Ep 37 - 28 Day Later (2002)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: 28 days later, 2002. A highly volatile and contagious virus is inadvertently released into the United Kingdom's populace with catastrophic results. 28 days later, Jim, a coma patient, wakes up to find his world turned upside down and quickly learns that anger and violence are all the rage. [00:00:32] Speaker B: Hello, everybody, and welcome back to R rating. The show where I get together with two of my friends, we discuss a movie franchise, Break it down by movie, give it an overall score, throw on the board, see where it lands compared to the other movie franchises. This week we're talking about 28 days later. 28 years later is coming out in theaters very, very soon. And of course, I'm joined, as always, by Brian and Will. Will, how are you doing today? [00:00:53] Speaker A: I'm feeling fine, Tastic. [00:00:55] Speaker B: Fantastic. Brian, what about you? [00:00:57] Speaker C: I'm good, I'm good. [00:00:58] Speaker B: Excellent. We also have a special guest for this episode. Zombie enthusiast, Real Bubba Hotep. We know him as Steve. Steve. Oh, geez. Went full screen right off the bat. How are you, sir? [00:01:09] Speaker D: How are you? My guys? What's going on? [00:01:12] Speaker B: Oh, I think we're doing very well. Very excited to be here. Talking about, no offense, something a little more grown up. Over the the last couple of weeks we've been talking about some Home Alone, some Never ending story. We all enjoyed Never Ending Story, but it's, you know, something a little bit more mature. This movie came out in 2000. You said 2002, I think. 2000, whatever. I remember watching this when it first came out and loving it, watching it a bunch of times. But I haven't seen it in about probably 15 or maybe even 20 years. So this was not kind of like coming home. Like. Like I saw it again and it was like I remembered huge chunks of it better than I thought I was going to. What about you guys? Is this a new watch for anybody here? [00:01:52] Speaker D: Oh, no, I've seen it quite a few times. [00:01:54] Speaker B: Okay, fantastic. Do you remember the first time you saw it, Bubba? Steve? [00:02:00] Speaker D: I don't know. It was probably. It was probably like right when it come out, maybe like within a year that it came out. It wasn't in theaters, so took a while for it to get the dvd. [00:02:11] Speaker B: Fair enough. [00:02:13] Speaker A: Dan, you may have questioned the date there because it was released in 2002 in the UK and 2003 in the US Gotcha. [00:02:22] Speaker B: I was gonna say, like I had it written as 2003, but. Yeah, that makes sense. [00:02:26] Speaker A: Different. Yeah. [00:02:28] Speaker B: What did you guys think about the actual, like, I. Okay, so I watched this on dvd. Obviously that was the best way to watch it in 2003. So I still own the DVD. But when this. When I went to go rewatch it, I figured I'd look it up on a streaming service. Found it on Crave. I was like, okay, I'll watch the 4K version. This movie, as good as it looks, looks awful at the same time. Do you know what I mean? Like, the actual cinematography looks really good, but it's. They filmed it on a potato. Like it just kind of looks bad. [00:02:54] Speaker C: What I want to know is, was that intentional? Because they have really good now I think it's kind of raw, but really good cinematography, camera angles, lighting, the way this movie is shot, I was impressed by. Even though it looks a little like raw, like maybe this is like the third or fourth time they've ever done it. But I really like the. The angles that they were going for. However, it does look like it was filmed on like an 8 millimeter camera. Like it was. It's grainy, it's old. Like it looks weird. Was that intentional? That's what I want to know. [00:03:25] Speaker B: Ironically, you said 8 millimeter. It was actually one of the first movies filmed entirely on a digital camera. And I wonder if that has something to do with it. Yeah, either way, I think it might be intentional because it does kind of like if they. Some of the scenes are filmed in London, they didn't have a whole lot of time to work with it, so they might not be able to clean them up as well as they wanted to. So I wonder if maybe it was a little bit of a blurry effect so you don't notice it as much as you can. You know what I mean? Like, you won't see the stark, like, oh, that's clearly a clean. [00:03:51] Speaker C: That was the other thing. There are tons of these wide open shots of places that are normally packed with people and they are completely void of people. And I'm thinking they probably filmed sections of the street that didn't have people and then collage them all