Send More Paramedics // The Return of the Living Dead

unknown 0:00

Uh I love faces.

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Hey, I'm Dahlia. And I'm Alma. Welcome to the Gory Deta podcast, where we discuss horror from every angle. We break it down with humor, sarcasm, and curiosity looking at what scares and excites us most, what gets ignored, and the people shaping the genre right now. Hey Alma. I see that uh okay, so I'm gonna get into it here a little bit, but I see that you're you're themed up for our discussion today. What shirt are you wearing? I'm wearing one of my Return of the Living Dead t-shirts. Because we're talking about Return of the Living Dead today. Yay! I love that. I was gonna wear mine, but I couldn't just because you know I can't wear that to my place of work. And like I didn't want to change out of my clothes and change back into new clothes because I'm lazy like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

So well I started off the day. Yeah, I I wanted to choose one of my shirts. I've got five. I was just mentioning I've got three t-shirts and two button-up shirts. And I'm wearing one to the Comic-Con that I'm gonna see you at this weekend. Oh, which one? I have one with Tarman's face only. It's just his face. Uh I don't think have I seen that one? No, I bought it new this year. It was I have another one you've seen that's a button up, and it's also Tarman. But it's his full body. It's his full body, and he looks awesome in it. This one's just his little profile picture. Like he's saying cheese. And I know.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

I don't think, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

I don't think I've seen the button-up one. Okay, that's cool. I can't wait to see it then. Yeah, we're gonna go to the Comic Con this weekend. Uh Bell County, right? Yes. Bell County Comic-Con. Last year, it was a good time, so we're looking forward to it this year. Maybe it's something we'll be discussing next week. Maybe we won't be because it'll be a bust. Who knows?

SPEAKER_00 2:15

We'll find out. I'm hoping, I'm hoping to find some toys. You know that's what I'm what I'm there for. And usually every every year I found a doll that we've gone to it. I think this is the third year that I'm going to this one. And I'm looking for specific dolls that have just come out from the Comic Cons. And I hope I find them. Are you gonna share with me what you're gonna? I mean, oh Monster Heights. Yeah, Monster Heights collector dolls, and I'll be looking for NECA toys as well.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Okay. All right. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing my sister in person, and I'm also looking forward to discussing this week's episode. Well, first let's get into this month. So, this month we're actually going to be discussing zombies from the slow shufflers to the infected sprinters. Those, I think, are the scariest for me, but we'll get into that later. Every movie has its own spin, and the month of August, we'll be digging into four different movies. This week we're gonna be brains deep in the Return of the Living Dead. That always flubs me up a little bit, the Return of the Living Dead, not Return of the Living Dead. This punk rock cult classic has its own flavor of zombie, and we're excited to get into it. All right. So this is Return of the Living Dead, 1985. 71% on Rotten Tomatoes. I love IMDB's description of it. Two employees at a medical supply warehouse accidentally released a toxic gas from a misplaced top secret U.S. Army shipment, causing the dead to rise from a nearby cemetery with an insatiable hungry, I mean hunger for human brains. That's perfect. Brain. Yeah, yeah. That's a perfect description of the movie. It's like sometimes they suck the IMDB descriptions, and this one's per this one is perfect. So I don't know who wrote, directed, who's in it, tell me all the good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

This is written by Rudy Ritchie, John A. Russo, and Russell Strainer, with the screenplay written by Dan O'Banon and directed by Dan O'Bannon. This has a pretty good-sized cast that survives most of the movies, so they're all worth mentioning. Clue Gallagher as Bert, Don Kalfa as Ernie, James Caron as Frank, Tom Matthews as Freddie, Beverly Randolph as Tina, Miguel A. Nunez Jr. as Spider, Linnea Quigley as Trash, Brian Peck as Scuz, John Philbin as Chuck, and Mark Venturini as Suicide.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

And it really is a cool cast, I think. Um so let's just get into it. Talking about the movie. Um first off, this movie was trying to be different, but it's it's all kinds of different. It's we have our fast zombies, we have our I say they're sm they're smart zombies, we got our talking zombies, they're hard-to-kill zombies. Everything about it is just uh scary because you can't get away from them, you can't kill them. And that's what's terrifying about the return of the living dead, zombies. What are you gonna do about them? Nothing.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Nothing, you can't do anything about them. That's what it just gets worse, it just gets worse for them, and there's no they it ends even on a on a cliffhanger the way it does, because it's like, how are we gonna stop these? We made it look like we're gonna stop them. So in in the beginning, you have you just have two people in a warehouse, and um, they're doing their thing for the medical supplies, getting things ready. One showing the new guy the rope, Freddie. And then you have um it's Frank, right? That's his name.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

