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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to

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Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. It's a spooky time of year,

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Speaker 1: the most wonderful time of year here on Ridiculous History.

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Speaker 1: Let's give it up for a super producer, mister Max Williams.

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Speaker 2: Coming for you, Max, Max, Are you a halloweeny?

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Speaker 3: I actually am not?

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Speaker 2: What the heck? Yeah?

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Speaker 3: What kind of I mean? I mean, have fun recording

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Speaker 3: your own damn podcast?

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Speaker 2: What kind of costumes have you rocked in the past?

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Speaker 3: God, I'm guy shows us to the part of the

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Speaker 3: Halloween party intentionally very much in like, not a Halloween costume,

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Speaker 3: one of those. Yeah, I'm trying to get better about

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Speaker 3: it with it.

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Speaker 2: I'm not a costumer myself. I'm more of a costume watcher.

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Speaker 2: I was.

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Speaker 3: I was a curmudgeon for much of my life, and

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Speaker 3: as as I gain into my advanced age, I'm trying

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Speaker 3: to become less of a curmudgeon. So I don't know.

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Speaker 2: Maybe it is man, be yourself, dude, experience Halloween in

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Speaker 2: your own.

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Speaker 1: Way, and that is Doel Brown. I am Ben Bullen.

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Speaker 1: I am a huge fan of costumery and personas. I

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Speaker 1: don't just restrict it to Halloween. Sometimes you do have

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Speaker 1: to be a certain different person to get some stuff done.

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Speaker 1: That could be anything from the social hack of wearing

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Speaker 1: an orange construction vest to get backstage at places unethical,

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Speaker 1: but it does work, and it could be something as

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Speaker 1: ornate as a dragon can costume.

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Speaker 2: That's one of the.

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Speaker 1: Best opportunities for costume watch here in our fair metropolis

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Speaker 1: of Atlanta, Georgia. This is the follow up to our

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Speaker 1: earlier episode on the origins of the zombie myth.

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Speaker 2: Correct and it's a super good primer for this episode,

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Speaker 2: So do check that one out if you haven't already,

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Speaker 2: which I bet you have. So we're going to talk

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Speaker 2: about zombie films today courtesy of our wonderful and spooky

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Speaker 2: research associate Wren, and we're gonna start off talking about

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight Night of the Living Dead, the most

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Speaker 2: iconic zombie film, you know, creator of many of the

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Speaker 2: zombie tropes that we know and love today, of course

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Speaker 2: by the incredibly talented filmmaker George Romero. It was a

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Speaker 2: landmark achievement for not only the horror genre, but the

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Speaker 2: zombie genre, and that it really created the modern concept

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Speaker 2: of the zombie as we know it.

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Speaker 1: Similar to the story of Faust, kind of established the

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Speaker 1: modern rules for the trope of selling one's soul to

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Speaker 1: the devil. Night of the Living Dead is responsible for

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Speaker 1: so much stuff you see in modern zombie fiction and

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Speaker 1: film today.

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Speaker 2: Ooh, and if you want a little supplementary spooky episode,

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Speaker 2: do check out the episode of stuff they Don't Want

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Speaker 2: you to Know our sister pod about selling your soul.

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Speaker 2: Ben did some awesome research into that and it's a

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Speaker 2: lot more nuanced than you might think.

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Speaker 1: It's too, Kai Nol, I appreciate it. We do hope

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Speaker 1: you enjoy that episode as well. And I love the

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Speaker 1: points that you're raising about Night of the Living Dead

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Speaker 1: because it's one of those films now where even if

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Speaker 1: you don't consider yourself a film buff, even if you

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Speaker 1: don't like horror films, which not all people do, you're

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Speaker 1: still going to be aware of this. It's unnerving, it's haunting,

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Speaker 1: it's black and white, it's pretty unrelenting, and it's not

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Speaker 1: exactly you know, it's not at a frenetic pace. It

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Speaker 1: is a slower, non action packed horror film.

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Speaker 2: And that's true of a lot of older films. Of course,

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Speaker 2: a lot of younger people watching older films sometimes might

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Speaker 2: find themselves to be a little bored or just not

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Speaker 2: move as quickly as they're used to, and that is,

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Speaker 2: of course a product of the much more frenetic filmmaking

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Speaker 2: and editing style of today. But you can credit so

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Speaker 2: many of those old films with establishing those rules and

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Speaker 2: making some of the rules that were then able to

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Speaker 2: be broken in interesting ways. One thing that's cool about

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Speaker 2: Night of the Living Dead is I've been watching this.

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Speaker 2: You may have watched it as well. Been There's a

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Speaker 2: series on shutter and I can't remember the name. It's

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Speaker 2: not particularly compelling name, but it's essentially all of these

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Speaker 2: clips of the scariest moments from various horror films, and

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Speaker 2: with a lot of commentary from actors and filmmakers. Some

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Speaker 2: of the filmmakers whose works are actually featured are in there,

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Speaker 2: like Fada Alvarez and Andy Muschetti, who's responsible for the

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Speaker 2: Modern It franchise. But Tom Savini, who was a very,

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Speaker 2: very incredibly talented makeup affects artist, one of the most

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Speaker 2: revered in that industry. Maybe comment of when Night of

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Speaker 2: a Living Dead originally came out, a lot of people

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Speaker 2: just had black and white TVs, and so they were

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Speaker 2: used to seeing the news in that stark black and

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Speaker 2: white and the way Night of a Living Dead is

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Speaker 2: filmed takes a very cinema verite kind of slice of

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Speaker 2: life approach to the way it's depicting the action on screen.

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Speaker 2: And he said that really made it click with audiences

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Speaker 2: of the time because they felt as though they were

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Speaker 2: watching something very familiar, like the news, and yet on

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Speaker 2: screen we're seeing this horde of undead devouring the flesh

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Speaker 2: of the living.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it felt very real and not. People watching it

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Speaker 1: for the first time didn't see it as schlocky or

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Speaker 1: low budget. As a matter of fact, this film Night

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Speaker 1: of the Living Dead was quite controversial when it first released,

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Speaker 1: and it got stuck in a certain genre of theaters

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Speaker 1: called grind house theaters, the ones that showed really gnarly

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Speaker 1: stuff because it had gore violence, a lot of unrelenting sadism.

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Speaker 1: And most film critics who watch this, most of like

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Speaker 1: the established legit film critics who might have an article

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Speaker 1: in a trade magazine or a newspaper.

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Speaker 2: They said, this was just trash. That's right, but it

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Speaker 2: also is controversial for some reasons that you may know about,

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Speaker 2: but if you don't, you might not expect some very

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Speaker 2: political reasons because of some casting choices. The question, though,

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Speaker 2: is from Aria's movie was so poorly received upon this

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Speaker 2: debut by critics, how did it rise to such an

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Speaker 2: important cult status? You know, in the canon of not

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Speaker 2: only horror but cinema. Really, I mean it truly is

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Speaker 2: held up there, and a lot of mega mega letterbox

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Speaker 2: e type film buffs will often cite nine a Living

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Speaker 2: Dead as an all time i'm favorites. The spoiler alert

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Speaker 2: here I already teased the reason largely that it was

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Speaker 2: elevated to that status is because of politics.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and to be clear, Night of the Living Dead

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Speaker 1: was by no means the first zombie film, as we

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Speaker 1: may have mentioned before, but it is the titular quintessential

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Speaker 1: zombie film. Peek behind the curtains. Our buddy George initially

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Speaker 1: didn't call the monsters in his film zombies.

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Speaker 2: He called them ghoules.

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Speaker 1: In his logic here was that, yes, he took inspiration

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Speaker 1: from earlier horror films, but he didn't think his particular

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Speaker 1: monsters fit into the same category of earlier zombies. Because

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Speaker 1: if you listen to our origin of zombie myths story.

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Speaker 1: You'll recall that originally zombies were depicted as creatures created

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Speaker 1: by dark magic by a baucour or a a shaman,

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Speaker 1: a practitioner of the.

