DAY OF THE DEAD

Episode Transcript
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(00:22):
I proclaim this the summer of George.
Hey there everyone, and welcome to the Pod and The Pendulum, the

(00:45):
show that covers all the horror franchises one movie and one
episode at a time. As always, I'm your host, Mike's
Noonan. And this week, The Summer of
George hits the midpoint both onthe calendar when this comes out
and also with the films we're covering with 1985's A Day of
the Dead. So it gets awfully lonely here

(01:05):
in the underground bunker. And I have my very own Doctor
Frankenstein in the Co host chair from Bloody Disgusting and
Manor Vellum as long as as well as the soon to be released
podcast Holy Terrors, Mr. Brian Kuiper.
Brian, welcome back again. Yeah.
I wish I had some sort of witty Frankenstein ISM to throw your

(01:26):
way, you know, but I I was not prepared clearly for that.
That's OK, I think the theme just threw you off.
I thank me Messing. That was amazing.
That's. Why, If we're not here to amuse
ourselves, then what are we not?What are we here for?
Yeah, So there we go. I love, I'm glad.

(01:48):
I'm glad I'm able to be here for, you know, all of the
original trilogy. I didn't expect that.
And so this is great. I don't know, and we're probably
going to try to rope you in for more.
I will say my copy of Diary of the Dead on Blu-ray arrived
today. And then it was a sad mail day.
I did get my Land of the Dead Blu-ray so.

(02:10):
There you go. I'm ready to go for that next
week. There you go, joining us for the
first time today, formerly of Ghouls Magazine, all the way
from the United Kingdom. Welcome fellow film Blogger, an
all around zombie fiend, this Sarah Miles.
Sarah, how are we? I am doing great.
I'm so happy to be here and I'm running this monkey farm now,

(02:33):
Frankenstein. Excellent.
Accents Become a military operation?
Fantastic. Oh boy.
Well, before we get into the movie itself, we're going to do
a very brief bit of housekeeping.
If you're new to the show, this is one of the first episodes
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(02:55):
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(03:16):
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Living Dead with one of our listeners, Brent, saying, hey, I
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because of your episode and was glad to do so, which I love.
I want everybody to watch The Battery.
Yeah. So.
It's. Awesome.
Oh, it's just so good. Also go to our site.

(03:39):
I'm long enough to rewatch the battery to be fair.
It's a yearly rewatch for me if not.
Oh yes, I remember from the Night Night podcast.
Yeah, I just love we, we screened it in Boston a couple
times and it's probably my favorite indie horror movie of
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(04:01):
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(04:22):
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today. And that's it for housekeeping.
We're going to dive right in. So Sarah, you are a first time

(04:43):
guest for us. You're new to the series.
Come highly recommended from Arielle.
So no pressure whatsoever. Arielle is an absolute
sweetheart. She is the best, like pretty
much. If she suggests something I
trust her implicitly and I'm like great, we'll do it,
whatever. She haven't steered me wrong
yet. She is fantastic.
Well, she didn't have you watch Wrong Turn 5.

(05:05):
Sorry OK, we all he does love. Her trash and I see that with
utmost affection. She loves her trash.
She does. We did get we did get wrong turn
6 out of that though, which was like the a surprise hidden gem.
So through the trash we find thetreasures.

(05:27):
But Sarah, what is your relationship with like zombie
movies in general and the Romerofilms in particular?
I mean, it's always kind of beenan interesting one because when
I was a kid, I was just terrified by the concept of
zombies. So I don't know if it was, it
was like the, you know, living corpse aspect.

(05:50):
If it was like your friends and family, like, like turning on
you, that freaked me out. If it was like the fact that,
you know, one bite and you're just absolutely done for, like
it always just did something about it just always really
freaked me out. And when I was a teenager, a lot
of the time I would in my local borders, I'd, you know, stand

(06:12):
there as as and go through the zombie survival guide.
And so I'd read bits of that, get freaked out, put it back,
walk away until the next. Time I Was that the Max Brooks
book? Yes, yes, the Max Brooks book.
My first proper zombie movie that I ever watched was Shaun of
the Dead, which is an interesting entry point into the

(06:38):
sub genre for sure, and it's onethat since then I have grown to
appreciate on whole other levelsnow that I actually know the
stuff they're referencing. Oh but no.
So hilariously, because I watch Shawn first, I always associated
the music, the gonk with Shawn of the Dead before.

(06:58):
So, so for years I knew I, I thought, I thought fit as, oh,
it's the Shawn of the Dead music.
And then I saw Dawn. I was like, OK, but yeah.
And then I finally worked up thecourage to watch Night in Dawn
when I was at university. And it's really just kind of
like ever since I'm just always chasing a great zombie.

(07:21):
Watch my like my favorite of Romero's films.
I've there's only one that I haven't seen, which is survival,
but I have recently acquired it.So going to finally finish that.
But my favorite is Dawn. I I've seen it so many times.

(07:41):
It might rival John Carpenter's The Thing for my favorite movie
full stop. And one of my most treasured
possessions is my DVD of Dawn, which is signed by both George
Romero and Tom Savini. Wow.
Wow. Oh, yes, it was.

(08:02):
Romero was doing a talk at the British Film Institute.
And yeah, so. So I went to that and I was
actually sitting down the road from Daria Argento just to pile
on the craziness of that. But, and yeah, I got this signed
and even though I do have the nice and fancy Second Sight

(08:25):
Blu-ray, I am never getting rid of this thing.
Something tells me Argento, and I have no evidence of this,
would be less approachable than Romero and Savini.
There's like an intensity to himthat I'm like, I don't know if
I'd go up to Argento. Yeah.
No, I can believe that. It was much kind of like a case
of afterwards I was like, wait asecond, that was.

(08:48):
Yeah, I've, I've heard stories of like Tom Savini, where people
would call his house, like fans would call his house and his
daughter would just put him on the phone and Savini would just
talk to that person about all the movies he's done.
Like not necessarily the makeup,but ones he's appeared on camera

(09:09):
on like which is really adorable, which.
I kind of loved and I think he might have been a bit jet
lagged. Yeah.
But. That I've heard a lot.
Great. I don't think, I don't think
conventions are his thing because anyone who's ever had a
bad experience with him mentioned it's been at a

(09:31):
convention. So whereas like most of the time
he comes off as pretty jovial, there might be something about
that atmosphere. Like, I've definitely heard
that. I actually met Romero before
Survival of the Dead. He was screening it at a little
theater in Boston. And I just happened to be like
going in when he was out there with like, the programmers and

(09:54):
got to chat for like a brief minute.
And I remember he introduced thefilm and he's like, it's OK to
laugh at this one. Like, it's supposed to be kind
of funny. So please, like, go ahead and
laugh. Which I don't know if that was
true or not so much as he read the reaction of it and it was
like, I'm going to lean into it.Sarah, what do you think goes

(10:15):
into like a good? Because like you said, you're
always chasing a good zombie fix.
And there's a lot of zombie movies and I would say they're a
varying quality. It's a pretty wide spectrum.
What do you think goes into likea solid zombie watch?
What do you look for? I think it's kind of it is the

(10:35):
balance between just kind of, I think it's the balance of the
zombie mayhem and saying something in a way.
So like, I mean, Romero's films very much about the social
commentary and it's definitely not required, I think, but it

(10:57):
definitely helps elevate a a zombie movie if if it is also
got if it is also saying something like, say, for
example, trained to be Sun, you know that that says a lot about
family, about community, about just caring about each other,

(11:18):
which I think really works. Or another one.
I love one cut of the dead Japanese movie that has a lot
about the creative process to it.
So even it doesn't even need to be saying something about
society, just as long as it's ithas something to it.
And I mean, one of the things I'm always like, I'm always

(11:39):
looking for a film that does something different.
You know, that doesn't isn't just like group of survivors.
Oh no, humans are the real danger kind of that we've seen
so many times before. It's why just after a while, I
just got kind of fed up of The Walking Dead.
That seems to be the most commonthrough line in any zombie film.
At the end of the day, people end up being more monstrous than

(12:02):
the monster. Yeah.
So I really like ones that that maybe start from a slightly
different point or have it like,I really like this one called
The Night Eats the World, which is set in Paris and it's very
much about one person. It's about this one guy's
survival and isolation, which became very important.

(12:25):
Kind of like like during COVID, this came out, I think I want to
say it came out yeah, 2018. But it really kind of likes like
had a had a real kick to it during COVID, like the isolation
and everything. Or I oh, are you guys familiar
with Savage Land? I don't think I've.
Seen it? Oh, I highly recommend that

(12:49):
because it's not exactly subtle in what it's saying, but it is
very much a movie. Despite I think being made
slightly before a certain personwas elected.
It is very prevalent to a lot offeelings about immigration and

(13:14):
sort of the narratives that people build about immigrants.
It's it's really, it's really hard to talk about this one
about giving too much away aboutit.
But I absolutely love that film.And then again, you know,
sometimes just a bit of mayhem is is is good fun.
Like, I mean, oh, I actually really like Pride and Prejudice

(13:37):
and Zombies. Oh wow.
OK. It's it's a daft movie, but it's
a fun movie kind of thing. But yeah, so I guess I've really
not answered the question. No, I think we've gotten some
new recommends there for sure. Where do you stand on?
I have a. Running list on my letter boxed

(13:57):
of of zombie films I have watched, and I mean in my top
ten, you've got like The Girl with the Gifts, Anna and the
Apocalypse. Watch that a.
Great one. One cut dead new entry 28 years
later. I know like the years the 28
films infected zombies. Let's call the whole thing off.

(14:22):
So then Shawn Knight Wreck trained to be Sun 28 Days and
then Dawn of the Dead. So that was my my question was
going to be where you stand on the shambling zombies versus
like a running zombie? I think like I think running
zombies can work and I mean the in particular the infected in 28

(14:46):
Days and Trained to be done. Actually it very much works
those because it brings an intensity to it.
But I think slow zombies and they're being kind of a constant
inevitable threat of The WalkingDead.

(15:06):
I think that is the more rich area for storytelling kind of
thing. And I'm interested, we'll get
your thoughts on DAY as we go through here.
But I noticed that as you talkedabout the original Romero
trilogy, like that was left out on the films you were high on.
So this should be a fun conversation.

(15:27):
It's it's kind of a case of it'sonly bottom of the ranking
purely by virtue of the fact that night is night and dawn is
dawn. I mean, I can't recall when I
first saw day. I just, I didn't connect to it
in the same way that I did with night and dawn.
And but it is one that when I revisit it, I am like, OK, I

(15:51):
mean, I see it like this, this and this kind of going on.
And I mean, I'm there. There are definitely things in
it that I do really like. Yeah, excellent.
Brian, how about yourself? Well, unlike Night of Living
Dead and Dawn of the Dead, I remember specifically watching
this movie for the first time with a friend of mine who had

(16:15):
kind of guided me back to horror, which I am forever
grateful to him for, and we sat down with this one.
I, I can't remember if he had seen it before or not, but it's,
I remember kind of comparing it to Dawn because I love Dawn,

(16:35):
but, and it was such, it's, it'sso different from Dawn that it's
like, it's not much fun. You know, it's, it's really
dark, it's very gory and I don'tknow, I, I was really prone to
nightmares at that time. And so the, the gut spilling out

(16:57):
of the people in the two instances that it happens in
this movie, specifically when, you know, the zombie that's
laying on the, on the Gurney gets up and his actual
intestines flop out. And then she has the dream of
that happening to, you know, oneof the other characters later.
That really got to me. I, I can't really explain why

(17:22):
exactly, but that really disturbed me.
And I think the, the gore in this was like nothing I had ever
seen before, right? That was part of the reason for
that. And I saw this, you know,
probably for the first time. I, my guess is right around 1999
because this guy and I were pretty close friends right
around. I remember seeing the Matrix and

(17:43):
the Mummy and stuff with him. So that which would have been
99-SO992000, we were watching this in the Blair Witch Project
and all sorts of things like that.
So because of that sort of I guess let down as far as the fun
and the just the romp that is the Dawn of the Dead.

