was just trying tofigure it out and you know,
obviously some of the zombiemakeup was a little wonky, but
you know they probably didn'thave a budget to do like crazy
zombie makeup.
I also like to think, you knowit's black and white, so they
did work with what they could onthat side of things.
(12:35):
But the thing about it, too, isthese are the most recently
deceased people from the morguesand everything, for the most
part, yeah.
So it's not like in the latercoming romero films where
they're decomposing or they'rejust people who were infected
and died in the street somewhere.
I will say, though, one otherweird thing about this movie is
I did find it kind of weird thatBen made such a big stink about
(12:57):
being trapped in the basement,and then it turns out being in
the basement is actually wasactually the best place to be,
and that also goes.
This is another weird thing,ben to be, and that also goes.
This is another weird thing.
Ben was constantly talkingabout how, oh, we boarded up the
house, we're gonna be safe inhere, and then, when the
television's, oh, you could tryand get to one of these like
safe zones, and he's immediatelywe're abandoning the house,
we're gonna go to the safe zone.
(13:18):
That was, you know, nightliving dead it's.
I do have.
One more weird, though, was themost useless character
throughout the whole film.
At no, no point was she worthanything?
She didn't help anybody.
She just kind of existed likethis woman who falls deep in
some acid quaaludes or mushrooms, maybe all three.
She didn't do anything andeverybody was looking at her in
(13:38):
the film like I guess she'sgoing to act at some point.
I mean she was comatose formost of the movie she checked
out.
If I remember correctly, youknow the early 60s is when the
Civil Rights Act happened.
Yeah, and Ben gave her somecivil lefts after she smacked
him.
Classic movie.
It's one of the reasons why wehave so many great zombie things
nowadays.
It's the one that reallystarted it all.
(13:59):
Obviously, you know we weretalking about earlier that there
were other zombie movies before, but this is the one that
really built that wholebeginning of tropes for zombie
flicks.
Stay tuned we are going to bedoing Dawn of the Dead next week
.
Be warned the dead are risingand eating the living.
(14:20):
When there's no more room inhell, the dead will walk the
earth.
Ooh yeah, spooky times and ashopping mall.
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
(14:41):
friends.
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