28 Years Later (2025) | Episode #155 - Abyss Gazing: A Horror Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, you're listening to a biscasing, a horror podcast where
we celebrate all things spooky and mental health.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey, this is Billy. We still survived twenty eight years later.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
I'm your the co host, Josh. And this movie made
me realize that I will never be an alpha whatsoever,
at least not in this world.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
No, you're always debata, right.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
I've seen I've seen quite a few TikTok like skits
of like women just kind of like going to see
this movie and then like getting to the alpha parts
and like instead of running, just kind of like being like,
all right, let's see where this goes.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah. Yeah, let's just say that alpha's made the movie interesting,
especially when everybody that was with me again, I had
my crew with me, and I had and my neighbor's
son that's been wanting to watch this for a while,
and we all just started cracking jokes because not going

(01:09):
into spoilers, but because it's just yeah, it's staring your face.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
So yeah, it's what are your overall like general thoughts
in this movie?

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Though, I mean I enjoyed it. It was slow at first,
or it was kind of slow getting into it, and
then I enjoyed the storyline. There's there's a part of
the storyline that hit me probably harder or different than
it would hit more most people, which I'll get into
that when we start doing spoilers. But uh, I actually

(01:45):
liked it. But the people sitting in front of me,
like halfway through, they basically said, this movie sucks. They
got up and walked out. It's like you, I guess
you didn't know what you were walking into.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
I feel like with this movie, I've heard a lot
of people say, you're either going to really love this
movie and praise it, or you're really gonna hate this movie.
And I am probably one of the very few people
that just thought this movie was okay. I have my
issues with it. It definitely kind of feels like the

(02:23):
start of a trilogy, which is what we're getting. The
Bone Temple, which is supposed to be the next one,
directed by niAA Costa, comes out January sixteenth, twenty twenty six,
and I will just let people know that even though
Mark is not covering it, we are three films deep
into this franchise and we will be covering this one,

(02:43):
especially with what is teased here. I think I also
have a hypothesis with what will come for the third
chapter in this installment, and also have ideas about what
the through line narratively speaking, is gonna be. But this
movie felt like it had two competing storylines going for it,

(03:06):
and that really kind of bothered me. Kind of this
film feels disjointed in parts, but once you kind of
switch from the that disjointedness and you kind of get
into the new groove, I will say I feel like
I really enjoyed it kind of once it found its footing,
and well all kind of expandable on that in the spoilers,

(03:28):
but I also really like the ideas that boy Boil
and Garbland kind of bring here, because when you look
at twenty eight weeks later, it is this or yeah,
twenty eight days later, Sorry, you look at twenty eight
days later, it really maybe not didn't redefine, but really
kind of challenged the notions of what we expect from

(03:49):
a zombie movie and what could be possible from its characters.
You know, I would say that without that, you would
not have had Walking Down the Tea TV show. I
understand Walking Down the Comic predates the original movie, but
I think that a lot of the characteristics and a
lot of the qualities that you see in the between

(04:12):
the characters in The Walking Dead wouldn't exist without Twenty
eight Days Later.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
In the cinematography. Also because there's some of the stuff
of the way they shot it. For instance, this isn't
a spoiler. This is just the fact that in the
original Twenty Eight Days Later they used iPhones. They tried
they did the same thing with this one to a
certain extent to pay homage to the original movie.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Yeah, I really like the look in the field of
the first one because the first film feels like that DIY,
like small budget, really feels like it adds to this
like claustrophobia, this like surrealness. This almost kind of like
fever dream when you have Jim waking up and they
captured it in port up here. But I think the

(05:02):
things that really worked for me here were how they
reimagined zombies once again, kind of daring to push that
envelope forward just a little bit, because there are things
here that I haven't seen in any other film of
the zombie genre, with maybe the exception maybe, and I

(05:23):
get it, it's like totally different. But like also this
movie Cutter reminded me of a quiet place in certain parts.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
Well, some of the sub things that they did, some
of the things that you question, and again will get
to a lot of this and spoilers, but some of
the things that they addressed, it's like things that you've
always asked during zombie movies, what would happen if this
in this case?

Speaker 2 (05:48):
What would happen in that case? And they actually address
some of those things.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
I really like the teases here as well, like the
Bone the Bone temple, Like I really think that they're
gonna push that forward. With the Ralph Fines character. I
think he's going to play a big part in the
second film, possibly even the third film. Really kind of
curious to see how what they do. But the ending
to this movie, which a lot of people hate it,

(06:17):
I really want to talk about this in the spoiler section.
We will. It felt really weird to end the movie
on that note, But again, I get it they're trying
to do They're trying to lay seeds for a future,
like a full trilogy, and that's kind of where I think.

(06:38):
I think the ending of this movie feels like a misstep.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
I mean, yeah, I will. We had to Me and
the kids had a discussion just talking after the movie,
but the ending really did feel off to me. I mean,
I got what they were trying to do, and I
got that they planted seeds throughout the movie, but that
ending I laughed a little bit, to be honest with you.

(07:06):
But but I can't explain why, because it gives way
a lot of the ending.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
It felt like it should have been a post credit scene. Yeah, yeah,
because tonally it's so different, like ending it where they
should have ended it. We'll get into spoilers. Would have
been like this perfect ending and then you kind of
got to see a glimpse into what would be futured,

(07:32):
you know, the future, And I think that's what they
should have done with that, and it felt like a
really kind of missed opportunity. And I also have issues
with how they the characters in the ending and how
they ended it because I thought one thing throughout the

(07:53):
course of this film, and then by the time that
we actually get to the ending, it does this like
bait and switch thing. Then I'm like, I don't know
how I feel about this yet, So like I'm just
kind of jarred by how they ended this movie and
the way that they did.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah, I mean, because the way that the movie went.
It was a lot of like build up to where
it was going through the storylines and all then they
that ending just to me, like, I think you're agreeing
with you just felt out of place just because you're
doing all the build up and then all of a sudden,
the ending just hissed the way it does and you're like, Okay,

(08:32):
you're gonna end on that.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
And you can definitely tell like the the influences here
as well. Like, I feel like it's really hard to
talk about this movie and not dot jump to spoilers. So, yeah,
what would you give this movie on a Rorshak rating
scale zero two.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
Five Me personally three and a half four.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yeah, I was gonna say three and a half as well.
I think this movie overall all like it definitely has
pacing issues, it definitely has shifting narrative issues, but overall,
like it's do I think it's well worth the wait.
I don't know. It's really hard to judge this in
the grand scheme of things, because this does feel like

(09:16):
the first entry in a trilogy, Like there's there's so
much going on that you you have somebody, you have
quite a few cliffhangers here, and it's really hard to
kind of judge the first as a standalone.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah. I mean, and just because we're on non spoilers,
just realize when you go to watch this movie, this,
to me, it feels like the setup. And we've already
said it's going to be a trilogy, so you got
to take it as this is the beginning to set
up them trying to not necessarily reset, but try to

(09:49):
get everybody on the same page, because the other ones
really didn't connect to it, Like they didn't bring characters
or anything over, and that's already been established by everybody,
so that's not a spoiler. But yeah, it really didn't
bring anything together. Just the storyline of the rage. That's
about it.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
I will keep them points for opening up on the
fucking Teletubbies. Oh dude, I was.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Messing with the kids because my two oldest one of
the oldest ones with me, but my two oldest they
grew up in the Teletubbies. So it's like I was
just laughing at them about the Teletubbies. I'm like, really, yeah,
that's scary enough. This movie's already really scary to me.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
Like I think it's I think it's funny, like having
seen a lot of horror movies now. The two like
go tos, Like if you're gonna show like something on screen,
the two go tos that you often find are Texas
Chainsaw Massacre because it's public domain, or you have a
Night of the Living Dead the original Romero because it's
also public domain. And I just love that they were

(10:55):
just like, you know what, right on the gate, we're
gonna divert your expectations. We're not doing that the Living Dead.
We are gonna go and do the MF and Teletubbies.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
Well, and I can't now you'll understand what I'm saying.
When I saw the Teletubbies, I was thinking about that
con we were at where they had the murderous Teleotobis.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
Oh yeah, yeah, the Heloubbies.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
The Helotubbies. I was picturing that. I was like, dude,
that would have been crazy.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
Yeah. Spliderhouse Studio shout out to those guys. Well, we're
gonna take a quick commercial break. When we get back,
we are gonna jump into the spoilers section of this
because it's really difficult to dance around this movie without
talking about spoilers. So you guys have been warned. Will
be right back talk about twenty eight years later.

