You're listening to the survival podcast for zombie nerds everywhere. is Zombies Ate My Podcast. Hello, and welcome to Zombies Ate My Podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Murphy, and joining me as always, the busy zombie lord, Lou Page. How's it going, Lou? That's about how it's going. Yeah. Sorry for the delay in a new episode. I know it's been a month. It's been a month. Between illnesses, snowstorms.
appointments, things needing to change. It's been a while. Yeah. Yeah. And we've, but we're here and we're squeezing this episode in so that we can, we can. Get one more episode in before The Last of Us arrives. So speaking of The Last of Us, we've got quite a few stories here in the news. The virus has completely devastated over 150 of the world's major regions and is spreading rapidly. All right. As promised, Last of Us news.
Let's start off with the, I don't know, do you call this bad news or do you just call it like an update? I don't think it's bad news. I think it's just definitive as of right now. Yeah. Yeah, so that's the thing. So what we're talking about here, because we can see the notes. you find listeners at home can't uh the last of us part three for the last few years it's been like i've got a story uh nyi i mean neil druckman says he has a story idea they're thinking about it
Uh, but now, uh, with the press tour for the last of us season two, he says, don't bet on it. Uh, don't bet on there being a last of us part three. I have a theory about this. Okay. Shoot. What is it? I think he's now fully encased in Hollywood. And I would be surprised. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see Neil Druckmann leave video games and go to movies. I mean, wasn't he always like a filmmaker sort of?
I think that was like. Yeah. Yeah. That's always been kind of his thing. So he's now got his foot in the door at Hollywood. I mean, I'm not going to say he's not going to make games anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if we see him pursuing film now, though. Maybe. I mean, he's definitely got his hands full with season two and season three that is the next planned outing. Obviously Naughty Dog has, it's a two, not obviously, but they're a two team system as far as I know still. And.
The team that Neil Druckmann is heading is doing Intergalactic, which is their next big title. And this is the thing. Naughty Dog does not make small, inexpensive... These are like... triple a big games and they're expensive and when when he says don't bet on it or don't bet on there being a last of us part three like i i think He's staring down this long development, and I think there was news about Intergalactic being like, don't expect it before 2026. So putting it out further, I mean...
Naughty Dog hasn't even released a full game on the PS5 yet, like a full proper game. Intergalactic is probably going to be it, unless that second team has been cooking quietly. By then... PS5 will be dead and they'll be on to PS6. Yeah, I mean, you're not wrong. I mean, you look at the timelines. 2020 was when that PS5 launched. But you also remember, what was it? It wasn't it short on...
uh, product for like the first two years. Yes. Yeah. There was a chip shortage during COVID and, uh, it certainly impacted the amount of systems that were available. Um, like. personally, as someone who enjoyed part one and part two is a video game. They're not being a part three. I'm fine with that. Like the last of us video games were a unique experience, but would.
like would you call them fun like nope they're they're they're they're great video games great storytelling like great visuals great action um but at the end of the day like if they if they if the last of us part part three was like we're doing it i'd be like yeah absolutely i'll play it by day one great but do i need a last of us part three no i'm good naughty dog do what you feel
your team wants to do and if that's a new ip or or if or uh like i don't know if i don't think they're gonna go back to uncharted it sounds like they're gonna like naughty dog actually has a history of shelving their franchises when they're done like Jack and Daxter crash bandicoot. Like they don't go back to the well when they feel they've creatively sort of, you know, got through it. Right.
so maybe the last of us goes on the shelf next to uncharted and and and that's fine totally fine uh but While it might be going on the shelf video game wise, it is not going on the shelf TV wise because we've got multiple seasons to look forward to in the future, including. Season two, which premieres on April 13th, and we'll be covering the premiere episode on our next episode, next podcast episode, I should say. They had their official trailer.
Since we last spoke. Lou, pretty intense. Am I right? Very intense. It looks like we're getting double the intensity of the last season. Yeah. It's definitely opened up. A lot of focus on Jackson, the city where they are now. We got our first look at spores. So spores are back and they found an interesting way.
to weave them into the storyline this is a time jump so they kind of attribute it to like the virus evolving which you know tracks with how uh you know virology works in in the sense of you know In order to survive, the virus will change. So that's interesting. And we see a lot of characters that...
that we know from the game, like Dina and, um, some other characters, uh, Jesse, I think was in there. Uh, you, if you've played the game, you can probably like, spot some moments that you are that is probably meant to come come to mind as a player like there's some flashback scenes in there that take place after the first game but are technically uh
A flashback from from the story. So, yeah, it looks like Jackson's going to be under attack from from a horde of some kind. We see some scenes where Abby shows up. for the first time the the the snow scene we see um some other factions like the wlf militia and um i can't remember the the other factions name, but they play a really big part. And I honestly thought because they were kind of chunking out part two, I thought we weren't going to see some of these factions show up.