Oh, I don't remember names. You know me. I've watched this movie a million times, and I still will get the names wrong unless I'm watching it.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Well, Frank is Freddie's boss, and they get they're just showing, he's just showing him the ropes, basically. Bert is the big boss, and he's leaving the two of them alone in this warehouse. So Frank is showing him all the cool bits, and they have like a cadaver, a frozen cadaver, and they have real skeletons from real people, and so it's like a serious business. And then he goes and he tells me. It's a very interesting business. Um Yes, it's it's pretty cool. It's like they they ship to medical um students and and uh hospitals and schools and stuff like that. So it's it's a serious business. And you know, when I first watched this, of course I was a little bitty thing that I shouldn't have been watching this movie at all. And this was the scariest fucking movie to me of all time. It was the scariest nightmares, the brains, even our mom got in on the brains talk. I mean, it wasn't appropriate for her to be scaring the shit out of us with the brains thing. Oh yeah, because we were way too way too young. And I thought to myself when I first watched it, I was way too young, but you're barely, barely older than me. Like a just a twig, like a hair older than me, and you watched it.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

And I used to think my big sister watched it, my you know, and I'm like, you you that was your big sister, and I wasn't much older than you, and I watched it, and our mother terrorized us by saying brains and biting our head. Yeah, I totally remember that. Now it's funny. Oh, now it's funny. I think it's hilarious. Yeah, I just I'm just saying that at the time, absolutely not. It was not hilarious, and um, yeah, uh traumatized because we used to live, our house was uh sit situated on an alleyway, and I used to imagine this is how fucking scared I was. I used to imagine the living dead fucking screaming and moaning in the alley, like coming down the alley. And I I was I could swear that would hear them. You know how they sounded in the movie? It's just like that's how I was like, I can hear them, I can hear them. Oh my god. I was just terrified. That's what this movie did to me. Of course, now looking back at it, I'm like, seriously, Dahlia, this movie scared you like that. But I know I watch you know, yeah, but that's the power of this movie. When you're that's I love it. I love that about this movie though. Cause it did that to me. It scared the living shit out of me.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Uh-huh. And now that we wait there until we're talking about it, I'll probably will have some nightmares just because it's going to pull up all that nostalgia of what it used to feel like watching it. Because I don't think I watched the movie more than more than like glimpses of it and hiding behind a couch and and putting my hands in front of my eyes. Um, because the first thing that scared me was that cadaver, was the cadaver hanging in that freezer room. Mm-hmm. The way that it was dangling with the with the two hooks on the side of the head just just hanging in there. And so these two these two dopes, he's telling him the story of of how this um the movie was real, bit the uh the the zombie movie. They even use the word zombies, which is like something that you're not used to hearing in movies about zombies, but they said it's a historically a true story. Frank is telling him that that this happened, that some um some chemical waste got into something and then uh animated a bunch of of dead bodies and the dead started coming back to life. And so he has proof of it though, and he shows Freddie in the basement of that medical supply warehouse that there's these tanks. And he's so proud to show him. But I would never, ever, ever go down there. I wouldn't be able to work there knowing that there were just dead bodies inside of tanks that are just sitting in the there was a cadaver already there in the contents there. That's scary. But the tank, because he opens it so casually, and then he uses like Windex to wipe off the the glass so you could see what's in there and it's a body. And then that's when he fucks up and hits the thing, and all that gas comes pouring out, and the awesome theme music starts playing. Oh, I love the music. It's a vibe, it's so good. It just comes, it washes over you, and you get like in a mood, dun, oh I'm gonna fuck it up. Maybe I can't even do it.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

No, yeah, don't fuck it up because I I can hear it in my head right now. It's it's a beautiful song. I can hear it. Uh-huh. Just imagine it right now. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

There it is. There it is. There it is. And we didn't have to fuck it up for you. Yeah, so it was it's um, so it it also shows the date. I think it was July 3rd, 1984. Am I putting that name on my ass?