together, something like that, some sort of special effect to make that happen. There's no way they could have closed down some of those areas to film those shots as big as they were. So they had to do something. I'm wondering if that's why, like you said, they have the grainy look to cover up some of those effects. I don't know. [00:04:21] Speaker D: Yeah, and some of them, they actually did shut down like the really big sections and they had a very small window to do it. So they found that doing it grainy with digital portable camcorders. You know, really quick and easy. They could go in, get it done, chop, chop, and then get out and. And get it all done in the right time. And they said that when they first were looking, the digital camcorders kind of gave that dystopian, almost like a nightmare vibe, you know, where it was really grainy and. And everything. [00:04:51] Speaker A: Almost found footage. [00:04:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, kind of with a really [00:04:55] Speaker C: humbling feel that I hate from found footage films. I liked the look of it. I felt like it was intentionally done, not because it was crap. I felt like that was a choice that they made and I liked that choice. I liked the look and feel and I like the cinematography angles. Most of them felt like somebody was really paying attention and learning and doing the right thing. Like I said, it was a bit raw, like maybe could have used some polish on some of them, but it was really good. [00:05:22] Speaker B: I want to stress, just in case it wasn't clear, I think the movie looks fantastic. Like from a cinematography perspective, I think it's really well done. It's just the actual film quality is a little lower than I was anticipating. [00:05:33] Speaker A: Yeah. So you all know Danny Boyle directed this and he is known for his stylistic movies. Slumdog Millionaire, 127 hours, so on and so forth. [00:05:45] Speaker B: Trainspotting, Train spotting is what I was thinking of. [00:05:48] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So there was a few reasons why the movie looks the way it did. It was a stylistic choice, but it was also a low budget choice because this is a very low budget movie when it was made and it was the whole idea of mobility. So they did buy like commercial camcorders, digital camcorders to film this movie. And they had like six or 10 of them and they shut down streets early in the morning in London. And because they had these very easy to set up cameras, they could shoot very quickly and compared to like traditional film cameras that take a long time to set up. And so they could shoot with six different cameras, all different kinds of angles and get the shots they needed, all while just keeping the roads closed for like an hour and holding back the daily traffic. So, yeah, it was a stylistic choice to make it look like this kind of found footage. Kind of like you're there kind of feel to it and. And then also, you know, it went into the elements of budgetary and just [00:06:53] Speaker C: logistics of it all. Yeah, I kind of felt it. It looked, it looked a bit less found footage, but more retro. And I, I liked it. I just felt it reminded me of watching like A Night of the Living Dead. It just felt older. It just Felt older to me. I liked it. I thought it was pretty good. Especially when you combine the solid acting of this film. And the other thing that I kind of want to dive into here, the sound. The way they built up these tense moments with the music, with the sound. And the intensity of that moment just came to a head when you've got Jim coming back in through the rain into the building and trying to take out the soldiers and rescue them. This intense. Just build. And there were lots of those sequences where they use the sound and the music to really draw you in and get you on the edge of your seat. And that was another choice I felt that they did a really good job on. Again, kind of rough in some areas, like maybe overdone a bit, but maybe not. Maybe that's just me. What did you guys think about the audio for this? [00:07:57] Speaker D: I could have dealt. I think they used like the same instrumental too much, honestly, like every time there was an. An intense scene, it was the same music and it was built up the same. And it almost looked like you were watching the same scene over and over, you know, so maybe if they had a little bit more in the soundtrack, a few more scores, I would have liked a little bit more interesting. [00:08:20] Speaker B: I don't think that I. I don't think I hit up against that. I don't really like. I. I think they're all similar. Like, they're all definitely in the same. Like you'd be able to tell they're in the same movie, but I