So it's going to be really interesting to see how they kind of piece this all together. That's where I'm most curious as someone who played the video games. Part two is a huge story, so it'll be interesting to see how much they tell. Lou, you never played the game, so having watched the trailer, does it kind of line up with your expectations of the story? It looks about what I was expecting. I mean, there's no like...
Oh, my God. I'm just as excited as I was earlier. I'm excited to watch it. I'm ready for the hype. But I'm not like... Oh, this has changed my way. I'm the same as I was. I'm going to watch it either way for the show, even if it looked bad, but it doesn't look bad. It looks good. No. Yeah, it looks really good. All right, let's move to another video game piece of media. Lots of news broke about Zack Kreger's Resident Evil reboot, including the fact that it is official now.
And there is talk. I don't know. Yeah. Deadlines reporting that Austin Abrams is in early talks to join the cast. Now, if you look at the article that we got. I don't like there's no image of Austin Abrams. So you wouldn't even know who that guy is. I wasn't even sure if that was the right name, if that was his name or a character. The way the article is listed, it lists everything he's ever done and every celebrity he's ever worked with.
but like his name is only mentioned once. Yeah. And I was like, I had to like go through and be trying to figure out, is this the same guy they're talking about? And I had to go back and find one of the things he's mentioned in to find him. Yeah, so he played Ron Anderson in The Walking Dead 2015 through 2016. I don't know who that is. That's not ringing any bells for me.
No, but he is in several episodes. It's not like he's in one and he's done. No. He's in nine episodes. Nine episodes. Yeah, but who's Ron? I should have looked it up before we... I've got to look it up now. Who Ron Anderson is. Okay, Ron Anderson, The Walking Dead. Okay. Yeah.
I think he's in. So he's a resident of the Alexandria safe zone alongside his mother, Jesse, father, Pete and brother, Sam. He served as the secondary antagonist for the first half of season six. So he was the bad guy, evidently. Yeah. I think I remember him and then he doesn't live very long and he's only bit parts until he's made like a villain and then he's dead. Yeah, it sounds like The Walking Dead. He's also in Euphoria. He plays a character in Euphoria.
But yeah, so no talk on who he's playing, but I figured we could have some fun with this. You have a theory, or you've heard some rumors as to the direction of the film, and it'd be great to talk about it. Yeah, I've heard rumors that... Because they've done the first Resident Evil before and because of some of the other mistakes that they've made along the way, like with the thing. My understanding is that they're in talks of taking Resident Evil Zero this time and starting from the zero point.
I wouldn't be surprised if we ended on a cliffhanger leading into what would be Resident Evil the game one. And the rumor I've heard is that he is going to play Billy. The prisoner that ends up teaming up with, what's her name? Rebecca. Rebecca. Yeah. Yeah. I do like Rebecca. I can see it. He's a little young.
He's only like 20, and I think Billy's character is supposed to be like 25. I mean, they could probably age him up. I've seen a couple photos here where he looks like a kid, and then I've seen a couple photos here where he looks a little more... uh a little more up aged up so i think he could pull it off but it's not um it's not um not a done deal
Like I'd have to see it before I'm excited, but I think it's an interesting idea. I think it's, it's fun that they're going to tackle something so different this time. If that's what they're going to do. Uh, it's, it's weird. Like it's not. It's not the game I'd go to. Like, I really feel like the solid choice for a traditional. Back to the video game roots, Resident Evil, you got to look at like.
You got to look at either. I think one's tough, but you got to look at either mashing one and two together strategically or just do two and maybe two and three. Or if you want to go crazy, just jump straight to four. I think those are the options. Here's my thought. If someone wanted my feedback on what they should do with the Resident Evil movie is I think two is the most interesting of the first few games.
And two can easily tie into three because they take place at the same time. I think if the beginning of the movie is. The mansion blowing up and a bunch of people escaping the mansion. Right? Yeah. And there being discussion of an outbreak. And then it leads into Umbrella trying to swipe it under the rug. And.
uh, the outbreak spreading to the city. I think you could tell a story from that perspective. Um, I don't think it'd be easy, but I think you could tell a story from that perspective and you could jump right into a cross telling story of one in two. I mean, I'm one or two and three, I mean. Right, right. So I'm looking at this image and I could totally see how you could get Billy. But I also feel like you could get a young Leon.