(18:06):
This one took a long time for meto really appreciate and because
I was sort of heavily disturbed by it at first, but it was also
funny because, you know, this friend of mine, he would just
come out and say, but you know, I don't know, something about
the way he said Bob was just hilarious.
And I, I, I can't explain why, but he just, he loved Bob and he

(18:29):
liked to sort of mess around with that stuff.
And so I like this movie a lot. Now I don't love it as much as I
do the other two in particular. I I haven't seen land diary or
survival in so long. I can't really comment on them

(18:49):
at this point, but we'll see. Maybe I'll end up, you know,
running the whole series. We'll we'll just have to see
what what goes down. But it, it's just just like you
said, Sarah, it's because night is night and dawn is dawn,
because it's, it's those night is such a revolutionary film.

(19:14):
And it I, when I saw it, I had, you know, again, I had seen, I
had been used to a certain type of film, certain type of horror
film, you know, even some of theslashers and, you know, Stephen
King adaptations that I was seeing before that time.
And then of course, I was very, you know, immersed in things
like the Universal monsters. And so to see that, to see a

(19:37):
black and white film like the Universal monsters are and then
see that in that context was just, it was shocking to me, you
know, So that was that had a huge impact.
And then Dawn, as I talked aboutin last in the last episode,

(19:58):
yes, it disturbed me, but it also it's it's a hoot.
It's so much fun for so much of it.
And so this was. A tougher nut to crack, if you
will. It was just like, there's a lot
it's the others obviously have social commentary in them, but

(20:19):
this one is sort of about the social commentary.
It it's less about the the living dead outside your door.
It's more about the interactionsbetween the human characters
even more than the others in my opinion.
No. And Romero's not a subtle

(20:40):
filmmaker by any stretch, but I would say this is the first
time, like that social commentary, it feels like a
cudgel, like it's really that point is being driven home very
explicitly with what you're seeing on screen.
And I think this one provides like a really fascinating

(21:02):
insight into Romero's view on humanity, which we'll get to for
me, I have no idea. The first time I watched this
all the way through. I do have very distinct memories
of going like there was a littleclub in Providence when I was in
college. So this would have been mid 90s,

(21:24):
like 939495 where I'd go to shows like probably once or
twice a week club baby head. And they put on like like before
Green Day signed to a major label, they played there, Rancid
played there, Helmet played there like so a lot of like
alternative and punk bands played there.

(21:44):
And they had all these horror clips that would always play.
And Day of the Dead was on constant rotation, especially
the last like 15 minutes of thatmovie.
They had tons of clips. So I had seen like Bub, I had
seen like Rhodes Death like all out of context before seeing
this film. And I would say that in

(22:08):
preparation for this I ordered like the scream factory Blue
which is fantastic. Re watching it for the first
time in a long time. I remember, like messaging the
slack being like, this is a slogabout an hour in, being like
this is this is tough to get through.
And then the last 30 to 35 minutes hit and it's some of

(22:31):
like the tightest, most cohesivework Romero does in any of his
movies. Like that last act is just, it's
brilliant. It's just hard to ignore.
It is, yeah. And I rewatch it probably about
two or three more times getting ready for this show and really
enjoyed it both all all every time I watched it, like found

(22:53):
myself that this might be the one I pull off the shelf first.
Now this or maybe night like I really grew on me.
Part of it is just like the special effects work in this
film are absolutely insane. Maybe outside of the thing,
maybe the best special effects in any horror movie ever.

(23:17):
Not even a zombie movie, but a horror film.
I mean, it's really some of sorry.
I do think this might be some ofTom Zavini's best work, full
stop. Oh I agree, I think this is I
save this. For the notes, the best yeah, in
my opinion. It's, it's his Beethoven's
knife. Like if you ever look at like
his true masterpiece, like it's that, it's just tremendous.

(23:39):
Like this is him operating. On his opening movement.
Oh my God. And then you have like up and
coming like Greg Nicotero kind of just working under him at
that time. Like the two of them working
together is just insane. To me.
It's the best made film of the series.

(24:00):
I would say that Romero as a director, like it's a lot
tighter. Like we talked to like my
complaint with Don and granted some of it is the cut, whatever
cut you're watching, but even like Romero's official two hour
and 7 minute theatrical cut, there is just a lot of that to
me that feels too repetitive. Like the scenes of like Peter

(24:23):
and Roger running up and down inone department store, Like that
just goes on for so long that I almost lose interest.
Like the first 30 minutes are brilliant.
It's almost the reverse of this movie where like I'm completely
sucked in by Don's opening act and then as soon as they get to
the mall I start to like my interest fades.

(24:44):
Where it's kind of the opposite here.
It's the last act that pulls me in.
I think it's the best. So to me it's like Romero's like
best work as a director is well,outside of maybe Creepshow,
which I adore that movie. My favorite Romero film, full
stop. It's unrelenting.
It's just devoid of any humor, which is usually not my thing.

(25:07):
I think it's also the best zombies I've ever looked in any
medium period. Like this is just when you think
of like your classic horror movie zombie.
It's not Dawn of the Deads like blue and grey tinted ones that
come to mind. It is the work that Savini and
Nicotero and crew do here, so should be fascinating.

(25:31):
It it's yeah, I mean, I mean absolutely.
Like the effects here is like I have a lot of affection for
those blue grey zombies and I mean a few particular ones in
that I think are very iconic. But no, in terms of the craft
here, it's just phenomenal. And I mean, you mentioned guts
falling out Zombie. I love that scene.

(25:52):
Oh, I do now. I mean, it would at the time
when I first saw it, it was justlike, I don't know if it was
sensitive stomach thinking aboutthe smell that those things were
making. I don't know.
But it really just made me what a Wretch when I first saw it.
But now I think that that's really cool.
I can't wait to talk about the guts in a little bit because I

(26:12):
know they really did make peopleWretch.
So let's go into the background of this movie a little bit
before we kind of dive into the themes here.
After the success of Dawn, its domestic distributor, United
Film Distribution Company, they want to be in the Romero

(26:32):
business. And they signed George Romero to
a three film deal with the stipulation that one of those
pictures has to be a sequel to Dawn of the Dead, which as we
talked about last time on like aminuscule budget, grosses like
60 something, $1,000,000 worldwide.
And in today's money that would be over $300 million.

(26:54):
So you have like a a blockbusterfilm and Romero decides he
doesn't want to return to the world of Dawn right away.
He says in some of the interviews and documentaries
that it came to him as he was making Dawn of the Dead.
That had been a decade since Night had come out.
What if every 10 years we returnto this series and just see

(27:19):
where the world is at right now?So he didn't want to just go
right away and make a sequel to To Don.
He wanted to wait a little bit, see what shook out.
And he makes 2 films before working on Day in Earnest, the
fantasy film Knight Riders and the horror anthology Creepshow.

(27:41):
And I'm going to lean on Sarah and Brian for a minute because I
know nothing about Knight Ridersexcept that Ed Harris stars in
it. And it's about like a what?
Sounds like It's about like a King Richard's fair troupe that
are going around on motorcycles.And I don't know why I haven't
watched this, but what is the deal with it?

(28:02):
I mean, that is kind of it. It is just like a travelling
group of people who do medieval jousting on motorcycles.
I've never seen it all the way through.
I've just seen a lot of clips ofit.
But yeah, that is basically it. And then I think they get into
some trouble with the local law and it all goes a bit wonky from

(28:26):
there. Yeah, I've seen about the 1st 30
minutes of it. And then I'm just like, I, I
don't know what's happening. And I have one of these days I'm
going to really sit down. I'm going to give this one a go
because it's kind of fascinatingand it's one of his.

(28:49):
It was one of his personal favorite movies that he made.
So it was sort of this passion project.
I mean, post Dawn of the Dead, you have your biker gang.
Then all of a sudden, you know, you have Tom Savini and Ed
Harris playing, you know, jousters in this world as if
they were the biker gang from Dawn of the Dead placed into

(29:16):
this. I mean, it's a modern world
'cause they're on motorcycles, but it's almost like it's
medieval world at the same time it's it's.
Yeah, it's like they're. It's odd.
It's the modern world, but they're living to like this
weird medieval. It's essentially like if if you
decide to just live your life ina Renaissance fair.

(29:36):
Which fair, Yeah. Which, who wouldn't want to do
that? Giant Turkey legs just sounds
like archery and axe throwing. How does it tie into the David
Hasselhoff show Knight Rider Rider at all?
Unfortunately, no, there's no talking Trans Am in this movie

(29:58):
at all. Well, that might be why it
flopped. The kids were hungry for talking
cars. And his next film is a bit more
successful. Although, as we kind of talk
about in our Dawn episode, I have always worked under the
assumption that Creepshow was a massive hit in theaters and it

(30:19):
does OK. Like it makes 30 million, but
it's not a giant hit. I think like Brian, you
mentioned, like it's really whenit hits video cassette when it
comes out on VHS that it does huge.
Well, and Warner Brothers distributed that that movie.
So they picked it up in, in negative pickup, as I

(30:39):
understand. And so they've always done a
pretty good job taking care of their stuff when it comes, when
it's out of theaters, when it goes to video in various
formats. So I I appreciate that about
that studio and Creepshow. I distinctly remember that, you

(31:00):
know, that poster was just on the cover, that giant video box.
And it was like, I don't know what that is, but I'm freaked
out and I really want to see what's in that movie.
And so that that was one of the things that I think was really
compelling about. I think people saw that and

(31:21):
said, oh, I want to see whateverthat is.
It's my favorite horror anthology of all time.
Like, I love that movie so much.Matter of fact, maybe I'll just
throw it on tonight, get in the just to get in the spirit.
You could watch. You could make much, much worse
decisions with your life than watching preach.
Trust. Me.

(31:41):
Speaking of video cassettes, a quick a quick aside.
Like a couple weeks ago, I took my daughter.
There's like a little shop 5 minutes from here that like,
they sell records and use moviesand use video games and
electronics and they have like, a great vinyl selection.
And my daughter's like, I didn'tknow they sell books here.

(32:04):
And we're standing in front of this like, cabinet that's filled
with video cassettes. And I'm like, what?
They don't sell books here. She's like, well, what are
those? And I'm like, honey, those are
VHS tapes. She had never seen AVHS tape and
I. Actually, those ones that come
in those big, you know, yeah, the, the clamshell ones.

(32:25):
So I took what out and showed her I'm like, back in the day,
this is what we watched movies on like this and we'd have to
rewind it. And it was on tape and they got
chewed up and she was horrified.She was like, what a bunch of
Luddites? Like, what do you mean you had
to rewind it to watch it from the beginning?

(32:45):
You had to wait for it. She it blew her little mind that
that look at this. What do you got, Creature of the
Black Brian? Always with stuff and just pull
out. This is the very first video
tape I ever bought with my own money.
It's a Creature from the Black Lagoon and I well, my parents
found it in their attic and it'slike this off brand version of

(33:09):
it Hollywood movie greats that Ibought at this cheapo department
store and it's like, you know, SLP, you know, recorded so it so
it could fit on, you know, as much of as possible.
So anyway, but. There's sentimental.
Films that have to be put. On two tapes.

(33:29):
Exactly. Well, the good old days.
I wonder how many people that last story resonates with.
Like what's A and I think like VHS is having a little bit of a
comeback like I've. Seen.
Some like retro tinged movies like released on video cassette.

(33:51):
I personally don't understand that.
Like I don't know VHS was not a great format.
Just give me, just give me. Just give me better Blu-ray,
some 4K movies that's. All there were there were a
couple of like I think the didn't WNUF Halloween special
get released on VHS? That kind of makes sense.

(34:14):
Yeah. Not.
Only did they release it on VHS?They would throw sacks of them
out at conventions, like dump them out on the floor and just
walk away. Like, what are these hidden?
Like just to market it. Yeah.
I don't have to get one of. Those All right, moving on here.