Speaker 4 (11:44):
If you were someone you know is listening to this
podcast right now and you're struggling with suicide, addiction, self harm,
or depression, we encourage you guys to please reach out.
This is the heartbeat or why we.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Do what we do.

Speaker 4 (11:58):
Suicide is currently the and fleting cause of death in
the United States, and as of this recording, there are
one hundred and thirty two suicides that take place each
and every day on American soil, and when you scale
back internationally, there are eight hundred thousand successful suicides. That
is one death roughly every forty seconds. So if you

(12:19):
were someone you know was struggling, you guys can go
to Victims and Villains dot net, forward slash hope that
resource is going to be right in the description wherever
you guys are crrently listening or streaming this. There you'll
find resources that include the National Suicide Lifeline, which is
one eight hundred two seven three eighty two fifty five.
You can also text help to seven seven four one.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
You also have a plethora of.

Speaker 4 (12:45):
Other resources including churches, getting connected with counselors, LGBT resources
like the Trevor Project, and also a veteran hotline as well.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
Please if you hear nothing else in the show, understand
that you, yes, you listening to us right now, have
value and worth. We get it.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
Suicide, depression, mental health. These are hard topics and this
stigma around them doesn't make.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
It any easier.

Speaker 4 (13:14):
But please consider the resources right in the descriptions below wherever.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
You guys are listening, because once again, you have value
and you have worth, So please stay with us. Welcome back.
Oh okay, all right, I thought you pointed at me,
go ahead, welcome back to a biscuasing.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
Hey your point, I thought that was a command. Anyway.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
That's usually a note for me when it comes to
editing the video portion of the podcast, which you can
get exclusively at our five dollars tier over a patreonic
patreon dot com word slash victims.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
And villains and be able to see the bones. But
uh yeah, uh we dance around a little bit. The
beginning of this movie, the fact that we already brought
up the Teletubbies, the fact they had that room full
of kids telling them not to move. What kids are
gonna sit still when they hear all the noises going around?

Speaker 1 (14:16):
I loved this because this is something we haven't seen
from this franchise, and I don't think I've ever seen
this from anything besides maybe The Walking Dead with Carl,
because Carl was the kid. I am not a Walking
Dead Yeah, correct, Okay, So like having the idea of
having the Aaron Taylor Johnson character literally grow up and

(14:41):
see this at its genesis and how it shaped him,
how it molded him, and how it actually made him
a father. Like, I really liked that idea. When I
talk about things I think this movie does well, is
it gives really daring, pushing the envelope concepts that we
haven't seen very often or at all from the zombie movies.

(15:05):
And I love the idea that his character, like was
here at the very start of this, like has all
of this trauma that's built into him and somehow now.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Like.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
I I think I think he kind of just ignored it,
you know, uh, because he now takes like pleasure in
killing these things, whereas like you can kind of see
that there's like some humanity left in Spike doesn't really
seem like there is some left in Jamie.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yeah, Jamie. But here's my question. The little boy in
the opening scene his name was Jimmy, was it not?

Speaker 4 (15:51):
It was Jimmy.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah, we won't go into that yet, but I'm pointing
out the fact his name was Jimmy, not Jamie. I'm
pointing that out to you so you can clarify later. Why.

Speaker 1 (16:03):
Okay, Yeah, No I didn't. I didn't actually put two
and two together because I think that, like we spent
so along with Jamie and Spike throughout the course of this,
like I was like, all right, this this my brain
just accepted as like, this is this is the guy
that Taylor Johnson's playing.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
Not mine too. Me and the kids had a discussion
about this, and uh, Jimmy the little boy at the
beginning with all the little kids. We're in the spoiler section.
So you got the zombies ransacking his house. His mom,
I think it's his mom that tries to save him,
says run and he runs to his dad who's a

(16:44):
preacher or priest whatever, and he hands them the cross. Yeah,
hands from the cross and he hides.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
So that's key right there, what I just said, he
hands him the cross?

Speaker 1 (16:56):
That did? I mean, we gotta get it now. Like
that you have these book edges stories, like I feel
like we got to jump in to talk about the
ending and how this film ends.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
So the ending makes a little bit more sense now, correct.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yes, yes, it still feels like it comes out of
left field, mostly because like Jimmy's like not a character.
So like the reason that like I brought this up
to where it's like it feels like this like bait
and switch at the end is because I thought that
all this So like throughout the film, you see that

(17:31):
there are these like graffiti signs, and they're you know,
you keep seeing like Jimmy, Jimmy, Like there's a zombie. Yeah,
there's a zombie that says like Jimmy. And so like
I'm thinking, like, this is a legacy sequel. We know
that to some could to some uh, we notice some

(17:55):
degree that jim from twenty eight days Later, it's coming
back in parts two and three. Like Danny Boyle has
already said that Killia Murphy's already said that, like they've
they've confirmed that on this press tour. And so for me,
I was like, Oh, this Jimmy that everyone keeps talking about,
it's jim from the first one, Like he's kind of

(18:16):
become this legend, this messiah now and then when I
got the bait and switch with Jack O'Connell at the end,
I was like, what is this? Like, I don't, I'm not,
I'm not. I'm not mad at it. It was a
really cool scene, but what is this?

Speaker 2 (18:32):
I yelled out Park Corps. But yeah, because I say
what the power ages? Because it's just it was so
out of place for me the way that they were
doing it. Not the necessarily that the Brook people in
but it seemed like they were jumping all around and everything,
and I'm like, dude, that's just after this whole movie,

(18:55):
just to have some people coming in here looking like
Ninja's of Park Or It's just crazy.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
But again it goes to this like reimagining and pushing
what is what can actually be done in a film
of this magnitude. Because also keep in mind too that
like I would say, aside from like B movies, you've
never had Ninja versus zombies, like that's never been a
concept that we've seen. However, this could be the first

(19:24):
time that we see it. And my thought process is
that the Jimmy will kind of be like the he'll
be in the second hypothesis is that he'll be in
the second one to some degree, Spike will be the
through line for the trilogy, but Jack or sorry, Jimmy

(19:45):
and his family will be kind of the stars for
the third film. That is my hypothesis.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
Yeah, I mean I could see them following Spike and
Jimmy and his group are going to be a big
part of the next story, because then just they just
dumped them at the end of this story, not really dump,
but you know what I mean, they just brought them
in at the end, so they've got to build off that.
There's no way that they walk away from that.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
I don't see how you feature them in a story
of the Bone Temple. I think, yeah, the Bone Temple
could go one of two ways. So like it could
be a prequel story for the Ralph Fine character and
the doctor and kind of where the whole idea for
the Bone Temple starts, because the Bone Temple is arguably