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Speaker 2: Arts, who could wield control over them, right and employ

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Speaker 2: them as their sort of demonic minions, right exactly.

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Speaker 1: And romero zombies are different because although they are corpses,

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Speaker 1: they're re animated by radiation from outer space, not by

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Speaker 1: dark magic. They also can't be controlled, they can only

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Speaker 1: be killed, and they are all inherently catabals.

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Speaker 2: Which was not part of the more voodoo related zombie archetype.

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Speaker 1: Right, yeah, because the mythological zombies are not themselves undead.

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Speaker 1: They are living people who have been entranced, right, and

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Speaker 1: they have maybe been partially dead or mostly dead to

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Speaker 1: quote the Princess Bride in case they were buried. But

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Speaker 1: when they're back on the you know, on the right

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Speaker 1: side of the soil, they're not eating brains. A lot

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Speaker 1: of it is a metaphor for slavery, and we see

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Speaker 1: that there are still inherent social commentary pieces in these

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Speaker 1: zombie stories, especially one considered to be the first actual

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Speaker 1: zombie movie, Victor Halpern's White Zombie from nineteen thirty two,

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Speaker 1: even that has statements about American politics.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, who are the real monsters? Right? It is almost

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Speaker 2: the kind of cliche trope that this established. White Zombie

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Speaker 2: you and may also recognize this as the name of

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Speaker 2: Rob Zombie's nineteen nineties kind of metal band was based

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Speaker 2: on William seabrooks bestselling novel The Magic Island, which sounds

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Speaker 2: fun not scary at all. The Magic Island the book

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Speaker 2: features a truly sensationalized account of Seabrooks's own explorations in

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Speaker 2: Haiti during the US's nearly twenty year occupation of that island.

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Speaker 2: This was spurred by the assassination of Haiti's president in

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Speaker 2: nineteen fifteen.

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Speaker 1: As you can tell, folks, this film is very heavy

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Speaker 1: on the voodoo angle, a mischaracterization of voodoo to be fair,

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Speaker 1: and it is light on cultural sensitivity. I like that

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Speaker 1: turn of phrase from our research associate Ren. If you

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Speaker 1: go to Jay Stop Daily and you read some articles

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Speaker 1: about this, you'll see the following description. The titular Zombie

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Speaker 1: is an American woman stolen from her husband on her

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Speaker 1: wedding night by a rival with the help of the

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Speaker 1: voodoo practicing European plantation owner.

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Speaker 2: Wait for the name. Oh boy, murder legendary murder legend

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Speaker 2: if you're nasty right, played by, of course, the iconic

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Speaker 2: and spooky and quite complex individual Bella Legosi. I'm sure

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Speaker 2: that you've seen ed Wood, the incredible Tim Burton film

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Speaker 2: where Martin Landau plays Bella Lugosi, and it depicts this

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Speaker 2: actor kind of in past his prime, sort of. He

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Speaker 2: was most well known, I guess for playing Dracula and

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Speaker 2: he's talking about it. He's got the hand and the

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Speaker 2: voice and you must be hungarian and then also double

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Speaker 2: jointed but also struggles with heroin addiction to do. Highly

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Speaker 2: recommend that film if you haven't seen it, also in

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Speaker 2: black and white, which is a super hard cell at

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Speaker 2: the time for Tim Burton, you know. But I think

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Speaker 2: it's his best film, and it's very uncharacteristic for him

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Speaker 2: in a lot of ways. It's it's it's still got

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Speaker 2: his his touches though, for sure.

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Speaker 1: And I'd love to do an episode just on Bela Lagosi.

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Speaker 1: Ever at one point that's that will be an interesting

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Speaker 1: little biopic approach for us. Anyway, this this guy's played

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Speaker 1: murder has his literal first name. Yeah, he operates a

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Speaker 1: sugar cane mill, and the employees of the mill are

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Speaker 1: pretty much all victims he has turned into zombies. They

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Speaker 1: are created through a voodoo ritual. And here we get

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Speaker 1: to kind of the political subtext. Okay, so America's military

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Speaker 1: occupation of Haiti isn't directly addressed in the film, but

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Speaker 1: the lovebirds are romantic leads. They decide to get married

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Speaker 1: in Haiti because of the business opportunities available to people

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Speaker 1: who can invest in the sugarcane trade and sugar plantations.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and if we're thinking about the cultural context of

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Speaker 2: the time, Haitians were uprising up against their own colonial

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Speaker 2: occupiers and a forced labor system called the corvet wherein

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Speaker 2: a government mandates that benefited the US military allowed the

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Speaker 2: US military to conscript able bodied Haitians to build infrastructure

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Speaker 2: across the island without pay. Right. There's a word for that, right.

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Speaker 2: It's slavery, and it's similar.

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Speaker 1: It's slavery by another name, but it's it's also so

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Speaker 1: similar to the aftermath of the Thirteenth Amendment in the

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Speaker 1: United States, which created prison right modern prison labor, which

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Speaker 1: was essentially the same thing. For quite some time, voodoo

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Speaker 1: was also in the real world outlawed during the American occupation,

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Speaker 1: which is very strange given that the founding fathers of

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Speaker 1: our country made such a big deal about the government

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Speaker 1: staying out of religion.

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Speaker 2: Well, isn't that also historically interesting? At least we see

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Speaker 2: rhymes of this throughout history, where an occupying force quashes

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Speaker 2: the local belief systems, you know, and then of course

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Speaker 2: it goes underground, and then you start that's where you

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Speaker 2: start seeing some interesting commingling of cultures a lot of

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Speaker 2: times because of things being sort of tamped down and

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Speaker 2: then having to kind of, you know, peak their heads

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Speaker 2: up and sort of inject themselves back into culture sort

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Speaker 2: of in a covert.

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Speaker 1: Way, right through maybe religious syncretism or acquiring new symbols

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Speaker 1: and secret operations. Yeah, the government, the occupying government, authorized

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Speaker 1: raids on religious compounds and they would shut down voodoo ceremonies.

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Speaker 1: They also confiscated artifacts and religious objects, especially drums and drums.

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Speaker 1: This is a very interesting tangent. So drums in the

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Speaker 1: US and throughout different parts of the Caribbean could be

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Speaker 1: used as communicative tools, So it wasn't just a drum

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Speaker 1: circle for recreation or for spiritual practices. This was also

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Speaker 1: a way to shut down local resistance to the occupation.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, and I highly recommend checking out a website Lecoubrooklyn

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Speaker 2: dot com and if you can just search for it,

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Speaker 2: there's an article on there on this blog by Marcus

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Speaker 2: Schwartz called Rhythm Without End Haitian voodoo drum music. A

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Speaker 2: little outside the scope of today's episode, but it's got

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Speaker 2: some incredible images of some of these drums that would

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Speaker 2: look sort of like you might picture a honga drum

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Speaker 2: looking with like a long, tubular wooden body and then

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Speaker 2: an animal skin of some kind stretched across the top

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Speaker 2: and held in place with rope that you know is

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Speaker 2: used to kind of tighten it from down the sides

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Speaker 2: of the drama underneath. And they are often emblazoned with

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Speaker 2: various symbols and sigils and things like that. So, dude,

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Speaker 2: do check that out. It's pretty cool. It really goes

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Speaker 2: into some detail about the history of voodoo drums.

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Speaker 1: And White Zombie had another interesting twist when it came

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Speaker 1: to the promotion of the film. It was trying to

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Speaker 1: justify Uncle Sam's occupation of Haiti by depicting Haitian people,

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Speaker 1: the locals as savages from an earlier time, people that

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Speaker 1: were maybe not quite fully human and could not exist

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Speaker 1: in the Western world without the help of you know,

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Speaker 1: oh these benevolent white overseers. So promoters would go to

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Speaker 1: the local guys having events for White Zombie and again

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Speaker 1: this is nineteen thirty two, and they would say higher

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Speaker 1: African American or hire black performers to dress and quote

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Speaker 1: tropical garments and beat Tom Tom's and just yell all

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Speaker 1: over the place.