(34:34):
Sorry about that. Just that's just what we do.
So Romero begins working on Day of the Dead and the original
concept is much larger in scope,but United insists, like, we're
not going to release this movie unrated like we did with Dawn.
You need to give us an R rating if we're going to give you the

(34:54):
promise budget, which was originally $7,000,000 Romero
box. Romero is like, I don't really
want to cut the tone of this movie and I don't want to cut
the material. So no, I, I don't care if you
release it. And he tries to hack away at his
script, like his original script, Savini says, was like

(35:16):
phone book thick. Think it was somewhere around
345 pages. And if you know how movies are
shot, like one page of script tends to be one minute of movie.
So you have essentially a trilogy of films.
He cuts it back when the when they're saying we're not going
to give you the whole budget if you're going to release an
unrelated unrated and it's like 245 pages, which is still way

(35:43):
too much. And then he cuts that in about
half and eventually comes in around 90 pages.
But he realizes like what he wanted to do was going to have
to be shelled. Like there's no way he could do
the size and the scope. There was a lot more outdoor
scenes, Savini says. Like in pre production for that

(36:03):
film, he was trying to secure like 10 by 10 panels of
plexiglass to protect cast and crew from explosions.
Like this is the kind of film that they're doing.
I just picture in Rushmore like Max's play at the end of the
film when he's like telling everybody to put on like the

(36:24):
safety glasses, like that's whatRomero was going for.
Savini in a documentary describes it as Raiders of the
Lost Ark or Ben Hur, but with zombies.
And Romero calls it like his Gone with the Wind of zombie
movies, which it's a choice. It's something that would be

(36:44):
fascinating to watch. And a lot of those ideas like do
get transplanted to Land of the Dead, this idea of this walled
off city where there's like the have and have nots.
Like he eventually sort of gets to make that movie in 2005 with
Land of the Dead. So.
Yeah, I know he also on that Screen Factory documentary was

(37:08):
saying that in essence, he got down to what he wanted to make
though. So he he was able to boil it
down to something that could be confined and be made on a low
budget, you know. So we'll give you, if you want
to release it unrated, unrated, we'll give you $3,000,000.
Yep. OK.
You know, and so, and so he's like, you know, I still made the

(37:30):
movie I want. I the, the, what I wanted to say
is all there. And so I, I think that's, and
According to him, you know, the Day of the Dead is his favorite.
Yes, he says that because this is his favorite and he came to
appreciate that. You know, over time it got

(37:51):
reappraised, much like the thingin other horror movies that
didn't hit, and it's release like this would come to be
reappraised. As we'll talk about, the only
note Romero gets back from United when he's showing them
the dailies is there's too much swearing.
You have to cut the language back.
There's too many naughty words and Romero's like fuck you, I

(38:16):
have final cut and I have final say because you gave me half the
money I asked for and that was part of our deal.
So we are going to curse as muchas we fucking want in this
movie. So good for George by Keys.
And I definitely want to talk about like, it's, it's pretty
ballsy for him time and time again when he has an opportunity

(38:38):
to make something like bigger, he takes a step back.
And it's like, not if I have to compromise.
And there are very few people that will do that.
Like Diary of the Dead comes about because although Land of
the Dead is a pretty sizable hit, like my understanding is it
makes more money in theaters than 28 Days Later does.

(39:00):
And it's his biggest hit and he has a chance to go larger in
scope. He has such a miserable
experience making that film thathe's like, I want to scale it
all the way back so no one can tell me what to do.
And that is Romero to its he like that is just who he was as
an artist and a filmmaker. And you know, the punk rock kid

(39:22):
in me has nothing but respect for that.
Oh 100% like, I mean even even kind of like even with ones like
Diary and it's like, oh boy, does that film have issues.
But you can never say that Romero compromises himself.
No. Like.

(39:42):
He. He does what he his vision is
and he finds a way to do that, even if it means scaling it
back. But he will always do what he
wants to do. Yeah, with Romero, unlike, you
know, like Craven, I, every Craven movie that I watch, with
only a few exceptions, I get so frustrated because it's like,

(40:06):
oh, you, it's, it's so close to being just this just, you know,
and I, I love Craven and, and somuch of his movies, you know,
just comes so close to being. Practically perfect.
And then there was some interference from the studio
that said, hey, you have to do this.

(40:28):
And he said, OK, you know, because then I get to at least
release my movie. And with Romero, you don't have
very much of the unrated versionon video, for example, or the
director's cut this, you know, you don't have that, a lot of

(40:50):
that like you do with some otherfilm makers who were sort of
forced into a corner so often. We made some analogies with Toby
Hooper when we talked about Night of the Living Dead and
mostly because like Night of theLiving Dead in Texas Chainsaw
Massacre, we feel are the 2 movies that really kick start

(41:13):
modern horror movies in their impact.
I you'd argue they're still feltto this day.
Like we haven't really moved offof that to me in a lot of ways,
like John Carpenter is the real like 1 to one parallel, like
their careers parallel in some ways.
And that both of them, like Romero with Night of the Living

(41:34):
Dead, Carpenter with Halloween, they come out of the gate with
these movies that completely change the game for horror and
create like their own sub genre.And I know Halloween is not
technically the first slasher movie, but it is the one that
all of these movies that come out in Halloween's wake follow

(41:57):
Carpenter's template and they'renever quite able.
Like you have Dawn of the Dead is is Romero's creative peak,
but Romero and Carpenter both never quite hit that peak again
that they do in terms of commercial success.
Like once Dawn comes out, it's really not until Land of the

(42:18):
Dead like 20 something years later that he comes close to the
same level of commercial success.
And a lot of their work ends up being reappraised later on.
Like the thing was savaged both by critics and it was ignored by
audiences when it came out. Same thing with Day of the Dead.

(42:40):
Like, this one is savaged by critics and the audiences are
like, after, really want the tone of Dawn again.
But both Carpenter and Romero are like, we just want to make
the movies we want to make. And every now and then we'll
take like, the studio job. But we don't want to compromise,
or we want to compromise as little as possible.

(43:03):
Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's, it's clear.
And you know, I think if anything, if, if there's Romero
and and Carpenter parallel and then like Hooper and Craven
parallel in certain ways too, it's just, yeah, it's a it's a
tough business out there. Yeah, as they say.
Tough business, even for the masters of horror.

(43:25):
Yeah. I mean, we just think like, we
look at these guys and we think they must be making money hand
over fist and everyone is like dying to work with them.
And even, I mean, even like Martin Scorsese, he has to go
hat in hand to streamers like Netflix and then Apple because
no one wants to make his movies and he's like the greatest

(43:46):
living filmmaker that we have. It's just or.
To bring it or to bring it to the horror genre again, What
about Cronenberg? I mean he is crimes of the
future and the shrouds were are extraordinarily low budget
movies. I mean, if they, but they're
they're his vision. You can give him that, but he's

(44:08):
not getting Mel Brooks money anymore to make the fly.
So, well, Day is going to mark the end of an era in a lot of
ways for George Romero. In some ways, it's the last
truly independent feature that he's going to make for over 2
decades after this. He's going to leave Pittsburgh
behind like a you'll see in manyof his movies.

(44:30):
It's a very similar cast, very similar crew.
Laurie Cardell talked like abouthow there's a tight knit artist
community in Pittsburgh. They tend to look out for one
another. Romero Romero consider this like
his filmmaking family. But his relationship with Laurel
Entertainment is going to end shortly after Day of the Dead,

(44:53):
in part because Laurel wanted tofocus more on television work
and Romero wanted to can focus on making feature films.
Romero had a hand in conceptualizing and creating the
Tales from the Dark Side television show.
His relationship with his director of photography Michael

(45:16):
Gornick suffers tremendously cause Gornick wanted to work on
Tales from the Dark Side the TV show and Romero pulls him in to
be his DOP on Day of the Dead and they have a falling out
because of this. He continues to work with cast
and crew he's familiar with likeJohn Harrison who pulls double

(45:38):
duty here, John Amplus, Joe Pilato, Tom Savini, Richard
Liberty and also gentleman who played.
Miguel whose name is escaping meat the moment because I'm an
idiot. Where is it?
Anthony? Gentleman who played Miguel

(46:01):
Anthony Deleo Junior, was also like a good friend of Romero's
from Pittsburgh that he asked toplay this role.
So in a lot of ways, it's kind of like the last time the band
all gets together to make these movies.

(46:23):
So filming at the time, Romero lived like part of the year in
Fort Myers or in Florida. So that's kind of why Fort Myers
was chosen. Also, the original concept,
there was a lot more of a Caribbean island feel, which is
why John Harrison's score has some of that.
Those overtones, they just kept them in.

(46:46):
Man, one of the things that holds me back on this movie, I
gotta admit, is the score I I don't love.
It I think the main theme is great.
I think the main theme is very good.
As with all of them, there's aspects that I like, but overall
it's just kind of like gay and controversial statement.

(47:10):
I'm not a huge synth score guy and I know and I know that
people love them and I just findmyself going, oh man, I wish
they could have afforded even a small ensemble.
They could not. To do this.
And no, they could not. You're right.
They were literally cutting the film, putting it on a video

(47:33):
cassette, like scene by scene for Harrison.
And like they all worked in the same office building.
They would run it down to his office and just throw the video
cassette in the room and be like, all right, what can you
come up with? So like they were just scene by
scene giving him VHS tapes for him to cut this too.
So they do film part of this in Fort Myers and the city was like

(47:58):
very accommodating to them. They did allow them to close
down that street, although some of it is a matte painting as
well, some of the backdrops. But they do get to close down
part of the seat street. They bring in an alligator, an
actual alligator, and the 2 zombies that trail the
alligator. They are alligator wranglers

(48:19):
that play zombies because there's really no way to train
alligators unlike Bub an alligator going to do what it
does. And the poor alligator, like
when they went to take him out, they drop him and he smashes his
face on the ground and ends up like, I think you can even see
like the red. Around his mouth like it's

(48:41):
bleeding. The poor guy, Yeah.
So about two seconds after the shot of the alligator you see in
the film, he starts whipping histail around and like throws the
wranglers for a loop. Like just basically they get hit
by the tail and go flying. So good for him getting his

(49:02):
revenge it. Was all right.
I wanted to ask when Miguel yells hello into the bullhorn at
the start of this movie. I feel like in 28 Days Later,
when you see Jim, it's the same lines, isn't it?
And that same tone, just the wayhe yells hello, it's got the

(49:23):
same cadence, right? Oh no, it absolutely did.
And like this, this time for this, when I was rewatching it,
I was like, oh, that really doeslike it.
It sounds so similar to when Killian Murphy's Hello.
And of course, they used that sample for a gorilla song.
For the life of me, I cannot remember which one suddenly, but

(49:45):
yeah, it, it, it is kind of it's, it's a nice little kind of
a three line. It sets a tone like that line or
that delivery and the way it echoes and then how it just
brings out that horde, like you know you're in for a different
movie at that point. It's very chilling.

(50:07):
So as far as the filming location of the bunker, both
Romero and Gornick claim responsibility for finding this
place. It's a limestone mine that was
within about 10 miles of the Monroeville Mall.
So they actually end up shootingit very close to where they shot
Dawn of the Dead. And it was a fully operational

(50:30):
facility. Like as they're filming, there
are people that are working likein the offices, they're just in
different sections. And it's so large a facility.
It's about two and a half million square feet.
Nary the two shall meet. So the day would start as early
as 3:00 AM for some of the cast,the crew and some of the cast

(50:53):
coming in for their makeup. And it would continue like, well
past the sun going down. It's a winter, there's snow on
the ground and everyone starts going stir crazy.
This facility, it has like, storage for old documents like
cans of film. And Romero said yachts, like,
there's a bunch of yachts that are stored down there, too.

(51:15):
There's giant underground lakes that are there.
Like there are places where it'spitch black.
And he was like, one of the fears was like, you could fall
into this lake and then just drown because you would not be
able to see where the shore was.It was that dark.
There are bats everywhere. It's so big that crew is using

(51:37):
golf carts to go around. Tom Zavini says that at one
point everybody has what he called mind fever just because
of the conditions and the lack of sunlight that are there.
Like, it was just really miserable to shoot there for
three months. According to Joe Pilato, there
was a doctor on set that they all nicknamed Doctor Feel Good

(51:59):
because he was giving everybody vitamin B shots and probably
some other stuff too. It was the 80s.
And Pilato also said in the sameinterview that that doctor would
eventually go on to die of a drug overdose.
So RIP Day of the Dead. Doctor Savini comes back for the

(52:23):
special effects. Like I said, this is his
Beethoven's night. Like this is just the work here.
It's just chef's kiss. Like, I mean, he is.
I mean, he's feeling himself. He's coming off of the original
Friday the 13th, the Prowler, the burning maniac, Friday the
13th, the final chapter. Like he's just at his.