(20:33):
the most like visually satisfying set piece in the entirety
of this film.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yeah, I agree, and I mean, yeah, I could see
that where they do the storyline of the Bone Temple
as like a prequel, and then it comes back in
to pick up this part of the story in a
third movie. Or something like that.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yeah, I just don't understand. I just don't. Alternatively, I mean,
you could also to like have an entire movie where
like it's set in modern day and Spike is also
kind of helping the ralp Fin's character kind of build
up the this and hunt and kind of like refine

(21:12):
his skills. So that is the alternative, And you could
also have Jimmy there as well. But again, it just
it feels like it it clashes tonally. That's kind of
what I kind of walked away from because the rest
of this movie like feels like it's it takes itself
like really serious, and there's again we don't really see

(21:34):
a lot of comedy from these movies. But the Ninja
and wigs, Yeah, at the very end was like, dear God,
what is happening?

Speaker 2 (21:46):
And every time that Alca would take somebody out with
their spine, I would be screaming finish him, just because
I was thinking mortal combat, because that's what it looked.
Tell me, it didn't look like that looked like a
sub zero Watar combat moves.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
I loved the whole head spine, like one of the
one of the coolest, coolest things. I loved the fact
that they it wasn't just like a one off set
piece either, like it was a running motif, Like it
was continuously like you saw it with the Deerhead, you

(22:20):
saw it with Eric, and we also kind of see
it throughout the course of the film as well a
couple of other spaces. But it's again we talked about
like visuals that are satisfying. That is just like I
want blood and I want gore. Yeah, that's what I
want that.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yes, please, yeah, I agree with you, trust me because
that's that was one of my favorite video games. So
the fact that they brought it up there was like
a nostalgia thing to me, and I was like, yes,
I'm here for this, I want to see this.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
I think one of the other cool things to consider
as well is the not necessarily the like the subplot,
but the idea of having a pregnant zombie and her
not passing the raged virus on to her kid. Like,
I thought that was a really interesting angle.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
That was one of the things I was hitting on
the spoilers. Yeah, first, first, let's hit the fact that
it's a pregnant zombie, so so many questions with that,
like the Alpha is smart enough, to crack everybody and everything.
So does that mean that the alpha's the one got
that zombie pregnant? And then the doctor in here made

(23:40):
a statement, And if you're not paying attension or listening,
you don't realize, he says, because of the placintha barrier,
the baby didn't get the disease.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
Yeah, and I mean also too like it, I mean,
for all we know, like I mean, she could have
been a zombie literally for you know, yeah, to two
months to you know, to two weeks, like you know,
or two days, you know, she could have Like I
think it's also fascinating because it's like it is. The

(24:11):
idea is like if two zombies have sex in this universe,
do they can they reproduce for one being undead even
though they don't define it. We talked about that last
week and twenty weeks later, like can you be dead?
You know, can you can you give life? Yeah, it'd

(24:33):
be undead. And then the second idea is like if
you did, like would you kind of be would be
like a blade situation where like you are a zombie.
Like I loved how it was kind of Schrodinger's cat
and then it turned into this like second chance for

(24:54):
Jamie to be like I guess, like a better, better
father then he was to Spike.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
Yeah, I mean it was kind of like a reset
for him by Spike giving him the baby, giving him
that second chance, especially because we only bookend everything right
now with the Jimmy story. So go back to Jamie
and his dad's i mean, Spike and his dad Jamie.
That was a big part of the story of becoming

(25:22):
of age story for somebody in this little island that's
a little bit separated from the mainland as part of
their safety. And at a certain age, you have your jobs.
I mean, it's been hinted at so many different movies
like zombies and every zombie movies and future movies that
your job's decided for you. Yeah. And so in this case,

(25:49):
Spike is a hunter. So this was his first hunt,
going out and killing a zombie, and we got to
see how that went and how it snowedballt for there.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
Which I'm kind of curious how you think about it.
This is kind of where I think the movie like
dips in quality because it felt like they didn't know
whether to make it a father son story or a
mother son story. And so you have these essentially two
competing narratives that just feel kind of awkwardly disjointed together,

(26:22):
where you have him kind of going out with his
father Jamie for the first time, kind of having the hunt,
which are those zombies in general are ones that I
want to talk about in a few minutes. But then
there comes a point where it's like Jamie like not Jamie,

(26:42):
Jamie cheats on his works is dying wife, and you know,
Spike happens to see it was like, you know what,
I'm going to go off and I'm going to go
see this doctor, and so then it becomes this like
kind of weirdly road trip movie between the two of them.
And I didn't necessarily mind it. It just I really

(27:06):
wish that they would have kind of fleshed out one
or the other, because it felt like they knew they
wanted to focus on Spike, but weren't sure which parent
to connect it to see, I took.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
It as you just gave a lot of it when
you just said that. So I took it as when
Spike saw his dad, he decided I'm done with him.
Let me focus on my mom. Especially with the storyline
that they were using, I'm gonna go ahead and say
what it was and everything, because that goes back to
the bones and all that. The fact that they find

(27:41):
out later that she has cancer, and that's the part
of the story that hit me that just because I
looked over at my voice just to make sure they
were good, because I had no idea that was part
of the storyline. I avoided all spoilers, all trailers, all everything. Yeah,
and being that we went through all that, I could

(28:03):
see him flipping like, I want to make my mom better.
Let's go see what we can find out why she's
sick and go with that storyline. I could see that
they basically wrote that off as the asshole, he's cheater,
he's whatever. And then he looks like he has a
small redemption when they hand the baby.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
Back to him. Yeah. I this is twenty twenty five,
and so like you know, we've seen a multitude of
stories where you don't necessarily need both parents to have
that anymore. And I almost kind of wish that we
would have saw Spike as a I have this like

(28:42):
love hate relationship with it, because on one hand, I'm like,
I would love to see him just kind of be
with like one parent. If you're going to do one parent.
Obviously you're gonna do the mother. You know, you could
really like lean in for like the community around him,
like showcase, like all of the guys that you know,

(29:03):
you got to see, like like the father figures in
the community. Because like the hint at it, you could
have really kind of eliminated the Jamie character and really
kind of leaned in that way. But on the other hand,
I'm like, if we didn't have this kind of cluster
fuck of narrative switch between like focusing on like one

(29:25):
parent at the end when Jamie decides that he's gonna
live on the land, you don't have that growth for
him as a character if you don't have that initial
sloppy kind of structure in the beginning.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah, I mean, I'm with you. I think it needed
that sloppy structure to actually defined who Spike is. I mean,
the fact that he was strong enough to deal with
his mom's death after he found out about the cancer treatment,
even though that they had to uh kind of drug

(30:02):
him like a witch doctor he had, he he was
strong enough to deal with it. I mean, she became,
for a back lack of better description, she became the
star to the tree.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yeah, she was in the top, which was such a
cool like scene for him to do because it's kind
of like, you know, what would you expect in that
type of situation and like getting there and being like, oh,
this is exactly what I expect, Like I really really
dug that. I'm kind of curious, go ahead. I was like, no,

(30:39):
I had a lot of respect and a lot of.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
Once they got to that story, because it hinted earlier
that the doctor was crazy and they gave little tidbits
of what he was doing and there was no explanation
to it, whereas once they got to the explanation, it
made more sense of what he was doing. To me.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
See, the doctor, like Ralph Fines might have been the
smartest guy in this entire movie. Yeah, yeah, I agree,
you know that he was like, oh yeah, like iodine,
I paint myself with it every day because like those
infected with the virus like don't like it. I was like, dude,
that's that's fucking genius, like kind of takes that like

(31:21):
zombie Land Bill Murray approach, but like grounds it and
like doesn't make it like comedic.