Leon was quite young in two, right? Yeah. I mean, he could play Leon. Leon was supposed to be a rookie. Yeah. Oh, it's my first day. You know, I mean, it's it's possible. It's also interesting because like when you say Resident Evil Zero, that has studio note written all over it in the sense of like, well, we can't do. We can't do Resident Evil 1. We can't do Resident Evil 2. We have to go with characters that are outside.
The ones we've explored like literally last year. Executives trying to like – trying to min-max their options to make the most amount of money. And they always screw it up. Which is – It's really interesting because like, I think if you take Zero, because Zero takes place on like a train to the mansion, right? Yeah.
And where does Billy go? Like, he disappears after Zero. Like, he's gone. He never comes back. He gets away at the end of Zero, if I remember right. The premise is that he's a prisoner, and there's been a... Like a prison bus or something. Sure. That is crashed. Or something like that. And he meets up with Rebecca. Who's been. Taken away from Bravo Teen. She's lost in the woods. And they end up working together and they find this train.
And they get on board the train, and the idea was originally that they were going to get the train moving to get themselves back to the city. But what they realized afterwards, I think, is that the train is going to a destination that's not the city. There's zombies and there's other things in the woods. And they end up in a... This is the weird part about Zero. It's one of the things I don't like about it. Is they're not in the mansion?
They're in a copy of the mansion that's on the other side of the woods. Right. And it's supposed to be a carbon copy. Like, it is almost exactly the same mansion, except all the lab stuff isn't there. Or something like that. Yeah. And then she ends up on an underground train that puts her back in the original. It's so convoluted. It's why I don't like that game. Is it so full of like such like, oh yeah, this is so video gamey.
Yeah, and I think that's why 2, adapting Resident Evil 2 works so well. And you can chunk in Resident Evil 3 at the same time if you really want to complicate things. But I think that's why 2 works so well because it's a straightforward story. It's action packed. You're stuck in a town and it's about to explode. Like, I mean, I think that works. Here's an interesting concept that I don't think any of the video games have explored or any of the movies explored.
Make two and three take place at the same time. Okay. And be telling two different stories. Jill is on the other side of the city being chased by Nemesis. Leon and Claire are in the police station being chased by Mr. X, right? Well, you could just remove Mr. X if you really wanted to, right? If you really wanted to. But let's say we're not going to remove Mr. X. Okay. Mr. X is staying in. Mr. X is staying in.
But let's say that the concept is these two factions of Umbrella fighting for control. And one is trying to take out Leon and one is trying to take out Jill. And they end up putting two... weapons in the city and Claire and Leon and Jill end up using the two of them to fight each other so that they can take each other out and they can get out of the city. Yeah. I mean, that writes itself. It does. It does. I mean, my understanding is the director, the sack guy is like he he's.
He is a well sought after director. We talked about this when we had the original story that like he makes good horror films and the fact that he wants to do Resident Evil. It's like a big deal. He does comedy well as to. So if they wanted to put any kind of humor in. this movie, he would be the director to add a little bit of comedy. Yeah. Now, do we have a do we have a date yet or is it still? It's not even it's they haven't even. This is early casting. This everything is in is pre-production.
We don't even have a film date yet, as far as I know. But I think they're shooting for 2026 when this would come out. I think they're shooting for Halloween of 2026. Yeah, actually, I just I opened up the article again. So they it's scheduled for release September 18th, 2026. So next next fall. Yeah. So, I mean. I mean, we're getting casting notes now. I would assume in about three to four months we're going to get filming. That will wrap up, and then we will get post-production.
And we'll start getting a trailer probably in January or February next year is my guess. Yeah. Man, I really like the welcome to Raccoon City. I know. I know. I mean, did it have flaws? Yeah. But its flaws weren't too, too bad. I could forgive it for a few of them. It was at least trying to tell the game from a... Tell the game perspective. You know what I mean?
Yeah. Well, we'll see how they do with shot number three, the reboot number three. So let's see how it goes. All right. Oh, this is really cool. So the video game Into the Dead. Uh, our darkest days. This is this like sort of side scrolling zombie sim. I have, I have the demo on my steam deck. I still haven't played it yet. Well, you're going to have a chance to play.