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Speaker 2: Yikes.

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Speaker 1: However, if you get past that really problematic promotion and

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Speaker 1: you look at just the film itself, it does seem

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Speaker 1: to imply that it is pretty crappy to take away

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Speaker 1: a person or community sense of agency.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, murder Lesandre is the big bat. You know.

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Speaker 2: He has depicted as an absolute monster, abusing and taking

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Speaker 2: advantage of individuals. You know, through this magic. It has

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Speaker 2: not seen us like a heroic act in any way,

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Speaker 2: shape or form. It's tough right to straddle that line,

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Speaker 2: especially in nineteen thirty four. You got to I mean,

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Speaker 2: the promotion of the film, I would argue, is its

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Speaker 2: own thing, separate from the intent of the filmmakers. So

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Speaker 2: let's give that, you know, credit where credits due, But

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Speaker 2: I would argue that there's a little bit of subtext

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Speaker 2: that's hidden in the film that is very cleverly done.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you could even say they're sneaking it under the radar,

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Speaker 1: right of this, So if we're looking at the real

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Speaker 1: world occupation, which is a part of American history that

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Speaker 1: a lot of textbooks don't care to talk about, the

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Speaker 1: real right, exactly, So, the real world Haitian people, the

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Speaker 1: locals at this time were always against the occupation. They

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Speaker 1: were never fans of it, and they would have continual

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Speaker 1: protests and uprisings and mutinies and strikes. And eventually, in

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty four, under Franklin Delano Roosevelt's good neighbor policy,

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Speaker 1: Uncle Sad Yeah, funny name, especially considering this next decision.

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Speaker 1: Because of that policy, Uncle Sam officially withdrew from Haiti

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Speaker 1: while retaining quote economic connections. So that's where private industry

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Speaker 1: and public policy get really sticky. They figured out a

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Speaker 1: way for US corporate interests to continue making money, and

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Speaker 1: then they said the best thing we can do as

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Speaker 1: a good neighbor.

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Speaker 2: Is to GTFO. And often is the case with these

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Speaker 2: kind of withdrawals, it certainly led to a period of

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Speaker 2: political upheaval and instability that lasted for quite a long time,

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Speaker 2: with a succession of coups and various problematic leaders. It

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Speaker 2: is one of those things that colonialists tend to do

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Speaker 2: when they're just kind of done with a place, They

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Speaker 2: just sort of lead them to their own devices and

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Speaker 2: don't really give them the tools to kind of pick

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Speaker 2: up the pieces and build themselves back up as an

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Speaker 2: autonomous nation one hundred percent.

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Speaker 1: And sometimes that's neglect or its a matter of incompetence

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Speaker 1: in the occupying force, but often as a pleasant as

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Speaker 1: it is to admit that is a purposeful that's a

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Speaker 1: purposeful thing because they don't want a they don't want

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Speaker 1: this former vassal state to ever become fully independent.

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Speaker 2: Oh one hundred percent. And it was around thirteen years

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Speaker 2: that the US kind of maintained that political hold over Haiti,

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Speaker 2: and that included a lot of those forced labor practices

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Speaker 2: and suppression of you know, descents, as well as continuing

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Speaker 2: to force this improved infrastructure that benefited the US much

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Speaker 2: more than it benefited the locals.

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Speaker 1: Oh one hundred percent. And make no mistake of the

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Speaker 1: colonial power of France was also deeply involved in similar

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Speaker 1: unclean Shenanigans, and it's it's to a point where the

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Speaker 1: intergenerational consequences of those actions of that state craft reverberate today.

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Speaker 1: You know, we recently when we were on when we

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Speaker 1: were on our work crews at True Crime Cruise, some

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Speaker 1: of us had the opportunity to visit the Dominican Republic

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Speaker 1: and it was real eye opener, at least when I

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Speaker 1: was talking with the locals who it was just an

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Speaker 1: eye opener to hear them talk about the neighboring country

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Speaker 1: of Haiti because they're on the you know, they're on

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Speaker 1: the same island, and the difference between the two countries

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Speaker 1: on almost every level is just stark and disturbing. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the US created a real life horror story.

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Speaker 2: There one hundred percent, and a lot of historians this

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Speaker 2: is a turn that I just stumbled upon, and looking

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Speaker 2: up some of the history of the US occupation of

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Speaker 2: Haiti refer to the legacy of this occupation and withdrawal

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Speaker 2: as having left dealt rather a psychic blow to the

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Speaker 2: concept of independence there in Haiti. And then the US

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Speaker 2: came back in in nineteen ninety four, not necessarily as

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Speaker 2: an act of egalitarianism, but more so serving stuff again

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Speaker 2: to restore a democratically elected president. Then, of course they we.

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Speaker 1: You know, had a relationship with right, right, And then

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Speaker 1: we see this kind of interference throughout the US sphere

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Speaker 1: of influence at the time, in the Caribbean and Latin America.

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Speaker 1: And so what we're telling you here, folks, is that

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Speaker 1: a lot of really good horror tells a different story

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Speaker 1: right and tells it through metaphor. It makes you think

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Speaker 1: it's not all just the final girl and gratuitous stabbing.

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Speaker 1: Although that does have a place in these categories of horror.

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Speaker 1: Zombie films are in particular ripe for this kind of commentary.

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Speaker 1: If we go just a few years later, in nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty three, we'll see I Walked with a Zombie. In

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Speaker 1: this film, we're back in the Caribbean. There's a young

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Speaker 1: nurse who takes a job caring for a komat host

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Speaker 1: woman on a fictional island that is definitely not Haiti,

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Speaker 1: but definitely is Haiti, and she is all of a

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Speaker 1: sudden plunged into an underground, a cultural underground where the

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Speaker 1: ghost of slavery haunts the present and voodoo priests are

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Speaker 1: weaponizing their power to summon the Living Dead, so again commentary.

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and because of her station as a nurse,

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Speaker 2: you know, caring for folks in the working class, she

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Speaker 2: is able to kind of mix in with a lot

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Speaker 2: of the locals and start to really be the stand

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Speaker 2: in for the audience and kind of being plunged into

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Speaker 2: that class divide.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, and she is there to help. So this

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Speaker 1: is much more nuanced than.

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Speaker 2: One could argue. Still a white savior trope a little bit,

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Speaker 2: but I think it, you know what I mean, It's

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Speaker 2: it's not egregious. I haven't seen the film though, but

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Speaker 2: my understanding is that it's not her.

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Speaker 1: Her intentions at least are pure, which makes her a

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Speaker 1: better protagonist. So the couple in White Zombie goes to

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Speaker 1: Haiti because they're getting married and they want to have

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Speaker 1: an upper class, exploitative agrarian lifestyle. But the nurse and

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Speaker 1: I walked with a Zombie our character is named Betsy.

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Speaker 2: Here.

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Speaker 1: She is positioned as someone who is yes, white, but

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Speaker 1: is also working class. So she's there because she has

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Speaker 1: a job. She's not an investor. She's taking care of

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Speaker 1: the wife of a wealthy plantation owner. But she is

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Speaker 1: interacting more directly with black workers with people who are

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Speaker 1: locals who are descendants of those previously enslaved people, and

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Speaker 1: that brings to the forefront this class and race divide

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Speaker 1: running through the film.

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Speaker 2: Not to mention and rend really Astutey points out that

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Speaker 2: Betsy is Canadian, which obviously as a country has links

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Speaker 2: to French colonialism as well.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really good point there. Her history as

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Speaker 1: a character is not tied to racial prejudice and slavery,

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Speaker 1: which makes her unique amid most of the people she

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Speaker 1: meets in Haiti, and so the film really puts her

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Speaker 1: in an outsider position, kind of a class of one's own,

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Speaker 1: making her a lens for the audience theoretically to more

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Speaker 1: objectively view the cultural complications of the.