Speaker 2 (31:31):
Yeah, I mean, and I love Zombie Lance, So that's
one of my favorites, but uh yeah, it shows the
iodon thing. And also he says, well, I usually don't
get this close to the alphas, but he's smart enough
to even drug the Alpha not necessarily have to kill him,
but he could drug him to where he's just standing
there and like the proles has sleep where he's not

(31:53):
going to do anything to him.

Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah. I really liked him, and I'm I kind of
just want to jump in just to get it out
of the way. The alpha. The idea is that here
you have a guy that essentially like he's it's the
new Breeze zombies that are essentially bigger, taller, faster, smarter,

(32:20):
and you have all of the underlings so to say
that really commit themselves to this and like follow him,
but they all all of them just have like large lungs.

Speaker 5 (32:34):
Like that's the part we were rolling at because he
was running and it was flying everywhere, especially on the
train scene, like I'm gonna get you. And then it
zooms out and the girls are dying laughing because two
of the my younger two had their girlfriends with us
and we're just dying laughing because it's like and they joked,

(32:55):
oh no, that's why they came to see the movie.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
Talking to my boys like, yeah, we know you came
to see the Schlungs. It's a good So just the
comedic part of that alone was hilarious. But the way
that they addressed can we get into some of the
zombies because we keep saying alphas?

Speaker 1 (33:14):
Yeah, yeah, let's get it choking Okay.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
So the way that they have it is kind of
like we hinted earlier, was Alpha a beta?

Speaker 4 (33:21):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (33:21):
And these zombies are faster, the faster zombies. So the
fact that Alpha is the one that's kind of like
in control, almost like the one a lion that would
in their pack, of how that would be controlled. So
to me, I'm wondering how they're going to expand more
on that on you know, how they determined which ones
the alphas, which one's the betas? I mean, we realize

(33:42):
it now, but you know what I mean, how did
they know at first?

Speaker 1 (33:46):
I I love the idea that there is also this
kind of like order and structure within zombies, Like there's
a hierarchy, which is a concept that we've never I
I don't watch a whole lot of zombie movies. I
don't want to speak for you. Uh yeah, but I
it's not a concept that I've ever actually seen executed

(34:08):
on within the story. Most of the times, it's like
they're either slow or they're fast, Like you know. The
thing that I think twenty eight years Later does really
well is that like it's it's well thought out, it's
it's intricate, and they're like, we're gonna make our zombie
movie different, Like we're not gonna call them zombies, Like

(34:29):
we're gonna give them like a history and a virus
and everything. But then we're also gonna build classes within
the zombies as well.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
It's kind of like a Last of Us thing they
did that Master Us and uh, these are technically would
be technically the Deservers. That's the ones that even though
in Last of Us they're huge, they're the fast ones,
they're the ones that chase you and everything. So that
that kind of like made a parallel to me because again,
like zombies, zombie game, zombie movies, and they're thing. So

(35:01):
when I saw that, that's what I related it to,
It's like, Okay, they kind of took the concept from
Last Weeks, which is great that they expanded upon it.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
I will also say, like the Betas. I don't know
if you felt this way, but I don't know how
familiar you are with Jay horror, but like movies like Jewan,
The Grudge RINGU, you know, won this call things that
are like very much like from like the late late

(35:30):
nineties early two thousands, that are Japanese horror that are
specifically focused on ghost stories and the supernatural. A lot
of them look very pale, and that is what the
like the Beta zombies like reminded me of. I don't
know if I don't know if I'm the only one
that kind of got that, but it was it felt

(35:51):
like again they were calling out to other like films
that have been made or have had influences now that
they have a larger budget.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah, I mean I agree with you, especially like you
just said they were they were pale, they were dinner.
They were to me, they looked like the bones would
just crack if you touched the wrong way. And some
of them just just U fragile.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
So we're on two different pages because I'm specifically talking
about the like the kind of like Sumo, like the
a little bit of the thicker ones that are like
I mean, I would classify those as betas maybe atas,
but uh, you know, it's like it's it's really weird

(36:40):
because like they spend their entirety of their screen time
like just kind of slithering on the ground like a
snake and eating worms. Like that's kind of like their
whole shtick. But like, design wise, they they look like
they could belong in something like Ringu or Juwan.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
Oh no, I agree with you, those could also, And
in my head, I know, I'm twisted in my head.
Is it bad that I want somebody to kind of
remix them into like Akuna matata kind of thing since
they were sitting there eating like bugs and worms and all,
and that's exactly what.

Speaker 6 (37:16):
They do with the song for the Kuna Matata. Oh
my god, that would be funny to me. But again
I'm twisted, So.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
It's fine.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
Yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
I think I think overall one of the things that
I think this film does really well is the coming
of age story with Spike kind of getting to see
him as this very kind of fragile young being that
kind of has these like very bushy eyed kind of viewpoints,
this almost kind of like rose stained glasses of it

(37:58):
all with this world and kind of how the trauma
of losing his mother kind of really forges something else,
and I think it speaks volumes to mental health about
how really dark and terrible situations can completely have the

(38:22):
ability to really kind of change the trajectory of our
lives or our identities or the way that we see things.
And you know, that's kind of one of those things
that I think this film is going to do does
really well. But also I think I really want to
see how that expands into future installments as well.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
Yeah, and I mean I liked how they use the
Eric character in here. Also how we've talked before about
how movies shows sheltered and things like that, they literally
showed how it was sheltered. The fact that Eric's kind
of cell phone and Spike has no clue what this is.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
He didn't know what a delivery driver or online.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
Online or anything. Just the fact that it's that separated,
that that sheltered is crazy. And that's the same thing
in the real world. I mean, it used to be
that way when the East and West Berlin were separated too.
One was up with technology and the other one was behind.

(39:27):
So it's crazy to think that this could be happening
in the world and you not even realize it.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
I mean, I think we've seen that explored in like
other mediums. You know, I think about like the Unbreakable
Commissimidt from Netflix. It is a great example of that.
You know, people that are homeschooled. I've had friends over
the years that have kind of had that same image
image where you grew up in like a really like

(39:53):
religious household. Like I think about concepts like you know,
Room Springer with the amage in the Mednight People that
essentially if you're not familiar with with that concept, it's
you live on the land and kind of do the work,
and you live that lifestyle for eighteen years, and at
age eighteen you can basically for a year you get

(40:14):
to go off and experience the world, and then at
the end of that year, you get to decide whether
or not you want to pursue living in the world
or you get to return. And I don't know the
specifics on like you know what happens if you don't return,

(40:35):
if you're excommunicated or anything like that, but you know,
but like that scene in particular with Eric I was
really surprising to me because I was kind of I
kind of thought from especially. Maybe it's because I have that,
like opening that iconic scene of Jim just kind of

(40:58):
walking through the empty streets of Line didn't write like
and I just envisioned that that is like it's isolated,
like we don't have like any technology, like you know,
online is god, you know, delivery drugs, and that this
guy pulls out like an iPhone. He's talking about Amazon,
he's talking about the Internet, and I'm just like, oh,

(41:18):
these things exist here. Like I'm just as surprised as
Spike is. I'm just like, huh huh, Yeah, I mean
I was with you.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
I mean the fact that twenty years later, just by
the name itself, but we saw that it was expand
the virus was expanding after the last movie with the
helicopter scene and all the very end where they just
everybody starts dying and all. So I took it to
twenty eight years later, we wouldn't have any of the
technology or anything kind of like take him back. So

(41:49):
that's why I was shocked about it, and why I
was saying the isolation and all, because you're under the
impression that all the world's living like this. Yeah, and
then Eric walks.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
In, Yeah, like that's a great point. Like, you know,
one of the one of the unfortunate side effects of
being sheltered is that you kind of can get around
things that are inherently toxic and trauma inducing and call
them normal.