I guess another demo on April 9th when it launches in early access. And I got to admit, I was a little disappointed. I thought we'd be able to get the full version. right away but they are saying early access april 9th um and they anticipate it being about a year in early access so um Correct me if I'm wrong, but your stance on early access is to basically wait for full release, right? Unless I hear really, really, really good things and I hear someone say, don't wait by now. I.
Don't jump on early access. I've been burned too many times by projects that I bought early access and then they get dumped or the project gets finished and it's not what they promised when it began. Yeah. At all. I've had that happen a couple times. Yeah, for sure. And we've all, we've all been there. So they actually, uh, interesting enough, since I checked their steam page, they actually have like a, um, a roadmap. Okay. If they have a roadmap.
then I'm a little more interested in doing things. When they don't have a roadmap, I always go, yeah, this is going to be shovelware here in a few minutes. Yeah, so the roadmap, early access 12 to 18 months, major updates every four to six weeks, ongoing development, regular hotfixes and patches. So update one.
We'll have a new starting shelter, new throwable zombie, zombified survivors, curveballs. Like it's, it's hard to tell like what this game is. Like it's like in the trailer, it kind of looks like a narrative sort of zombie sim. but there is like player death that affects your other survivors like there was like a grief slash I need to play the demo and see what it's about
I know. Yeah, we've talked about playing the demo, and the demo is still available. I still see it here on Steam. Well, the other way that works, too, is if you've downloaded the demo on Steam, it's added to your Steam account, and it cannot be removed. Oh, really? Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. So this the thing for me is like, I love the look, the style and the animations are just phenomenal. And I do.
I do want to play the demo. I do kind of want to check it out. It's different. So that's Q for me that I want to play it. It's different. So I'll give it a shot. I just don't know if I'm going to run out and buy it the day it launches in early access. I might give it maybe maybe when it gets halfway down the roadmap, maybe I'll buy it. I think it'll be critical to wait for, you know, reviews and stuff. My thing is, is I need the game to have an ending.
or an end point um because if i buy an early access game and it's not a finished thing I don't want to have to keep going back in and replaying the same area. I had a couple games do that to me, where they promised me that I'd be able to play and get to point A or B, and then... They would update the game and they'd be like, yeah, now you got to start all over again back from square one. And I was like, I'm not going to replay this game seven times. I don't like it that much. Well, I did. I did.
I did put us in for for a press code. So we'll see. We'll see what happens. Maybe we'll get access to it and we'll check it out. But we do have that demo. So we'll we keep saying we're going to check it out. We're going to do it. eventually uh all right let's uh we got more news it's been a month like i said it's been a month um we finally got a trailer for the walking dead dead sea dead city season two
How do you feel about Return to Manhattan, Lou? This trailer actually got me a little excited. This is definitely more interesting than what I was expecting from Dead City. It looks like Negan. My big concern was I was worried that Negan was going to go back down the path of being Negan. And this trailer leads me to believe that him and Maggie are still going to be working together.
He's going to be playing the Negan role enough that he doesn't get killed. But it sounds like it looks like he's working with Maggie. And they do this, I hate when they do this in a trailer. They do this thing where they play the sound of Negan dragging the bat. And they, at the end of the trailer, they do this thing. And then they reveal it's not Negan with the bat. It's Maggie. And she's about to bash somebody and you don't see who it is. And I go, it's not Negan.
Like, why are you doing this to me? It's not going to be Negan. It's going to be that dude from the first season that was like the leader of all the bad guys. It's going to be him or it's going to be the old lady. Or it's going to be some other new major baddie that killed a bunch of people or killed some of her friends. And now she's going to bash their heads in with a baseball bat. And she's going to almost borderline become Negan because now her and Negan are friends.
And that's going to be the motivation that she can forgive him. Yeah. I see where it's going, but they're trying to make it like, oh, she's going to kill me. No, she's not. If she was going to do that, she'd have done it last season. Yeah, no. And I think the trailer also alludes to them working together. It also showcases Herschel sort of being... with the bad guys like but by choice like i got the sense that in the comics like the the the time jump at the end of the comics herschel is this
He's bitter that Negan is still alive, killed his father, and he's a bit of a troublemaker. And I think we're seeing a bit of that in this trailer. And I wonder if that's their take. Um, I don't like the idea of Herschel being like this, you know, my mom sucks, you know, like I don't want that for the show. I don't think it needs to be that.
Again, it's one of the problems that The Walking Dead always has a problem with. It doesn't know how to tell teenagers or kids stories. It always goes with the angst. And yes. Teenagers have a little bit of angst. Yes, there's going to be a little teenage drama. But they go full, they always go, what's that book?