don't know that I would have said they are the same song over and over again. They definitely use the same tactic to like build up and show you, like. No, this is getting intense. You're supposed to like get your heart going for this. [00:08:38] Speaker C: Maybe the similarity is why I felt it was overdone a bit. I'm not sure. [00:08:41] Speaker D: Yeah, that could be it. It was just so close and you know, just putting inflections in the same spot and building it just, you know, kind of overdid it a little bit for me. [00:08:50] Speaker C: Will, what did you think about that scoring? [00:08:52] Speaker A: I. I overall enjoyed the scoring of this movie. I thought they kept it very simple, which I think lent itself well to this movie because it was simply filmed, it was simply presented. And I think the sound and the composion composure was very simple and. And I thought it was really effective, especially at the end in the house. In a heartbeat song is so good for that whole end scene. [00:09:19] Speaker C: It's. It's great. [00:09:20] Speaker B: I agree. There was one thing while we're Talking about sound. There's a scene in the middle of the movie where they are filling up the gas tank and Jim goes into the Cheeseburger Diner area and he gets attacked by a little boy. And he's got his foot to the. The little boy's neck and he's got his baseball bat in his hand. And you hear the little boy just like, rasping like, I hate you. I hate you. And it's the only time a zombie speaks in this entire movie and he's alone while he's happening, almost to the point where you're like, is the zombie actually talking? Is he imagining what's going on here? Like, it's. It's so subtle. We watched with closed captioning on, and I think that's the only reason I really noticed it does. [00:09:59] Speaker A: It does say it y. [00:10:00] Speaker B: And I was like, that's really cool. Like, that's actually kind of a cool moment. It's his only kill. It's the only time. Well, up until that point, it's his first kill. I should say, not his only kill. It's his first kill and he's alone when he does it. I was kind of like, I wonder if he's. If he's hearing that or if that's actually being said out loud, if that makes sense. But anyway, I thought that was really cool. They threw that in there as like a one off. [00:10:20] Speaker A: Well, let me. Let me throw this at you. Not to ruin it for you, because it's cool that that's what you took from it. Danny Boyle has confirmed that the child speaking in the scene was, due to an audio error, that there's not supposed to be any dialogue in that scene. And the zombies aren't supposed to talk at all. But because, you know. [00:10:40] Speaker B: Well, then I'm just headcanon for sure. Then he's just hearing it himself. [00:10:43] Speaker A: 100. Yeah, like, that's the thing is, like, people hear and take it how they want to take it when. And I think that's really cool that we do that as an audience on the regular. And so it's cool to hear that your take on it was. Oh, it was in his mind. The kid didn't actually say anything, but he heard it anyway. Right. That's really cool. [00:11:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:06] Speaker C: So we talked about how a lot of this was filmed simply, and it sounds simple and that was very effective. But what wasn't simple, what I did enjoy was some of these themes and undertones. And maybe I'm just taking this my own way, but this movie allows you to. To Take things your own way, like Dan did with that sequence. Right. But there was a very subtle theme of family. You had Jim, who became the son of Frank and was the big brother to the little girl and was the husband to Selena, Naomi Harris, and that it was. It was the theme that I felt they were kind of making this family. Right. And then when Frank dies, Jim kind of has to step up. And maybe he doesn't have to step up so much, but you feel the importance of him taking care of the family at that point and becoming the man of the household. Maybe. I'm not really sure it was very subtle, but I felt this family kind of theme that grows out of that group and they come together and that's when they run into real trouble with the military force and all hell breaks loose. And it adds to the tension of those sequences that they built this family setting. At least that's how I took the kind of flow of the movie. Dan, did you get anything like that from a sort of a structure to it? [00:12:37] Speaker B: There's definitely a certain feeling to. I. I wouldn't have put family quite. But, like, definitely, like your. Your tribe, I guess, is a good way of putting. Because it's your found family, if you will. Similar idea. I'm not taking anything away from what you just