ZAMP 332 - 28 Years Later

I'm a zombie. I've been bitten. 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 is the busy zombie lord lou page how's it going lou ryan I don't want to see any more naked zombies. I don't want to see any more naked zombies. Well, you've got six months. A six month reprieve. How's that sound? Okay, that works. That works. I can handle it in six months.

Okay, so in case folks are wondering at home what Lou is talking about, we are discussing 28 years later, possibly the quickest turnaround from availability in the theaters to discussions. on our podcast and uh for reasons that make a lot of sense aka 28 years there's a there's a lot of naked zombies so uh

we're going to, we're going to talk about that. And, and then, and then we'll take a six month break and then we'll go see, you know, the bone temple 28 years later, the bone temple, uh, in January and we'll, we'll be right back, back at it with more, more. More Alex Garland written, Danny Boyle directed, although I suppose Bone Temple is not directed by Danny Boyle. I think it's Nia Costa.

Yeah, it's Nia Costa who did The Marbles, right? The Eternals. No, that's somebody else. that's chloe something i think oh okay okay then it was then it is yes the one who did the marvels then you're right i get those two mixed up because they both did the two marvel movies i really didn't pay them there's so many These days, it's it's I'm behind by two and that that is never the case. That's. Yeah, I'm like, I've got like three I need to watch. Yeah, I'm behind. But we will talk about.

28 years later, just a little bit. But before then, we've got some news to catch up on.

The virus has completely devastated over 150 of the world's major regions and is spreading rapidly. Lou, let's start with Resident Evil Requiem. which had a little more gameplay revealed. This is more of a developer discussion, but Capcom had a showcase a couple weeks ago, and they featured a five-minute segment on Requiem. talking about first and third person views, the main character, Grace Ashcroft is her name, and...

The fact that they are bringing back the sort of core Resident Evil story, returning to Raccoon City 30 years after it was bombed in the events of Resident Evil 3. Did you give this a watch? And are you excited to return to the core last visited Resident Evil 6 story? I kind of am because I didn't really like 6, but...

Going back to the core story seems important. I think it's going to be a nice blend of both styles. Yeah, it's interesting that they are doing... first and third person views i think both look really good in terms of the the gameplay sort of trailer they showed off here like i think um i wonder if you'll be able to play at the switch of a button i can't remember if they showed that off but uh they do say you'll be able to switch back and forth

I bet you can do it at the switch of a button, or if you can't do it at the switch of a button, it's going to be literally like, push a button, open a menu, click a button, close the menu, and boom, it resets. Yeah, especially if they're designing... Like, from the get-go in that way? Like, with both in mind? In all honesty, it might help with if you have to hide from stuff, playing in third person, and then when you're doing combat, switching to first person. Yeah. It really depends on your...

sort of thoughts and feelings on, on first person versus third person resident evil. Uh, I like their sort of rundown of like, if you want to, if you're more used to action games, you can play third person and you'll feel right at home. First person is the more immersive sort of, I would say, scary mode, basically. And they are.

They've been pretty clear. They're trying to scare you in this game. They're bringing it back to the horror elements of the originals. Yeah, it sounds... I know that... I think it was IGN had a... uh another article where they talked about they got hands-on with a demo and they said throughout the demo they never fought anything everything was run away i don't like that They said it was a good like 20 to 30 minutes and it was like everything was run and hide. Hmm. Can't say that has me excited.

Well, they said that that was just the demo and that when they asked questions, they said that there would be combat later. This was just an idea. This was just to set up and get people excited. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. It sounds to me like what they did was it's like it's like remember when seven came out and they gave us that playable demo where you there's no combat. You're just sneaking around in that little cabin solving a couple of puzzles and then you get chased.

Yeah, yeah, I do remember that. It sounds like that's what preview people got to play. Okay, interesting. Do you think we get a playable demo before the February launch of this one? Yes. That has worked really well for them in the past. They did it with what? Resident Evil 2. They did it with 8. And they did it with 7.

I don't think they did it with three because I think they just said the same engine is two. So if you'd like to, you're going to like this. So I'm guessing that we get one for this game. I hope so. I hope so. Maybe a Game Awards timing release. So December-ish might be the case. Yep.

We do have another story here for Resident Evil 9 Requiem, which is, Lou, this has got to be like the weakest misdirect I've ever read. You know, everybody is convinced that Leon will appear in Resident Evil 9. He has not been seen in a mainline since Resident Evil 6.

He has big ties to organizations that still deal with umbrella outbreaks as well as Raccoon City. And this is a press article where they were talking about... um leon and they said we thought they thought about making leon the protagonist but no one wants to see leon scared and they gave a reason like oh yeah he's been through a lot he's not going to be scared by you know a vase throwing falling off a table

in a scary house, which I get. But at the end of the day, like, you know, why bring up Leon? You could have said any other character. You could have said Chris or Jill. I think that that means we are going to get Leon, but he's not going to be playable. Yeah, similar to what Chris was like in 7 and 8, you think? Yeah.

I think at some point our main hero is going to get trapped down and there's going to be a portion of the game where it's all combat and they bring in Leon as her backup. Yeah, I think so. I think Leon will be maybe, you know. Maybe not the guy in the chair, but certainly like the backup. And he's going to be this. He's going to be the side character that we have a brief moment of playing with. And again, he he does. If they're going to the way they've done these in the past is seven is.

sort of scary all the way through but there's a port but like halfway through the game the game kind of stops being scary like towards the end of the like the last the last third of the game i would say he stops being scary and it becomes more of an action game yeah and my thought is that that's if they did the same thing with eight eight starts out as spooky

Then it turns into sort of an action game. Then it becomes spooky again. Then it becomes an action game again. And then it becomes spooky again. And then it becomes an action game again. And they kind of bounce back and forth. My suspicion is that they're going to... do something similar with nine, but they want it to be a surprise for us.