They always go full Lord of the Flies on them. Yeah. Where it's like, if there isn't a parent there to supervise them, they're ready to kill each other at every moment. And you're like, no, no, no. Some might argue, you know, kids that age. There are reasonable ones. Just because it's an apocalypse doesn't mean they're all, you know, bad. But, like, I...
It's a trailer. It's hard to sort of like say yes or no, but I agree with you. I felt like what they were presenting was like a more interesting show than the first season because the first season was very much like. I thought we buried this. No, it's going to be a season of Maggie and Negan sort of at each other's throats, like not trusting each other and then reluctantly teaming up.
it did start that way like it started that way for like the first two episodes and then literally like two episodes in it becomes very clear that they're going to trust each other And they have a couple moments where you think that they're not going to be able to trust each other. And then Negan comes through or she comes through for Negan. And you're like, okay, there's a little bit of tension, but they're not like smacking us in the face with it. Yeah.
Yeah. So we'll see. Like you get a little bit of Kim coats in there. He's, you know, chewing on all the scenery, doing a great job, having, having a lot of fun. You get the sense. I think like this is the core. thing about the show that i loved in the first season was that like new york was a character and yeah and it's gonna be again yeah and they're putting it front and center in this trailer that like
New York, once again, is a character in the show. And I think that's the right way to do it. I mean, they're showing that New York City might have power. That's going to be an interesting story arc. That's going to be something interesting to see. Again, I'm excited. I'm more excited for it now than I was six months ago. Yeah, it premieres May 4th, so we don't have long to wait. Because I was worried when they said they were going to be season two.
I was worried that they were going to go regular Walking Dead and go, like, making Negan a bad guy again. And I think they know better. I think that if they make Negan revert back to what he was doing, I think people will. Tune out. Yeah. We've come too far. They need a redemption arc. And this is going to be Negan's redemption arc. I wouldn't be surprised if he dies at the end to save Maggie. I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah.
Hopefully that doesn't happen. But I mean, I mean, if that happens, I can forgive it. It is what it is. But but again, I think that it's fine. Yeah, we have one more news story here before we get to our main topic. And this is a train to Busan director will be heading back to the zombie genre with his third film.
called uh gunch which probably not pronouncing that correctly but yeah i don't know i don't i can never pronounce korean stuff properly so i'm not even gonna try but he's got another zombie movie coming yeah I mean, cool. I'm excited. I love Train to Busan. So I've seen it at this point like four or five times now. So if I've watched your zombie movie four or five times, then I at least enjoyed it.
Yeah, so it is the Korean title of the film. No English title has been announced, but the word means colony in a biological context. The movie is set to be sort of in the same vein as his other two films with Peninsula and Train to Busan. Same universe. And it's sort of tackling like another aspect of that universe. So they're doing casting right now. So cool. I like both those movies. So I'm in.
I guess his next project, which is not zombie related, is called Revelations and it's coming to Netflix. Actually, it's on Netflix now. I've never I. I don't often open up Netflix, so of course if I Google Revelations, it's just a bunch of Bible stuff. Yep, don't even bother. Don't even bother. I put Netflix to it and that helped. But actually, there is a religious aspect to the film. I'm sure there is.
Has nothing to do with zombies, but there you go. We have a new Korean zombie film to look forward to in the near future from the director behind Train to Busan. So there you go. Lou. Without further delay, we're all through the news. Now it's time to get to our main topic, which we are discussing, Shaun of the Dead. Yeah, I can see it. I can see it. It's just outside. Any zombies out there?
Don't say that. What? That. What? That. The dead word. Don't say it. Why not? Because it's ridiculous. Alright. Are there any out there, though? Can't say any. Maybe it's not as bad as all that. Oh, no, there they are. Oh, my gosh. Shaun of the Dead. This is an extra life sort of Ryan's pick. And I'm like, you know what? I haven't seen it in a while. Celebrated its 20th anniversary last year.
And as a quick synopsis, the uneventful, aimless lies of a London electronics salesman and his layabout roommate are disrupted by the zombie apocalypse. So, Lou, I know you're a huge fan. of of this movie um how did you feel returning to it after all this time so yeah i was excited to come back to this because it hasn't been 20 years since i've seen it i've seen this movie a lot over the years but it's been i think i watched it in like 2021 or 2022 maybe
when we were in lockdown and I was bored one day and I think it was streaming on like Netflix or something. And I was like, I haven't seen this in forever. I'll watch it. And I left it on while like I was doing housework or something. And I had a ball watching it. It's a nice trip down memory lane. The thing that I walked away from with this movie this time is how many people in this movie are now celebrities or in stuff. Like.