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Speaker 2: Story, which are personified by two very important key symbols

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Speaker 2: character named Kara four, who is a zombified guard you know,

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Speaker 2: complete with like bulging eyes, who kind of lurks in

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Speaker 2: the shadows waiting to be summoned by his master, as

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Speaker 2: well as a statue known as t Misery, which was

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Speaker 2: formerly the figurehead of the Holland Families slave ship and

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Speaker 2: similar tonight of Living Dead. I Walked with a Zombie

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Speaker 2: was super controversial when it came out. Similarly because of

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Speaker 2: some of these slightly ahead of their time political critiques, Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: putting a critical lens up against the narrative that people

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Speaker 2: were being taught in school and in the press.

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Speaker 1: They were looking at colonialism, they were looking at the

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Speaker 1: consequences of chattel slavery, and they were saying, Hey, I

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Speaker 1: don't know if there's a hot take, but maybe this

402
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Speaker 1: wasn't all on the up and up.

403
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Speaker 2: Maybe maybe this wasn't on, Maybe this wasn't quite on.

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Speaker 1: Maybe this was a swing and a miss historically, So

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Speaker 1: they didn't gloss over the facts. For American audiences, and

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Speaker 1: a lot of audiences in the early nineteen hundreds here

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Speaker 1: on mainland America, they might not have had much of

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Speaker 1: an opinion on the occupation of Haiti because it was

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Speaker 1: making some people who were already very wealthy and powerful

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Speaker 1: more powerful and more wealthy. But the average per in

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Speaker 1: you know, Oklahoma or something just hears about it occasionally

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Speaker 1: when they read the paper.

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Speaker 2: Right, and it wasn't like the top story no either,

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Speaker 2: no at all.

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Speaker 1: And this this kind of one thing that's brilliant about

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Speaker 1: these films, and it shows the power of film is

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Speaker 1: that it cut through all that pr and all the

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Speaker 1: propagandistic spins, and it made the local population, or it

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Speaker 1: gave local populations of Americans the opportunity to really reassess

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Speaker 1: their country's involvement in a brutal past.

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Speaker 2: And it did it so.

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Speaker 1: Experientially, experientially, and I'm thinking it did it in an

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Speaker 1: elegant way that wasn't talking down to you.

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Speaker 2: It was telling you a story. And it's interesting because,

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Speaker 2: you know, because of the time and some of the

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Speaker 2: attention that would have been paid, you know, by powers

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Speaker 2: that be to films like this, some of that. The

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Speaker 2: fact that it wasn't heavy handed or overt is probably

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Speaker 2: a product of the time and them having to be

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Speaker 2: a little bit crafty about it, you know, and not

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Speaker 2: come right out and say the quiet part loud. Had

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Speaker 2: to say the quiet part a little quiet. But it

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Speaker 2: is clear that I walked with the Zombie did so

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Speaker 2: a little more aggressively than White Zombie.

435
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:21,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And this all brings us back to the

436
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:23,919
Speaker 1: Knights of the Living Dead. Sort of fast forward in

437
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:29,399
Speaker 1: a few more decades. It's nineteen sixty eight. The United

438
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 1: States of America has had a rough go for a

439
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:35,520
Speaker 1: couple of reasons. There were some really good things, there

440
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:39,119
Speaker 1: were some really terrible things. The Civil Rights Act was

441
00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:43,119
Speaker 1: passed four years earlier, right in nineteen sixty four, but

442
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:48,120
Speaker 1: racial inequality was still very much a thing, even more

443
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:49,240
Speaker 1: so than today.

444
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:51,679
Speaker 2: All of this stuff is top of mind because I

445
00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 2: mean speaking of experiential this was lived, This was right

446
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:59,440
Speaker 2: in front. This was practically a new Civil War kind

447
00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:01,720
Speaker 2: of moment to where there was a huge divide that

448
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:05,440
Speaker 2: was very clear in terms of the folks who were

449
00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:11,159
Speaker 2: pro mistreatment of African Americans and the folks who were,

450
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 2: you know, on in their corner. This also all was

451
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:18,640
Speaker 2: roiling around during the Vietnam War, which is its own

452
00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:21,480
Speaker 2: you know, bag of badgers, as we say on stuff

453
00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 2: they don't want you to know. So what started as

454
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:27,919
Speaker 2: an anti Vietnam War protest at the National Democratic Invention

455
00:28:27,920 --> 00:28:34,640
Speaker 2: in Chicago turned into an absolute sh show, all out riot. Yeah. Absolutely,

456
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:36,119
Speaker 2: thanks for the beet theorem X.

457
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 1: We have we we have to emphasize this, we have

458
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:43,440
Speaker 1: to highlight it and put it in italics for anybody

459
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 1: wasn't around during this time. There were serious questions about

460
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:52,160
Speaker 1: the viability of the United States as a thing. I

461
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:56,680
Speaker 1: think that's astute to point out a possible civil war movement,

462
00:28:56,720 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 1: but people, for one reason or another, on all imaginable

463
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:04,200
Speaker 1: sides of political divides, A lot of people in different

464
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:07,160
Speaker 1: camps were convinced the US was going to fall. We

465
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:11,360
Speaker 1: saw public figures like doctor Martin Luther King Junior assassinated

466
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 1: while delivering a speech at a hotel balcony in Memphis.

467
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:20,720
Speaker 1: JFK had already been assassinated. His brother, Robert F. Kennedy,

468
00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:24,680
Speaker 1: is also assassinated by June of nineteen sixty eight.

469
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:28,240
Speaker 2: I can't help but feel reverberations with the present moment

470
00:29:28,320 --> 00:29:31,080
Speaker 2: that we're living in right now too, and also the

471
00:29:31,160 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 2: fact that zombies have had another big moment if they

472
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:39,240
Speaker 2: ever really went anywhere. But yeah, to your point, it

473
00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:42,360
Speaker 2: is a great way of pointing out some of these

474
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:46,240
Speaker 2: inequalities and some of this like US versus Them mentality

475
00:29:46,600 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 2: without having to be overtly political about it.

476
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just a year earlier, in nineteen sixty seven,

477
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:57,640
Speaker 1: one of the millions of people reading all this terrifying

478
00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:01,719
Speaker 1: news is a young guy named George Romero. Now, George

479
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: at the time is directing commercials, which is how a

480
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 1: lot of filmmakers get their start. He scrapes and scrounges

481
00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 1: and saves to start a grassroots production company called Image ten.

482
00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:18,360
Speaker 1: And he does this with a couple of his college buddies.

483
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:21,040
Speaker 1: They don't have a lot of money. They've got like

484
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 1: six thousand bucks. When they decide to produce a horror

485
00:30:24,920 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 1: movie outside of their hometown in Pittsburgh. They need more

486
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:33,400
Speaker 1: than six thousand dollars even back then, so they go

487
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:39,200
Speaker 1: around to beg and cajole friends and family and other

488
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:42,320
Speaker 1: anyone they can find, really, anyone they can get a

489
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:45,239
Speaker 1: pitch meeting with, and they ultimately raise one hundred and

490
00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 1: fourteen thousand dollars for the final film, which sounds like

491
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:52,640
Speaker 1: a lot of money maybe to an individual, but as

492
00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:54,960
Speaker 1: we know, is very much not a lot of money

493
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 1: when you're trying to make a whole ass film.

494
00:30:57,280 --> 00:30:58,920
Speaker 2: Well, the funny thing, like, I guess it's time to

495
00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 2: do it. If we could get a boot inflation calculated

496
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:02,760
Speaker 2: that bad boy.

497
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:08,720
Speaker 4: Dude, it does add up to about what you would

498
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 4: consider the most modest budget of an indie film today,

499
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:14,680
Speaker 4: which is one million, eighty five.

500
00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 2: And forty one dollars and sixty four cents boop.

501
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:22,840
Speaker 1: Great, Yes, And this here's the twist, here's how they

502
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:26,520
Speaker 1: get all this money, even though they're basically some kids

503
00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:30,600
Speaker 1: just out of college. They go to their investors and

504
00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 1: they say, hey, if you invest in our film, will

505
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:38,960
Speaker 1: also put you in the movie. So they appealed to

506
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 1: some vanity.

