The Dumb Cool Weird Podcast
It is a podcast that covers old movies from the 20th century that are funny and ridiculous. We cover what is dumb, cool, and weird about each movie. We are raw and don't show mercy!!
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The Dumb Cool Weird Podcast
Day of the Dead (1985): Zombies, Practical Effects, and Post-Apocalyptic Realities - Episode 56
Filmmaker Matt joins us on the Dumb, Cool, Weird Podcast to unpack the genius of George A. Romero's "Day of the Dead" from his fresh perspective. This episode promises to shed light on the revolutionary impact Romero had on independent filmmaking and the zombie genre, with insights into the film’s groundbreaking practical effects and non-traditional Hollywood approach. We dig into the nuanced portrayal of zombies versus infected creatures, with parallels to works like "28 Days Later," and explore how the film’s depiction of human dynamics and mental breakdowns has influenced series such as "The Walking Dead."
We also dive into the peculiar and often baffling decisions made by characters within "Day of the Dead.” Imagine zombies piling up at a fence while being kept in a bunker with hardly any restraints—what were they thinking? Bub, the zombie with a touch of humanity, becomes a focal point of fascination, and we ponder his potential journey. With praise for the film’s gripping practical effects, we also share a laugh at the times they go hilariously over-the-top. In the end, our discussion circles back to the challenges of relying on outdated tech in a post-apocalyptic setting, adding another layer to our exploration of this iconic film.
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Dumb.
Speaker 2:Cool.
Speaker 3:Weird Podcast.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Dumb, cool, weird Podcast, and we have a guest today. We have Matt.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, Matt, that's me. Yeah, so yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know, last week we watched Dawn of the Dead and this week we watched, you know, Day of the Dead. Matt's actually never seen Day of the Dead, but me and Nick have, so this is definitely an interesting perspective here. Oh yeah, so what'd you think, matt?
Speaker 3:It makes me feel really, really kind of dumb, because I haven't spent a lot of time watching these older films. I didn't really grow up too much with that kind of influence so, being a filmmaker myself, I tend to look at films like what can I learn from how they made it? I can tell you that I enjoyed watching it more than a lot of the newer zombie movies, simply because they used practical effects. It felt more real in a lot of aspects, even though visually sometimes it was a bit cheeky, I don't know. It felt like I could look past that, because it wasn't Hollywood just trying to sell me a film based off of their ability to do VFX, and I think it was. For me, as someone that hasn't watched a lot of the older films, it's already gone technical. That's just the way my brain takes it.
Speaker 1:No, that's fine, you can be technical, I mean. So one of the things that me and Nick really like about George A Romero is he doesn't really play by the Hollywood rules very much. He sort of like kind of takes it in a direction where he kind of has a lot of control of it. He did another movie called the Crazies.
Speaker 2:It's a good one too.
Speaker 1:It's another movie where he really just did what he wanted to do with it. He's one of those guys. He's kind of a pioneer for independent filmmaking because he basically made Night of the Living Dead, kind of on a shoestring budget. In his own way it became very popular. Unfortunately he didn't copyright it properly and he lost the copyright on it, but he was able to make you know dawn of the dead crazies and you know day of the dead and it kind of solidified his you know his immortality, so to speak, and you know it's crazy when you think about that.
Speaker 2:He basically created the zombie genre and then the infected genre. Yeah, pretty much. By doing that because there is a difference. Zombies are dead, infected are technically still alive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, kind of like a good example would be like 28.
Speaker 2:Days Later they're infected Great one, they're infected.
Speaker 1:They're not actually dead because if you notice by the end of the movie, one but they're infected, they're not actually dead because if you notice by the end of the movie, they all start dying, starving to death. Yeah, essentially so. There is a big distinction there between a ghoul and an infected person, almost like they have rabies. But I will say, day of the Dead is my favorite horror movie of all time. It's iconic. It's one of those movies that is very dark. It's got a really good soundtrack. In my opinion it's one of the biggest influences for future zombie flicks, including the tv show the walking dead.