They want us to think it's going to be a straight horror game. And while it probably will be 50% horror, I bet 50% of it will be action. Because that seems to be the nice blend for Resident Evil. But, you know, we'll know more when we see more. Yeah, for sure. Hopefully more trailers arriving soon. So look forward to that. We have just started to scratch the surface on Resident Evil Requiem.

Our next story here, let's move away from Resident Evil and towards The Last of Us, where Neil Druckmann has announced he's stepping away from The Last of Us TV show to transition complete focus. to game development at Naughty Dog. Lou, what are your thoughts on this one in terms of the health of the TV show? I'm torn because... I don't know if Neil Druckmann is the thing that is making the show good or if he's the thing that's making the show deviate from maybe its source material more. So.

I think this could go either way. Him leaving could be a good thing. Maybe the next season will be less angsty and maybe better storytelling. Or... his leaving could make it become all angst and no storytelling. I don't know. I'm kind of torn, but... I do think it's funny that he in the past in interviews has said he always wanted to be a film guy and he just sort of ended up in game development. And now he's got his film thing and now he's going back to game development.

I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Yeah. We talked a little bit about this pre-show, and my immediate reaction, and it could just be... you know, me being too positive because a lot of times when people step away from things, folks automatically assume drama, drama, drama. Right. And where my brain was at right off the bat was like, this makes sense. Because it was very hard to understand a game director being away from their development team for six months at a time in Alberta.

shooting a television show um i don't know how you make a game at the same time and you know naughty dog has this pressure to release a new game we're coming up on It's five years now since The Last of Us Part II released on PlayStation 4. And I do feel like there's that pressure from Sony to get another game out the door. He is the game director for Intergalactic. Haley Gross, who helped write the show as well as helped write part two, the video game, also stepping away.

and and refocusing on intergalactic like i think if you're a fan of naughty dog video games this can only be seen as a good thing um but yeah there's always this worry that when you go from co-showrunners to one showrunner how much of what you loved of that show was from the person who left and it's hard to know that for sure right i think with this show specifically it's hard to know yeah

Just because we've only got two seasons under our belt. Anything else, like if it had been like Game of Thrones and four seasons in, five seasons in, showrunner walks away, we'd be like, oh, okay. Well, we've been through several... showrunner changes with like the walking dead when we know how those changed so it could go either way yeah it's definitely something that makes me a little nervous yeah i i think that the show

made changes from the video game but but not the major beats and and and did some different things really well so Again, it's hard to know what came from Neil Druckmann and what came from Craig Mazin, but if you do listen to the HBO Behind the Scenes podcast, it does seem like it was truly a joint effort based on their conversations.

And, and some of the stuff that was brought forward was from Mason. And, and a lot of the times on the podcast truck would be like, uh, would, would react like, Oh yeah. When you brought that idea to me, I was like, shoot, why didn't I think of that for the video game? You know? so we'll we'll see i i do look at this as like you know adapting part one

That's like your baby, you know, you created that game alongside, you know, co-director Bruce Straley, I believe. And you get to adapt that and it's well regarded. People love it.

season two like kicking off part two is kind of bonus but it's also like it's important to start that process and I think now that you look at season three and possibly season four you're completing a story that has been told you know it's adapting and i would imagine they've had conversations about their expectations for for how the adaptation goes from here on out and and

While that's not set in stone, I would imagine that, like, they've had chats about what comes next. And I don't think he would have left if there wasn't, like, a real need.

Like, I don't think he was fired. I don't think he was let go. I don't think he was asked to go. No, I have no doubt that he was not asked to go. My total suspicion is that he... didn't necessarily ask he he got asked by sony to step away and then he reached out to hbo and was like hey guys like if you need me for something i can help but i kind of got to go back to my day job yeah

I would believe that over every other rumor. Like anybody saying like, oh, they had a falling out or he wasn't happy with the chain. No. I highly doubt that. Yeah. But Sony saying, hey, maybe. get this game out the door we need some 2026 titles uh i mean naughty dogs do up for another hit like um I think Intergalactic is a big project. We've only seen a slice of it, really.

There's only so many times you can re-release the same game and upgrade the graphics and upgrade the data, upgrade everything and then send it out and call it a high HD version. There's only so many times you can do that before you actually have to make a new game. Wow. And they are going to try one more time. This is a free update. But The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is getting a free update to celebrate Naughty Dog's 40th anniversary. And it is the chronological experience.

which means you're going to get to play through the part two story in chronological order, unlike what you've experienced in the show and in the video game if you played it, which starts from the perspective of Ellie. switches to abby's perspective and then there's a bit more after that so uh this is free though this is not them you know re-releasing this is them celebrating 40 years

Free, this is good. That's cool. That's interesting. I'm not going to say that, you know, like, I'm not going to run out and play it, but for people that really like this game, that's cool. I'm excited for them. Yeah. I'm curious. I have been tempted to replay part two and I was going to pay the 10 bucks to upgrade my game to be PS5 sort of...

not compatible, but like have the extra features and test out the new mode. And I really feel like this chronological experience might be sort of an interesting, like. I don't know. Interesting way to play a game I've already played before. See how they sort of implemented it. Curious about that. Absolutely. I don't think it changes.

people's opinions of the game or or like oh now i can go buy it because there's a chronological mode i this is a nice bonus and uh yeah it this this is just bonus for people that are already playing it yeah for sure If you do, I want your thoughts. Yeah. Oh, for sure. If I do it, when I do it, when I have some downtime to think about the last of this part two, I will definitely report back here.

Let's jump into our final story here, Lou. And this is a fun one because Night of the Living Cat means Zamp returns to anime. Woo. I wasn't sure we'd ever do that. Well, I, I was, I, I figured we would eventually if they did another season of a ZOM 100, but, uh, I'm new to this whole anime thing and I'm quickly learning that if you like a show, be prepared to wait if there's going to be a season two.

so yeah you have to wait like sometimes i've had shows where they pump them out one two three four in like six months and then i've had shows where like it's like yeah you're gonna have to wait six years yeah exactly But Night of the Living Cat, getting good reviews. We link to this IGN one. There's two episodes. Sort of, I think, available first two episodes will stream on Crunchyroll starting on July 6th. So they're available now. And the idea is that this is a...