Speaker 4 (42:20):
You know.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
Like I don't know if you how much you know,
but Joaquin Phoenix is a great example of that. I mean,
literally being raised in a cult and then having to
literally unlearn everything before the age of ten is just
absolutely bonkers to me. But there are so many stories
out there like that where people are you know, I

(42:45):
think about kids that are in abusive households, you know,
where you know people verbally, sexually or even physically assault them,
and you think, oh, this is this is just normal.
It's not normal, Like, you know, there are crimes against
these things and statistics and hotlines and resources. But again,

(43:10):
it's kind of one of those things that comes with
the sheltered lifestyle is that you don't actually realize what
is out there and what is normal what is not
normal unless you're like among people that are in the
same kind of lifestyle as you.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
Yeah, and it may not necessarily be a sheltered as
the as the best word, just it's taught things. Also,
you can be around a bunch of bunch of stuff,
but if you're taught that certain things are normal, you
don't question it, especially when it's coming from your family
or your parents or whatever. So I don't want to
say sheltered in that case. I want to say taught

(43:49):
that that's different.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
That's a that's a good change, I guess a better
word for that, because you know, I also think about
the movie Spotlight and them when they're interviewing some of
the sexual assault victims, they're like, you know, especially when
it comes to priests, like you know, here you have
a guy that is, quote the voice of God, and
he's telling you to do all of these really disgusting,

(44:15):
profane things, and you're kind of at this point at
a young age where it's like, who am I to
say no to the to God? Like, you know, you
know that there's something kind of wrong with it, but
you still kind of go with it. And again that
kind of hurts your your viewpoint for the kind of

(44:35):
the rest of the world.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
Yeah, I mean, and they had other mental health things
in here, like the poem alone at the beginning the
Boots poet, Do you do you know much about that?

Speaker 1 (44:47):
Say again.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
The poem at the beginning is called Boots. It's like
a military point and the boots are like a theme
in itself is just a simple war and how it's
affected the uh, the soldiers. I think it was a
British soldier's front correctly, but that whole point itself is
a psychological kind of strain on people. I had to

(45:14):
ask my kids because I had heard it. It's a
big thing on TikTok right now, but I googled it
and everything, and yeah, that's that's a famous poem dealing
with British soldiers dealing with war.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
I mean, war has its its own you know. Yeah,
it's mental health effects as well. And I I have
what I a cousin that has been in war. But
you know, when we did Dog Soldiers last year, like
I mean, he shared a little bit of his like drama,
like Oscar also shared it last year. You guys can

(45:47):
go to the Victims of Villains YouTube channel and check
that episode out. But like it is one of those
things that like I know, people that have gone through
it and have endured you know and been met mess
up for it, you know. And Rick's a great example
of that, Like you know. I mean, he battled drug

(46:08):
addiction off and on for years because of the things
that he was solid there and the thing is arassed
of him, like, you know, just absolute like unspeakable things.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
Yeah, I mean, and I know people that have been
in war and everything too, in military, So I have
mad respect for anybody that did. I know that some
of the stuff people have gone through and how it
affects you. So the fact that this poem, I was
looking at it more and it's just it's just crazy,
the symbolism and everything that they're using in it to

(46:46):
kind of describe and show the psychological effect in the
symbolism of the boots to the war and how it's affecting,
you know, everybody around him.

Speaker 1 (46:57):
I want to find that poem real quick and read
it if I can find it really quick.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
It's by Is it Rudyard Kipling? I probably killed the name.
I probably didn't say.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
That, Yeah, yeah, I would. I mean, I guess what
Rudyard to Kipling is how a pronounced. So the poem
itself goes, we're foot slug slug slugging over Africa. Foot
foot foot slugging over Africa. Boots boots, boots moving up
and down. There's no discharge in this war. Six seven, eleven, five,

(47:34):
nine and twenty miles to day. Boots boots, boots moving
up and down again. There's no discharge for war. Don't, don't, don't,
don't look at what's in front of you. Boots boots,
boots moving up and down. Men, men, men, men, men

(47:55):
go mad with watching them, and there's no discharge in
the war. Count count, count the bullets in the boldiers.
If your eyes drop, then they will get on top
of you. Boots boots, boots moving up and down. There's
no discharge in war. We can stick out in the unger,

(48:18):
stick out the hunger, thirst and weariness, but not not,
not the chronic sight of them. Boots boots, boots moving
up and down. There's no discharge in war. It ain't
so bad by day because of company, but nights night
brang long strings, forty thousand million, boots, boots, boots moving

(48:41):
up and down again. There's no discharge in the war.
I have marched six weeks in the l in hell
and certify it is not fires, devils, dark or anything,
but boots, boots, boots moving up and down again, and
there's no discharge. In war. Try, try, try, try to
think of something different. Oh my god, keep me from

(49:04):
going lunatic boots, boots, boots moving up and down. There's
no discharge in the war. That's what she wrote.

Speaker 4 (49:11):
Yeah, how would you guys like to help us get
mental health resources into schools, conventions and other events. Well,
now you can simply go to patreon dot com Ford Slage,
Victims and Villains. For as little as one dollar a month,
you guys can help us get mental health resources into
current and upcoming generations, educate and break down stigma surrounding

(49:36):
mental health, suicide.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
And depression, and to get exclusive content that you can't
get anywhere else.

Speaker 4 (49:43):
And you guys can tell us which Nicholas Cage movie
you want us to cover and we'll do it. All
it takes to get started is to go to patreon
dot com Forward Sage, Victims and Villains or simply click
the link in the episode description wherever you guys are
currently listening or streaming this EPISOD. So pick your tier
and get started today. Yes, it's that simple, So clickly

(50:05):
selected tier that you want and help us get hope.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
Into the hands of the depressed and the suicidal.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
Today and they did that instead of you know how
a lot of movies would use music over cutscenes. They
did that with all the cut scenes that the chords,
the beginning of different wars and everything. Yeah, so the
fact that they put that over it just gave it

(50:32):
so much more to it.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
Yeah, kind of kind of craziness, you know, thinking about
that particularly, Like, I think it's kind of one of
the brilliant things that we've kind of seen from Alex Garland,
who wrote this movie. You know, wrote that movie originally
in two thousand, the first one in two thousand and two,
like and mean, he's gone on to do so many

(50:58):
other films since then and that have played with the
ideas of you know, humanity, war, technology, you know, being
a suicide, loss survivor grief. You know, films like X
marketa Men, Civil War, and more recently this year with warfare. Like,

(51:20):
I mean, these are concepts to him that like are
nothing new, Like, these are concepts that he's been repeatedly
working with for the better part of the last ten
to twelve years.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Yeah, I mean, and I'm not going into politics or anything.
We always leave that alone. But the crazy part about
it was, while I was watching this movie. When we
come out, we found out that there was a bomb drop. Yeah,
literally while we were watching the movie. So it's just
crazy to walk into a movie and then walk out
and that's what's on your news feed.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
Yeah, it's kind of that stark reminder too that, like,
I mean, some films you go to and they're pure entertainment.
They'll get me wrong. There are pure entertainment. But there
are moments within this movie that feel almost kind of
like this mirror being projected back to you. And I
think that's kind of one of the things that Garland
has gotten really good about doing, especially with Civil War.