(52:45):
This is Tom Savini at his peak. Like it's incredible and it's,
it's so good. The, the, there were three types
of zombie makeup for this and itjust came down to where is the
zombie going to appear in the shop?
If they're in the foreground, then you're getting the full
latex appliances, a lot of sculpting.

(53:06):
It's going to take 3 or 4 hours to go into in the makeup chair.
If you're in the mid ground, we'll put some appliances on,
but we can kind of hide some things.
We're not going to go as detailed.
And then if you're in the far background you are going to get
basically a rubber mask. Like he had rubber Halloween
mask submission. And to Savini's horror, he said

(53:30):
whenever there were promotional shots of Romero for Day of the
Dead, like the one, there's a pretty famous 1 of Romero
surrounded by a horde of zombies.
He's like, those are all people in masks.
He's like, why are we not using,you know, the good work.
But he has a crew for the first time.
He has a crew of like 6 or 7 people, not one or two guys.

(53:52):
And they do pre production at his house where he calls it the
the Halloween shop. Like they're making like 6 of
them. All of these appliances in
different sizes. And then later on when the
extras would come, they would just size them up and say who
would get what pieces. The pig guts for this movie.

(54:12):
Yeah, if you have a weak stomach.
So they buy one set of pig guts and they use them repeatedly.
And these are for like the spills that you see, like Miguel
and one of the zombies where they would sit up and all the
guts and intestines would plop out.
And they tried rubber guts in Savini's, like, Nope, they

(54:34):
bounce when they hit the floor. It looks fake.
We're not going to do that. So they get actual pig guts and
they tie like a rubber intestinearound it, which would then
loosen up and they would just come plopping out.
So these are refrigerated in between using them and for
whatever reason, like there's a break in them shooting in the

(54:56):
line fields in the line mine andthey have to go for a somewhere.
I don't know if it's two weeks or five weeks or conflicting
reports, but someone unplugged the refrigerator and they come
back to shoot Rose's death sceneAnd poor Joe Palatto.
Like it seems like Joe Pelato was like, I've never been to an

(55:17):
autopsy, but this is what death smells like.
And when I talk about it, I can still smell those guts like they
have been rotting for two weeks.For some reason.
There's quote UN quote no time to go get fresh pig guts.
Like to me, the move is like youjust you send APA out and you go

(55:37):
buy pig guts or you put things off for a day.
They're like, Nope, They build afake floor.
Everybody in the crew is wearinggas masks and like N95 masks.
And they're like Savini's, like I'm putting old like, old
English Cologne all around the mask so they don't smell it.

(56:00):
And they just tell Joe Pilato don't eat or drink anything
before the scene because you will get sick.
And he has to sit there for fourhours with nothing to protect
him. Luckily they get the shot in one
take, but poor Joe Pilato. I've seen kind of like footage
of when they're filming that andyou see like the zombie extras,

(56:22):
they're kind of waving their hands to wave away.
And, and Joe Pilato, he's retching.
Like he's just like, yeah. Because.
Oh yeah. I honestly cannot even begin to
imagine what that smell was like.
No and Joe Palatto is not his character.
Like he's not this asshole. Like apparently he was like an
anti war demonstrator. He'd been pepper sprayed like

(56:44):
the nicest dude and this poor guy spends 4 hours basically
breathing in toxic fumes. Like just again like the Hooper
comparisons with like the head cheese in Texas Chainsaw
Massacre. Like it's just bad.
Or even like Gunner Hansen's costume, like by the end of

(57:06):
shooting, because they only had one and it was just so it was
like solid with like it was stiff and grime and no one could
stand to sit next to him. No, just it was like stiff as a
board, just the worst. So Romero says, like he is
shocked by how many turn up to play zombies.
Like he's like doctors and lawyers in Pittsburgh.

(57:28):
All of these folks come out. He can't believe, like, how many
people want to come out. They get paid a dollar and they
get like a box lunch. And at the end of the day, a lot
of them were like, because theseare the sickos, right?
They're like, no, we'll just take the make off at home.
And they end up like, they go out to dinner, they go to

(57:49):
McDonald's, they go shopping, they go to restaurants, dress
head to toe in their zombie regalia.
To be fair, I would absolutely do that.
Oh. Absolutely.
I would freaking love to be a zombie in a zombie movie.
Oh yeah. Like I, I actually kind of did
once at uni, there was just like, it was like a little short

(58:11):
film. It's like a little sketch thing.
And I was in that and there was a bit where we're doing, you
know, the good old fashioned zombies reaching through the gap
in the door thing. Yeah, but some of my fellow
zombies got a bit enthusiastic and I ended up getting the door
slammed on my repeatedly. And there was this big bruise
and not quite on the level of pigs guts, but there were some

(58:35):
slightly expired sausages being used as viscera with for
someone. But but yeah, no, I I had a heck
of like this. Just this thick line of a bruise
going down my arm. Suffering for your art, Sarah I.
I think you can even hear me yelling in the in.
In the final film, you could hear me going, ah.

(58:59):
Your director wasn't like zombies don't yell, you have to
suffer. Apparently the FX shot was the
place to be. Like, it's all young dudes.
They're like playing loud music all day.
Everybody wanted to go there andjust hang with them.
Nick Otero was like, you know, we just go there and drink all
day and party it up and have like I every time.

(59:23):
I love anytime. Nick Otero is like in a behind
the scenes documentary. He just seems like the most
relaxed, chill guy and he has like some great stories And
apparently, you know, his whole life changed.
He had a chance meeting with George Romero when he was a kid.
Like, he's vacationing in Italy with his family.

(59:45):
His dad's a neurosurgeon of somerenown.
And Nick Guitaro supposed to go to Med school and become a
doctor. And they're in a restaurant, and
he sees George Romero, and he goes up.
He's like, are you George Romero?
And Romero's like, Yep, I've, I've made those movies.
And Nick Guitaro starts gushing.And Romero was like, a guest,
like, Avhs Collector. So Nick Otero's, like, give me a

(01:00:09):
list of movies that you want. My dad collects tapes.
And, like, here's, like, everything he has.
You tell me what you want me to make you copies of.
And Romero's like, hell yeah. And he gives them a list of,
like, 20 movies the first time. And Nick Otero spends, like, the
whole weekend going tape to tapemaking video cassette copies for

(01:00:31):
George Romero, much like PatrickBateman in American Psycho.
And Romero's like, this guy's mykind of nuts.
He offers him a chance to work on Creepshow, which Nicotero
turns down because he wants to go to Med school.
He gets another call from Romerofor Day of the Dead.
And he's like, I, I can't turn this down.

(01:00:53):
So he quits Med school, he goes to work under Savini for Day of
the Dead. And later on, along with like,
Howard Berger, they would form K&B.
It's Kurtzman as well as the K&K&B, right?
And. Berger was on this film too.
Was he? I thought so, but he's been none
of the behind the scenes so I'veseen.
A couple of the photos they showed in the in the in the

(01:01:16):
documentary and and Savini mentions him in in as one of the
people that was on the show. Yeah.
Well, K&B would they go on to become like the premier FX
studio, you know, into the 90s and continuing today.
They go on to create all the zombies for The Walking Dead.
Nick Guitaro, I think directs a bunch of those.

(01:01:39):
Nick Guitaro would then go on tocome up with a Creep Show
Anthology series on Shutter, which is probably my favorite
thing Shutter has ever done. So but this is where he starts
to really get, he gets his starthere.
And Romero says like, he always felt like he needed to apologize
to Nick Otero's dad because he got him to drop out of Med

(01:02:02):
school. But apparently Nick Otero's dad
was cool with it. And the Nick Otero head that's
in this film, like the severed head, he took it home with him.
And on Thanksgiving, he puts it in his bed.
He calls his mom in the room andthen, like, hides away and
starts operating it. And his mom, like, would not
talk to him for the rest of Thanksgiving dinner.

(01:02:24):
At that point, just the effects guys are the sickos.
I really, they're pretty. So Romero continues to foster
that collaborative spirit. Like, Savini has a huge hand
calling the shots of what effects would actually go in the
film. Like he would call Romero when
Romero's in Florida, saying he would make suggestions, like,

(01:02:44):
what if we did something where, like, a shovel goes through a
zombie's head and decapitates it?
And Romero's like, yeah, I'll write that in, like, not a
problem. Let's do it.
And when they're on set, like, Romero would really take a back
seat and let Tom, like, set up shots, like how these effects
should look on film. He lets Gornick like, say, well,
here's where all the cameras should be placed.

(01:03:05):
And, you know, it's not quite asimprovisational as the last act
of Dawn of the Dead is, but there's a huge collaborative
spirit that goes into this. Howard Sherman, who plays Bob,
says like him, the whole like headphone scene was like Sherman
saying, hey, how do you think Bob would react to hearing

(01:03:28):
music? I think this is what he would do
in a lot of those mannerisms like he comes up with, you know,
Romero's like, that's great, let's do it.
So which is I mean. That's one of the great moments
of that movie to me, yeah, Is when he's hearing the the
Beethoven music and it's, yeah. I saw a thing where sorry

(01:03:50):
basically Savini said that with his the shoveled decapitation.
I read somewhere that that Savini, basically that was him
trying to one up himself from the machete kill in dawn kind of
thing. Yeah.
Oh, absolutely. I love that one.
Oh man, it's it's crazy to thinkthat that's not CGI and you have
like the eyes moving and and that is just so impressive and.

(01:04:13):
Frankly, I feels like I feel like he UPS the machete kill a
little even more directly when they cut the arm off as well.
I mean, that is to me that is just impeccable effects work
there too, because that I'm like, yeah, that's probably what
it would be coat like, you know.I think I I read somewhere that

(01:04:35):
that for that they there was something about the prosthetic
that didn't look right. So they actually used wax for
the skin on the arm there and itjust looks so much better.
Yeah, the machete they used to bounced off the.
The rubber arm, so they they like carve out a little bit of
latex and then fill it with wax.And then Miguel's arm, he is his

(01:05:00):
arm is in a hole on a fake floor.
But the other the one that really gets me is Cooper, where
you see just the exposed brain like that is not a dummy like
that is a live well, except for the head, of course.
The there, it's a live actor that's lying on the table and
his head is bent at an angle where it's then hidden and then

(01:05:24):
the prosthetic over it. I mean, we've seen plenty where
it's the opposite, where your body or your leg.
Like, that's the big. Floor, but Oh my good to have
like your head, like I'm just trying to think it how
uncomfortable that must be to beat that angle with your neck and
to pull that off like that is a degree of dedication that God,

(01:05:46):
God love you for doing that. Right.
Savini really wanted to be Rhodes and Romero tell told them
you can't do both. I can't see Savini is is Rhodes.
There's just it, there's a hamminess to Savini that as big
as Rhodes is in the as a character, he's not hammy.

(01:06:08):
And to me, Savini is a bit hammyas an actor.
So instead, Doctor Doctor Tongueis a prosthetic.
It's a molding of Tom Savini. And as he's making the face for
it, it's this latex concoction. When he drills into it, it takes
the bottom half of the mouth off.

(01:06:30):
And he's like, we'll make it work.
And it's actually a puppeteered zombie that they use.
It's amazing. It's.
Just I love that that came aboutby accident.
Like it's like such an iconic moment of the film for me.
I. Mean it gets it gets the title
card. Yeah.
Because I mean, it's so it's so memorable and it's like, we

(01:06:55):
haven't seen this before. No, you know, and by now we've
seen lots of zombies by 1985 of,you know, the Italian variety,
the American variety and the comedic variety, you know, even
that same year with Return of Living Dead.
And so that is what a what a moment that is.

(01:07:18):
Yeah, it is. It's I, it's to me.
I love that title card. It looks perfect.
I just adore that so much. Well, unfortunately, unlike
Night in Dawn, Day is not a hit on its initial release.
Romero hated the marketing campaign.
He thought United did the film dirty.