It's a parody anime comedy horror where cats have taken over the world and they turn people into cats. Is that the idea? That's the understanding, is that it turns them into cats or it makes them obsessed with cats. Oh, interesting.

I didn't watch the trailer because I'm kind of saving it for when we talk about it. I watched the trailer and it still doesn't do a very good job. Basically, it implies that our main hero of the show is allergic to cats. So he's doing everything he can to not touch cats. That's funny. So yeah, a mysterious virus turns humans who touch cats into felines causing a niandemic worldwide catastrophe where people transform into cats.

Yeah, and I'm just kind of watching the preview here on IMDb. Looks fun. The thing that that interested me is I believe it is the lead creator is Takashi Miike. So this is like really weird for him. Yeah, there's definitely some weird stuff happening. Close that. Well, Miki is known for being weird and usually his stuff is like full of like grossness. This doesn't seem like grossness. This seems like it's full of his goofy sense of humor. Oh, that's good.

I'm good with goofy. I thought ZOM 100 was like that. It was very goofy. It was it was good stuff. So I'm excited. We're going to talk about this one next episode. Sorry, Dead City. We are just.

Looking for excuses to kick that can down the road a little bit longer. I feel like we will watch a couple episodes of Dead City and we'll report back, but not until we have to. No rush. Not until we have to. Every review I've said is basically it's full of everything you and I don't want to see in the show. Perfect. Sounds like a great episode waiting to happen. So there you go, folks. Uh-huh.

Let's get into our main topic here, which is 28 years later. And because it's in theaters and we didn't watch it at home and, you know, clips and I watched a couple trailers, couldn't pull anything there. So, so you guys get this. oh wait no they're dead and you're gonna be next so there you go a bit of a throwback but that's a clip from 28 days later and i thought that was

Very fitting. So, 28 years later, a group of survivors of the rage virus live on a small island. When one of the group leaves the island on a mission into the mainland, he discovers secrets, wonders, and horrors. that have mutated not only the infected, but other survivors. We waited a long time, Lou, for this one. We both rushed to theaters to see it, and we're here to talk about it.

In all its spoilery goodness. So if you haven't seen it. Or you want to remain spoiler free. Stop listening. Save this for later. Try to go see it. Come back to this episode. We won't blame you. Yeah, because we are we are going to the two of us have not really talked about what we saw. So this is going to be a very spoiler heavy thing because I got stuff I got to talk about. Yeah.

There's lots of good stuff here. Let's start with the marketing, the trailers that sort of showcased a story of... So misleading. Well, misleading, or is it just the first 15 minutes of the film? right the trailer really is it's not even the first 30 minutes i would say everything that happens in the the trailer is like the first 15 minutes 20 minutes maybe tops

Yeah, focusing on Spike and his father. His father. Played by? Aaron Taylor Johnson. Yeah. Yeah. And so I went into this movie, and I won't lie. I will say right now, I love the movie from beginning to end, but about the first 15 or 20 minutes, I was like, I saw this in the trailer. Is this all I'm going to get? Is it really just... like like the i was like i was like it's okay i don't know if it's good and then i think about the 30 minute mark i went

oh no, are we getting Walking Dead? And then about 10 minutes into the section where I thought we were going to get Walking Dead, it looks like it's about to go Walking Dead with angsty teenage crap, and then all of a sudden it becomes something else. yeah completely different story of um do we want to say hope i guess a little bit like there's there's a little bit of hope closure there's a hope

This closure, this hope is a really sad, sad moment in the movie. I saw it coming a mile away, but I was still like, are they going to go there? And they do. Yeah.

Well, let's start at the beginning, which is this island, a real island in the United Kingdom. I think it's called Hope Island. which has this causeway that is completely submerged at a certain point of the day when the tide comes in. And that has protected them and allowed them to basically create this slice of... Britain untouched, not untouched, but like unfazed to, to the virus. Right.

um they obviously know of it they prepare for it they have precautions in place defenses all that fun stuff but they're able to sort of preserve a normal uh i i don't want to say primitive but like sort of like a pre technological age britain you know farming that sort of thing they seem to have a little bit of technology but not much like like if they have any kind of electricity

I would guess it's powered by like a wind turbine or something. And it's very minimal. I think they have, I think at one point, I think they do have a little bit of electricity, but I think it's like, I think it's just battery powered. Yeah. You know what I mean? Everything is very – our hero Spike gets introduced to technology, and when he sees technology, he doesn't understand what it is.

things that you and I would see in everyday life it's like a foreign concept to him yeah I definitely want to talk about that because I thought that was one of one of the That was one of the highlights. That was one of the, yeah, it was one of my favorite moments in the movie. Yeah. So, I mean, but like early on in the film, it really does start like, as you said, it's like, Oh, this is like walking dead 2.0. Okay.

We should start with the opening scene. The opening scene of the movie is a bunch of kids in a room watching Teletubbies. Yeah. And. As soon as the scene begins, you know where it's going. Yeah. And I was like, if this movie starts out its first five minutes with me showing me a bunch of kids getting slaughtered, I might get up and walk out of the theater.

It happens off screen, but it does happen. Well, I was worried they were going to show it on screen. And if they showed it on screen, I was going to be upset. And I think they did the tasteful thing. And you don't see any of it on screen. You do see actually you don't you barely see the parents on screen get killed either. They do a really good job in the opening scene where you see almost no person get really killed.

If you do, it's like a five seconds and it's over. Until the kid who gets away gets into the church. And that's where you get probably what I think is the first really gory scene in the movie. Yeah, which is also in the trailer, you know, the priest sort of welcoming the end of the world. Yeah, and the other thing too is you see all these scenes in the trailer.

but you don't have context for them, and they're shown completely out of order. So that scene is shown towards the end of the trailer, so it makes you think that that's going to happen later in the movie, and it's the first thing that happens. Yeah, it's the beginning of the apocalypse. It's the 28 days later portion. of the program, which is the start of the rage virus hitting this community, you do get the sense that where it takes place is like...