Simon Pegg is now in all kinds of stuff. I wouldn't say he's starring man material, but he's always the sidekick in something. And he has led stuff before. It's given him a bigger career. Nick Frost is in everything lately. There's even talk that he might be the next Hagrid in the new Harry Potter TV show coming to HBO. I did see that, yeah. So I was like, oh wow, Dick Frost. And then the guy who's their roommate that wants to...
them to kick Nick Frost out. He's in Guardians of the Galaxy. He's one of the Nova agents that dies in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Oh, yeah. I recognized the girlfriend from a bunch of stuff that I've watched on the BBC. So she still does stuff and still acts and all kinds of stuff. Both of her friends... They've both gone on to have bigger acting careers. The woman was the aunt in Sabrina the Teenage Witch on Netflix for that show's whole run.
So she's had a lot of activity. Everybody in this thing has had huge success. We know who Bill Nighy is, and he plays the stepdad. The woman who is his mother, she was on Doctor Who for like three seasons as the Prime Minister of England. Oh, yeah.
they've all done stuff and it was all before this movie came out it's all been since this movie came out so and even then my favorite cameo that I forgot was even in this movie is is martin freeman oh yeah that classic the moment where it's his ex or like a friend of his that he was he was interested in and they've got their own Band of survivors. And the joke is that their band of survivors is like a mirror image. Yeah, it's a mirror image. And her boyfriend is Martin Freeman. Yeah, I forgot.
And I was like, oh, my God. Like, now talk about an actor whose career has gone through the roof since doing this one bit part role in this movie. Like he was a nobody when he did this movie. And next thing you know, his career, his star is on the rise now. Yeah, he might have been in the office for the BBC at that point, maybe. Maybe. That probably was about the most he'd done. And then.
What's it called? And then Edgar Wright's career has taken off since then. I mean, he's done all kinds of stuff since then. And everything he does is always at least well-received. Yeah. I mean, it was a nice trip down this memory lane. I forgot that there's certain aspects of the movie that I don't really like all that much where I think it drags. But it's not... It's not awful. It doesn't deter me from the movie. But I think some of the scenes with the mother and the stepdad.
And them trying to rescue them and then rescue his girlfriend and all that stuff. I think some of that drags just a little bit. But I get it. It's fine. It's not awful. I appreciate some aspects of the movie more than I used to. I can relate to some of them more than I used to. But I think that just comes from getting older.
I will say this. Nick Frost's character has not aged as well as the rest of the characters in the movie. I spent a majority of the movie being like, if I didn't like Nick Frost, I wouldn't like this role. No, yeah, he definitely, he's more of, as the description had him as a layabout. He is way more in that role than I remember when I originally watched it. He's not working. He's lazy. He's obnoxious. He gets the group almost killed several times.
He's driving. I think what I watched originally when I was younger is like those driving scenes like, oh, that's hilarious. And I'm watching it now and I'm like, what are you doing? It's bad enough it's an apocalypse and you're driving around like a maniac. The problem is that you've seen too many zombie movies now. So now you're watching it and you're going, no, why are you doing that? You shouldn't be doing that. There's no reason for it.
Yeah, you're just putting yourself in danger. But I agree with you. Yeah, he is. His role has not aged well. Like it was definitely like he like slobbiest of the slobs type thing. I could relate to Sean more than I did when I was younger. Yeah. There's this scene where he's being reminded to... to uh bring his mother flowers and then he ends up giving the flowers to his girlfriend and like all that and i can as somebody who who had issues with their own mother
I can relate to what was going on in that scene more so now than I did 20 years ago when the movie came out. Before I was just like, haha, funny, he's giving the wrong flowers. And this time I was like, I feel this. This was me. Yeah, like there's that's the other thing about this movie is that it's not just.
a typical it definitely has typical zombie tropes and zombie action but there's a lot more going on here with our main characters and I did make a specific note is I forgot how much of the start of the movie is the zombie apocalypse like sort of slowly starting around everybody and they don't notice it. They don't notice it. Yeah. Yeah. And I love the, my favorite scene in the whole movie.
is there's a duality scene where Sean goes to the store down the end of the block to get like a milk and like... And like his breakfast or coffee or something. And they do it all in one take where he walks out the front door. He walks down the street. You see the people walking around and then he goes into the thing. And then they do it again the second day after the zombies are out there. But you get a different, totally different side view where this time, instead of seeing like a mugging.