Speaker 2:The creator said that he got a lot of influence from that, this movie and you can really tell when you see it, because the insanity within the characters and the irrationality really shows. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you actually mentioned that while we were watching it. And the second that you said that that was an influence immediately I could see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:I could see where they were. You know, like, what individual parts they were pulling influences from, like, even down to some of the zombie design and things like that. Like you know, while their techniques and execution wasn't nearly as advanced as it is today, you know you could definitely see where they were pulling influences from, like. It made so much sense once you said that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the one of the things that's really important to remember too is you know, one of the things that's really important to remember too is this movie right here is a movie in the zombie genre that doesn't really focus on the zombies a whole lot. It's more about the people, because in Dawn of the Dead they did that a little bit and then in Night of the Living Dead they did that a little bit, but those two movies focused heavily on the zombies. This movie focuses on the interactions more of the people, yeah, their motivations. The zombies this movie focuses on the interactions more of the people. The people, yeah, the people are more the, the, the trauma and the um. The problem and insanity comes from the humans, not the zombies necessarily, because everything that happened, this movie could have been totally prevented if these fucking people weren't acting like idiots and acting crazy towards each other well and to be very fair, they couldn.
Speaker 2:The Army couldn't trust the scientists, the scientists couldn't trust the Army. The trust issues just boiled over. Who knows how long they've been underground and hadn't interacted with anybody but each other for so long, eating that canned food, drinking Ralph's beer from probably 1930.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pretty much. It's probably Prohibition beer From probably 1930. Yeah, pretty much it's probably Prohibition beer. And the fact is, when you think about it, think about how stressful it would be if you're having to go and get these living specimens from the mines of Moria and just trying to make sure you don't get bitten and die constantly.
Speaker 1:It would make you go fucking mental. Yeah, one of the things that was the big plot point of this movie is you have the military guys, you have the scientists, and the military guys are tasked with making sure the scientists are able to complete their job essentially, and there's a lot of tension going on because the military guys just keep dying one by one and the scientists aren't really dying off that quickly.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's, like you said, right, because they're having to help them complete the task.
Speaker 1:They got to to do all that dirty grunt work, yep like it's making them feel retrieval, making them feel a little anxious and pissed off, you know I mean, that's understandable yeah, exactly well, that's what I'm saying is like.
Speaker 2:it's like everyone was going fucking mental at the end that when you know they, they knew how to kill the zombies, but everyone went so fucking wild that they just couldn't figure out how to aim for the head anymore Except for John.
Speaker 1:Yep, and the biggest thing that you find out, because most of them are pretty normal people. Aside from like, basically the scientists are relatively normal. Some of the military guys are a little fucking crazy, a little bat shit, especially the guy that gets his arm amputated. That was having sex with the other female scientist.
Speaker 1:The only female scientist, by the way, and it's really really, really just people that are pissed off coming from the military perspective, and then the scientist trying to quell them, but then you have the one head scientist, the doctor. They call him Dr Frankenstein in the movie.
Speaker 2:Who's just going insane on his own level, this guy's insane.
Speaker 1:He was literally just doing experimentation on some of their dead men and trying to bring them back to life and he's like oh, you have to offer them things, you have to give them rewards to get them to do what we want them to do. To get them to do what we want them to do.
Speaker 3:Not only that, at the same time, that didn't seem too crazy when he showed that it worked.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but one zombie Bub yeah, that's what I'm saying but one zombie having to get rewarded with human flesh, like when they don't have that much human flesh that they can go through.
Speaker 1:So it's like, eventually something's gotta give yeah, not to mention if I don't know if y'all notice this, but when he was playing the tape recorder, like the like him talking, did you notice he was talking to himself and he was insane yeah, yeah, he was like mother, hacking away at a, at one of the men's, like bodies, and then saying father, yeah, yeah, he was insane, that's why I gotta give them a treat. Yeah, that's why they were.