(52:21):
I haven't seen warfare, so I can't speak to the
to the value or to the reality of that, but
there are definitely like times where it's that is very noticeable,
Like when we meet Eric that is most certainly very noticeable.
You know, he's kind of like the the poster boy

(52:42):
for for that right, and like, yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Yeah, I mean, now I know we've left comedy and all.
I kind of chuckled as Eric said to Spike because
he's like, I'm hungry, and Spike gives an apple and
he's like, I'm still hungry, and like opens the bag.
Of it's nothing about apples. He's like, you must really
like apples.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
I will say there. That scene in particular was just
absolutely hilarious because for for a number of reasons, they're
the scene where he's like showing him the phone and
he's like, oh yeah, he's like telling him a little
bit more about his life, and he's like telling him
about how he's got this like knockout girlfriend back home

(53:31):
and shows our picture of her and he's just like,
oh man, what's wrong with her lips? And he's like,
what do you mean, Like she's gorgeous and he's like, no, man,
Like we got a guy back on the island that
like is allergic to shellfish and just like kind of
blew up, like his lips kind of got the same. Yeah,
And like, dude, everyone in the audience for my screening
was just just lost it at that moment. It's like,

(53:54):
it's probably the only funny scene we see here, but
it's such a brilliantly like fish out of water type
of comedy.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
Yeah, I mean. And another thing on that scene that
was relatable that maybe everybody didn't laugh at, but it
was kind of like hung in cheek funny was with
the cell phone itself. But he's like, what is that.
He's like, well, this is a cell phone so you
could talk. He's like, what's about to die? And I
can't target it, so in a few minutes it's just
gonna be a brick. That was I was like, Yeah,

(54:23):
that is so relatable. You can't charge it. Once you charge,
it's nothing else but a brick is there's no use
for it.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
Yeah, which is also ironic too because like when you
think about like the early days of cell phones, like
that's the term we called cell phones. They were like, ah, yeah,
like I have a Nokia. Oh you mean we have
we have bricks?

Speaker 2 (54:42):
Yeah, that and those were the ones you could drop
and they never break, the ones that I had. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
And I will say too, like with the the rise
and kind of that we've seen in recent memory of
like you know, sexual like sexual kind of conversations being
the norm and kind of like you know, social media
or like jokes, you know, kind of stuff like that,
Like the term daddy in the twenty first century has
kind of taken on like new meetings. And there's that

(55:13):
scene too, where like right around the same time where
like Jody Comer's character calls Spike daddy, and Eric just
kind of being an outsider and like not being familiar
with her condition is kind of just like what the
fuck is going on? Like I just kind of weird.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
Yeah, it kind of like, dude, I don't know what
y'all are into. I'm not here. But yeah, that I
started laughing whenever they did that. That was one of
the scenes I laughed at.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
I am also kind of curious to like, you know,
we talked about Jamie, but like the whole you know,
the big emotions of this film obviously come from the
uh Ila character played by Jody Komer here kind of
the relationship that her and Spike have, But there's a
there's a singular moment that just like didn't make sense

(56:13):
to me, And I don't know if it was like
a red herring, because like they kind of set her
up as like maybe maybe she's like got like Alzheimer's,
Like you know, she's in like the early stages of
like that kind of going on, where she's like she
has like the memory loss. And there's a scene like
where they camp out overnight in like a church and

(56:36):
she like just umbles and like destroys one of these
Japanese ghosts, vamp zombies and like, but doesn't remember it
and it's just never addressed at all, And I'm just
kind of.

Speaker 2 (56:50):
Like it it was addressed, I didn't addressed, yes, And
the reason why I know it was addressed because it's
something I actually went to. So I'm gonna light you.
So he when they were discussing the cancer, they said
they don't know if it started in the brain or
if it started in the brain and it was past size.

(57:11):
So what happens with the cancer because my wife actually
went through this. When it moves into the brain, she
started having seizures, so she started being to where she
could see us and everything but couldn't talk. So there
are things that the brain happens to the brain with
the cancer, for instance, there there could be moments to
where she's kind of like you said, Alzheimer's kind of

(57:35):
feel where other ones she's back to her normal self
and just kicks ass on the zombie. So that that
was mentioned in there, But if you're not familiar with that,
you don't realize that that little line can explain everything
of what was going on there.

Speaker 1 (57:50):
See it. This is the reason why why why a
podcast with you Billy to help help explain the medical
things that I don't know anything about. I was. I
lost my grandmother to cancer when I was ten, and
but I mean I was, I wasn't like the treatments.
I wasn't around for a lot of the the the
intense stuff.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
Yeah, pre going through all that, I wouldn't have been
able to tell you that. But the post going through
all that, and pretty much I think my kids picked
up on it too. It's one of them that may
be a throwaway line or a little line to some people,
that was a huge hint of what was happening. Yeah,
if you've seen it happen. And whenever he said, before

(58:33):
he even said it, when he said cancer, I'm like,
it's in her brain too. I already knew, and just
just by the way she was reacting, how she was acting,
what was happening. It's just that it affects it so much.
When it metastaized. For instance, my wife, it was in
her breast, in her bones, and in her brain. Those
were the big things I can remember. There was one more,

(58:54):
but those were the big ones, and the brain one
was the biggest one that got her. So once once
we started cancer treatment, it stopped it. It just it
proceeded really quickly at the end. So the fact that
she went out the way she did of her own terms,
I respect that. I can understand that.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
Well, I mean, you also got to consider that you
live in this world. There's not a lot of medicine.
I mean, like the fines character even says like, I
don't really have a lot of medicine, but like just
kind of gauging off of what I'm seeing, Yeah, I
will diagnose its cancer. So but like it is kind
of like also this like very ambiguous diagnosis, like you said,

(59:38):
like it's not you're not quite sure if it starts
in the brain or if it starts in the breast
and kind of moves in the you know, the opposite
spreads essentially, Yeah, either side. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:51):
And another key thing about the whole situation that Eric
said in one of the one of the other scenes
was the fact that Spikes, well, you can still go
back home. He's like, no, once you touch foot on
this island, you can't leave. So it's not like she
can go anywhere to get treatment because the island is

(01:00:11):
being monitored protected I guess for the rest of the
world and being cut off like that they don't allow
them to get the medical stuff that they would.

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
Yeah, that's uh, that's one of those things too that
I think was really fascinating to kind of see in this.
It really made it heartbreaking, Like it really kind of
made it heartbreaking to be like, man, imagine living so
far off the grid that you could not you could
not actually go and give yourself the you know, the

(01:00:49):
proper treatments that you need. You know, these are things
that we take literally for granted, you know, Like this
here has kind of taught me that, like we don't
take doctors for granted, we don't take nurses for granted,
you know, because I wouldn't have wife right now if
that was the case, like you know, and that's kind
of one of those things that you know, I couldn't

(01:01:13):
imagine living a life like that to where it's like,
I don't know, this is going to be a reality
outside of what I'm seeing right now.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
Yeah, I mean, and I'm on the flip side a
little bit just because the cancer thing. I know that
the medicine is a prolonged, not a cure for most
of it, so it could go into remission and come back,
which is what happened with our situation, but it's a prolonged.