There's actually zombies doing something. Instead of seeing the kid playing soccer, you see the kid like chasing somebody as a zombie or something. And it was like, it was like. and he's oblivious to it and then there's blood on the thing and you're like yeah i can see that i know people that like you're going about your everyday life and you haven't been paying attention to the news you don't know what's going on
This would be, it's relatable, but I love, I've always loved how they did that. It's such a clever idea. It's simple, but it works. Yeah, he's on autopilot. There's a moment where he's like slipping in the grocery store on blood and he's like, whoa. And, you know, as the viewer, you know exactly what's going on.
But that moment itself happens around the 30 minute mark where he finally realizes what's going on. So like the first 30 minutes is there's like news stories and reports of mysterious bites and and like and the whole movie. Like it kind of plays out in this way. It's also a very kind of a positive way of looking at a zombie apocalypse. Like, you know, in some zombie films, like they try to skip to.
Everybody dies. Humanity is is is is doomed. But this movie really like it definitely plays up the danger in this small town. But the end is basically like we sorted it out. you know, Z day, it is literally just a day that happened and the army shows up and everybody's saved. And so in that sense, it's kind of like this, it's a different.
take it's a little more positive even though like a lot of people die like our main cast is whittled down to just uh simon peg and and the i can't remember the character's name I did have it, but the girlfriend's name, I can't remember what her name is. I was literally just looking at... I think it's Kate. Oh, wait. That's the actress, I think. The actress is Kate. So Sean and Ed. And Liz.
Liz. Yeah, Liz. And then the flatmates are David and Diane. So at the end, it's just Sean and Liz. And the way I was trying to remember, like the way some of these characters die, like there are those. There's a lot of tropes of how these characters die, like a lot of mistakes happen. Every single one of them dies in a trope. Yes. Almost every single one of them. The stepdad, it gets bit.
Or is bitten, and he's slowly turning, and they don't realize that that's what's going to happen yet. Then the mother goes into this house because she thinks it's somebody she knows, and she gets bit. And then she doesn't tell them until it's the very end. And the two friends... Lucy and Diane and David they get taken in the most tropiest way where like he gets grabbed and she jumps in after him and they die and you're like okay cool
everybody pretty much dies in a way that is in some way, shape, or form tropey. And I don't think that that does a disservice. I think that it's all handled tastefully. Yeah. I think I think it's a movie that like it's definitely it's a comedy. Obviously, it's a film. Very funny. You heard it in the clip at the top of the segment where.
It's very dry humor. And I love that humor of like, oh, you know, they're fighting over like saying the zombie word, the Z word. And then and they're like, well, do you see any out there? And he's like, no, no, coast is clear. And then he looks, oh, no, wait, there they are. And I love that British humor. Like, it's the reason I love the Fable series. I love it all. And it's not just British humor. It's not just funny. But you can see that that might be.
People might be freaked out, but if you weren't quite as freaked out, you can see yourself being like, I know myself personally. And while I'd be scared that there's zombies out there, I'd be like, anybody out there? I would not be able to not make the joke. Personally. You know what I mean? Yeah. yeah it's it's it the the movie is a delight if you haven't seen it in a long time it's totally worth the rewatch uh it's
It's fantastic. And it has aged very, very well. I mean, I know that sometimes we tackle one of these movies and it hasn't aged as well as I remember. This is definitely one that I was like. Oh, now I want to watch Nick Frost and Simon Pegg. And to top it all off, I bought on Vudu the other day or Fandango or whatever, because I was going to have to buy it to watch it.
It was a three-pack for $10. So I got this, Hot Fuzz, and World's End for $10. So I have a funny feeling over the course of the next couple of weeks I'm going to watch all three. Nice. Hot Fuzz is really good and feels like a direct sort of continuation. I don't remember much about World's End or whatever. World's End.
It's just called World's End. World's End is the pub. Yeah. It's supposed to be the pub at the end of the world or something like that. And I've only seen that twice. I don't remember all of it. But again, that's another movie where the cast is full of people that were kind of like, like not necessarily nobodies, but they weren't like, like huge celebrities. And I'm pretty sure everybody in that movie is now like a big celebrity. Yeah.