said, but, like, you've got the. The military, which is its own little tribe. You've got our group of four, which is its own little tribe. And it's just kind of that. With no laws, with no rules, with pure anarchy. How do you make a society? How do you build upon it? Like, the army wants it to be one way, your little tribe wants it to be another way. And then it's almost like might makes right. Like, what are you gonna do to actually survive? How are you gonna make your way in the world? Because, I mean, had. Had Jim, you know, had Jim eaten it, that would have ended really rough for a lot of people in this movie. And it's. It's kind of looking back, like, watching this as an adult, as a parent in 2025, versus a teenager or something in 20 2002. I mean, not that I was ever not, you know, scared for the women, but, like, now that I've got daughters, it's like, oh, like the world would be a terrifying place if you remove laws. Right? Like, not everybody is, you know, me, you know, like, there's gonna be some monsters out there, so. [00:13:47] Speaker C: And there's. There's gonna be people like those military guys. They didn't think they were wrong. Well, I mean, some of them were total trash. The leader. And they have him listed in the. In the. Here. Alex Palmer, the leader of the military group. He's listed as activist. They don't even give him a name in the. In the credits. But he felt he was doing the right thing by creating a rigid structure and they were going to repopulate using women. And it was logical to him and he was trying to be as sterile about it as possible. Obviously, that's a monstrous way to look at society going forward. Right. But to him, it made sense. And you're going to run across people like that who feel that they're doing the right thing. And those make the best villains, by the way, the guys who believe they're right in and just in their actions. And so that's why I did like Alex Palmer as the head of the military force there. [00:14:45] Speaker D: Right. [00:14:45] Speaker A: Wrong on the name. [00:14:46] Speaker B: I'm going to correct you there. Alex Palmer actually is one of the activists from the very beginning. I'm looking for the right. [00:14:51] Speaker C: Wrong. Oh, this is. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm going by the picture next to his name. [00:14:55] Speaker B: No, Christopher Eon was the actual leader of the military. [00:14:59] Speaker C: Oh, yes. Okay. So they're listing in order of appearance. You're right, Christopher. [00:15:03] Speaker B: It's got like the three main characters and then order of appearance after that, which messed me up too. [00:15:06] Speaker C: Why the. Why the first three people on the credits were activists? [00:15:10] Speaker B: Because that's the first people you see. That's the only scene in this movie I really didn't like that much. Was that very, very first scene like, [00:15:17] Speaker C: oh, I agree with you 100%. [00:15:18] Speaker D: That almost made me just not watch it. It's the very opening scene. It was just so greening. It was so grainy. You could see the green in the background, the green hue coming off it. You didn't get the semblance of a lab. [00:15:33] Speaker B: You could. [00:15:34] Speaker D: No, it was just. [00:15:35] Speaker C: It looked like they were going for a horror show. [00:15:37] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the only part that felt cheap. Everything else, even though it's a fairly cheaply made movie, it felt like they did a really good job of making like. Like how you emptied London out to film some of these scenes is insane to me. Even watching it now, knowing what they did, I'm still just like. That's impressive. As all the highway scenes, the tunnel scene, the. The mansion. Like, everything about this movie looks so good except for that first, like, minute and a half and you're just like, ah, okay, well, we'll get past this. Just get the the juxtaposition or whatever. The. That's not the right word. [00:16:06] Speaker C: I. I had forgotten all about that. And when I started watching this movie, I was like, wait, what. What am I watching? Am I. Did I click on it? Did I just pay $4 and rent the wrong film? [00:16:17] Speaker D: I thought I did it. I forgot all about that. I thought I did the same thing. [00:16:21] Speaker C: And then I got through and they're like, they're infected with rage. And I'm like, oh, that's right. That's how this breaks out. But it felt so cliche and, like, based on some very ugly cliches, frankly. Did it have to be monkeys that the humans get the virus from? It was just. It felt terrible to me. I did not like that set up the look, everything. That was a real downer for me, that opening sequence. After that, the