507
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 2: Right.

508
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:44,720
Speaker 1: So even still with this consideration, the budget is tight

509
00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 1: and they blow a lot of it renting the rural

510
00:31:49,360 --> 00:31:52,680
Speaker 1: farmhouse where they wanted the film to be set.

511
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:55,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny because originally they wanted this to be

512
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:58,080
Speaker 2: much more of an ed Wood Plan nine from Outer

513
00:31:58,200 --> 00:32:03,640
Speaker 2: Space kind of fi Cold War era alien picture, you know,

514
00:32:03,680 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 2: which was much more of a trope at the time,

515
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:10,400
Speaker 2: But because of limitations and constraints, they had to get

516
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:13,200
Speaker 2: a little more creative with it, and in doing that

517
00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:15,959
Speaker 2: kind of made a new thing exactly.

518
00:32:16,120 --> 00:32:21,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, because the makeup effects for aliens can add up

519
00:32:21,360 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. So here's what they end up with. In

520
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:29,120
Speaker 1: the final plot, the story follows a lady named Barbara.

521
00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:33,640
Speaker 1: Barbara travels with her brother to visit her father's grave

522
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:36,720
Speaker 1: and when they get to the cemetery, they're attacked by

523
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:40,640
Speaker 1: a guy in the cemetery. He kills her brother. She

524
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 1: runs in a panic of valid panic and arrives at

525
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:47,760
Speaker 1: a farmhouse, and then she and several other people that

526
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:51,360
Speaker 1: she doesn't know. They end up hiding from this horde

527
00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:55,800
Speaker 1: of hungry zombies who continually lay siege to the house.

528
00:32:56,520 --> 00:33:00,400
Speaker 1: The hero of the group, the guy kind of assumes

529
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:04,160
Speaker 1: the leadership position, is a dude named Ben and he

530
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 1: is played by a black actor named Dwayne Jones. Everybody

531
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:13,040
Speaker 1: else inside the farmhouse, like the humans, they're all white actors.

532
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean you pointed out the whole thing

533
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:17,920
Speaker 2: about Okay, you invest in us, will give you a part.

534
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:20,840
Speaker 2: What a genius structure to be able to do that

535
00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 2: and not have to depend too much on people's acting chops.

536
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:27,400
Speaker 2: You just throw them in some pancake makeup and have

537
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:32,320
Speaker 2: them shamble around and go. Yeah. But to that point there,

538
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 2: they had a friend who was of their close group,

539
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:40,960
Speaker 2: the best actor, the best guy for the job. The

540
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:43,760
Speaker 2: fact that he was black had nothing to do with it,

541
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:48,360
Speaker 2: but in the end it made that cultural impact even

542
00:33:48,600 --> 00:33:49,680
Speaker 2: more stark.

543
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:57,040
Speaker 3: Yeah.

544
00:33:57,240 --> 00:34:01,280
Speaker 1: This is interesting, right because it feels like, if we're

545
00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:05,200
Speaker 1: trying to spin a narrative, we would say Romero and

546
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:08,719
Speaker 1: team were so progressive and ahead of the time. We're

547
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:11,319
Speaker 1: not saying they're not progressive people, and we're definitely not

548
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:14,360
Speaker 1: saying they're bad people, but we do think it's important

549
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 1: to realize the reality of independent filmmaking, which is a

550
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 1: lot of time you look a lot of times you

551
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:25,880
Speaker 1: look around at your friend group and you say, Okay, sorry, guys,

552
00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:30,440
Speaker 1: Dwayne's the best actor, So now our movie is political.

553
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:33,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's also the thing that's so neat about

554
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 2: art is it can often be a product of happenstance,

555
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:42,280
Speaker 2: those happy accidents that Bob Ross is always talking about.

556
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:46,040
Speaker 2: That's true for music and creating things with limitations, like

557
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:49,200
Speaker 2: if you have every tool in the arsenal, sometimes you

558
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:51,719
Speaker 2: get kind of stemied or a little bit overwhelmed. But

559
00:34:51,800 --> 00:34:54,600
Speaker 2: when you're forced to make choices because of a lack

560
00:34:54,640 --> 00:34:59,920
Speaker 2: of resources, oftentimes accidentally magic happens. And that's exactly what

561
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:03,680
Speaker 2: in here with Dwayne Jones, who is the guy we're

562
00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:07,400
Speaker 2: talking about here, who played Ben, our hero Ben.

563
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:12,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this guy is this guy is the saving

564
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:15,480
Speaker 1: force a Knight of the Living Dead. And it's interesting

565
00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:20,480
Speaker 1: because you know, like we mentioned, at this time, Hollywood

566
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:24,600
Speaker 1: had this thing that seemed almost like a calculated quota

567
00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:29,480
Speaker 1: on who could or could not be a lead role actor,

568
00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:33,399
Speaker 1: and Sidney Poitier was like the only black actor who

569
00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:36,759
Speaker 1: was allowed to be the lead man. So we want

570
00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 1: to be clear it is never mentioned. The idea of

571
00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:43,759
Speaker 1: race relations here is never explicitly mentioned. It's never a

572
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:49,120
Speaker 1: story point. Nobody gives the Ben character a tough time

573
00:35:49,360 --> 00:35:53,319
Speaker 1: about being a quote unquote black guy trapped with these

574
00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:57,160
Speaker 1: white folks. In this zombie flick. He plays the entire

575
00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 1: role as a unluck key stranger who was stuck in

576
00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:06,799
Speaker 1: this house with other unlucky strangers, tried to survive the.

577
00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:11,680
Speaker 2: Night, a ragtag band of yes strangers who will become

578
00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:15,680
Speaker 2: the allies. I want to backtrack, just ever so slightly

579
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:19,760
Speaker 2: for a quick moment to mention the Hayes Code, which

580
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 2: was you know, often just known as the Code. There's

581
00:36:23,080 --> 00:36:27,000
Speaker 2: an era of Hollywood called pre code Hollywood, which is

582
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:30,120
Speaker 2: what the two films we talked about earlier, Fell Under

583
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:33,840
Speaker 2: White Zombie and I Walked with a Zombie. The Hayes

584
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:38,960
Speaker 2: Code was established in the later in the thirties and

585
00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 2: ended in nineteen sixty eight, which was kind of the

586
00:36:40,680 --> 00:36:44,240
Speaker 2: precursor to the Motion Picture Association of America Ratings board,

587
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:47,239
Speaker 2: and you know, our rating et cetera. But it was

588
00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:54,360
Speaker 2: essentially a form of censorship that imposed self regulated prohibition

589
00:36:54,480 --> 00:37:00,320
Speaker 2: of topics like profanity, graphic violence, nudity, sexual relationships, proper

590
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:07,360
Speaker 2: sexual relationships aka probably interracial you know. So nineteen sixty

591
00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 2: eight is actually when that ends. And I'm just wondering

592
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:14,640
Speaker 2: if the lack of this kind of oversight was largely

593
00:37:14,680 --> 00:37:18,400
Speaker 2: what led to this film being able to exist. Although

594
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:21,400
Speaker 2: we already mentioned that it was mainly underground when it

595
00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 2: came out, so this is probably It's not like when

596
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:26,160
Speaker 2: a thing ends all of a sudden, everything changes, So

597
00:37:26,200 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 2: I'm sure there was still a sense of this kind

598
00:37:28,080 --> 00:37:31,720
Speaker 2: of puritanical, you know, attitude from the audiences and critics.

599
00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:35,200
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, And there's a reason Ben is the leader

600
00:37:35,280 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 1: the character here, because look, if you rewatch the film,

601
00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:42,240
Speaker 1: if you're a horror buff like us folks, you'll notice

602
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:45,600
Speaker 1: that pretty much all the other humans in the farmhouse

603
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:50,879
Speaker 1: are kind of useless and white. Bet is trustworthy. He's

604
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:55,600
Speaker 1: the smartest one. Barbara, our character that the story begins with.