Speaker 2:That's why, uh, you know the like the lady and the irish guy were freaking out so bad well, yeah, and especially because, after those two guys died, he immediately started experimenting and chopping up their bodies yep pretty much I mean, yeah, that was pretty immediate yeah, it was like only a few minutes and then the major from the morning when she found the uniform. It's like dude, if you're gonna be fucking around like these fresh corpses, you might want to burn the uniforms.
Speaker 3:Yeah, especially if you're not trying to clue anyone in.
Speaker 2:He was not very subtle.
Speaker 1:And yeah. So basically this whole movie is just them and they're in Florida and they're inside of a bunker and they're trying to find a quote-unquote way to reverse it, like the female scientist says. And then the other guy is basically just trying to train them to be subservient to humans and basically it's all hopeless. I mean, you can kind of tell in the very beginning that this is really not going to end well for any of them, especially when the one guy goes oh, we're out, numbered one to four hundred thousand, holy shit I also have wonder where did he get that statistic If he hadn't been a topside in such a long time?
Speaker 1:Well, that's a good question. I mean, maybe it was just a rough estimate.
Speaker 2:I get that, but it's just like I feel like he was just starting to make shit up. The only real scientist who had any his head on his shoulders was Josh, the guy they just blew his brains out For no reason.
Speaker 3:He didn't do anything wrong, he was innocent 100% innocent.
Speaker 2:He did nothing. He was like why the fuck am I with these people?
Speaker 1:He picked the wrong assignment.
Speaker 3:Really, the only other competent person was John. Yeah, John was the only one who could also for some reason, shoot in the dark really well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, super well.
Speaker 1:He had a sweet setup too. He had a trailer down in the cave.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Irish guy and John were living it up.
Speaker 3:The Irish guy is probably my favorite character as far as acting goes. He kind of nailed that sort of cocky, don't-give-a-shit Irishman.
Speaker 2:Yep, he's been drinking and smoking since the apocalypse has happened, yeah.
Speaker 1:Just non-stop, can't stop.
Speaker 2:He's like I don't need food.
Speaker 1:I just need me whiskey.
Speaker 2:Whiskey in my pipe.
Speaker 1:But yeah, you know and you can. You know we were talking in the beginning. Like you know, one of the worst actors is the guy. Hispanic guy. He's one of the worst guys. Is the guy, uh, I guess spanek guy, the hispanic guy? He's the one of the worst guys in the entire fucking movie, not not because he's a bad character he's a shitty character, but also he's just a bad actor. You know, he was terrible.
Speaker 3:He was like from the very first line. It was like oh man. This dude is not horrid yep, and like, even, like, even his mannerisms were like, really, really bad, they were unnatural, yeah, like when he sat, like in the very first few scenes, when he sat down, um, on the golf cart oh yeah you know even the way he like, slammed his gun down to try to like add an exclamation point to what he was trying to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when he threw his uh, his back, he's like yeah yep, and the thing is, you know, this entire movie could have been prevented if they would have just isolated this guy somewhere, locked him up.
Speaker 2:Or, if you know, when Washington decided to send a bunch of scientists with a bunch of soldiers, they should have brought more than one woman.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's another one too Like everyone was sexually frustrated.
Speaker 2:Out the ass, you're not wrong about that. I mean, the only two guys well, maybe three guys were the guys who were topside who were just like smoking weed and growing it, yeah, like they were the only ones who were really chilled out and they died unceremoniously.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep. And yeah, the way this movie ends is kind of the way you would expect it to end. The three people that you like the most, that are the most likable they end up getting to the chopper and getting the hell out of there. But the main character, she, has tons of horrible, awful dreams throughout the movie and you get like a fake out at the end where you think she's about to get attacked. When they're getting the helicopter turns out she's like they're already on the beach on the deserted island.
Speaker 3:yeah, eating seagulls and fishing yeah well, I guess I don't know, maybe I, maybe I just missed it. What was the? What was the motivation of the guy to go and let the zombies in?