movie changes, and then I've only got one other complaint. I'll wait to get to that, though. [00:16:47] Speaker B: So the reason it's monkeys is actually Bubba Hotel. You can just move to the side one little second. The logo for the movie is actually the biohazard symbol, right? Like a. Like a bloodborne biohazard. [00:16:57] Speaker C: The. [00:16:57] Speaker B: The rage virus is supposed to symbolize kind of ebola, so it spreads in a very similar way. And Ebola we can get from monkeys. So it does make sense that that's kind of where they're going from. From there. I totally get what you're saying. It does feel a little bit cliched. But at the same time, I just love that these are original zombies and not just like, oh, hell is full, so the dead are back or whatnot. Like, this is a different concept because we're not afraid of the nuclear bomb the same way that we were in, like, the 50s and 60s when Romero was making movies. Now we're afraid of viruses, so it makes sense. This is a virus born, but contagion. [00:17:31] Speaker D: Can you call them zombies, though? That's the issue that I've always wrestled with, because they can. They can be killed. They, you know, they're. They're human, they're alive. [00:17:41] Speaker A: They're not undead. They're not undead. [00:17:43] Speaker D: Right. They're just controlled by a virus, kind of like the last of us, but not. They're controlled. [00:17:48] Speaker B: They're. They're relatively unthinking hordes that can turn you into a relatively unthinking horde and try and attack everybody. Like, you're right, they're not technically zombies, but for all intents and purposes, there's. [00:17:59] Speaker C: And. And honestly, now, this wasn't the first appearance of fast moving zombies in film. But this was the movie that kind of broke them, the zombie mold. And after this movie, yeah, after this movie we had tons of movies with fast moving zombies. We had the Last of Us where it's, you know, it's a fungus rather than a virus. We have all kinds of different things that come into play after this movie. And this one did strike a lot of debate about are they zombies? Is this traditional? Do we like fast moving zombies? Are you a slow moving zombie kind of person or whatever. And of course, like most zombie movies, they never actually say the word zombie in the entire film. It's not on the post. [00:18:39] Speaker A: Nowhere. Right. [00:18:41] Speaker C: Most of them don't. And I like that too. I, I like when they leave it out and we just play dumb because in the real world, if there was anything remotely zombie orientated, every redneck kick in America is going to be like, yeah, we're ready for this. And they're gonna get all excited. Scary as it would in the movies. [00:18:58] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, that's honestly like up until like this movie maybe, I don't know. I, I, this is the first movie I attribute to seeing fast moving zombies. They're probably in other movies. It's not really my genre. So like, sure, this is the first movie was like, oh crap, like we might be in trouble. Because when you see slow moving zombies, I kind of just think like, yeah, the military will handle this. Like, we're, we're fine. Like, we've got enough guns in America. We'll be, we'll be just fine. And you see these ones and then like the World War Z ones where they can like ant hill up a wall. You're like, ah, we're dead. That's, that's the end of us. There's no amount of bullets that's dealing with that. But [00:19:33] Speaker D: right, I mean, I'll get into World War Z. You just have a good time in World War Z with a, a kind of questionable person you pick up at a bar and they won't look at you, you know, so you're pretty much immune to World War Z zombies. But this one, I mean, that took a second. [00:19:50] Speaker B: I was like, what is he talking about? Oh, okay, you're getting STD and then they don't want you. Okay. [00:19:54] Speaker D: I didn't want to say herpes on the air, Dan. Thanks for that. [00:19:58] Speaker B: Considering what I'm sure we're going to be talking about later with this movie, herpes is pretty low. [00:20:05] Speaker D: That, that kind of, it took me out of it because with Zombies, you know, where you lie, you know, with a rage virus. I'll get into that later. But I mean, just everybody coming after you see them, they don't care about pain, they don't care about this, they don't care about that. They run constantly. They can get past the body's natural response limits. Hurts, don't do it. Yeah. So they're crashing through everything and they're still human, so they can just jump. They're really fast, so there's no escaping it because they're going to keep going after you and you get tired because