SPEAKER_02 11:41

I think it was July 3rd. I don't know if it was 84. The movie was in 85, but it could be that the events happened in 84, you're correct.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Okay. And so they um they are unconscious, and then they also start showing the party of the punk rockers, the the crew.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

Which I love. Okay, so all right, so let's just go ahead and get into this crew here because they are a an interesting bunch. How do they become friends?

SPEAKER_00 12:15

I think I I think I've heard that question before. Like, how are they associated with each other? Okay, Tina, we know she is Freddie's girlfriend. Girlfriend, yeah. And then the rest of them are friends of Freddie's, I guess. Casey is the other girl, and Trash is the other girl. And they're the ones with the best hair. Oh. And and then they're just they're just all kind of unique in their own right.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

The reason I ask that is because uh Freddie's girlfriend, she's pretty preppy. She's like she's hardcore prep. But they all get along really well. They especially when things really start going down. I love how they're all really protective of each other. Well, except for trash, they just kind of leave her behind like trash, but um that's true, but you know, they were trying to be. That was an accident. That was an accident, though.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Yeah, she didn't have any clothes, if she, you know, and she didn't have any shoes. Like, how is she gonna run? Yeah. And and all that. So yeah, they were hanging out next door at the cemetery, partying away, party because that's what they want to do. They just want to party. Where are we gonna party? And the rain starts falling on them and it's burning.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

Ah, acid, one of our fears from the 80s was yeah, that was a huge fear of mine in the 80s. Acid rain. Acid rain. Um, let's see, sinkholes. Um, let's see, what else? Um, killer bees. Killer bees were another one. Um, yeah, definitely. Those were big time fears of mine. But the acid rain was a real one. That was like for sure something that was gonna get us for sure. They came in us.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

The the acid rain here really played on that, like scaring you because it's like, yes, it's real, and this is also real. Remember what they said at the beginning of the movie?

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

They said these all events are real. And um, when I read that, I was like, I knew that wasn't real, even as a little kid. Like, I knew it's not real, but putting it made it scarier, you know, just thinking about what if it was and what would they tell us? And it was true. If something like that had happened, we wouldn't have been told. It's not like back then we had the internet or anything like that. We would have just been hearing stories of stories and and stuff like that. And so this is what we have acid rain turning the unalive into reanimated corpses. And why are these corpses so fucking scary? Um because they're smart. You say smart, and I guess that I guess you could just say you could you oh, I think they just retain their human capabilities. Well, they're smart for being undead, for being dead. I okay. Well, you know what? The tar man was smart because at one point when they get separated, um, what's her face? Tina, she gets stuck with the tar man in the basement of that medical supply warehouse, and it uses uh what's it called? Some sort of poolie device to try to open up where she was at. Yeah. That, okay, I would have never thought of that as a regular human. And if I was a zombie, I wouldn't be able to think of that. So I think the tar man was a smart one. Yeah. Well, he was one of those ones they had to hide inside a tank. So, and do you re remember the fact that what's even creepier is that there's more barrels.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Yes, there are more barrels.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

There's more barrels down there with dead bodies in them. Yeah. And so we have this one that got loose. And what the reason I think that they're scary or the scariest zombies is because they're talking. Because they're talking. Even if they're saying brains, it's still talking. Live brains, send more paramedics, send more cops.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Um they're and then when they cast forming uh uh groups, they're making plans, they're doing all this stuff. It's like okay, smart. Okay, yeah. They did they did form groups too. Uh-huh. They they they knew what they were doing. Um, like you said with the tar man, he was doing this thing trying to get her out of the out of whatever she was in. Um outside when they were uh getting the paramedics and the cops, when they were also calling over the radio for more cops and more paramedics. Um just in general, when they were using their I don't know, they were running. They were running.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Oh, the running part two. This is the first of the zombie movies that featured the running zombie and the talking zombie. And they're running. Why are we running? Why are we running? They are running in a group and they're setting up and they're and they're getting in full force and they're heading on into barricades to go eat their brains. And they have a mission. It's their brains that they need. And we find that out because they capture the woman that they end up splitting in half and they tie down and they ask her questions. And that was the scariest shit to me was that they're interrogating a half of a woman, zombie, who is just a it's and how they did that looks so remarkable too. I love the practical effects of that moving zombie and talking to her and her talking about her pain that she feels. And I love her.