605
00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:58,360
Speaker 1: She is in a state of shock for most of

606
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:00,920
Speaker 1: the movie because her brother got killed in front of her.

607
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 2: He got eaten. Yeah, not cool. It's interesting though, because

608
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:07,840
Speaker 2: the whole starkness of the medium, the black and white film,

609
00:38:07,840 --> 00:38:10,760
Speaker 2: and then there's this like central character who's black, everybody

610
00:38:10,840 --> 00:38:13,799
Speaker 2: else is white. All of this is not necessarily done

611
00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:17,000
Speaker 2: on purpose, but it really makes it read even more

612
00:38:17,120 --> 00:38:19,720
Speaker 2: kind of poignantly. You know, the whole thing just feels

613
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:23,080
Speaker 2: really intentional even if it wasn't. But yeah, Ben is

614
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:25,160
Speaker 2: our hero. He's the most competent one of the bunch.

615
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:29,240
Speaker 2: He's more or less single handedly keeping these dumb dumbs

616
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:31,279
Speaker 2: in line and making sure that they don't get eaten.

617
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:33,759
Speaker 1: So he will do things where he's trying to get

618
00:38:33,760 --> 00:38:38,400
Speaker 1: to know other people, and he's asking Barbara questions about

619
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:41,720
Speaker 1: what's going on, What the heck is that outside?

620
00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:42,720
Speaker 2: She's no help.

621
00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:46,240
Speaker 1: Get a hold of yourself, right, slap, slap, But he hurries,

622
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:51,120
Speaker 1: He immediately assesses the situation. He tries to board up

623
00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 1: the house, he fires a rifle, he lights fires outside.

624
00:38:56,040 --> 00:39:00,319
Speaker 1: He tries to keep back this trail of zombies who

625
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:03,880
Speaker 1: have started to discover them. And it's almost like ants

626
00:39:04,080 --> 00:39:07,719
Speaker 1: will follow upon other ants. Maybe we talk a little

627
00:39:07,719 --> 00:39:10,680
Speaker 1: bit about the other folks there, because right now we've

628
00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:13,399
Speaker 1: just talked about Barbara and Bett.

629
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:16,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's also a middle aged couple who have found

630
00:39:16,800 --> 00:39:21,839
Speaker 2: refuge in the house. Their young daughter named Karen, has

631
00:39:22,120 --> 00:39:28,000
Speaker 2: been bitten by a zombie. We are, I guess, waiting

632
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:29,960
Speaker 2: to see at this point whether or not that's a

633
00:39:29,960 --> 00:39:33,600
Speaker 2: thing where you turn, you get turned, because we talked

634
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:35,920
Speaker 2: about how there is a story point that this was

635
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 2: caused by radiation or some sort of like you know,

636
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 2: anomalists uap phenomenon, very love crafty and like the color

637
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:48,400
Speaker 2: out of space, right, that's another story point. Or probably

638
00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:51,240
Speaker 2: he was aware of Romeiro or Knight of the Comet.

639
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:53,680
Speaker 2: You remember that one man I loved The Night of

640
00:39:53,719 --> 00:39:55,879
Speaker 2: the Comet. So we're waiting to see if she's gonna turn.

641
00:39:56,040 --> 00:39:58,440
Speaker 2: I think it's implied that that is what's going to happen.

642
00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:02,680
Speaker 2: We've also got Henry, who's a real till. He's got

643
00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:04,960
Speaker 2: a bit of a temper. He's a bit of a misogynist,

644
00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:07,319
Speaker 2: and this is really kind of mucking things up and

645
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:10,480
Speaker 2: just bringing bad vibes to the party. Yeah, exactly.

646
00:40:10,560 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 1: He's one of those one of my least favorite people

647
00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:16,320
Speaker 1: in an emergency or survival.

648
00:40:15,840 --> 00:40:19,320
Speaker 2: Situation or an escape room or an escape room, he's.

649
00:40:19,239 --> 00:40:23,759
Speaker 1: Just like blustering around, yelling, at people and being better,

650
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:27,440
Speaker 1: thinks he knows better, and all his ideas are terrible

651
00:40:27,560 --> 00:40:30,040
Speaker 1: and he has no listening skills, right, And.

652
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:32,760
Speaker 2: So at one point Ben has to leave the farmhouse

653
00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:37,440
Speaker 2: to help other stragglers outside, and Henry just takes it

654
00:40:37,520 --> 00:40:41,880
Speaker 2: upon himself to lock him out. Yeah, classic Henry.

655
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:45,040
Speaker 1: And this is where we get to that point that

656
00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:47,440
Speaker 1: I think we wanted to explore a little bit more.

657
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:50,759
Speaker 1: Keep in mind, this isn't the late nineteen sixties in

658
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:54,600
Speaker 1: the United States. When Henry doesn't let the black character

659
00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:59,399
Speaker 1: Ben inside the house, they go back and forth. Ben

660
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:03,279
Speaker 1: finally gave entry and he just clocks the crap out

661
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:04,839
Speaker 1: of Henry. He's just had it.

662
00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:09,440
Speaker 2: This did not happen very often at all in cinema

663
00:41:09,440 --> 00:41:12,120
Speaker 2: at the time. No, And part of the reason that

664
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:16,239
Speaker 2: this did happen, I think we mentioned the idea that

665
00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:18,359
Speaker 2: his race was not a story point, but it goes

666
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:21,520
Speaker 2: even further than that. Romero, talking to NPR, said that

667
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:23,880
Speaker 2: Jones was simply the best actor from among our friends,

668
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:27,320
Speaker 2: and we didn't change the script from when Dwayne agreed

669
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:30,239
Speaker 2: to play the role. Therefore, he plays the entire thing

670
00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:33,400
Speaker 2: as a white actor would, and there is no implied

671
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:38,480
Speaker 2: racial limitations, and yet that act as depicted is such

672
00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:42,400
Speaker 2: a powerful moment, like that first interracial on screen kiss

673
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:43,800
Speaker 2: in Star Trek.

674
00:41:45,080 --> 00:41:50,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, and in nineteen sixties America, regardless of genre of film,

675
00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:54,200
Speaker 1: you would not see a black actor punching a white

676
00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:57,600
Speaker 1: actor on screen, especially not when the white guys depicted

677
00:41:57,640 --> 00:42:02,239
Speaker 1: as a villain. Ben also gets fit with other characters

678
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:04,839
Speaker 1: in the story. When Barbara is having one of her

679
00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:08,440
Speaker 1: freak out episodes, Ben does slap her to an attempt

680
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:12,719
Speaker 1: to get her back to life, back to reality. Oh yeah, yeah, a.

681
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:14,759
Speaker 2: Trope in and of itself. Snap out of it woman,

682
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:17,000
Speaker 2: you know, ye whomever.

683
00:42:17,640 --> 00:42:22,319
Speaker 1: And we also know that due to the way race

684
00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:25,960
Speaker 1: relations were depicted on screen at this time, black actors

685
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:30,600
Speaker 1: certainly didn't hit female white actors on screen in the sixties,

686
00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:36,239
Speaker 1: not even in the context of hey, I'm quote helping you. Eventually, Shockingly,

687
00:42:36,920 --> 00:42:41,680
Speaker 1: as we teased, Ben does have to kill the girl caring.

688
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:45,920
Speaker 2: Yep, she succumbs to her bite, and he does, you know,

689
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:49,040
Speaker 2: do her a kindness and put her down after she

690
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:52,080
Speaker 2: begins to It's not like he's just doing it in advance.

691
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:57,160
Speaker 2: She goes full zombie and begins to devour the flesh

692
00:42:57,200 --> 00:42:59,960
Speaker 2: of her father, which you know, we don't love that guy.

693
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:01,880
Speaker 2: You kind of love to see it getting his come up.