your body still has that shutdown response, you know, so it made it. Yeah. That much more troublesome. [00:20:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:46] Speaker A: There's no question. I mean, whether or not this is a zombie movie is kind of irrelevant. It's grouped into the zombie genre because they act in a similar way to zombies. But there's no question that it didn't rejuvenate the zombie genre and really kicked the fast moving zombie into high gear with video games, movies, everything. [00:21:08] Speaker C: Right. [00:21:08] Speaker D: Because you had. Am I wrong? Like the remake of the Romero 3, the dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead with the fast moving zombies. That was before this, wasn't it? Wasn't that in like the mid. Late. [00:21:19] Speaker C: I don't know. I don't know. I think that might have been after. [00:21:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it was 2004. I think around the same time. They would have been probably being made around the same time. [00:21:28] Speaker D: All right. Because you know, I was think if they did that in the beginning, even though it was good and people would say that this movie always stands out, you know, so there's something. If the remakes of dawn and Day came out, you know, before that they're taking away from a franchise, you know, and they put themselves at the top of the list for the fast moving zombies, which is very impressive, especially when it comes to George Romero. Even the remakes, everyone wants to watch it. [00:21:56] Speaker A: Yeah. No, 100%. Well, I think originally, like Romero was like, wasn't he against this movie being like, it's not zombies. [00:22:04] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:22:04] Speaker A: It doesn't. They can't be fast, they're undead. It doesn't work. [00:22:08] Speaker B: And then that's the whole point. [00:22:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. I don't know. It's, it is, it's, it is what it is. I think the impact of the movie is cemented in time. Like there's no doubt about it. And so it's just a matter of if you, if you like that way of going about it or not. And I think it did make for quite an interesting change of how. How do we handle this? And holy heck, do we just get overwhelmed like they did in 28 days, right? [00:22:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Now, speaking of the toy, the title and 28 days later movie starts off with, well, second scene is Killian Murphy. I hope I'm pronouncing that properly. Waking up in the hospital, we. I believe we understand that he was a bike courier, probably got into an accident, ended up in the hospital. Zombie outbreak happened, happens. Are we to believe that he's been left alone in that hospital for 28 days? Or, like, were people looking after him until fairly recently? Because I always assumed he's been there 28 days just laying on a bed. [00:23:04] Speaker C: I wondered something like that myself. And I got the feeling that it took 28 days for this thing to basically wipe out humanity on the island. And so I think that he may have been in a relatively safe place for 20 of those days, maybe something like 25 of those days. And in the last few days, everybody around him got killed. And he was isolated somehow and luckily had an IV keeping him hydrated for the last couple of days. [00:23:32] Speaker A: That's the feel I got for it. [00:23:34] Speaker C: But they. They don't explain it. [00:23:35] Speaker B: They don't explain. And that's what I was kind of like, IV drips don't last a month. Like, there's no chance he's getting food at that point. He's naked, so he'd be cold as hell. And he'd been laying on a bed for 28 days. So, like, how is he running from these zombies? Like, right. I didn't think of any of this the first time I watched it. This is all just nitpick crap I came up with. This time doesn't ruin the movie for me whatsoever. It was just one of those weird, like, how. What's the timeline of this? And maybe I'm interpreting it wrong because, like, I. I'd always just assumed the hospital is empty within like three days of the outbreak. [00:24:03] Speaker D: No, it was a few things that. That took me out of the movie. And this was one of them. You know, I couldn't tell. You saw the side of his head shaved, you know, but it. The hair was regrown back. So you would figure, you know, having the surgery right before was he left alone. You didn't see an IV in his hand or anything as he was laying there. And as he was getting up, walking [00:24:23] Speaker C: around, I know he. He pulled it. [00:24:24] Speaker B: I thought he did pull stuff out of his arm. [00:24:29] Speaker D: I must have looked away at that, because I, I, that's