SPEAKER_02 18:37

I absolutely love her. She's I have a a shirt of her, which I'm sadly not wearing right now, but I love her. And not like y'all could see it anyways, um, but it's my fate one of my favorite shirts. Um, but no, I love her. I I think she's just absolutely beautiful the way they they made her, um, the way she moves. Uh I just everything about her. And yeah, so that scene is so amazing when they capture her because they get this half woman that practically she's a skeletal woman. She's not completely skelet a skeleton, but they grab her and they decide to interrogate her to find out why what's why they're doing what they're doing, the zombies, and she tells them that the reason they're killing and eating brains is because brains make uh them feel better because it takes the pain away. And when you hear that, it's like holy shit, that that's uh insane, and also that's uh sad. It's yes, like really, really depressing.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Yeah, she can feel like the rotting and that makes it seem like before that they were reanimated, even though their corpses in coffins, even though they're lying still, they were feeling the pain of decomposing that whole time. And that's that what you get out of that? Yeah, I do, and that's why I don't a lot of the parts I know it's supposed to be a comedy, like it's supposed to be funny, but I don't I don't see the funniness in it like in that part. I'm just like that's what I'm thinking.

SPEAKER_02 20:39

I'm thinking Oh, I don't think that part's funny at all, but I I didn't get I didn't get that though. I didn't that part you're saying that you you heard or you feel that she means that um before they're reanimated, she's still feeling the pain of rotting away. Yes. Interesting. I didn't know why they could thought of it that way.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

Yeah, and that's why I feel like they woke up with such a a thirst, their hunger for the brains, because they immediately wake up and start attacking. Trash is one of the first ones to go because they get split up in the cemetery after um um they're running from one location to the next location, and they're just trying to get help. So she gets lost, she gets taken first, and just like the way that she planned by being taken by being eaten alive or whatever. She didn't plan it. She just no, well, the way she wanted to, where the she spoke of it, you know. I know she didn't plan it, but you know what I mean. And so I think they're already. To eat the brains because they've been craving them for the whole time they've been in those caskets. Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Again, I that could be it. I just I never thought of it like that. Like I said, I've watched this movie being very hyperbolic a million times. And I just never thought of it like that. I've I I get very sad and I get very it's very depressing, actually, that scene, but I still love it. It's still one of my favorite scenes of all movies, actually, because it's just it's just so well done and and everything about it is just makes me so uh it's just so depressing. But I love it.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

The um Frank and Freddie, when they're getting inspected, inspected by the paramedics, and they start to discuss their their pain. You already know what's happening to them because of the way that they're describing how they're feeling, the stiffening up and the coldness, and and then finding out that they have no vitals, and then they start to scream in agony and pain and all that kind of stuff. And it's it's it never makes me want to laugh or anything. It makes me kind of sad because I'm just like, why am I depressing myself? Now I'm really depressing myself.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

It is, it's uh when they're they're dead, they're already dead. I don't want to say they're dying because they are dead, but in a way they are dying. They're dead and they're dying. But um they're feeling the death, I guess is the best way to say that. So they're feeling their death, their first hours of death, which can apparently hurt a lot. And it does, it's very sad. You you hear them, they're doing a really great job of just being very vocal about it. Yes. Very vocal.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Just over-stimulating all the sounds because you're also hearing outside the moaning and the yelling, and then you hear them inside screaming, moaning, talking, just all those things combined are very, very cool. Just very cool. It sets a really great mood.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

And then there's when they when he realizes that he's going through rigor mortis, that just breaks my heart. That's when it, I think my soul was crushed. I think the first time I saw that and still does every single time I I watch it, because it's like there's no turning back. That's there's something about there was no turning back before that, but that there's something about that that's very final about it. It's just like, shit, that's it. You're not coming back from this. You're done.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

And Frank gets that. Frank gets that, and he is the one who goes off to the crematorium to um take care of himself because he knows that he can't go on and he doesn't want to hurt anybody. And I always find that to be a sweet moment because he is fully in like he's got his all his capacities still. He's thinking, he's moving, and all that kind of stuff. And um he uses the machine and the crematorium machine himself on himself. And that smoke, too, is pumping out into the atmosphere and getting in the rain and getting in the ground, which is just that's why I I was thinking, I always think, how far is this spreading? Because the rain just keeps happening, and if they keep burning everything up, it's just gonna keep spreading around and more zombies. And there's already, they were already like a hundred zombies to begin with. They were already talking about a hundred zombies, and they're so scary too, because you can't kill them. Like in the movie, in the night of the living dead, you got him, you can kill him, you can you get him by the head. In most of the ones, you can kill them by killing uh them through the head. Um, which they do bring up in Return of the Living Dead.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