It is in the realm of 28 Days Later where this has already taken hold, right? And they're prepared. There is nothing that happens in this movie that you don't think it's the same universe. oh yeah they except maybe the end but we'll get there yes we will definitely get to that ending and some of the things they they do to sort of reign in 28 weeks later

But like after that opening sequence, we've we've flashed forward 28 years later, you get Alfie and his dad. And there's this ritual on this island that when you hit a certain age. You go onto the mainland as sort of like a coming of age sort of trial. And, and, uh, Alfie's dad is, is, is wanting to do it early because he feels that Alfie's ready.

They go onto the mainland and they have some adventures. You see some hints at the time. You think, oh, this is just like sort of a foreshadowing towards... Not a foreshadowing, but just a hint of the lawlessness that's happening on the island. Yeah, they come across a cabin where they find an infected who's dead or not dead. He's hanging there.

and he's got a name carved in him, and you have no context for it, and neither do they. They just kind of look at it, and the dad's kind of like, people are crazy. That's sort of the attitude about it.

They come across their first infected, which you're curious about because we haven't seen any since the original movie. What is it? 28 years later that they've become. And what you see is there's basically the two they kill in the beginning of the movie.

are like on the ground slithering almost like snakes and they're eating bugs and worms and they're coming for our heroes rather slowly. Yeah. Yeah. The slow-mo zombies, these big... you know, sort of bloated zombies, we start to see the evolution of the virus and starting off with these, these, these bigger slow motion zombies, um, that.

I guess sneak up on you. I got a real sense of like, they were like kind of like slugs to a certain degree, you know, harmless until you let them, until you, until you let them, you know, sneak up on you. And then you let them get too close. Yeah, because really it's just a drop of blood and you're done, right? So all they have to do is kind of cough on you weird and you're toast. Right. Yeah. And then they go on their little adventure and...

They find the things they're kind of looking for. And dad says, OK, it's time to go home. And on their way home, they bump into what. is basically the major evolution in this movie and there's sort of i forget what they call them alphas is that what they call them yeah alphas yeah yeah they bump into what they call an alpha The dad sees it on the horizon and it's a big, huge zombie or infected. And he goes, he says something along the lines of like, is it?

And then all of a sudden you see like a horde of them show up behind him and he looks at his son and it's like, we got to run, just run. And they run as fast as they can. Him and his son stop and. take a couple shots with their bow and arrow, and then keep running. The sun clearly misses and is panicked. And they go out of their way to make sure you understand that the sun is not prepared for this.

At every turn, you keep constantly seeing the kid make mistakes. But you can't blame him. He's 16 and never done this before. You know what I mean?

And you get the distinct impression that his dad is taking him out way beyond what they normally would do with a kid going out to the mainland. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And they really do establish here the alphas and their. Their intelligence, but also their brute strength, right? Yeah. Like, he waits out them in the cabin and basically just stands there.

And we also get our first hint at the outside world when Alfie asks, what's that light? And then his father says, oh, that's a ship, probably French, doing the quarantine. watch. So they've established that the world has kind of shut down the UK and kind of kept a quarantine zone around it. Yeah, they basically tell you that no one can go in or out. And once you step foot on UK soil, you're there for the rest of your life. You're never coming home.

And I thought that was a really creative way of like establishing it through a mention and then gives them the room to breathe later when we get more of it. You also have to think about it as in. These people are afraid of whatever this is, that whatever this outbreak happened, it has the potential to spread way too fast. And if they've managed to contain it to the UK.

They don't ever want it to get out. Yeah, and that's where you kind of start to question, well, didn't 28 weeks later kind of hint that the virus got off of the island of the UK and went to France? There's a scene with the Eiffel Tower showing some zombies. They've been really cagey about saying whether or not that is part of this universe. And they've not said it's not part of this universe, but there was nothing in the movie to me that said it was part of the universe.

Yeah, I mean, very clearly, they state the virus has been contained, the world is fine, but the UK is not. And they kind of hand wave it away by saying, you know, they they drove the virus back to the UK. They were able to eradicate that you can hand wave away the, the very ending of 28 weeks later. Like I believe that what happened in 28 weeks later happened within the universe. It's just that tail end that they kind of have to.

It's a zombie movie. Hand wave away. The rest of the world is fine. It's something I'm willing to forgive. Don't put too much thought to that portion of it. The movie has more high-ended thought things for you to deal with later. Yeah, exactly. And they go about, there's a scene in the movie and they don't explain the context. I think it happens in the end of the first.

Basically, the first arc of the story after they get back, you see a bunch of soldiers like running from zombies. They go to hide in a cave. They get overwhelmed and you see them all get.

mauled and then you see like one guy get away and then you don't see that character again for hours like an hour into the movie yeah i i thought that was closer to like they get back to uh They get back to the island. They're being chased by this alpha. Yeah. Um, that, that nearly gets them. And I think they have to use like the super harpoon to, to kind of take them down. Like they say, like I've.

I think the father says, I've seen someone put 15 arrows into one of them before I went down. Like they're souped up. And they make it back to the island. They have a big party. They establish that Alfie's mom is sick. with, with some, with something. They established that in the beginning of the movie. Yeah. Before they go on their trek, the dad is trying to explain to him what's going on, what to her, what's going on, what's happening.

And she kind of doesn't understand it. And then she goes, no, we agreed. And he was like, not right now. We did like, in other words, things have changed. We need to, we need to get out. We need to get spike ready. And. And then five minutes later, she forgets all about what they were having a conversation. And his father kind of just pats her on the head and was like, we'll be back. We're just going out.

And at that point, you realize there's something unwell with her. So when they get back from their trek, they go out of their way to make sure you understand that she's still like there's still something wrong with her. And the big takeaway from their outing is they hide in the attic of an abandoned building to get away from the zombies. And Spike sees a fire in the distance.