one thing that. No. [00:24:32] Speaker C: And the Ivy bags were empty too. [00:24:35] Speaker D: Okay. Which checks, you know, he doesn't know what's going on. And you could assume that he was in a coma for the entire thing and then, you know, waking up, but that doesn't really coincide. You know, it just, it's one of those little nitpicky things, like you said, but it really took me out. It actually made me think about what was going on instead of being like a zombie, you know, staring at the movie and getting into it. Yeah, I wish they would have clarified. [00:25:01] Speaker B: I do like the concept of it, though, where you are entering a world that it, that everybody else already knows the rules and you're kind of picking up on it. Now, I know Walking Dead does this after this one. I, I kind of feel like this movie does it a little bit better. Perfect, personally. But this also kind of instills for the first little bit because, I don't know, I didn't check the time stamp on how long he's just him walking around London. I hope I pronounce this right. It kind of gives you a little bit of, like, autophobia, which is, like, the fear of being alone. Like, waking up in the hospital all by himself, walking around the street, seeing, like, the potion, because there's no dead bodies, there's no blood anywhere. There's no signs of a fight or struggle. It is just everybody is gone. Like, you could be. This could be the Rapture, for all he knows. [00:25:41] Speaker C: He was walking the entire day, finding no one for miles and miles and miles. [00:25:47] Speaker B: And the thing that I loved, because it's, it's so stupid and it, like, it speaks to a lot of this movie, speaks to human nature. But, like, at one point, he's just sitting there and he's just grabbing all this money that he sees on the ground. Like, it hasn't clicked with him yet that this doesn't mean anything. Like, you are alone. Money is useless. And he's just like, he's got a bag, he's got a couple of cans of pop, and he's like, oh, cash. He's just, like, shoving it into his bag. It doesn't matter, buddy. Like, unless you're looking to start a fire, that money is useless. This. But that's how the human brain works, right? Just like, oh, I gotta take a little bit more. Take a little bit more. We'll get into humans think in this movie, I'm sure. [00:26:20] Speaker D: But as for me, something that went alongside with that when he was, when he felt guilty for hitting the priest when he was in the cathedral. And he finally just sees everybody and the priest comes at him and he's like, what have I done? I'm so sorry. You know, and everything, because he didn't know. And he's still. He's holding on to the old world, you know, like, you don't touch a religious leader. You don't. [00:26:39] Speaker B: You have, well, just anybody. [00:26:41] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, but he kind of has, like. Thanks for reminding me. But he has that, like, that. That Catholic guilt, more or less, you know, that he did something wrong. And then pretty soon that just goes the wayside. I enjoyed that a little bit. [00:26:57] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:26:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Touching back a little bit. I. I don't disagree. Of the timeline. Seems washed. Little wishy washy throughout this movie. Like, how fast the military group turns on, like, we have to repopulate the Earth. Seems a little fast to me, you know, and things. [00:27:12] Speaker C: I think there was some young guys that wanted to just. [00:27:15] Speaker A: Just get some action. Right. [00:27:16] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:27:17] Speaker B: Some of those guys didn't seem right to start. [00:27:18] Speaker D: I'm sure I took the repopulation of the Earth as a rationalization to do it. [00:27:24] Speaker A: Yes. 100. [00:27:26] Speaker D: Because he. He was talking about, what's the one thing that I can promise these guys? I don't have anything. I can promise them women. So we have, you know. [00:27:37] Speaker C: Yeah. He knew that this wasn't gonna fix anything, but it would keep his group together. That's what it was doing. [00:27:44] Speaker A: Keep them. Keep them safe. [00:27:46] Speaker B: You do what you do to keep power, right? [00:27:48] Speaker A: 100. Yeah. And so that's just like the. [00:27:51] Speaker C: And. [00:27:51] Speaker A: And I know obviously the idea of this movie is that this thing is so contagious, so volatile that it takes 28 days to just wipe everybody. So I think you kind of forgive [00:28:01] Speaker C: it a little bit. [00:28:01] Speaker A: And I think they do a really good job of submersing the audience into this world and believing it for