694
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:05,480
Speaker 2: It's a little bit, yeah, but what a terrible way

695
00:43:05,520 --> 00:43:07,200
Speaker 2: to go. Now we're dealing with the death of a

696
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:11,200
Speaker 2: child's which is also absolutely shocking for the time.

697
00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:14,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, and now you're watching the young eat the old,

698
00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:19,600
Speaker 1: which kind of feels like a symbol for generational upheaval

699
00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:23,799
Speaker 1: in the US. And then despite again in the context,

700
00:43:24,560 --> 00:43:29,720
Speaker 1: the audience is watching a white child's character being killed

701
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:33,040
Speaker 1: by a black character, and to some people in the

702
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:37,839
Speaker 1: audience that was indible, and to some film critics that

703
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:42,040
Speaker 1: was incredibly controversial, even though that's the nature of a

704
00:43:42,040 --> 00:43:45,960
Speaker 1: good horror story. Right in the end, our character Ben

705
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:51,239
Speaker 1: is the last human left. He is never infected with

706
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:56,040
Speaker 1: the zombie bug, but when he's trying to finally reach

707
00:43:56,120 --> 00:43:59,880
Speaker 1: the authorities, he is shot by a sheriff who they

708
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:02,839
Speaker 1: well Ben might be a member of the living dead.

709
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:05,680
Speaker 2: And again, it would have happened that way in the

710
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:08,080
Speaker 2: plot even if it had been played by a white actor.

711
00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:10,680
Speaker 2: But the fact that it was a black actor and

712
00:44:10,800 --> 00:44:13,600
Speaker 2: the police brutality of it all, and it's just, I mean,

713
00:44:14,239 --> 00:44:16,879
Speaker 2: so much of this stuff was happenstance, and I don't know,

714
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:18,799
Speaker 2: It's like you have to move so quickly and be

715
00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:20,960
Speaker 2: so nimble in an indie film production like this, you

716
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:23,480
Speaker 2: might not even have time to think about how this

717
00:44:23,520 --> 00:44:26,000
Speaker 2: is going to have this kind of cultural impact. But

718
00:44:26,160 --> 00:44:28,239
Speaker 2: boy did it ever, and it really still reads and

719
00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:31,480
Speaker 2: hits today. I know that you're a fan of Jordan

720
00:44:31,520 --> 00:44:35,280
Speaker 2: Peele's work, both his comedy work and his film work

721
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:38,879
Speaker 2: and the Breakout. You know, obviously the masterpiece of his

722
00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:42,759
Speaker 2: in the horror genre and satire was get Out, which

723
00:44:43,120 --> 00:44:46,040
Speaker 2: originally he had written the ending where the main character,

724
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:51,600
Speaker 2: as he's escaping the kind of creepy you know, murderous,

725
00:44:51,719 --> 00:44:57,200
Speaker 2: zombifying white families, you know, nightmare home, he gets killed

726
00:44:57,200 --> 00:45:00,640
Speaker 2: by police or arrested, but don't remember he gets killed

727
00:45:00,640 --> 00:45:03,759
Speaker 2: but instead spoiler alert three two one, his buddy from

728
00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:06,080
Speaker 2: the TSA swoops in and saves the day for a

729
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:09,640
Speaker 2: nice little comedic punch at the end. But that absolutely

730
00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:12,040
Speaker 2: was a reference, and you're also even expecting that that's

731
00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:14,040
Speaker 2: what's going to happen to him. Because of this.

732
00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:17,400
Speaker 1: We should mention the sheriff, a knight of the living

733
00:45:17,440 --> 00:45:18,520
Speaker 1: dead who shoots Ben.

734
00:45:18,719 --> 00:45:19,640
Speaker 2: He is a white guy.

735
00:45:20,320 --> 00:45:23,799
Speaker 1: Again, the argument is, as we said, that, it just

736
00:45:24,080 --> 00:45:28,800
Speaker 1: happened that way because Dwayne who plays Ben, was literal

737
00:45:29,280 --> 00:45:33,240
Speaker 1: was literally the best or the least worst actor they knew.

738
00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:38,600
Speaker 1: So the film closes with Ben's body being burned on

739
00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:41,799
Speaker 1: top of a pile of the living dead, of the

740
00:45:41,920 --> 00:45:46,400
Speaker 1: zombies that he had spent the entirety of the story fighting.

741
00:45:46,600 --> 00:45:50,960
Speaker 2: Stragic. Yes, so, during the sixties, black Americans were obviously

742
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:55,000
Speaker 2: struggling to prove their worth and rise up in you know,

743
00:45:55,560 --> 00:45:58,480
Speaker 2: economically bettering their lot in life in a system that

744
00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:02,160
Speaker 2: was kind of designed to prevent them from doing so.

745
00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:07,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, well said, and we know that. Look, we know

746
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:10,160
Speaker 1: that that was true. Then it's true. Now there's a

747
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:13,120
Speaker 1: reason that final scene of Night of the Living Dead,

748
00:46:13,200 --> 00:46:17,759
Speaker 1: with Ben's body atop this pile of zombies, is the

749
00:46:17,840 --> 00:46:24,000
Speaker 1: reason it hit so profoundly. Zombie films essentially function as

750
00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:28,359
Speaker 1: a time capsule of the audience's greatest political fears. They're

751
00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:31,920
Speaker 1: deeper the more you think about them, and you know,

752
00:46:32,440 --> 00:46:35,759
Speaker 1: spoiler alert for American history. The US did survive the

753
00:46:35,840 --> 00:46:39,279
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties and went on to have other shenanigans in

754
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:42,840
Speaker 1: the seventies, the eighties, and even now in the twenty twenties.

755
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:46,959
Speaker 1: The seventies were a little bit calmer to in some

756
00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:51,400
Speaker 1: degrees because yuppies were leading in charge for consumerism. The

757
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:55,680
Speaker 1: country was no longer technically at war. And then you

758
00:46:55,760 --> 00:46:58,640
Speaker 1: see zombie movies start to evolve and step with that.

759
00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:02,080
Speaker 1: Now you get re Animator, Romero goes back to the

760
00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 1: well of the Undead with a Day of the Dead,

761
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:08,480
Speaker 1: which is literally a shopping mall.

762
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:11,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, and it's excellence. It's it's in color. Obviously,

763
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:17,080
Speaker 2: it is his like really blank check kind of version

764
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:19,480
Speaker 2: of the zombie movie, and it's it's excellent. It is

765
00:47:19,800 --> 00:47:22,600
Speaker 2: schlocky as I'll get out. The gore effects are bonkers,

766
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:26,400
Speaker 2: but it does also still have this underlying kind of

767
00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:29,799
Speaker 2: commentary social commentary. Then you also have just the utter

768
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:34,279
Speaker 2: shlock of things like Reanimator like you mentioned, and you

769
00:47:34,320 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 2: know Peter Jackson's Dead Alive for example, the Evil Dead films.

770
00:47:39,440 --> 00:47:42,480
Speaker 2: You start to really see this kind of flurry of

771
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:47,320
Speaker 2: spins and twists on that iconic genre that that Romero

772
00:47:47,400 --> 00:47:50,680
Speaker 2: created with Don of the Dead, even himself doing a

773
00:47:50,719 --> 00:47:52,960
Speaker 2: spin on his own thing with Day of the Dead,

774
00:47:53,040 --> 00:47:54,920
Speaker 2: kind of taking it to the next level. Then you

775
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 2: also see Michael Jackson's iconic music video for Thriller directed

776
00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:02,920
Speaker 2: by by John Landis I think is his name of

777
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:07,440
Speaker 2: the guy that made American Werewolf in London, which incredible effects,

778
00:48:07,480 --> 00:48:11,800
Speaker 2: and again taking some of these tropes and this genre

779
00:48:12,040 --> 00:48:15,440
Speaker 2: from the underground squarely into the kind of you know, zeitgeist.