And says, what's that? And the dad says, that's Dr. So-and-so. We don't go near him. Yeah, he's crazy, basically. He's crazy. Spike's kind of like, but how? And the dad tells you this story that in my mind, I was like, that doesn't sound like a crazy guy. That just sounds like a guy dealing with it.

You know what I mean? Like, there was nothing about it that sounded crazy to me, except that they smelled bad. Yeah? Well, dealing with zombies probably does smell bad. That was my thought about it. And then they go back. And I think it's supposed to be the grandfather elaborates more on why the doctor's crazy to the kid. And you still...

The kid shows doubt as to what the heck they're talking about. And me as a viewer is like, yeah, I'd still want to go talk to him. He's a doctor. Like, sure, people have gone nuts and gone crazy. But wouldn't you, too, if you were out there all alone? Maybe he just needs some company. Yeah, they I think the father doesn't even elaborate that it's a doctor, just that it's a crazy person. He tells the story of.

being walking over a hill and seeing like rows of these bodies and the the person tried to motion them down they just got out of there trying to tell like a boogeyman story basically Yeah. And then when he talks to the grandfather, he's like, oh, that's Dr. So-and-so. And he's a little off his rocker. But all Alfie hears is it's not Alfie. Alfie's the actor Spike. All he hears is it's a doctor and my mom is sick.

You know? Yeah. So that leads to the next arc of the show. Yeah. He goes, why didn't my father take him to the doctor? And he's like, because the doctor's crazy. Yeah. And so that leads us to the next arc of the story. Where I started to panic. I was like oh no we're going walking dead route. And Spike. Sneaks his mother out of town. Out into the wilderness. And we see him.

actually kill a couple of zombies. He actually does better than he did when he was with his dad. He's not perfect. Mom saves him a couple of times, and he doesn't even know it. But he's... going to the other thing too is is when they come back the dad elaborates and makes it sound like spike was the was like the spike was the giant killer spike took out everybody spike was amazing and he literally is like i didn't do anything

And when we go back out into the world again, you see that Spike actually learned something from that. event. He does a better job of getting away. He does a better job of trying to keep his mother safe. He actually kills a couple of zombies. And after their first night there... Because it's clearly going to take them a couple of days to get to the doctor. They stumble upon some zombies coming and they need a place to hide.

And so they hide an old abandoned gas station. And you see that they get sick as soon as they enter the gas station. And. It's a very clever thing where they explained that the gas has now become like airborne ethanol and it has filled the gas station. So they can't be in there because they're choking. They can't breathe it. It's toxic.

And a random person shows up and saves them because he's got a gun and he's in tactical gear. And it's the guy that we met earlier that was with a bunch of troops. They never explain who they are. He saves them. Yeah. A Swedish Marine, Eric. Yeah. Yeah. And Eric is talking to them, and you can see it's interesting. It's almost like someone from our time.

talking to somebody that's like tribal like yeah they're like like what is this thing you're carrying he's like my phone and the kid's like what's a phone and he's like hold on let me show you pictures and he was like Why does it have pictures? Right? Like, like, like, like, and then the guy, my favorite line is he shows him a picture of what's supposed to be the, the, the Marine's girlfriend. And you see this girl who clearly has had like.

plastic reconstruction surgery and he's like what's wrong with her face yeah i think it was botox or yeah yeah yeah yeah it's a really interesting moment because this is the thing where you worry about the walking deadness of it. And I think where I got that fear was like, they're going to introduce the over the top character. That's super evil or, you know, super.

Just doesn't doesn't, you know, out for their own. And I thought, OK, this is the moment. This is the moment where maybe it's not the crazy doctor. Maybe it's the soldier. And the soldier sort of accepts his fate. He says, like, I've. I'm on the island. I'm here. Our boat hit something. We watched ashore and we knew when we signed up for this, there was always a possibility that we could get trapped here.

And and he kind of accepts this fact, like to the fact where his phone dies and he's like, well, it's a brick now and he throws it away. Yeah. And he kind of like gives us some. He gives the audience sort of a look at the outside world, which very much seems to be our world, minus the UK for the last 30 years.

And I think it's such an interesting way to kind of have the light bleed through of, of what, what's going on in the outside world, you know, talking about, I should have been a delivery driver delivering packages for Amazon. And they're like, what's an Amazon, you know? I thought that was really, really fun. It doesn't overstay its welcome. Like, as soon as they kind of get their hits in, they shoo it away, you know? It moves away. And then his character does not stay around long.

They reveal that there is a zombie out there and she's pregnant. yes again a little worried about what they're doing here but you know yeah i was really worried about what they were doing here and i was like wait are they taking a playbook out of uh out of uh z nation dead well army of the dead remember there's pregnant zombie and army of the dead and then they kill the baby and that's why the the zombie lord wants them all dead oh i don't i don't i don't remember that scene

We should watch that. Army of the Dead. We have watched Army of the Dead. That's the Zack Snyder movie. Oh, right. I was thinking, for some reason, I was thinking Evil Dead. the third one no not even nope the zax army of darkness yeah yeah okay never mind no you're right though the zack snyder uh uh army of the dead i remember now there's an alpha zombie and it has a pregnant zombie

And then the pregnant woman gets killed or the baby gets killed. I think the pregnant zombie gets killed. And that's when the alpha zombie goes on a warpath that he wants to kill the people that killed his woman. And I was worried that that's where this movie was going, and it kind of does, but not really. And I have to say, Jodie Comer is amazing in this.

I thought she was going to be like a nothing role when I saw her in the bed. And I thought the movie was going to just be a father-son adventure movie. And then when it's her and him, she outdoes herself in every scene. She steals the scene away from the kid. So the kid is a fantastic actor. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I thought the. The switch from father-son to son-mother, where very clearly there's something wrong with Spike's mom.

he has decided to basically risk both their lives and taking her to this doctor. And they go on a, they go on a bit of an adventure. And, um, as you said, the Swedish soldier doesn't, doesn't last long. They find this pregnant zombie who gives birth to what appears very quickly to be a normal, healthy baby, unaffected. Child, yeah. And then...