So, yeah, I mean, Shaun of the Dead will it's it's one of those films I remember distinctly watching when it came out or around when it came out and wondering, like, why did they never like. try to make a sequel and now and now looking back i i see how wrong i was in that like they did make two sequels but they were in the same sort of you know
And it's the trilogy that they worked on together. Yeah. It'd be hard for them to go back to zombies again. You know what I mean? Yeah. I feel like when this is over, they've told me my story. I don't need to dip back into the well. Well, the way it's addressed at the end is like it's resolved. Like, you know, everything's fine. We figured it out. Can you believe it was caused by an outbreak of, and then they cut it before they tell you what it really caused it.
There was a lot of that too when they were... There was that audio gag of the TV and changing the channel every time they were describing something. Every time they were about to tell you what caused it or what was going on, or they were about to use the Z word, the channel would flip. Yeah. Yeah. And there hasn't really been a movie like this since it kind of exists in its own realm. The closest thing I can think of that is close to this is Zombieland.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that makes sense. But we don't get a lot of movies like this where we get zombie comedies. But they don't always pull it off with the same style like this, dude. And I would say the closest thing is Zombieland. Yeah. Man. Do you remember... Speaking of Zombieland, obviously they did Zombieland Double Tap, the sequel that came out in 2019. But do you remember that canceled television series where Amazon? Yes, I do.
What did they do? They did like a pilot season where you could watch all the pilots. They did a pilot program where they did, I think it was eight pilots and they let the audience vote on it. And the audience voted for, I think it was like. voted for three of the eight shows. And I think all three of the eight shows made like two seasons and they got canceled. Man, I remember watching that and yeah.
I don't know. I knew it wasn't going to last because one thing I have learned as I've gotten older is that pilots always suck. Every show that has a pilot, the pilot is always... It's the thing that sold it to the executives. And by season two, they've already written out a character that was in the pilot, is not in the show anymore. And I recently just saw this trope in...
There's a new mystery drama TV show that ran for a season and has now been picked up for a second and I think a third season called High IQ. And in the first episode. The character has two kids and she's a genius, but she works as like a cleaning lady. And the old guy next door who is supposed to either be like.
her dad's friend. He's somehow like, or her landlord or something like that. And he's got like dementia. And it's a trope in the first episode. And immediately in the second episode, his character's not there. They don't mention him. None of the stuff that happened in the first episode relating to him even get talked to. And then like five episodes in, they talk about, oh yeah, he went to a nursing home. And you're like, oh, okay. They wrote him out. Okay.
And that's a trope with pilots. So when I watched the Amazon pilot for Zombieland, I knew it was going to be bad. But I was like, once it gets sold and it gets a real budget and they can actually put some money behind it, it could be good. Problem was, I don't think it was good. I think the second movie's better than the TV show was. Oh, yeah, yeah. The TV show, as you said, pilots are... I didn't like the casting. None of the characters fit.
there wasn't the same vibe. No. And it didn't work. There was something off about it. So again, again, I'm glad that Shaun of the Dead never got a sequel because I don't know if we could strike, the lightning could strike twice. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Well, that's Shaun of the Dead. Was happy to revisit it. Glad we were able to watch it. So thank you to our Extra Life donors. Really appreciate that.
Now, what's coming up on Zamp, you might ask? Well, the wait is finally over. So on our next episode, we'll be discussing The Last of Us Season 2 premiere. And then as we wait for more episodes to air, usually we let a few build up or an entire season, but we have one more extra life movie to get to. And that is 28 days later to prepare for.
The June arrival of 28 years later, which is crazy to think that is happening. Yeah, that's a movie I never thought would happen. So I'm excited. It's going to be a big year for zombies. The Last of Us. 2025 is turning out to be another year of the zombie. We haven't had a year of the zombie in a while. It has been a while. So I'm looking forward to it. We got lots of fun content on the way. Uh, walking dead, dead city. Uh,
You know, Daryl Dixon will make a return. It's going to be a busy year of new zombie content, but that doesn't mean we can't go back and watch some movies. So stay tuned for all of that. That is going to do it for this episode of Zombies Ate My Podcast. I want to thank the patrons at patreon.com slash zombiesatemypodcast. You can visit our website, zombiesatemypodcast.com for show notes and all our previous episodes.
You can send us an email. We may read it on the show. Info at ZombiesAteMyPodcast.com Join our Discord at tiny.cc slash Zamp Discord. It's the best place to connect with fellow listeners as well as Lou and I. This has been Zombies Ate My Podcast, and as always, we close out the show with some fine zombie knowledge from the busy zombie lord himself. Take it away, Lou. Remember, if there's a gun over the bar, it's loaded.