780
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:19,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we also see the evolution of things that

781
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:24,200
Speaker 1: are zombie like but are a world away from voodoo,

782
00:48:24,239 --> 00:48:26,840
Speaker 1: because in the nineteen thirties, one of the fears that

783
00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:31,000
Speaker 1: filmmakers were really drawing from is the fear of other cultures,

784
00:48:31,080 --> 00:48:36,399
Speaker 1: right xenophobia, the fear of unfamiliar magic or spiritual practices.

785
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:38,359
Speaker 2: Which is built into the thing from the earliest days,

786
00:48:38,480 --> 00:48:39,840
Speaker 2: the whole us versus them mental.

787
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:45,680
Speaker 1: But as as a scientific progress continues and as society

788
00:48:45,719 --> 00:48:51,320
Speaker 1: overall evolves, we see zombies taking an increasingly secular approach

789
00:48:51,360 --> 00:48:53,560
Speaker 1: to their origin stories, and we see things that are

790
00:48:53,600 --> 00:48:56,719
Speaker 1: you know, not quite zombies, like the villains of Charlton

791
00:48:56,800 --> 00:49:02,040
Speaker 1: Heston's Omega Man from nineteen seventy one that's very post apocalyptic,

792
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:06,279
Speaker 1: but the monsters are zombie an all but name, and

793
00:49:06,320 --> 00:49:10,000
Speaker 1: of course Night of the Comet Absolute Banger nineteen eighty

794
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:15,680
Speaker 1: four sci fi comedy horror film about I think it's

795
00:49:15,719 --> 00:49:20,000
Speaker 1: like a Lady and the main character ends up safe

796
00:49:20,160 --> 00:49:25,080
Speaker 1: from a dangerous comet because she falls asleep in a

797
00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:29,000
Speaker 1: projectionist booth, but everybody else goes outside to watch the

798
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:31,400
Speaker 1: comet and it turns them into monsters.

799
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:33,880
Speaker 2: Oh man. Yeah, and it also reminds me of just

800
00:49:33,920 --> 00:49:37,759
Speaker 2: I mean a lot of this is Frankenstein base. You know,

801
00:49:37,760 --> 00:49:41,960
Speaker 2: we've got the Gleam littletro Frankenstein adaptation coming out soon.

802
00:49:42,000 --> 00:49:46,400
Speaker 2: But just this idea of an abomination, you know, an

803
00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:52,080
Speaker 2: unstoppable other, right that maybe even is of of who

804
00:49:52,160 --> 00:49:55,160
Speaker 2: we are in some way, this kind of bastardization of

805
00:49:55,200 --> 00:49:57,640
Speaker 2: like what it means to be human. And that also

806
00:49:57,760 --> 00:49:59,520
Speaker 2: is a trope that you see in all kinds of

807
00:49:59,560 --> 00:50:03,040
Speaker 2: alien invasion movies, like The Body Snatchers and The Blob.

808
00:50:03,640 --> 00:50:08,680
Speaker 2: Just this unstoppable force that is going to subsume and

809
00:50:08,800 --> 00:50:10,000
Speaker 2: devour us, all right.

810
00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:12,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then we see kind of a Venn diagram

811
00:50:12,719 --> 00:50:17,000
Speaker 1: when we get to other types of undead creatures, like vampires,

812
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:20,880
Speaker 1: who are sort of the honor students of the zombie.

813
00:50:20,520 --> 00:50:22,720
Speaker 2: World, much sexier, much better dressed.

814
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:29,440
Speaker 1: I've started to get back into the more gritty, the

815
00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:34,560
Speaker 1: more gritty depictions of vampirism, like the Strain or the Yeah,

816
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:37,440
Speaker 1: or let the Right One in Love.

817
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:40,680
Speaker 2: Let the Right One in the American version is a banger, actually,

818
00:50:40,680 --> 00:50:42,359
Speaker 2: but the original is where it's at.

819
00:50:43,080 --> 00:50:46,320
Speaker 1: And then we also see weird zombie films like Fido

820
00:50:46,640 --> 00:50:49,200
Speaker 1: where the zombies are domesticated pets.

821
00:50:49,600 --> 00:50:53,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, and of course, you know, with twenty eight Days

822
00:50:53,320 --> 00:50:57,080
Speaker 2: Later by Danny Boyle, you start to see this evolution

823
00:50:57,200 --> 00:51:01,160
Speaker 2: of zombies into these more raging kind of like not

824
00:51:01,320 --> 00:51:04,640
Speaker 2: shambling anymore, but like hauling asks, you know, and they're

825
00:51:04,680 --> 00:51:09,319
Speaker 2: incredibly muscular and deadly. And of course we just had

826
00:51:09,360 --> 00:51:13,640
Speaker 2: the third installment in that franchise come out this year,

827
00:51:13,880 --> 00:51:16,480
Speaker 2: twenty eight years later, which I really loved a lot,

828
00:51:16,600 --> 00:51:19,319
Speaker 2: and it has a lot of COVID kind of themes,

829
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:22,480
Speaker 2: and again this sort of like what does it mean

830
00:51:22,600 --> 00:51:25,200
Speaker 2: to exist in a world like this? How do you

831
00:51:25,239 --> 00:51:27,960
Speaker 2: survive like taking that not just from like on the day,

832
00:51:28,360 --> 00:51:30,520
Speaker 2: but like much further down the line, and what does

833
00:51:30,560 --> 00:51:33,120
Speaker 2: it look like? And how does that then become part

834
00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:36,319
Speaker 2: of your culture and part of your traditions? Right?

835
00:51:37,239 --> 00:51:40,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there are so many other great zombie films

836
00:51:41,000 --> 00:51:44,840
Speaker 1: to name. There's a lot of really good comedy horror

837
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:47,200
Speaker 1: like Zombie Land, Shot of the Dead, and so on,

838
00:51:48,000 --> 00:51:52,040
Speaker 1: So we can't wait to explore some of these because,

839
00:51:53,200 --> 00:51:56,160
Speaker 1: as we have to say pretty often nowadays, it's.

840
00:51:55,960 --> 00:51:57,920
Speaker 2: Always Halloween in America.

841
00:51:58,360 --> 00:52:01,120
Speaker 1: Big thanks to our super producer from mister Max Williams,

842
00:52:01,120 --> 00:52:05,200
Speaker 1: his brother Alex Williams, who composed this slap and bop

843
00:52:05,320 --> 00:52:08,560
Speaker 1: and gosh, is Alex back in town?

844
00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:11,040
Speaker 2: He isn't at the moment. I know he's coming soon.

845
00:52:11,200 --> 00:52:14,239
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, very soon. He'll be back very soon.

846
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:18,560
Speaker 2: Wow, you made it sound like he's outside. Yes, he's

847
00:52:18,600 --> 00:52:21,560
Speaker 2: scratching on my door like a zombie. Huge thanks dude.

848
00:52:21,640 --> 00:52:26,360
Speaker 2: Our favorite shambling zombiefide creature of the night, Jonathan Strickland,

849
00:52:26,760 --> 00:52:30,080
Speaker 2: the Quizzed aj Bahamas Jacobs, the Puzzler.

850
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:31,919
Speaker 3: Yes, the route.

851
00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:35,120
Speaker 1: Dude's that ridiculous crime. If you dig us, you'll love them.

852
00:52:35,160 --> 00:52:38,319
Speaker 1: Big big thanks for research associate Renfest.

853
00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:41,640
Speaker 2: Yes, this one was a banger, as was the previous

854
00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:45,080
Speaker 2: zombie related episode that Wren delivered for us, and we're

855
00:52:45,080 --> 00:52:48,480
Speaker 2: really enjoying her work a lot. Man. Huge things to you.

856
00:52:48,520 --> 00:52:48,719
Speaker 4: Ben.

857
00:52:48,800 --> 00:52:51,040
Speaker 2: Love talking zombies with you, do it any day of

858
00:52:51,040 --> 00:52:54,560
Speaker 2: the week. And also if you'll see you next time.

859
00:52:54,600 --> 00:52:54,960
Speaker 4: Books.

860
00:53:01,920 --> 00:53:05,719
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

861
00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:07,960
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.