And then Swedish soldier guy ends up, you know, freaking out. Kills the zombie mom. And there's this weird moment where like Jodie Comer is like helping the zombie mom give birth. And there's this like... moment of understanding between the two, even though, like, she's infected. Yep. And you get the distinct impression as soon as the baby's born that this zombie's gonna attack them. Yes.

Lo and behold, the soldier saves their life. And then the soldier's answer is, well, we got to kill the baby. And she's like, well, give it a minute. Like she's like, you can see her face where she's wondering if she's going to have to do the same thing. But she's like, let's let's. Give it a second. And they clearly established that the child is fine. It's not infected. And you're like, oh. And the guy's still like, we got to kill it. And you're like, oh, please don't kill the child.

And lo and behold, they don't kill the child. The big alpha zombie shows up and disembowels and rips off the guy's head. Or squishes it. I can't remember. The alphas have a very specific way of taking out. And it's not pleasant. No, it's not. It's not. And from there, they make a mad dash running with the baby, trying to get away from the alpha zombie.

That's where we get introduced to Ralph Fiennes. He's the doctor. And I was worried where it was going to go with him. Again, this movie constantly was like, I was enjoying myself, but it kept constantly doing things that made me go. Oh, I'm worried where this is going. Oh, I'm worried where this is going. Because I was expecting everything to be dour in this movie, and there are some dour moments. One of them is coming up, and we're going to talk about it in a minute. But overall...

I would say the movie is hopeful. You know what I mean? Like this sad moment, but for everything sad that happens, something good or positive happens. Yeah. I mean, the fact that. You have a slice of life still living like Hope Island, as far as we can tell, has a functioning society. And that's, you know, there's still humans doing human things like. The father cheating on his wife, who is clearly very ill. It's still...

Shitty humans doing shitty things, but it's still like a functioning society. Right. And the other thing, too, is so we get introduced to Ralph Bynes. He takes out the alpha zombie. By drugging it with morphine. And it kind of just stands there. And he basically. And he implies to them. That he's giving it a name. And you get the vibe that he uses it as a protector. Like.

Like, anytime it gets too close, he drugs it, kind of lures it back out, and then kind of goes back to doing his own thing. And it kind of stays away from him if it doesn't need to go near him. It feels almost like he uses it to keep bad guys away, basically. Yeah, I think so. I think you definitely get that vibe. I get that vibe. And...

The kid clearly brings his mother and the baby. They tell him the story of the baby. And he said that he's seen pregnant ones in the wild. And he was wondering what would happen. And then he makes some kind of comment about the placenta being a beautiful thing. Which kind of leads to, you know, The Last of Us and how they sort of use the idea of mother.

an unborn child and how that affects, you know, the infection and the virus and stuff with, with Ellie. And, um, it's an interesting, it makes sense. Like, right. Like there is this protective layer.

for an unborn child through the mother and it also makes me wonder if they won't make the child the cure in the later movies oh yeah i never even thought about that but that it really feels like they're taking bits and pieces from other zombie stuff whether it worked or not and trying to implement it in a way that's like we can do it better because we did it first yeah and i liked that about it um

The whole time Jodie Comer's been sick and wandering around with the son, my first thought was, there's no cure for her, dude. She got cancer. And that was my thought. And lo and behold, Ralph Fiennes is a doctor. Does a whole like. Like bast of. Primitive but basic test. And you see. For a guy that's supposed to be crazy. He seems pretty rational. Except that he's standing around. A pile of skulls.

And you're like, well, for a guy around a pile of skulls, he seems to be crazy. And I kept waiting for the other shoe to fall.

I kept waiting for him to reveal like, and now you're going to have to die. And he doesn't do that. He basically tells her that he doesn't know if it started in her head. or if it started out as breast cancer, or if it started out with someplace else, but it's clearly spread to her brain. And like, even if he had all the medical stuff from when he was in the city.

Before the world fell apart, he still wouldn't be sure if he could save her. But now that the world's fallen apart, he knows there's no way he's going to save her. Yeah, and that is the... that was truly the moment where you kind of, you are, you are spike. You're like thinking like, maybe there is this chance that it is something that can, you know, it's just medicine and, you know, but it's, uh,

Yeah, as he quickly deduces it's terminal cancer. Yeah. Not even this different universe has solved that problem. Listeners of the show will probably understand because I've lost my mother. The following scene left me crying like a baby. And it is Spike gets drugged by the doctor. And the mother and him go off into the woods. And he clearly hits her with a dart. And you get the distinct impression, it's enough to kill her.

And when Spike comes back around, he's returning with the skull, which he's explained to them that it's not something, it's not. evil that he's making this pile of skulls it's a remembrance of all the people that have died from this horrible plague and that he this is like his monument so that people will like remember what happened here Yeah. And when he comes back after the mother's gone, he brings Spike a skull and he tells Spike, put it where you think it belongs on the pile.

And so Spike climbs all the way to the top and puts it at the top of the pile. And I cried the whole time. Yeah, I didn't anticipate. The movie going this route and being like very serious and heartfelt because like we remember we just watched the first one and it descends into a bit of a Walking Dead trope. oh, they were the bad guys the whole time. You know, they're not good people. And in this one, there aren't bad people. They're just...

you know, human beings that make mistakes that we see all the time. And what the doctor's doing, what Ralph Fiennes' character is doing, is he's... He is processing death and he has a lot of quotes, you know, a lot of Latin being thrown around to kind of process how he wants to sort of leave his mark. from the virus, and he's not killing people. He's cremating, you know. Already dead people. Yeah, yeah.