Speaker 2:and like what I mean just nuts, obviously he was losing his mind, but I think he was just finally out like totally gone, batshit, and he could was convinced that he was infected, so he was like I'm gonna take this whole thing down with me that's why I just let the zombies eat him anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah I was.
Speaker 2:I was a bit confused that was a little weird, though I was like why is this dude doing this?
Speaker 3:like, but the level, like, what's the purpose? What is he achieving by it? I mean, obviously it was.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it's one of those things that it shows how something like that affects people differently. Like his PTSD made him do stupid shit like that. He probably just was out of his mind. Honestly.
Speaker 2:Oh, mean, everybody was, especially since he had his especially since he had his arm chopped off. Yeah, he was, he was crazy which he probably would have died from that in actuality though.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, absolutely yeah. But moving on to like the, the best part is the dumb, cool and the weird, and uh, we'll go down the line here. What do we feel like is the dumb, like the dumb, the dumb portions, like the dumbest portion for each one of you guys.
Speaker 3:Oh God, I got to think on that one.
Speaker 1:I mean I can.
Speaker 3:I think I know mine, because I actually made it kind of a big deal while we were watching. It's when they put the two characters on the other side of the fence to waste them, it's like literally. The fence is like four foot tall behind you.
Speaker 1:Climb it.
Speaker 3:Just climb it and get out of there. Why did you run into the zombies?
Speaker 2:You literally could have got out, Even if you risked having to fight the guys, the army guys or whatever that seems like a better fate than running into the dark with zombies no, so the dumbest thing that I think of is the fact that they literally kept the zombies at the fence without like trying to cull them, like after a while. They just let them keep piling up at the fence top side, to where they couldn't even fill up the helicopter with gas. Or the fact that they had a bunch of zombies living inside of the bunker. Yeah with them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I was going to say With nothing but a chain. I was going to say, the dumbest part for me was when they had them chained up with one single chain and not multiple ways to pull them down like tie them down.
Speaker 2:And the the. The next part about that was they broke out of their restraints pretty easily, like they just had to remove one pin by chance and then your whole life is just destroyed. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:I think Bub was the best actor in the whole film, so would you say that's the coolest part of the movie is Bub.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Bub is definitely the coolest.
Speaker 3:I think, seeing, I think that sort of.
Speaker 1:Kind of tapping into the. There's something of the left of the person who was there before, type of thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's pretty cool and actually I believe it leaves room for his story and I think that should be made. I think there's a Bub story arc that needs to be explored.
Speaker 2:He's just going through the wasteland of the zombie apocalypse, like saving other survivors from vandals and hooligans.
Speaker 3:With guns though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he leaves the army base with the remaining firearms.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and he continues to learn and remember, and he gets stronger and he just becomes a god job, yeah, I think.
Speaker 1:one other thing I think was really cool was I think they really stepped up the practical effects, especially when they're getting ripped apart. It's like the one guy gets his head ripped off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, some of that's really good.
Speaker 1:It was really cool. That was awesome, Like it's like the one guy gets his head ripped off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, some of that's really good it was really cool. That was awesome Some of it's kind of funny, though, like the water hose of blood.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, like they were just like let's spray this blood. Or when John shot that one zombie in the head and it was like she became a squirter all of a sudden.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good, that's good, that's good. Uh, what was the weird, what's weird about this movie? You know, for me, I think, uh, one of the weirdest scenes is how they kept defending the guy, the one guy, you know, the guy that like had to get his arm amputated, like this guy oh, yeah, like at every corner has just been a piece of shit and you keep defending him.
Speaker 1:I think that's fucking weird. Uh, you know, yeah, that, and they never really gave a reason to defend that guy. At every corner has just been a piece of shit and you keep defending him. I think that's fucking weird, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah because they never really gave a reason to defend that guy.
Speaker 2:He was terrible from the beginning. He was a liability from day one.
Speaker 3:There was no redeeming qualities that they showed that guy at all.