(01:07:40):
And if you like, go back and watch the trailers for it.
They they do one of two things. They don't really sell you on
this movie. They remind you that Romero made
Night and Dawn, which in and of itself isn't all.
It can work sometimes, but it's not always the most compelling
reason. And if anything, when you watch
the trailers, they suggest that Bob is somehow the hero of the

(01:08:04):
movie. Like, their only hope is Bub
this. And it's.
That's just an odd choice. Yeah, it's very strange.
They also don't give this film awide release.
Like, at its peak, it plays in around like, maybe 170 theaters,
which this is the time when blockbuster films are getting

(01:08:25):
released in anywhere from like, 1000 to 2000 theaters.
So you're getting, at best, 1/5 of those, which is going to make
it hard to. Yeah.
It just doesn't play wide film is savage by critics.
Bill Pilato would talk later on about, like, a Siskel and Ebert
clip. Like, they would use Day of the

(01:08:45):
Dead as an example of bad actingin movies and overacting.
And they would point to clips ofPilato's roads and savage them.
And Pilato was like, I would break down in tears when I saw
that. Like it really upset him.
But it's not just the critics that turn on this.
Like fans initially do not love this either.
They don't like the tone of the movie.

(01:09:08):
They want in something more in the spirit of Dawn, which had a
lot more levity to it. They don't like the ending.
They hate the score. Like as you both mentioned,
neither of you are fans of the score.
I, I, I, I got to give it a little bit of credit.
I think it's for the money they have and for, I mean, it's not

(01:09:31):
terrible. I I don't find it too.
Distracting theme is great. Yeah, but I just don't go.
Oh yeah, that's I'm going to throw that on and listen to the
The Day of the Dead soundtrack and not so much me.
It's. Just sometimes it it's just
really mismatched, it feels. Like.
There's times where it I'm like,is this really music for this

(01:09:54):
moment? And it just sounds something
more akin to like what you'd getfrom like a 80s thriller kind of
thing. Like one thing which Michael
Mann's Manhunter kind of thing is that had a very kind of
synthy soundtrack as well. But it's kind of worked for
that. Apparently the soundtrack has
lyrics, like, these songs have lyrics.

(01:10:17):
And if you can find that, like, yeah, that is, that's maybe a
choice too far. But God love you.
Like, you know, I don't know if they follow the plot of the
film. If it's one of those things
where you like sequentially listen to it and it just sings
the plot. There is the moment in the score

(01:10:37):
where it does call back to that dawn of the Dead like kind of
main theme where they turn the light out on the zombie.
Yeah. Which is not my favorite
environment. It's super random because it's
just like they're just shutting the light out on it.
Like why is it used here? But.

(01:10:58):
And it's kind of a insertion of comedy into a movie that is
utter. Otherwise just completely point
of that. Bleak.
As fuck. So it's very odd choices at
times in the score, but you know, hey, everyone has their
preferences, I guess. I mean, we talked about, you
know, last week on Dawn, how you're not a huge fan of the

(01:11:21):
temp score or, or the the library score that they used.
And, and Nicole and I were kind of like, well, it sort of fits
the ideas of the movie, you know, the Muzak and all that of
a department store and. I was like, I prefer the Goblin
score. And you were both like, well,
Mike, you're wrong. And I'm like, it's Vaughn.
There's the Vaughn right behind you.

(01:11:43):
If I was going to listen to a soundtrack from Dawn of the
Dead, it'd be the Goblin score that I've listened to in the
film itself. I think I prefer the other one,
if that makes sense. OK, Fairpoint.
It's. Been a.
While since I've listened to it without like I've watched the
one of the versions that doesn'thave the goblin score, but I

(01:12:05):
think the only part of the goblin score I don't like is the
weird 18 moment at the end. Yeah, I think Brian, you
mentioned how you much prefer like the Romero kind of
patriotic music at the end when they're in the helicopter.
Well, it it it even no, it's even after that.
I really like the I mean they sort of the getaway music at the

(01:12:27):
end is is sort of fun, I guess. But what I'm talking about is
when they bring it back and theycut back to the mall and they're
playing the gonk, the theme thatwe associate with that movie.
Or if you're a zombie fan or Shaun of the Dead fan or a Robot
Chicken fan, that's what you're listening for, right?

(01:12:47):
You know, and that's not in the Argento cut, which has which
carries off into the credits without cutting back to the
mall. It just shows the helicopter
take off at the end so. The other.
Different, different strokes fordifferent folks.
I mean, that's all I got to say about When it Comes.

(01:13:08):
Musical taste is so personal. Well, the the big thing that in
retrospect folks point to is like a month after Day of the
Dead comes out. John Russo, the film he produces
and writes, and Dan O'bannon directs.

(01:13:28):
Return of the Living Dead hits theaters and it's a much, it's
there's a lot of comedy in it. It's a lot more fun.
It's got like a real punk energyto it.
It's a blast. And it kind of kills Day of the
Dead at the box office to the degree that like Lori, I hope
I'm saying her name correct. I want to say it's Lori Cardell.

(01:13:53):
And I mispronounce basic words all the time.
But she says that her parents went to go see Return of the
Living Dead thinking it was her film.
And they call her very confused going, where are you in this
movie? And it messes a lot of people
up. So here's the question I have.
Cause Romero waits eight years to make this movie, 7 years to

(01:14:16):
make this movie, and he makes 2 films in between.
One's a moderate success, one ofthem is a flop, so he loses the
ability to like, do whatever he wants.
Like if he if he made Day of theDead immediately after Dawn, do
you think that it would have been more of a success at the

(01:14:38):
time of its release? I think it would have been more
of a financial success, but I don't think it would have been
as interesting of a movie because I think he would just
more likely have been repeating himself a little bit more, you
know, keeping the tone. Because I, I honestly think it
might have been wiser if he had had the option, which he didn't,

(01:15:00):
to, to release it even a couple years later and to take it a
couple years later and, and, andto really make it close to that
10 year mark again. I mean, you release it in 8788,
you've got 10 years, 10 years, you know, between here.
It's a six year gap because Don really played in 1979, even

(01:15:21):
though it was, you know, technically had its premiere in
78. It's for the most part, it's a
1979 movie. So I think if you get to, I
mean, the thing about this, I mean, this is released in the
middle of the 80s and this is a very, the political messages and

(01:15:44):
ideas of them are very mid 80s. And I think that you're talking
about militarism and, you know, sort of the, the Reagan push of,
of a strong military arm and allthat kind of thing.
And so that that all, you know, was there, but it's also still

(01:16:05):
kind of there in 198788I. And so I kind of wonder if it
would have been more successful if played towards the end of the
decade rather than at the beginning or it, I mean dab in
the middle like it is. So yeah.
So I think it's it's it's kind of like, you know, I think I

(01:16:29):
think screen movies do better when they're released far apart
because you can kind of see whattrend is happening where the
ones that are released close together to me, for me tend to
suffer because there's not much new to say yet.
And I think Romero, the farther he gets away from the from each
one, the more he has to say in, in in the zombie movies.

(01:16:51):
Oh. No, absolutely.
And I mean it. It's, it's funny because like
it's because his films are so specific to when they are made.
I do think that even just like afew years earlier or a few years
later, it would have been different in some ways.
But I don't know. I mean to say kind of like one

(01:17:12):
way or the other, whether it would have been more successful
because like, I mean, it's like you think about like the 80s in
horror. Like this is where a lot of
horror starts being a little bitmore, a little bit more campy.
I mean, there are a few exceptions.
Like I mean, Hellraiser that is,that's not a silly movie.

(01:17:36):
But you do get a lot like a lot of this horror sequels for the
big franchises, and a lot of them definitely are playing more
for entertainment rather than terror.
Now in 85, along with Return of the Living Dead, it's Elm Street
two, it's Friday the 13th, the New beginning.

(01:17:57):
But it's also films like Fright Night and Joel Schumacher's The
Lost Boys, which I remember as akid, like seeing videos for
like, you know, there was their music was all over MTV.
And you're, you're right, Sarah,like these films are played more
for fun and Day of the Dead has that like 1970s very serious

(01:18:21):
film toned to it where it's moreakin to that.
And maybe playing in the early 80s when we were still kind of
in that phase, it would have hada more commercial success.
But I do agree with you both that like having some time away
to recalibrate, like does the atleast the message of the film

(01:18:42):
much better or I don't know, maybe people just didn't want a
serious, serious film. But let's talk about this
serious movie. Where do you want to go first
with our movie discussion? Sarah, the board is yours.
Well, I mean this this movie does start with a Sarah.
So was it something someone pointed out recently that I

(01:19:04):
hadn't realized before? Is that the time period this
movie takes place in? Like it's, you see the
beginning, the calendar, it's like the end of October and then
at the end it's like the 4th of November or something.
That is the period in which Dia de Los Muertos, the Day of the
Dead festival takes place. So like, I know that's
unintentional, but it just kind of tickled me.

(01:19:25):
I mean, the thing that really hit me with this rewatch is how
much of the movie is very much about fear.
And I mean all horror movies areabout fear and scaring you and
things like that. But it's how we deal with fear.
I think in this one. And you have kind of like I, I

(01:19:47):
mean a lot of of like, you know,Joe Pilatos Rose is kind of very
much considered like when you know, one of the ultimate
bastards in horror cinema. But if you look at his face, he
spends a lot of that movie, you just kind of realize he is just
like a. Freaking terrified guy at the
end of his trope. And I mean, and obviously, like

(01:20:10):
you have Miguel, who is just right there having a breakdown
from the beginning and so he's falling apart.
And then you have Sarah, who is in this very odd position, being
the only woman on the space. And gosh, that, that the with
the military guys. That's a heck of a toxic

(01:20:32):
masculinity environment there. I, there's like 1 scene where
she's just walking down the corridor and then the military
guys are having some sort of fist fight that runs into the
hallway. I don't think we even learn why,
but it, it's just this, this andand of course they have many
accrued comment for her. So it is just like this toxic

(01:20:53):
machismo. So she's kind of, she's very
closed off, very repressed, veryserious kind of thing.
There's only like a few scenes where we, we kind of see her let
her guard down a bit. And there's like, there's that
bit when they get back from the helicopter trip when Miguel says
something like it's. It's something like he basically

(01:21:20):
kind of like, berates her for being stronger than him.
Essentially, yeah. You made me look like a real
asshole out there. Yeah, like, what the fuck?
Like what? Oh, Oh, yeah.
After the incident at the corral, it's just like, no, you
made yourself look like an asshole, but just yeah, that
whole, that whole relationship is that that's it's a problem.

(01:21:44):
It's not, it's not the healthiest relationship.
But then again, how many healthyrelationships do you have in a
zombie apocalypse? The relationship with Sarah and
Miguel is fascinating. It's it makes Fran and Steven
look like a warm, loving kind ofhappy couple with one.
Because you know one thing that is like you mentioned Sarah,

(01:22:07):
with this movie, everybody is atthe end of their rope.
And, you know, Romero said aboutMiguel that he wrote this
character with the idea that, like, he is the only person that
is kind of acting appropriately in terms of, like, this is how
people would act if this was theend of the world.

(01:22:29):
Oh yeah, Like, yeah, he's falling apart, but it's also
like you look at the situation there and of course he's falling
apart and it's like Sarah's beensorry.
I mean, one thing which I was saying about like the
masculinity and with Miguel, when he's kind of berating Sarah
for seeming so strong, it kind of reminded me of Stephen in

(01:22:50):
Dawn of the Dead. Or it's like there's like those
moments where it's it's kind of like he keeps trying to in the
early part of the film where he keeps trying to use the gun and
be a badass and he's then gets like emasculated essentially by
Roger using the gun. So that that kind of like remind

(01:23:12):
me because I, I watched Dawn just the other day.
So, so like watching them close together just kind of reminded
me. But yeah.
And, and I mean, well, Logan, his, his just whole, he, he's
kind of going nuts in a completely different sort of way
because there's, I mean, just his whole very chipper attitude

(01:23:32):
is very at odds with everything.And then there's the scene where
Sarah and Bill, they find one ofhis tape recorders and he just
kind of like is having this likeinsane rambling conversation
with himself, I think at one point as his mother and things
like that. And it's just like, Oh, yeah,
no, he is. He's gone.

(01:23:53):
And then you also have Rhodes who's just very much trying to
cling to some semblance of the order of the before times, like
the fact that a lot he's a lot more put together like

(01:24:14):
physically in terms of just likehow he looks compared to the
other soldiers. And like he, he's he's a lot
more pristine in in, in how he looks and things.
So he's he's very much just likeclinging on to whatever kind of
order there was before. And then you got like some of
the other soldiers who are very much just kind of steel and

(01:24:38):
Rickles who just everything justseems to be a bit of a like
massive joke to them. That is another kind of
essentially trauma response, that of, of just, you know, just
taking everything as a massive joke, even though, yeah, things
are very serious and very messedup.
It feels like with, with Logan, with Doctor Logan, he's

(01:25:00):
conducting experiments that should have been conducted when
Night of the Living Dead concludes, like when the
outbreak could have still been maybe contained in terms of like
trying to do these like Pavlovian experiments on the
zombies in order to get them to behave.