(01:01:42):
They said you can have this many years or this
many years. So either way, the medicine didn't care anything.
It just gave more life, which is when we found
the diagnosis. Of course, our thoughts flipped of let's try
to do everything we can and everything. So that I'm
throwing that out there that some medicines aren't always a cure.

(01:02:05):
They're just the prolonged to keep you alive longer.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
And I kind of also, like really awesome paints the
Aaron Taylor Johnson character as more of an asshole, knowing
that like he cheats on his wife, like his sick wife,
like of all the things that, like, you know, you
could do, like and that's the choice you want to make.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
What really killed me is when she's when Spike finally
finds out and she tells him, She's like, well, they
kind of knew. Everybody in the village kind of knew,
but nobody told Spike. Yeah, that was heartbreaking. It's like,
I get hiding it to a certain degree, but at

(01:02:50):
his age, you're already counting him as an adult because
you want him to go out hunting and all that stuff,
but you can't treat him adult enough to tell him
what's happening to you.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
Yeah, And I mean also too, like you know, being
living in a world without doctors and without like the
proper medicine. I mean like it's already like terrifying enough
to like exist in that world and know that like
at any moment, like you could lose your mom, Like
you know that she's not this is not healthy, like

(01:03:20):
having that understandment. And then again, like I think that
the the idea and the concept that they were like
we're going to make this about a kid essentially trying
to get his mother help. I think it really works
as like this like emotional linchpin where really sets it
apart from the other two entries, what we've gotten into

(01:03:42):
the series where it's like when you look at the
first film, it's a group of survivors that are essentially
just trying to figure out what is going on and
how to kind of brave this like new world that
nobody prepared us for. And then you look at twenty
eight weeks later and it it kind of has those
mother notes. But I think this, I think it does

(01:04:04):
it really poorly because there's just a lot of we
talked about it last week. There's just a lot of
inconsistencies and just a lot of things that are just
done really poorly.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
Yeah, I mean. And the difference in the mother notes
in these two movies of twenty weeks later and this
one is the fact that in twenty weeks later that
she's already like partial zombie. Well, this one, this mom
isn't a zombie. It's a medical disease. She's going through that.

(01:04:40):
You're watching her sickness and watching herself for everything. We're
the zombies, you automatically know, okay, do they feel anything?
You don't know, But in this case, you know, oh,
she's going through this pain.

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
Which is kind of like wild because I think that
like when you watch like other zombie movies, you look
and you're like, all right, Like zombies are clearly the
worst thing that can happen. But like, thing that I've
really have come to, like I really love and respect
and really love about this this trilogy is that there
is still like you still feel the weight of grief,

(01:05:18):
you still feel the weight of other diseases, and you know,
trauma that is not necessarily outside of of the infected,
And so what happens is you have this, you have
this position that essentially kind of comes on it like

(01:05:39):
really grounds these but also allows them to kind of
feel really real and relatable emotions that you don't find
in other genre picks very often. I think, like the
closest one that I can think of that comes close
to this would be I Am Legend, you know, but
with this one, you feel the weight of grief, like

(01:05:59):
you feel like when he is handed the skull of
his mother at the end, Like I felt that, like
you know, you you really do feel that you kind
of really do feel like you know, the the beginning
scene where like, you know, I've kind of talked about
this off and on over the last couple of months,
but like you know, in the beginning, like when my

(01:06:21):
wife got sick, like it was kind of like, man, like,
how much of this is real? Like how much of
this is like an in her head? Like you know,
kind of like kind of almost felt like a burden
to you know, kind of do it that way, Like
I look back and I'm like, man, I hate the
fact that I felt those emotions and I felt that.
But the scene in the beginning where Aaron Taylor Johnson

(01:06:44):
is Jamie's making breakfast for everyone, and he's like enjoying
it with uh, with his son. And then like you
have like the you know, you have Jody Comer's character
like Ila basically like being like, hey, like you know,
I need help, Like you know, she's been making these

(01:07:06):
noise and you kind of see it in as a
voice like his, like his demeanor like just changes. And
that's kind of how it felt.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
Yeah, I mean, and I actually went through that so
sub consciously you could do it without even realize you're
doing it. I'm not saying that was his case, but
in general, if that becomes your normal life, sub cautiously,
you do it without thinking because you like become like
a robot of doing certain things of this is the

(01:07:35):
stuff I need to do, This is how I take
care of the family, This is what's best for them.
Whereas this is a normal life, this is what everybody
else is doing. Why why me? Kind of feels But yes,
I get I'm not giving them a pass. I'm just
saying it's it's one of them things.

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
Yeah, I mean too, Like I mean, burnout like is
very very common in that you know, like my grandmother
my dad's side, died from dementia and like she got
bounced around like different siblings. She would stay with them

(01:08:15):
for a few few months and until like the hosts
of my aunt or my uncle got burnt out. And
like my mom also kind of talked about like the
emotional like turmoil that like when she was taking care
of my grandmother, like what that had on like her

(01:08:35):
mental health, and like how real burnout was. So it's like, again,
you kind of just go through the motions and you
don't really realize you're doing it, like you're saying, but
like the after effect of that that is that like
you also got burnout. So it's also possible that we're
seeing Jamie at that burnout stage.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
Yeah, I mean, and again not making excuses for him,
but even at the burnout stage, it's like you start
noticing other things and other people and everything like that.
So there's no excuse for him going and cheating on
his wife. But at the same time, it could have
been subconscious from being burnt out of everything else being

(01:09:16):
feeling like I deserve more, why can't I have more?
Or something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
Well, I also felt like, you know, when I went
through it with Erica in January, like part of it
was like, man, like, I feel like I am. You know,
there was other contributing factors with work and you know,
victims and podcasting and stuff. It's kind of one of
those things. And it's like, man like, I feel like,
you know, I'm busting my ass and I'm doing like

(01:09:44):
all of these things, like you know that normally would
be split between my wife and I and now we're
now it's all on me, and so like, you know,
two became one and I'm just like, you know, I
just I feel like I deserve a break, Like I
didn't ask for any of this shit, Like I deserve

(01:10:05):
to have a night of happiness or to go out
with one of my friends, like you know, I deserve
to have that. And that was kind of one of
the biggest things like I struggled with when she was
in the hospital, where I was like, man like, I
was selfish, like incredibly selfish.

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
Yeah, that's normal, that's normal to feel like you're being
selfish and all. But you remember I told you let's go,
let's go somewhere. Let's yeah, And it wasn't me trying
to make anything selfish. It was me saying, dude, you
need to take a break mentally, you just got to
walk away, not walk away from the situation, but just
shut your brain down a few minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
Yeah, And I mean it's it's one of one of
those things that, like, you know, when you're in those
types of situations, it's also one of those realities that
you can't quite escape, you know, right. And you know,
I think of also not just about Jamie having you know,
this sick wife at the home, but also at the
same time being essentially a single father raising a son

(01:11:06):
that has kind of in this pivotal stage in his
life where he's transitioning into a man by this Island standards.
And then also at the same time, like you know,
being a contributing member of the society on top of
all of those demands, and then on top of that,

(01:11:26):
you know, also at the same time just kind of
needing to blow off just a little bit of steam.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
Yeah, exactly. And I mean I want to talk about
Spikes ar at the minute. The fact that we've been
talking about Jamie, I'm gonna take it from Spike's point
of view now. Sure, So, Spike coming of age, We've
already discussed that, like several times in this podcast. He's
scared and everything. At the beginning, even though he's confident,

(01:11:52):
he's scared. He gets out there, he gets his first zombie.
Then he he gets even worse because he wasn't expecting
to out or anything like that. He comes back to
this huge party and finds his dad with another woman.
That's when he kind of flips. It's like, we want
nothing to do with you, and his story goes to
trying to figure out what's going on with his mom.