They're like, in that movie, you can kill them by I don't know, I don't remember how he words it, but he says something like you you do something to their head, and then they tried to do that with uh uh pickaxe or what did they use? I can't even remember.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

It was a big pickaxe on the on the on the corpse that came alive in the Yeah, the cadaver.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Um and it's so funny because I love the acknowledgement of prior zombies. Um and that's like the first ones that did that, uh, you know, acknowledging that. And um but then it didn't work. It just it just didn't work. It's like okay, yeah. And then not only that, not only did it not work, then we chop off a head. That didn't work. That is the zombies, the zombie's still moving. Uh my hands still work. They chop off the hand, the hand's still moving, and we chop them up in tiny pieces. Each tiny piece is still moving. So again, we can't kill that. How else can we kill it? That's why they burn it up in the crematorium, and then okay, now what happens with that? Apparently, the the gases emitted into the air fall down to the ground in the rain and then bring everything else back to life. Okay, now we're screwed because when they drop the bomb on Louisville later on, what's gonna happen? The same thing on a grander scale.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Because yeah, and that was they do bother to tell the numbers too, because at the end they said 4,000 people killed. I wonder if they were including the zombies, but think they say the number and it makes you think, well, that's gonna multiply because now that's just gonna spread amongst the whole city. Now, the new movie that's coming out, uh Return of the Living Dead, that's a direct sequel to this one that's supposed to happen 18 months after it. And that's supposed to be out in November, I think. Okay. I think it's in November, but it's a it's just a direct sequel, which I had thought for a while was going to be a remake, and so I was confused. But um, yeah, so we have these zombies that are the scariest zombie imaginable in the goofiest ass movie. Um because it is, it is okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

Look, it it is goofy, but it it is of its time. The practical effects were great, but at the same time, oh my god, like I'm looking at it now, and I was like, I was I was afraid of that cadaver man.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

I mean, oh when you look at him now, I was terrified of him. And when you look at him now, he's yellow.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

You can see the hat, the the little thing on his head. Skin cap.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Yeah, you could see it.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

It's so awkward scalp thing, skin cap. Skin cap sounds gross. I don't know what it is, but you know, the thing that covers their hair.

SPEAKER_02 29:59

But I mean, it worked, it worked because it scared me. It scared the shit out of me. And then what was the other thing that scared me? Oh, tarman. Tarmen, yes, that scared the shit out of me.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

But looking at I have I have a little tarman on my desk, and I also have like a one-sixth scale and a one-twelfth scale um tarman. And I collect them because I think that they're just the scariest thing. And I don't know why. I but I like them. I like them. And so that's why I collect them. I was trying to find one right now, but I couldn't see it.

SPEAKER_02 30:45

The idea of tarmen scares the shit out of me because again, when I was little, um, that was truly terrifying. I remember plugging my ears and singing to myself while the scene was going on. Oh, look at you. You're so cute.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

I'm looking at one of her tiny tarmen on my desk. It's so cute. I have the larger figure, and it's so not scary that my cats chewed off all the little dangly parts that were hanging off. Oh, I had to put it away. You know how it has all those like wet pieces of garment that are just torn and hanging off. The the cats chewed all those extra pieces off. So now he doesn't have any dangly bits.

SPEAKER_02 31:38

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

I had to put it away. Yeah. Yeah. The one thing that they got into. All the toys that I have, they leave everything alone, but they pick on little on little things like that. It's so weird. Just so the weirdest thing to pick on.

SPEAKER_02 31:54

Oh my goodness. Oh, you know what I would love to find if it exists? Because I don't collect things. You know this. Alma loves collecting. She has an awesome collection of of like many different different uh um movies, toys, uh shows, just really awesome collection. I don't I don't collect. I just uh I don't know if it's just laziness, if it's just I don't want to collect things in general because I don't want to have to deal with it later, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Anyways, I like the idea of collecting though, because I love looking at other people's stuff. And I would love to find out if those uh if there exists a half woman, the the lady, because that I would totally buy.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

I haven't come across one, but I bet you could have somebody make one.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

Well, that's what I want. I would love to. Wouldn't it be cute?