(01:25:21):
And instead like what you see here.
And it's what's, I mean, we talked a little bit about this
when we talked about Dawn, how with these 3 movies, you see the
steady deterioration of this society and this world and all
of the movies are connected eventhough the characters aren't
connected. And with Night, you see this
like small little outbreak that by the end it feels like it's

(01:25:44):
going to be contained and it's aone off and society will go on.
And Dawn of the Dead, which is meant to, even though it's a
decade later in filming, it takes place weeks after you see
the cities are already overrun. You need to escape them and get
somewhere that's more rural. And by the time day rolls around

(01:26:07):
now, it's been probably years and humanity has basically been
wiped out. Yet Despite that, rather than
having the survivors trying to like, adapt and build a new
reality, all of them are clinging to these like social
mores in a social order that hasbeen destroyed.

(01:26:29):
And they're not trying to build something new.
They're trying to like rebuild the past, even though that has
failed them. 100% And I mean there's this, there's that great
scene where with Bill and John, the helicopter pilot, and they

(01:26:49):
kind of like take Sarah to theirlittle hidey hole.
And I love that because like it's, it's slightly outside of
the scientific compound, but it's just, it feels so much
nicer and warmer and just more alive than anything we see in
that compound, which is just corridors and sterility and bare

(01:27:10):
bones situation. Like, you know, they've got like
silly little string lights up and things like that.
But they kind of have a conversation about the bass and
John's actor. The name escapes me, just has
this great long speech about. Gary Alexander.

(01:27:31):
That's it. And although, bless him, he said
that people didn't, people wouldn't recognize him from the
movie unless except for when he did the accent.
It's like which? Is not his natural accent right?
But he does it quite well, I thought.
Yeah, he does. Yeah.
So he about all of like the records and things that are down
in this in this bunker and essentially just kind of like

(01:27:53):
how useless they are. And the better thing would be to
go off, make some Bibers and just tell them not to come and
look at this stuff because it's gone, it's done.
Yeah. It's a record of the old world.
It's, it's as you know, it's, it's maybe, maybe something you

(01:28:14):
can like how we would examine ancient civilizations and see
where we've come from, but we there's a different order now
than there was then. What I find interesting along
those lines to some extent is this idea.
They're so clinging to the past that even at the end of the

(01:28:38):
world, these different sort of factions are not able to work
together in any way. And you see, they have you have
in the military arm, you've got sort of the Braun, you know, the
the, the force that you might need to protect yourselves and

(01:28:58):
the scientists and the medical community.
You have the brain. And then you have the skilled
workers, you know, who would be able to, you know, bring
something to it all as well. If they could figure out a way
to work together, they might be able to create something new and
different. And but they just refuse to be

(01:29:19):
able to do that, especially the the the military arm are just
kind of like, no, but mostly because of roads, I think.
And sort of that chain of command that they still feel an
adherence to even though it's essentially meaningless at this
point. Yeah.
It's like a body that cannot function.

(01:29:41):
It is functioning against itselfin a way.
John and his speech to Sarah says this.
You're writing an epitaph for a world that will never read it,
like it's a giant tomb and no one will ever come across it,
which is a really haunting image.
Oh, absolutely. And I, I mean, Sarah has like

(01:30:03):
quite a few things, but she's just saying if we could just
cooperate. She is.
Just just essentially, just likebegging them to work together.
And I think Sean also has a lineof it where it's about everyone
pulling in different directions.Yeah.
Something like that and. And Sarah's interesting because

(01:30:24):
she has sort of access to all three worlds in in a way that
none of the other characters do.And she's even LED into the
inner sanctum, you know, in thatone scene, right?
And I mean, as as much as she and Rhodes of course butt heads,

(01:30:47):
the other guys are kind of like,OK, you know, she's cool.
You know, they don't seem to have a real negative kind of, I
mean, they don't treat her well all the time, but they it's, but
there doesn't seem to be the same direct animosity as there
is towards some of the other characters.
There's that early scene when they're trying to corral the two

(01:31:09):
zombies where Sarah offers to step in for Miguel, who's
clearly in no shape to do anything in.
Steele refuses to let her participate, even though Sarah
says I've done this dozens of times.
I've done this before and it clear I I don't know if it's

(01:31:30):
because they see her as a femaleand they're for weaker or if
it's to punish Miguel. Like they see that this guy is
on the brink and they're like, doesn't matter, you're going to
be punished for your weakness orif it's some combination
therein. I would I would say a
combination like definitely 61, half a dozen.
The other just yeah, so much of and then it's like he's holding

(01:31:58):
Miguel over the zombies because it's like you nearly killed
Rickles and she like gets the gun and says I will cut you in
half. Like just she is, she is not
afraid to come. Like she's not intimidated, no.
By them. Yeah, some of them even
appreciate that, that she's not intimidated by them, you know?

(01:32:22):
Yeah, I mean, Rickles is the law.
Because she's a girl, but you know, you know what I mean.
But I, I think at the same time there's a maybe even some level
with some of them of, and maybe I'm reading too much into it,
but of some kind of underlying respect even for her ability to

(01:32:43):
stand up to them. Yeah, there's some some of the
soldiers like when she when theyarrive on the helicopter and I
yeah, exactly. I want to say Torres, and also
the one that's played by Greg Nicotero.
They kind of like have a conversation about fuelling up
the helicopter and it's a perfectly normal interaction.
Exactly. Yeah.
But then, yeah, then you do haveSteel and Rickles and jokey

(01:33:07):
behaviour and then Rhodes and his whole deal.
And I think it's kind of a case of like a lot of, I think her
stoicism and behavior is just basically because she has to
kind of thing. It's like she is she's being
this strong and she's being thisreserved because that is how she

(01:33:29):
is carrying on and in like what situations?
Because if she showed, if she broke, I think then that would
definitely make her a target in that environment.
And so she is just kind of having to be like just like this

(01:33:51):
on this tightrope of having it together because if she doesn't,
a lot of things could fall apartaround her.
Yeah, Steel and Rickles are not shy in announcing loudly and
often what they would do with Sarah if they were given the
chance. And Rickles makes, like a lot

(01:34:13):
of, you know, crude sexual innuendo at her expense when it
comes to her. And Miguel, like, Steele is a
bit more. He's a bit more of a bigot in
his comments. Like, they're a bit less
sexually charged. And Rickles is out and out like
making sexual threats at her like in every like that

(01:34:35):
performance is is one of the more over the top ones.
And it's like the man protests too much, like you're joking
until you're not joking. Like he's trying to cover what
his intentions are with humor. Because in essence, kind of
like, Sarah's position in this group is actually quite a
terrifying one. To be surrounded with the, it's

(01:34:59):
like if you're a woman and you're, you're only surrounded
by very unstable, very toxic male individuals, you have to be
on the ball constantly. Like you cannot take anything
for granted about their behaviour.
Like it's, yeah, it is a really kind of both precarious.

(01:35:21):
Like she's in a precarious position in that she is like
this in between thing between like the military and scientists
and the OR blue collar guys. But she's also just in a very
potentially dangerous for herself position as being the
only woman. New element like Fran is never

(01:35:43):
in any danger of harm from Peteror Roger when when in Dawn of
the Dead like that never enters the equation like it does here.
Oh no, Peter, I would say kind of probably respects Fran more
than Steven does in terms of hercapability in that film.
Agree. I think this is just sort of

(01:36:04):
best illustrated in that scene where Rhodes is at the meeting
is like, you know, telling her to sit down and she's just
refusing. And then he's going to have, is
it Steele shoot her? Yeah, it's Steele.
It's it's just like that. I mean, that's one of the most

(01:36:25):
incredible scenes in this movie.It's just like, because I
honestly watching it, I do not know what's how this is going to
play out because I mean, she's like refusing to give up an inch
of ground. And if she does, I mean, the
kind of what you're talking about Sarah, the kind of danger
she's putting herself in by, youknow, letting even even

(01:36:51):
flinching at this is it's striking.
So it's it's quite a sequence there.
Rhodes is fascinating and one ofthe things I was trying to wrap
my head around. I I think start to finish, like
the best performances in any of the dead films are in Day of the
Dead and I think Don has incredible performances.

(01:37:14):
I think that's a much harder thing to carry here like this
break everybody walking that knives edge and being on a
breakdown. And there's very few likable
characters in this film. You have Bill and John and Sarah
and they tend to get overwhelmeda bit.
Like to me, I I love as big as Pilato's performances and you

(01:37:37):
can tell like a lot of the cast,they were stage performers
because this has that very bottle feel to it.
Like you can see this as a stageplay very easily where it all
pretty much takes place in one location.
I try to wrap my head around Rhodes's back story, like Cooper

(01:37:57):
died that morning and he was in charge, and you get the feeling
that like, Rickles was Rickles before Cooper died, steel was
Steel before Cooper died. What was Rhodes like?
Was he always this belligerent, like outwardly belligerent, you
know, it's seething inside. Or was he bidding his time,

(01:38:18):
knowing that some point the old man's going to kick the bucket
and then I'm in charge and no one had any idea just how
dangerous he was? I know.
That there really is kind of like a big question mark around
that because. And also like, we don't know
anything about Cooper, like as aperson, we we see his brain
stem, but we don't know. I mean, I mean, I think is it.

(01:38:43):
I think when this the scientist Fisher kind of says something
like, you know, Cooper was a pain, but Rhodes is even worse.
Yeah. And and yeah, also like Doctor
Fisher, he's like he's kind of like the the other scientist who
gets a bit lost in the shuffle. In a way he does.
Yeah, but he's also going one ofthe other only other people who
apart from John and Bill, who actually gets a smile out of

(01:39:06):
Sarah at one point, which I think I do think is very
significant, but no Rhodes like it.
It is tricky because we don't know what the dynamic was like
when Cooper was in control, in power.
We don't know how Cooper died aswell, like which I mean, who
knows? Did Rhodes even kind of kill

(01:39:27):
Cooper? We don't know.
Did he? Is he in command, in reluctance?
It was he just waiting for this moment so that he could get rid
of the science team and just watch out for his own men.
Yeah. It's it's it brings a lot of
ambiguity to his position. Like, as I said sort of before,
like you look at Tripoli's face and something.

(01:39:48):
He is just horrified. I mean, I think one of the
moments that he really looks themost horrified is the scene with
Bub. Yeah.
When Bub at first like he salutes and then.
He works the gun and just the Joe Pilato's face in that scene

(01:40:11):
is is fascinating to me because he there really is kind of
there's a what the fuckness? There's a sheer terror.
There is like a there's a crack in his perception of the world
and that previously talked aboutclinging to the previous
societal control, which is just gone now.

(01:40:34):
And Rhodes is Rose is like a a more dangerous version of Harry
from Night of the Living Dead. And that Harry's not wrong about
what the best course of action should be.
But when we talked about night, like Harry doesn't have the
juice, he doesn't have the ability to convince others to
his side. And what's dangerous about Harry

(01:40:56):
is he knows it and he lashes outbecause of it.
Roads isn't necessarily wrong. And like, what the fuck are we
doing here in this facility? Why are we staying here to
conduct protect these people while they're conducting these
useless experiments? He is kind of on Bill and John's

(01:41:18):
side of the equation. Like we need to cut bait and get
out of here. Like where our resources are
scattered. He's losing.
I think he says he's lost five of his men to none of the
scientists at this point. But you can't listen to him
because he's a psychotic. Like everything he says is
couched in this man's, like you said, toxic masculinity and just

(01:41:42):
the fact that he's a pure psychotic that would kill you
rather than look at you. But he's not wrong, even when he
executes like Doctor Frankenstein.
To be honest, I I understand andcan empathize with why he would
do that in the moment. No, no.
No, I was going to take no, justbecause like, yeah, it does make

(01:42:02):
sense because he's just found out that his his men, who I
mean, again, we don't know how long they've been serving
together, but his men that he isin charge of have been, you
know, it's it's desecrated really in to be used for Logan's
experiments. And yeah, that is that's pretty,

(01:42:25):
pretty reasonable. But that fallacy, the fallacy of
protecting his men, is exposed 10 minutes later when he pulls
up Mr. Burns. I like to put my feet up and he
gets in the golf cart and doesn't wait 10 seconds for
steal and Rickles and just drives off screaming and you

(01:42:46):
see, like, yeah. So it's like he.
Is it really about protecting the men or is it about being in
charge? Not that that is a very good
point. Well, I mean, with him,
everything is about control, right?
And he has to be fully in control of everything.
I mean, that's why, you know, Logan is late to the meeting,

(01:43:07):
7:30 sharp. Why weren't you here?
You know, all of this? No, you're not leaving.
We're not done yet. And you know, for me if as while
I was watching it this time through at first that meeting
was like, man, this is going on a really long time.
But so much of what's important.To the Peter and Roger to show
up in the back. Right.