(01:12:14):
So by the end of this, by the end of
this whole thing, it's Spike is trying to figure out
himself and forgiveness before he comes back to the colony
or whatever you.

Speaker 1 (01:12:23):
Want to call it, which is in and of itself
like something that's like very something that's very mature, right,
Like that's the concept that is like for a twelve
year old feels like this is these are things you
shouldn't be thinking about until maybe your late teen's early twenties,
let alone like twelve years old. So that like I

(01:12:44):
am I am in my early thirties and I am
still figuring out what that looks like and still figuring
out the identity portion, and you know, processing through grief
and processing through trauma of you know, things that I
thought that i'd let oh of my body is like,
actually he didn't, you know, And I think that's gonna

(01:13:06):
be a very long journey for his character. But again,
I love the fact that he realized, like for early
on that like being in this place is a is
a source of drama for me. I needed to be separated.
I need to figure out who I am post you know,

(01:13:27):
losing my mom and also working through a lot of
this anger that I have towards my dad.

Speaker 2 (01:13:33):
Yeah, and I mean I have a lot of respect
for him to realize that forgiveness is on his time
and not everybody else's. The fact that he's like, I'm
not ready to forgive you. Here, take care of this baby,
but I'm leaving. I gotta go find myself. The fact
that he set aside his own needs are he went

(01:13:54):
to his own needs to realize he's got to learn
who he is and what forgiveness looks like for him
before he can go back to Jamie and or anybody.

Speaker 1 (01:14:02):
Else, which is a massive like revelation, right, Like It's
it's one of those things that I feel like I,
even while into adulthood, still struggle with you know, there
are days where I still struggle to do something good
for myself. You know. One of the one of the
quotes that I always like live by is from Twin Peaks,

(01:14:25):
and it says, you know, shreat yourself once a day.
Don't plan for it, just just let it happen. Just
let it naturally happen for you. You know. It can
be big, it can be small. But that's again, that's
one of those things that I still like struggle with
because it's kind of like, am I actually worthy of this?

Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:14:43):
And that's the other thing when it comes to you know,
you brought up forgiveness. Forgiveness kind of being in his
own time. Is forgiveness is those subjects that like we
want right away, like you know, and there are some
types where like I'll do something to my wife and

(01:15:05):
you know, I will say I'm really sorry, can you
forgive me? And I will sometimes be met with the
response of are you going to change?

Speaker 2 (01:15:16):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:15:17):
And part of forgiveness is that it's not free. It
is something that needs to happen, and you know, it
takes place, and sometimes it takes years, you know, sometimes
it takes decades before you really kind of find peace
in that. And you could say I forgive you or
i'm you know, anything along those lines, like any variation thereof,

(01:15:40):
but it takes time for that to like actually like
register in your mind and your body and your soul.

Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
Yeah, And on the flip side of that, you can
say I'm sorry. You can continue to say I'm sorry.
But if you don't change the thing that you keep
apologizing for, are you really are because you're you're you're
repeating it over and over, not saying you, but in general,
you're repeating it over and over. You're not sorry. You're
just using the words to try to sugarcoat or try

(01:16:13):
to make things better for now. Whereas if you're not
open to changing the reason why you're sorry, of hey,
I shouldn't have done this, I don't want to ever
do that again, then you're not learning from your mistakes.

Speaker 1 (01:16:27):
Yeah, No, I I gree with your fool fool partly,
like it is a matter of the heart. Like I
think sometimes we do forgiveness because it's like the societal
norm thing that we're doing, but that other party is
left with the trauma of whatever that situation is or

(01:16:47):
the aftermath or whatever caused that uncomfortableness or that tension
and you know you kind of just saying I'm sorry,
like without being sincere. Like that person is still left
with a lot of that, a lot of the stabs
in the back for that, and that takes time.

Speaker 2 (01:17:09):
Man. Yeah, I mean, and I've seen people that, for
lack of better word, or narcissists that they, oh, my god,
this and this and this and this is the way
it should be. And then when they think that they're
gonna lose everything, they'll apologize and everything will be okay
for a little bit and then flip its back to
where it was and then it happens again. And it's

(01:17:29):
a cycle. And there's a lot of people that go
through that cycle and never break the chain because the
second person is saying, maybe I deserve this, maybe this
is what I what I'm here for, or maybe I've
done something that causes this. In all actuality, a lot
of times it's not that way. It's just that the
other person's not learning from their mistakes.

Speaker 1 (01:17:51):
Yeah, And it becomes that like that notion of are
you sorry for what you did? Or sorry that you
got caught and you got yeah on your shit.

Speaker 2 (01:18:01):
Exactly exactly, And most of the time. A lot of
people is I hate to say a lot of people,
but a bunch is because they got caught. Yeah, they
don't have no remorse, they just got caught.

Speaker 1 (01:18:14):
Hard facts. Well, I think that I am satisfied with
our our overall coverage of these movies, this one especially,
So is there anything else that you think we should
we should talk about cover bring up?

Speaker 2 (01:18:31):
No, I'm just waiting for the next one to be honest,
to see where they go with it.

Speaker 1 (01:18:34):
All right, So there is no current release date for
part three or what part three is going to be on,
But twenty eight years later, The Bone Temple was going
to be directed by Nia da Costa of Candy Man
twenty twenty one Fame the Marvels, and she's got one
other movie that is like I'm drawing a blank on
right now. But Candy Man and her first film are

(01:18:57):
super pictures. They're rat movies. Go check them out if
you haven't seen him yet. However, the other thing that
I will say with this one is, once again, go
check out our episodes on twenty eight weeks later, in
twenty eight days later, twenty eight day years later, The
Bone Temple will be coming out January sixteenth, twenty twenty six,

(01:19:21):
which means our episode on it will be out January
twenty first. I think if I'm doing math correct in
my head, if you're mathing, yes, January twenty first. Yes,
So make sure that you guys hit the subscribe button

(01:19:42):
below and give us a follow so that way you
guys don't miss a spooky moment here to biscaysy but Billy,
where can people find you in life?

Speaker 2 (01:19:50):
Everybody can find me at Letterbox at Via Boy ninety nine.

Speaker 1 (01:19:55):
Aren't you fancy? You could also find me at Letterbox
Captain Nostalgia. Yeah, God, it'll be over at Captain Nostalgia.
You guys can follow abys Gazing. We dropped new episodes
every Wednesday at six pm Eastern Standard Time. We will
be back next week with a documentary on black metal

(01:20:15):
called Until the Light Takes Us. Mark will be back
for that. You also kind of get to get here
our new co host, temporary co host until then, He'll
be filling in from time to time with Mark's transitioning
period right now kind of focusing on those mental health
but until next time, remember the longer that you gaze

(01:20:37):
into the abyss, the more the Abyss gazes back into you,

All Episodes

28 Years Later (2025) | Episode #155

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

Crime Junkie

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}28 Years Later (2025) | Episode #155