Speaker 1:You know what else I thought was weird? I thought that scientist said that he was weird too.
Speaker 2:He was a weird motherfucker dude. Honestly, that's probably one of the weirder things, because he just did stuff behind closed doors without anybody checking in on him no, he didn't. He didn't report everything either yeah, like he was like, and that's why I mean I'm gonna say it, I side with the army on this one of them, like getting fucking tired of his shit yeah, no, I totally agree there no like they're at risk. They kept having their guys die.
Speaker 3:I still think he proved his hypothesis true, though.
Speaker 2:But on one. You know what I mean it's like. Can he recreate this experiment without more people dying?
Speaker 1:And obviously he hasn't because he wasn't that successful, because he was like obviously he said, like what happened to that guy? And he's like, oh, he was too difficult to deal with, so I took him out.
Speaker 2:It's like oh yeah, he was like just killing zombies that weren't cooperating with him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that just proves that what he was doing was just a bunch of bullshit. Anyway, you know.
Speaker 3:Unless it was just part of the process.
Speaker 2:I don't know, you never know, because he was also saying don useful, yeah, it's like how. And then you had that weird uh body in the little chamber.
Speaker 3:he kind of showed he kind of baby, yeah, he kind of showed how the corpse was still useful with the, with the disembodied uh head the major, yeah, the major major by putting yeah electricity to its brainstem. It was dead, it was gone but he was he was still able to learn things from it.
Speaker 2:So I think I think that's probably what he was referencing when he says there's still well he, if it was like unhooked, he would have had to drive to drive that drill through its brain. So you know, the brain activity is now useless well, we know logic.
Speaker 3:Don't play into zombie.
Speaker 2:Clearly he was pulling statistics that didn't really matter out earlier 1 to 400,000. Are you sure about those numbers?
Speaker 3:I mean, maybe he had some information from previous radio communication.
Speaker 2:Maybe, yeah, and that was the next thing, right, it's like they're asking the Irish guy. That was weird too. They're asking the Irish guy to try and use World War II technology to try and communicate with people on the.
Speaker 1:In Washington.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in Washington those radio signals aren't going anywhere.
Speaker 1:But yeah, that was Day of the Dead. This is definitely one of my favorite movies, just because one of the things I really like about this movie, too, is the soundtrack is just across the board is awesome.
Speaker 3:I actually listen to that soundtrack sometimes what was cool about it was it just served the film? It does it, yes, like if you weren't really. It wasn't one of those soundtracks that just stood out you know, like you. It fit in the film if you weren't necessarily paying attention to the soundtrack. You didn't even you didn't, you didn't pay much mind to it. But once you did, you know you're like, wow, this is great, but it fit in the story, it felt like it should be there like oh yeah absolutely like, I mean it was catered for.
Speaker 2:It was catered to that movie, which is great well, yeah, it was definitely like someone sat down and scored the film.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, I think it was john harrison. I think was the name of the, the guy that scored the film. Yeah, I think his name was John Harrison. I think it was the name of the guy that scored the movie. But yeah, like I said, that was Day of the Dead. Next week we got Return of the Living Dead, which is an unofficial sequel to Night of the Living Dead. It's going to wrap up the zombie movies for this month and kind of get us in and out. Let us know what you think you know. Comment down below. You know we like those interactions. They're great. Let us know if you think that, like, our takes on this are fucking bullshit or not.
Speaker 2:Hey, here's a real question Do you agree with the Army or did you agree with those scientist nerds?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you decide.
Speaker 3:You decide, there you go.
Speaker 1:You decide on that, nerds? Yeah, you decide, you decide.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 1:You decide on that. But, nick, you want to sign us off? Stay sexy. Thanks for watching the Dumb, cool, weird Podcast, where we cover some of your favorite movies in 20 minutes or less for your convenience. We go over what is dumb, cool and weird about movies and check out our Wayback Wednesdays. We do sometimes for other stuff, and please share us with your friends.