(01:43:28):
You know, it's slide down, slidedown the escalator in the
middle. Yeah.
But it just, it does go on a long time.
But I think all of the dynamics that are so important and key to
the movie are really laid out there.
And 'cause, you know, you have your, your, you know, the
helicopter folks, they're just kind of hanging back.

(01:43:51):
They're, they're like the specialists in a teacher's
meeting. This really doesn't have
anything to do with us. Yeah, I know this from
experience. Same as a counselor.
Yep, exactly. So they're just they're just
being quiet. And it's really this sort of
battle between battle of wills between the scientists and the

(01:44:14):
military. And boy, that feels prescient.
I mean, that feels, you know, more timely, I should say, to
now. And that did, frankly, it did to
1985 as well. I mean, that was there's
similarities between that era and this month to say the least,
so. I mean, Romero says that this

(01:44:34):
this all stems like this is his paranoia movie.
Like this is his feeling that like we can no longer trust the
systems we have, whether it's the military, whether it's
politicians, that as a society we're breaking down and we need
to rebuild things, which does feel extremely timely now as

(01:44:56):
much as it did then. It it feels even more so in 2025
with I think back to this COVID and this we'll maybe talk more
about when we talk about land, how we had a chance to kind of
rebuild something new. And instead everybody wanted to
rush back to the status quo, which wasn't working to begin

(01:45:19):
with, which is beyond my comprehension.
Well, I mean, if if Romero were still with us and still making
movies, I mean, maybe if and if he was making a dead film in
this decade, there would probably be a lot of
similarities today with it in terms of kind of like those, the

(01:45:43):
breakdowns of those trusted systems and things.
I it'd be fascinating to see what he would do with Mega.
It would be fascinating to see what he would do with like the
anti science movement and what Imean as early as Land of the
Dead, like that movie ends with the characters going can we go

(01:46:03):
to Canada now? And that feels like a not
unintentional statement even for2005.
So it would have been fascinating to see where his
films, where his films would have gone in that regard.
I made a note here and maybe I'moff base, but it feels like

(01:46:26):
there's a lot of queer coding inDay of the Dead that isn't
present in necessarily Dawn of the Dead.
Maybe a little bit with like Peter and Roger, but I read like
John and Bill is kind of a couple with one another.
I think there's like an and whatdid it for me, you know?

(01:46:49):
Yeah, these two men that are that like you mentioned, Brian,
there's apart from the other base, they're on their own.
They have the only kind of like bright spot in this whole base
where there's like actually light and warmth and they have
alcohol and they've created thislittle pleasant little utopia
for themselves. But the moment that does it for

(01:47:10):
me is when John tells Bill, I love Bill, by the way.
I think he's one of the best characters in this.
He's just so good. When John says, like, you have
1/2 hour, be careful. And Bill kind of gives him this
little nod that there's like something there that's like a
more of an affection there between the two men, like a bit

(01:47:31):
more of like a a warmth there. But I'll I don't know if I'm I
have another one as well, but I'll drop this one in first.
OK, well, John and Bill, I, I kind of see it as, you know, an
extension of the bromance between Rodger and Peter in the
previous movie. Sure.
It's if it, it feels like that to me, which, you know, I, I, I,

(01:47:56):
and I say this as, you know, this friend that I was talking
about. I mean, I was as close to him as
I've ever been to a a man in my life, you know, that isn't in my
family. And, you know, and it was, it
was just us being, I mean, and neither of us are, are, are gay,
but it was just like, so I, I think that it was sort of a

(01:48:21):
reflection of that. But you know, hey, I'm not
really the one to, to speak to this either.
You know, I'm as as not a part of the LGBTQ community myself.
I don't know. I've never, I never really kind
of saw it that way because I always always thought that John
was a bit interested in Sarah aswell kind of thing.

(01:48:44):
So I'm. Not sure.
Why not exactly polyamory will save save the world.
Yeah. So I'm never really sure if I
saw those two, but there is definitely a words there is
definitely a feeling of that they're comfortable with each
other. So it so yeah, it kind of like I

(01:49:06):
absolutely could see someone reading their dynamic that way.
And I can also see it as a beingcase of like, look, these two
groups of people are absolutely off their rockers.
We need to stick together. Yeah, I also read it with Steel
and Rickles. Like Steel's reaction when

(01:49:27):
Rickles almost gets killed at the beginning of the film when
he grabs Miguel. And there's not just being angry
that this happened, but there's a real rage that overtakes
Steele. And he overpowers Miguel, forces

(01:49:48):
his head down to the point wherea zombie could have bit him and
is screaming, you almost killed Rickles where Steele?
There's something going on there, I think, whether that's
unrequited or unspoken or maybe not even.
It's maybe subconscious for Steele, but it feels like

(01:50:10):
there's something more there. I just, I don't know, like
watching this a few times back-to-back to back like that
just kind of jumped out at me. I mean, I think definitely if
there were any feelings there, they would definitely never be
spoken about, like, because of that kind of toxic male
environment of the military in this film.

(01:50:33):
But I think that that would definitely be an interesting
thing. And it's like, I mean, one of
them, I want to say Rickles, I mean, this could just be like a
continuity thing. And like, the actor just had it
on B. He's wearing a wedding ring.

(01:50:53):
So yeah, I think that's definitely an interesting one
because yeah, if there is anything there, it's definitely
not something that could be theyin that situation would be free
to explore. Steel falls just short of being
like a top tier, fascinating side character.

(01:51:13):
And I think it's just the the repeated racism that kind of
prevents him from being so because he does for the most of
the time give off this aura of like just being along for the
ride. Like when Rhodes commands him to
shoot Sarah, he assumes Rhodes is joking and like just finger

(01:51:34):
guns at her and laughs it off. But then it's like quickly put
in danger by Rhodes. There's he's always in for a
joke, but he's also he's not is stupid.
And Gary Howard Klar, who plays him a dish, initially audition
for Rhodes and Romero told him, like, I don't want Rhodes to be

(01:51:57):
this giant hulking guy. You're the heavy, like you're
the thing. Basically, you're the muscle of
the group that Rhodes can kind of use as an attack dog.
You know, when Miguel gets bit, he's like he has to get killed.
And again, he's right. Like if if Steele just shoots
Miguel in that moment, the thirdact doesn't happen the way that

(01:52:20):
it does. It probably ends with Rhodes
having them all executed and then movie over.
But Rhodes, because he's such a sicko, is like it will be worse
for Miguel to come back as one of the dead.
Let's punish him. That's why this goes down.
But I think like Steele's fascinating his death at the end

(01:52:41):
where there's and again, I'd feel more empathetic for him if
it wasn't for the repeated racist comments that he makes.
It just it makes it hard to empathize even in those final
moments when he does the side ofthe cross and blows his brains
out. I mean, yeah, he he has kind of
the wherewithal to be like, I amnot dying that way.

(01:53:02):
I am going out on my own terms. Let's talk Bub and Doctor
Frankenstein. Before we wrap things up, I want
to make one quick note. Sherman Howard is Bub since this
is the summer of George. There is a Seinfeld connection

(01:53:23):
here in that Sherman Howard doesappear in an episode of Simon,
one of the real classic ones with the Junior Mint.
He is the artist that is gettingthe operation that he's Elaine's
ex-boyfriend who has lost a lot of weight and George ends up
buying a lot of his paintings thinking he might die.

(01:53:45):
So I will cash in. And Kramer gets juju Mint stuck
in his character's abdomen during the operation.
So as soon as I was looking at his credits and it says
Seinfeld, I'm like, Oh my God, that's the artist who paints the
triangles. Oh, right, the triangle.
That's right. So it is, in fact, the summer of

(01:54:07):
George. What do we make of Bub becoming
more sentient, Becoming more thoughtful as a zombie?
I think it's. That I find that to be a
fascinating dynamic. I know a lot of people are like,
zombies need to be zombies. They can't be in love.

(01:54:27):
They can't, you know, all the different things that we've done
with zombies in the last, you know, well, since this movie
really where, you know, warm bodies, etcetera, etcetera,
can't do that stuff. Well, I, I don't know, I think
it's an interesting idea that they're able to tap into the

(01:54:49):
there's something still human inthere.
It's buried beneath this massivelevel of just instinct that has
taken over. It's sort of like a reversal of
where we are now with or you know, where of of the living
characters in in any of the zombie movies where it's like,

(01:55:12):
you know, their higher thinking supposedly has taken over their
instinctual. It's sort of a flip of that and
we call upon the instinctual when we have to.
It's sort of a reversal of that.It's kind of Cronenbergy.
And in that sense, I guess I'm probably saying that cause I've
I've just watched the first I I watched Shivers and Rabid just

(01:55:36):
recently and back. To back, boy.
Boy, do those movies talk. I, I, I was shocked 'cause I was
watching Shivers and then Rabbitis like, OK, so these movies are
clearly influenced by Night of Living Dead and the Crazies.
And then they in turn you watch Rabbit in particular, there's

(01:55:58):
like a scene in the mall and it's like, this is so Dawn of
the Dead, it's crazy. And then you have exploding
heads and Dawn of the Dead, thenyou have an exploding head and
scanners. I mean, I was just like, I might
be on to something here. So anyway, but I so so that idea
of, of the instinct and stuff that was very present in in

(01:56:20):
those and the burial of instinctand being brought to the surface
is very present in those Kornenberg movies too.
And so I just find that those ideas really fascinating and
explored here in in Bub in an interesting way.
Absolutely, and I think I I alsoread somewhere once that Bub was
actually meant was originally a much smaller part, but just the

(01:56:42):
things that like Howard Sherman did with the character Romero
was like, Oh no, we need more ofthis.
And his makeup was used using the same technique as zombie
Roger in Dawn the dead. It's like tissue paper based,
which I think does allow for like a much more kind of in a

(01:57:03):
way expressive performance. But I mean, yeah, the kind of
like, I mean, we've had sort of like the whole thing in Dawn
with they come back here becauseit's an important place to them,
that kind of remembrance somewhere deep inside of what
they were as humans. And it's something that would

(01:57:23):
continue into land with the withthe much more intelligent
zombies there. But I think, I think yeah.
And it's also like it's just it was something that we hadn't
really seen before, kind of likein other sort of zombie moods of
the time, like this, this zombiewho, who then who, who kind of

(01:57:45):
talks at one point with the hello Aunt Alicia scene.
Yeah. That, that, you know, we, we've
it's kind of it's changing the status quo that that Romero
himself made of like the these just mindless creatures.
And now suddenly they do have a mind.
And what does that potentially mean?

(01:58:07):
Yeah, Bob is very interesting. And then you get the scene where
it's like he kind of accidentally frees himself and
then wanders off. He finds Logan's dead body.
But initially he's it's essentially he's kind of like
saying, sorry, my chain came off, could you put me back that
sort of that behaviour. And it's very interesting.
And then he seems to very much genuinely mourn Logan before he

(01:58:33):
and he, he gets the gun and he, he shoots roads and gives that
one last very much like a middlefinger, like of a military
salute. And it's great.
And and then and also like afterthat, then we get Rd. staff and
I've always loved that shot of Rd. screaming with the zombie
arms kind of coming in from. Oh yeah.

(01:58:54):
I love that shot. Such a beautiful shot.
Such a beautiful shot. It is.
Yeah. It's what's fascinating is a lot
of this movie, like part of the reason everyone is on edge is
they don't really have a reason to keep living.
Everyone is just surviving. And I think what Romero is

(01:59:16):
saying is you need more than just survival as a reason to
live. You need to, you need to have, I
mean, there needs to be beautiful things in the world,
whether it's like art, music, film, whatever it is, family,
friends, you need those things in order to make life worth
living. Just surviving is not enough.