And the other thing that they establish is in the trailer, you see him and he's covered head to toe in what looks like blood. So it makes you think that he's the villain. And he explains it as in, no, no, no, I cover myself in iodine so I don't get infected. Yeah. And you're like, oh, that's really clever. That would definitely help. And he is so fantastic. He steals the show. And near the end of the film, you think they're literally...

it teases that they're going to like kill him, you know, at the very end where he is, he's attacked by Samson comes back. They're hiding in some sort of hidey hole. And then Samson gets a hold of the doctor and appears to. to, to start to kill him. And then luckily spike subdues him. But I was really worried. Like, Oh man, you just, you just gave this guy like such an interesting arc.

I was like, if they kill this guy off, I'm actually going to kind of be pissed about this movie because they don't need to kill him. And then they take care of Samson. Samson goes away.

Spike now has the baby and he begins a trek back. And you get the distinct impression his trek back was a lot smoother than his trek there. And they go out of their way to show him taking out zombies, all the things that he hesitated to do before. He's not hesitating anymore. All the missed shots he takes with his arrow, his bow and arrow, not missing anymore. He takes them out with one shot. And you're like, okay. He's not... You see his character evolve.

Which is such a wonderful thing to see in a movie. And in one movie. Like, I was worried they were going to take three movies to do this. Yeah. That's a good point. And you see him. crossing the causeway back to Hope, and you think he's going home. Instead, he leaves the baby at the doorstep with a note and walks back across the causeway.

And you see Aaron Taylor Johnson read the note, and the note says, this is a baby we found born in the wild. She was born from one of them. She's not infected. Please take care of her. And then. She's named after his mother. Yeah. And you can see the whole town being like, new child. Like, they're not going to kill the child. You get the distinct impression that they're like...

They're like, hope. Like, there may be hope for us. And I thought that was a positive thing. But you can also see the dad is upset that his son leaves. And he basically says, I'm not ready to come home yet. There's still more for me to see. Maybe I'll come back someday. Yeah, I'll be back when I'm ready. That's what he says. Yeah. And I was like, OK, this is why we're going to get multiple movies, because this kid is going to go on a journey.

And that's totally where they're going with this. And so now we can talk about the ending. I kind of wish... So we had we had done some news stories where they talked about, like, the ending of each of these films will will be sort of an epilogue to what came before and sort of hint at what's to come next. And.

While I appreciate they want to do three of these, and I thought the film is pretty much perfect from beginning to that ending at the causeway where the father's yelling. They could have ended it there. But and I'm willing to give the second film the benefit of the doubt because this one is so well done. So I'm not. But when I was watching what was happening at the end of this film.

It immediately, again, same reaction, snaps back to like a Z Nation, The Walking Dead sort of vibe. Actually, in this case, I got a lot of Power Rangers vibes from the cult of Jimmy. Yes. It is a callback all the way to our opening scene where Jimmy, the kid from the beginning, that went and hid in a... his father's church and watched his father praise for the end of Armageddon and die Jimmy doesn't die Jimmy shows up and they're all dressed like soccer hooligans with dreads

And they're all blonde. And he leans over and he looks at the kid who's being chased by zombies. And the kid does a great job killing a bunch of zombies. Just he's starting to get overwhelmed. And Jimmy looks down from him from up on this ledge and he goes. Would you like my help? Would you like to be a friend of Jimmy's? And the kid goes, yeah. And all of a sudden, he's like, get him, boys. And a bunch of these other people dressed just like Jimmy jumped down from the ledge and like.

one spears a zombie and you can tell that they're like toying with the zombies almost like they've figured out how to kill them fast and um it took me out of the movie a little bit i had to process it i went What? Huh? I won't lie and say it wasn't entertaining. It was certainly entertaining. But it was so, what the hell is going on? Did it maybe take back?

And it took me an evening to process it. And I went, you know what? If the second movie goes in a different direction, I'm okay with that. I got the closure from the first movie that I... feel like I needed. If the second movie goes in a little different direction. Also, the other thing, too, is there really wasn't that many zombies chasing the kid. It was like a dozen.

And you can see that these guys take out the dozen like it's nothing. And there's also like a dozen of them. So I was like, I can. I can forgive it a little bit. It really depends on if they get these characters get introduced and we see a hundred zombies. How do they handle the hundred zombies? I get the sense that this will be a small part.

In the grander scheme of the second film. But we don't know. I think Jimmy will be our villain in the second film. Yeah. Maybe. He does have villain vibes for sure. It's called The Bone Temple. I have a vibe that's either a reference to Ralph Fiennes or Jimmy himself has his own bone temple. But you get the vibe that Jimmy's looking for recruits and that Spike might be joining Jimmy's recruits.

And I think that that's going to be where the second film goes, is Spike is going to see another life or another aspect of what's been going on where his homeland was... really mild-mannered, we don't know what Jimmy's people are like. And I think they may be more chaos than organization. Yeah. Yeah, we don't know just yet.

We get but a glimpse of what's to come in the second film. They were shot back to back, so literally they went from one to the next, and the idea is the third one will have... Alex Garland and Danny Boyle returning to complete the trilogy. But, I mean... You know, the actor that played Spike, he's fantastic to see him continue on his journey solo and then run into the cult of Jimmy. It'll be it'll be interesting to see how he deals with because he really he got.

He got lucky, right? The first human he runs into in the wild is a soldier and then a doctor who people thought was crazy but just had a different view of the world and actually was...

uh, you know, you know, nice for lack of a better word. You know, he, he didn't come across people. There was hints that he would come across people that were, there were sort of a little, you know, very negative more walking dead villainy type thing with the sort of the the carving into the into the infected that was hanging the person that was left hanging i was watching the movie and i'm like

why does it say I MMI like IMI what's that mean or something and then later you like once you as you said what I did is I it took me a day to kind of like process that ending in just like oh right called to jimmy he's out there like clearly he's a force to be reckoned with i he will definitely be at least you know the first half of the film i think if there's something that these 28

variation movies do is that they don't stay in one place for long they kind of keep moving uh and i and i feel like they will do that with uh the bone temple i think it's a misdirect that like the bone temple is it'd be easy to say, well, that's Ralph Fiennes location. That's the bone temple. But I, I think it's a, it's gotta be a double meaning of, of some kind to, it would, that seems like too.