SPEAKER_00 32:54

A little crocheted one.

SPEAKER_02 32:55

Oh my god, a little crocheted one would be amazing. That would be so cute. I'm gonna have to go out. I'm gonna have to commission the piece myself is what's gonna end up happening.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Yep. And it's gonna be cool. And I'm gonna look at it, and I could come see your collection of one. My collection of one.

SPEAKER_02 33:15

I love that. So, um, is there do you do you have a well, we've already talked about it, probably Tarman, right? Do you have a favorite zombie in this one?

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Oh, yeah, it's definitely Tarman. Definitely Tarman. I have one from like all my the movies, and I if we go on to the other movies, I'll pick a zombie from each one. Okay. This one is definitely my favorite. It's goofy. It's goofy. Look at it. And the you know, the dangling and the the warbliness and the Oh, he's great. The way the way he moves his body. The skinned top of the skull is everything. And the way that that he moves is so not real. It's so, it's so not real, but it's real, and that's what makes it creepy. And I love it. I love it so much.

SPEAKER_02 34:09

Is there uh is there a favorite, I know this is sad, but is there a favorite death? There's not that many deaths in this movie.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

No, they don't. And but um I would I would I'd like to say suicide only because it was this little surprise, because they didn't expect to see the tar man there, and it always caught me off guard, and it it would make me giggle because it was like bad brains, and then he just snaps into his head and he falls to the ground. And I find that really funny because he came out of nowhere and it was like ha ha. And then everybody just takes off. Like, like they don't pause, they don't do anything, they just leave, they just flee, and I love it.

SPEAKER_02 34:55

They they do exactly what they should do, is actually what happens. And you know, every other movie, they would probably still be standing there, like, you know, looking around, trying to figure it out and getting eaten themselves or something, but they took off. I always forget that he dies so quickly right there. I I think it always catches me by surprise. So, like you said, it that it happened so quickly. I think I almost always forget that it happened so quickly right there, and that it uh, or that it was him that gets taken so quickly because he is the big guy. He's the big guy. You don't expect it to be him that gets taken down so quickly, but he does. Okay, so I asked you, I asked for your favorite zombie, asked for your favorite death. Uh, do you have a favorite, ooh, practical effect? Ooh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

I think I like the I know it's real faky looking, but I really like the sawing and the pickaxe with the cadaver.

SPEAKER_02 36:00

Oh, I love that too.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

I really, I really like it. It just it's kind of like he would be thawed out and it wouldn't be bloody. And you know, I just I just like the way, especially the quickness of the pickaxe through the head and to the ground. I always think that looks pretty cool. And I always think that that took some time to do. And then just to chop off the head to saw it off the way it did, I thought that looked pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 36:29

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. Um, no, I I I agree. It's it, I love the way the head is facing down, his face down, and he's moving his mouth, like opening, closing its mouth. Like, I don't know what the point of it was to do that, but it's showing something. It's showing us like, look, I'm moving. It's just so goofy, but it's so perfect. I love it. It's such uh a good gag to show us and for us to be, I don't know, maybe comedically relieved for a second.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

I was thinking of another little funny bit from that from that whole scene in the beginning when one of them uses the the can of Lysol, and you clearly see the Lysol can. It's written in the in the trivia because they had to get permission to show that Lysol can. And they thought it made them look good because it would get rid of such a strong odor that they were trying. And so every time that I see that part where he sprays the the air with Lysol, like the whatever chemical it was, just killed those two guys, animated some corpses, and that is hilarious because I'm gonna tell you right now, I never noticed any Lysol.

SPEAKER_02 37:55

I've never noticed any Lysol. That's what I tell you. I've watched this movie so many times. Each time I watch it, I think I notice something different. Um, and but I'm I'm not gonna lie, I probably the next time I watch it, I'll be like, oh yeah, I did notice that Lysol. Um right now, thinking about it, I don't think I ever noticed it.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

We used to notice product placement a lot more in older movies, and then this one isn't one that you think you'd see something in. So I saw it like I've seen it a hundred times, and it always kind of made me laugh that they were spraying Lysol. And I thought, I wonder if they had permission even to show that. Well, they did have permission. They did. So I just thought that was a cool, little interesting fact.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

What do you think could actually stop these zombies? Like, just really think hard about it, like legitimately. Not like, don't make up something. Like, what do you think legitimately could kill these zombies that we're talking about from this movie? Is there anything that could kill me?