(01:59:38):
And that is why everyone's on edge.
And to me, Romero's view of he has a bleak view of humanity,
that Romero loves people like heloves individuals.
And you see, 'cause he, he wouldwork with the same people over
and over and considered that family, but his view of humanity

(01:59:59):
was much more grim and he had a much darker view of like us as a
collective. And you mentioned Sarah, the two
moments like when Bob genuinely mourns for Frankenstein's death
and he he cries essentially. And this is the first zombie
that doesn't kill out of instinct for food.

(02:00:20):
He kills roads or sets tries to kill roads and sets them up for
death. For revenge, and there's very
what is there for not revenge iswhat's more of a human concept.
The moment when Bob listens to music is like kind of that
shining light moment, like the look on his face.

(02:00:41):
And Brian is a music teacher andmusician.
I've said before, if I had to choose, can I keep music or
movies in my life, I'd always choose music because I just
think it speaks to people in a way.
There's like a just the emotionsthat's evoked in me.
And I would can legitimately saythat like there have been like 2

(02:01:01):
points in my life where if it wasn't for certain music, I may
not be here today. That moment is Romero saying
like this is a reason to live. And that is like the beauty of
Bob and I think Sherman Howard or Howard Sherman, depending
what he was going by at the timethat performances is everything

(02:01:23):
but the end of the like Frankenstein of Doctor Doctor
Logan. He's just so it's he at times
he's very logical. Like if you escape, where would
you go? Like you can't kill all of them.
But he's, he doesn't understand the scope of the problem because
he's just, he's train this one. And then there's another

(02:01:45):
dismembered one in the corner where very matter of factually
he's like, well, that one was a bit rambunctious, so I had to
have it destroyed. That is fascinating to me.
It really is. Another one of the well, the
experiments with Cooper like thebrain stem and he's like putting
the electrical charges through it.

(02:02:05):
This is such a nerdy little thing, sorry, but it's because
it's like it's very much kind oflike a basic example of like
galvanism in like the 1800s whenthey put electrical charges
through frogs legs to make them twitch.
And that was one of the principal inspirations for Mary
Shelley's Frankenstein. Which of?

(02:02:27):
Course. Logan like has the nickname for
so I thought that was like a just like just a neat little.
Kind of like, yeah, I, I caught that too.
I was, I was like, oh, they he really is Doctor Frankenstein.
I mean, there's, there's, it's not just a clever nickname.
This is really what he's kinds of things he's doing.
Yeah. Wow, I'll shout out some of the

(02:02:50):
effects really quick and we can all jump in with some of your
favorites. I love the I'd love the variety
of zombies here and apparently like the costuming crew had like
10 grand total for everything, including all the extras.
So these are just like thrift store costumes, but you get like
the clown zombie, you get bride and groom zombie.

(02:03:13):
I love the football player zombie because that actually
like it's smart. It's almost like I have
protection. If you try to shoot me in the
head, it'll hit the helmet. I'm using my noggin.
I like the one that you see it very briefly is the marching
band Zombie. Like, yeah, that's.
One of the things I always appreciate about Romero, and

(02:03:34):
This is True and Dawn as well, you have so many varieties.
It's just there's, there's sort of a back story it into, you
know, there's the Hirakrishna zombie and the nun zombie and
the, you know, and the guy that's just in a bathing suit
for some reason in the middle ofwinter.
And I mean, it's all of these great things in that one too.

(02:03:55):
And it's just carried on furtherinto this.
Yeah. I.
Love it. My favorite effect in the movie
though is a vocal effect and nota visual one.
But when Miller is pulled apart and as is vocal, it's OK.
My bad. When Taurus is pulled apart,

(02:04:16):
when he's ripped apart in the vocal chorus stretch that
register, it is horrifying. It is genuinely unnerving how
that is done. And that is a just like you're a
mad genius, Romero, to think of that, right?
I love it. It's.

(02:04:37):
Horrifying, but I love it. It's.
Yeah, when I watched it with my friend, I was like, wait a
minute, his voice got higher. It's like, so we actually
rewound it to hear it again because it was jesting.
Incredible. Those all three of those last
three deaths are like, oh. Yeah, they really like going for
the ripping apart in this one. Yeah.

(02:04:57):
Oh yeah. Well, I mean they.
They. Tease that in in dawn, you know,
with with Tasso stuff rockets getting getting his intestines
pulled out, but they're like clean and stuff because he
didn't want gross ones on his body.
It's tough, you know, which was really funny story, but here
there it's like it's gross. It's so gross.

(02:05:20):
It's brilliant the way that the muscles pull apart and
everything looks so real. And it's, that's, that's one of
the things that I mean, a lot oftimes in even in Tom Savini
movies, like if fingers get cut off and stuff, you can kind of
tell it looks like a, you know, like wax hand or something like

(02:05:41):
this. To me.
I, I don't see the seams in this.
I mean, they might as well be pulling these people apart in
this one. This is probably some of the
most realistic looking gore of any horror movie you know.
Gets ripped out on I think. It's Oh yeah.
But and it kind of looks, it kind of looks as if the zombie's
trying to use his head like a bowling ball, like just get his.

(02:06:02):
Fingers like the sockets. And it's like, oh, yay, but.
Any final thoughts here I. Think that whilst coming after
two essentially pieces of landmark cinema, it's going to
suffer from the comparison of it.
But I do think that Dawn said Dawn, Day of the Dead, I think

(02:06:26):
it has its identity, it has whatit is doing and it does it very
well. And I think that the mood of it
at times the the kind of claustrophobia of it is, is
really, you really feel it. It's so palpable.
And then like the characters as well.

(02:06:47):
I mean, like you, you said earlier, it's a bit like a stage
show. It's like, it's like this sort
of people in this contained area.
And I think it it works. So it it works well.
It just doesn't work on the samelevel as the previous films.
But that doesn't in any way meanit's bad, I think.
And I definitely think it got a rough go of it back in the day

(02:07:12):
and it is one that you kind of let you come back to again and
again. And you do kind of realise
certain parts of it are in many ways even just as relevant now
as 40 years ago, I think, isn't it?
Isn't it kind of like it's near the 40th anniversary itself?
I think sometime around about now.
Yeah, it definitely is. I think there's a scene in

(02:07:36):
Stranger Things season 3 like itopens with the main crew cast
like the main kids in that, likesneaking into a screening during
the summertime of Day of the Dead, like in the first episode
of the third season. Yeah, it would.
It would have been end of June, Yeah.
So, yeah. So we just passed the precise

(02:07:57):
marker, but it is 40 years. Nothing if not timely here in
the show. Yeah, and it's evidenced by
covering Jaws on its 48th anniversary. 40th anniversary.
Well, what's interesting about this one too, is just, it was
just announced right around, youknow, the 40th anniversary of
this film that the original elements were found and that

(02:08:20):
they're going to do a new scan, get a new 4K edition of this
out. And that's, that's great news
too. And then not we also recently
announced that, you know, Savini's Night of the Living
Dead is going to get a full restoration to its original
director's cut, which is exciting too.

(02:08:42):
I mean that these movies still play this long after their
release and people still have anappetite for them, no pun
intended, But is, is is really cool.
And you know, as much as I kind of like, I don't revisit these
movies very often. I I think I've said that before,

(02:09:03):
because, you know, they're kind of hard watches.
You know, it's I think especially ones like day where
it's you're you feel trapped down in that bunker for the, you
know, hour and 45 you're watching this.
It's a lot, but I think there's there's it does.
I do it like it more every time I watch it.

(02:09:26):
I think there's more that I get out of it every time I watch it.
And so I'm glad to revisit it, even if it's not as often as I
would, you know, some of my, youknow, sort of personal favorites
and comfort movies and the like,you know?
Yeah, this one really grew on me.
This conversation has helped it to grow on me to be honest.

(02:09:49):
Well, this is always fun to talkabout these movies with.
Yeah, I think like a lot of times, like movies that I don't
necessarily like, I love talkingabout.
I find them fascinating to talk about like Halloween Ends.
If you go back and listen to ourepisode and that I don't like
that movie, but I love the conversation around it, not just

(02:10:10):
in this show, but like other shows that have covered it, have
had like great discussions on it.
It's more like it's a fascinating movie to talk about,
even if I don't love it. Like Rob Zombies.
Halloween is another one that's grown on me through talking
about it over and over. This one really grew on me,
especially like that opening setpiece in Fort Myers and then

(02:10:35):
like the last 30 minutes of thismovie are just incredible.
I think this is Romero at his tightest as a filmmaker,
especially with like the Six of the Dead films that I don't
know, like this has gone way up in my estimation.
And, you know, we started, we was jokingly said when we

(02:10:58):
started the series, like, none of us are really Romero people.
And it'll be fascinating to see what happens.
And I've through four of these movies have really come around
like, oh, I was completely wrong.
And then we get the Diary of theDead and we're like George.
Diary is is. Kind of it's.

(02:11:19):
It's kind of fascinating in the train wreck that it is.
Well, I see what he was trying to do with it.
Yeah, Yeah. You know, 'cause good message,
yeah. And to be honest, it's out of
all of his films, it's probably the message that resonates the
most in 2025 in terms of like medium manipulation.

(02:11:43):
It's a little bit scary how creation that particular film
is. It's just he set out to make a
bad student film and good Lord, did he get the assignment right.
Good Lord, we'll get to that in a couple weeks.
But in the meantime, Sarah, where can our listeners find

(02:12:05):
your work and get in touch? Well, I can mostly be found kind
of whiling away the day on a blue sky and over there I am.
I can never I can never rememberwhat my thing is.
I believe it's it's just Sarah Joe Miles over there.

(02:12:29):
You find me just kind of like a lot of rambling and movie
thoughts and sarcasm mostly. And but I'm hoping to I'm really
hoping that by saying it on this, that will give me the kick
up the ass I need. Like I am in the process of
resurrecting my own personal film blog which will be a girl
with a movie ticket. Excellence.

(02:12:56):
And Brian, how about yourself? You always have a million things
on the pipeline. What seven articles have dropped
between now and when we last spoke?
Well, there's, I mean, since I've been on the last two
episodes, I don't want to repeatmyself too much, but you can
find me at the various socials at Brian Waves 42, including

(02:13:16):
Blue Sky Instagram. I still technically have a
Twitter account, though I rarelyuse it, and Letterboxed those
would probably be the best places to find me.
And then as far as what I have coming up, I just sent in a

(02:13:37):
article on Shivers, which I justmentioned, which is why I was
watching it recently, and I decided to watch Rabid this
morning to see how that stacked up.
And pretty good as it turns out.Man, Cronenberg just kind of
came right out and said I know what kind of movies I want to
make, which is pretty cool. So yeah, it's the 50th

(02:14:02):
anniversary of Shivers. So I kind of talk about not just
that movie, but also just Cronenberg's, you know, sort of
thesis as a filmmaker with that movie.
So that's the big things that are coming up.
And as I mentioned, the Young Frankenstein article should be
out by the time this episode comes out.

(02:14:23):
Excellent, excellent. Well, listeners, you know where
you can find me? I'm at Mike's Noonian on Blue
Sky, same on Instagram, and I'm at Mikechumpchange on Letterbox,
which is where you should followme.
You can follow the show at Pod and Pendulum on Blue Sky and
same on Instagram. We're going to be kind of

(02:14:44):
ramping up some stuff over therethis summer, but again, go to
Pod on the pendulum.com and you can leave us like comments
there. You can also like write us
emails through there. We've gotten some nice responses
and emails right there. And if you've really enjoyed
this episode, we encourage you to become a patron at
patreon.com/pod and the Pendulumfor like up to right now, 70

(02:15:10):
hours and growing of content that's up there, but this is it.
Like Sarah, I believe you're back with us next week for Land
of the Dead. I think you signed on for that
in one other and listeners, we hoped that you've enjoyed our
coverage of so far the original like these episodes.
Well, you can check on them. All right, this will say it

(02:15:33):
right now. If you don't like these three,
choke on them. That's it.
Beautiful. We'll be back next week.
Everybody take care. All right, that will stop.

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