Too simple. I mean, the UK is quite large, right? So they have other locations to explore. So I'm excited to see where they go next. Right. And the other thing, too, is so we don't get any Cillian Murphy in this. Nope. But it has been leaked that Cillian Murphy will be in the next movie. Yes. And it should be said that the next movie was also written by Alex Garland, just like this one was.

So while Nia DaCosta is directing it, Alex Garland wrote it, and I believe he also wrote the third movie. So we're going to definitely be getting an Alex Garland story. So it could go anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. I think even Cillian Murphy is supposed to be at the end of the next one. He's in the epilogue for the Bone Temple.

Because his his main movie is the third one. That's that's I mean, look, if you're trying to get funding for a trilogy, that's the best way to do it is like dangle the fan favorite for the first one. And Oppenheimer Oppenheimer. I believe as, as a carrot to Sony to be like, yes, Hey, maybe fund our trilogy and you'll get, you'll get your own Killian Murphy. And I believe they already have funding for the third movie.

Yeah. This was a success, I think. I don't think it did as well as they were hoping. I think they thought it was going to do more. But I also believe it was extremely low budget, just like the first one was. Yeah, it says a worldwide total of 126 million as of July 9th. So however, well, that's today, however accurate that is. But I don't know what they said.

for uh budget wise budget was oh 60 million so you know made made it back it's double its money yeah and and this will do well on uh on um when it releases digitally and and stuff like that yep yep

I don't think we painted a clear enough picture that you don't need to go see it. You should definitely go see it. Yeah, I mean, my takeaway was, is after I finished seeing it, I loved it. But it was one of those movies that, much like playing The Last of Us, I went, yep, I'm not going to watch this movie again for like a decade. Because I don't need this emotional rollercoaster of the mother situation again. Nope. Yeah.

It's crazy that Elfie Williams is 14. Yes. He's done five movies. No, he's done five projects. And actually, this led me to look up the he was he was one of the characters in his Dark Materials, which is which is a show that was on HBO. Yeah, it was a joint between HBO and BBC. But yeah, he's, he's got like 28 years later, his dark materials and a couple other projects, but that's, that's crazy. So he's fantastic. He was amazing in this movie.

I was a little worried that they were going to be focusing with the child actor in the main role. But he holds his own. And we were proven wrong. Yep. Yep. This proves the thing that Walking Dead always does bad at. You can have a movie about zombies that revolves around kids. Exactly. It's all about who you hire and how you write. Yep.

Take that. I really do feel like, as I said before, I feel like this trilogy is going to be taking all the stuff that came between 28 Days Later and now and sort of reinventing it in their own sort of... way and again it's a fine line that sounds like it could be super pretentious and it very well could have been if if they just didn't do it so well so like it's a big gamble but i think it paid off

The only thing that worries me about Bone Temple is if you look at the cast. Yeah. We have Alfie back. Aaron Taylor Johnson is back. And then we have Jimmy Crystal is the lead cult leader. And then we have Jim and Nina, who is a cult member. We have Jimmy Jones, who's a cult member. We have Jimmy Inc., who's a cult member. And then we have another Jimmy Jimmy, who's another member of the cult. And I'm like...

This is either going to be really weird and we're going to establish that Jimmy's crazy, or this is going to be goofy. Yeah, I'm a little worried, but... I really want to see a trailer because I want to see where we're going. I think we get a trailer. Did we not talk about it last episode? We thought maybe they'd wait till digital or...

I don't think we get it at Comic-Con. Do you think that might happen? When is Comic-Con? Two weeks, I think. Oh, we're going to get a trailer by then. Okay. Well, we'll see. Because I think this is going to be in... This will be on... Actually, you can already rent it. Can you? Digitally. You can't buy it, but I think you can already rent it. Let me see. Digital release, 28 years later. Set for...

Oh, it says September 23rd. Oh, okay. Because I've already seen pre-order listings for it. I know that. Now, sometimes the results get confused by the digital and they think they think you're asking about DVD. September does seem late for. Yeah, no, I know that when I was browsing on.

Fandango the other day because I was looking I had just bought a bunch of movies and I was looking to see if there was anything on sale it listed 28 years later in the lineup but I think it said it's like coming soon And it was like one of the first movies listed. So if it's listed that soon, I would say this is going to be available for rent probably within the next month. Yeah, this says now I'm seeing it could be, you know, this month, late July.

For super rent, as I like to call it. Yes. Paying $25 to rent it. Yeah, that happening. But anyway, should that Comic-Con be coming in two weeks? this might be available by then or almost available by then. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't get a trailer. Yeah. Even, even a, like a teaser trailer doesn't give much away, but sets the tone. I would say at the very least, we're going to get a trailer by Halloween. Oh, yeah, for sure. We will have a full trailer by Halloween at the latest.

Well, I look forward to seeing what they do with the next one and hopefully getting confirmation of that third one 100%. So we'll see.

As for Zamp, what's coming up on Zamp? Well, are we going to try to do Dead City? No. We're going to delay it even more. It's anime time. We're going to discuss the first few episodes of Night of the Living Cat. So stay tuned for that. It's available on Crunchyroll, and you can stream the first few episodes right now. um if you're a you know sub no dub or a dub no sub depending on how you watch anime i did look into it it's subs only for now no word on uh when there will be be a dub so um

We're going to watch that next. So likely no clips, maybe, maybe some fun meowing sounds. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. Yeah. Some meowing sounds is what we had to look forward to. I want to thank our patrons, patreon.com slash zombies ate my podcast. If you want to support the show, help us subscribe to Crunchyroll. You can go to patreon.com slash zombies ate my podcast.

Visit us on the web, ZombiesAteMyPodcast.com, for show notes and all our previous episodes. 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 with the busy zombie lord himself. Take it away, Lou. Gotta practice those bow skills.