SPEAKER_00 39:05

I thought about this because in the sequel, even they use blowtorches. And I always thought, okay, a blowtorch would slow it down. Hopefully, if there was no rain, but also I don't think it's a useful weapon because it's just gonna keep coming after you while it's on fire. So however long it takes for the zombie to slow down from fire, you still have to keep running, and then you have this heavy blowtorch thing. Like I thinking alien style, you know, blowtorch. And so I just I can't think of anything else. I couldn't think of anything else that could take care of it.

SPEAKER_02 39:46

Well, I think um well, shit. I was just about to say burning it, burning it to a skeleton could do it, but you're still burning it and releasing the the smoke into the air, which gets could be brought down with the rain and releases, you know, makes more zombies. Shit. So because I was gonna say care of them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

Fuck. Um it's gotta be some sort of chemical weapon that does the reverse. An antidote. That's the way that's a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

But see, now we're we're making stuff up. We want to use like in the moment, what what could you do? Like I'm I'm not gonna just cry magically make just cry and die. Here's my brain or lack thereof. There you go. You may have it. Okay, so I'm really interested. Do you think there was a point in this whole situation from the beginning of the movie to the end where the situation was at which point, sorry, was it no longer fixable?

SPEAKER_00 41:17

Okay, okay. That's just gotta be the moment that they cremate the pieces. Yeah. They should have called the 1-800 number first.

SPEAKER_02 41:25

Yeah, that always pisses me off. That always pisses me off. Or right on the side of the canister. It pisses me off. And it I feel I feel so bad for getting so pissed off about it because like they're they end up dying. And I don't want to be pissed off at them because they end up dying. But it pisses me off because all they had to do was dial that no, no, they still would have been killed. Yeah, they still would have been killed, but I think it would have Oh, yeah, everybody still would have died, so 'cause that was their contingency plan the whole time. To nuke them.

SPEAKER_00 42:09

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 42:11

Damn.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

To nuke them. So even if they had called that number at any point in time before they released the chemical agent in it, they would have just bombed them.

SPEAKER_02 42:21

Yep. Fuck, man. They were screwed from the beginning. They were never gonna be okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

Never. Never. I don't know why I said it like that. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

They never had a chance. Fuck. Okay. Alright. I just totally depressed myself, man. This movie is, they call it like a comedy horror. I don't think it's very much comedy, man. I'm over here depressed. I would have to go watch some fucking, like, I don't know. I'm gonna have to watch a good zombie movie. I'm gonna go watch Train to Busan so that I can.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

What are you talking about? A good zombie movie. This is a good zombie movie. No, I meant one that wasn't as depressing, but it was a joke because that's equally depressing. I mean that equally. It's just very depressing, also. In a different depressing kind of way.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

In a different depressing. Okay, I gotcha. I see what you mean. All right, so just so that we can kind of sum it up here, as far as these zombies go, what makes these zombies special? They like we've already talked about it several times. They they're runners. They talk, they talk. They talk.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

They can't be killed. They can't be killed. They eat literal brains. Like that too. They the actual brains.

SPEAKER_02 43:53

And they get to them so easily. How do they get to them so easily? They're using just teeth.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

Mm-hmm. There's not like maybe in the soft spot of your skull. Is there still like a soft spot up there? No. I mean, because it fuses together there. Maybe that's a soft spot. No, no, there's no soft spot like that. That's what I always kept thinking. I don't think it'd be that easy for them to bite me through my skull, but they're still biting your fucking head. They're still biting your fucking head. They're gnawing off your scalp.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

Oh my god. Oh my god. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

So that was the return of the living dead this week. Next week we're gonna uh talk about another zombie movie, which shall be named at another time, because we haven't decided which one yet. But uh in the meantime, Alma, where can people find us on the interwebs?

SPEAKER_00 45:06

You can visit us on our website, thegory detailspodcast.com, over on Instagram, where thegory podcast, on blue sky, where thegory details, and you can see us over on buymeacoffee.com slash thegory details.

SPEAKER_02 45:22

And that is it for this week, everybody. Thank you so much for listening. Until next week. Bye. Bye bye.