the most part. Of course, there's those little things like, oh, how could he survive in this hospital? But, you know, they slid a key under this locked door. They were taking care of him as long as they could. So maybe they were there for a couple of weeks before they had to jolt out of there. Right. There's all these, like, maybes, ifs and buts, but you can kind of explain them away if you really want a [00:28:27] Speaker D: couple of other little things. [00:28:28] Speaker B: Oh, for sure. Go ahead, bubba. I got one of my own. [00:28:32] Speaker D: No, no, no, no. You raise your hand. I just want. [00:28:34] Speaker B: Okay. That's how we work. We raise our hands. The. The grocery store scene, it was really nice as the scene of levity, but at the same time, I'm watching this being like, why does it have power? How are the apples so fresh? Like, what is going on in this scene? I liked it because it broke up the tension of the movie. And it's not just all series of downers like we've talked about. Day of the Dead. The reason I really didn't care for that one is because it is just like, everything gets worse and worse and worse and worse. And then at the end, spoilers, everybody dies. Whereas this movie gives you little brief moments of, like, hope and levity. They have a picnic, they've got the grocery store. Like, there's. There's good things in this world worth hoping for, worth fighting for. It's not just we're surviving for the sake of surviving because death is scary. There are good things left. And I really, really liked that in this movie. [00:29:21] Speaker C: When they. When they do that sort of thing in movies, for me as the viewer, I always think, okay, when's the other shoe gonna drop? Because I know how movies are built, and you build to a clim. And so if it's a good scene, I know they're making me feel positive about this group and about the way things are going, so they can take it all away from me. And this movie does that, right? Or they challenge to take that away from you, which builds tension, which builds drama, which makes you more engaged with this group. I think it was great. I like those scenes. I didn't understand why they weren't on at least backup generator lighting in the grocery store. I don't know why it was fully lit. You know, that was kind of an oversight. It shouldn't have had power, but whatever. [00:30:05] Speaker A: I think a lot of this movie, like you guys said, like, there's a lot of blowing outness, like, greens and blue hues throughout, a lot of, like, really artistic, like, shots. I think a lot of this is meant to look almost dreamlike. And I think that's what that grocery store is as well, is like, this is a dream come true to them. And so it is like, it is perfection. You know, everything's working. It hasn't been rated to, like, they. They get everything they want and more out of that and. And just really have a moment of peace and tranquility. And I think actually added to, like, the highs and lows of this movie. And I thought it worked really well. Maybe doesn't come across always, you know, as much to people like, oh, what? What because all these technical things of, like, that wouldn't happen. But I think, like going from dreamlike states and presenting it as like this weird, twisted, dreamlike world, I think it kind of works. And. And I. I think they further that point at the end of the movie when they are making the sign for rescue. Right. That is all filmed in proper film. And it's. I don't know if you noticed. It's not blurry at all. It's not the digital hand. [00:31:18] Speaker B: Okay, that's a good point. [00:31:19] Speaker A: It's like if they woke up and they're now like, living in the real world. Right. And they're out of. They're out of that nightmare kind of idea. So I don't know, I think it just plays differently for different people or you notice different things. [00:31:31] Speaker D: Right, right, Spot on. I'm. I'm with you. I took almost like a purgatory symbolism type deal. Like, you know, you have. You have all of the nightmare scenario and everything, and then you kind of have like the utopia of the grocery store and you have plenty. And then they had a little bit of time where everything was good and happy. Having the picnic and then right back into it. So you don't know what's going, you know, every minute, cherish every good moment, because there's a bad moment right around the corner. Yeah. [00:31:57] Speaker A: Even at the end, like when he's like having his little weird dream sequence in the hospital thing before he wakes up, there's like the upside down image of the. Of the sign that they're making that says hell. [00:32:09] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:32:10] Speaker A: Like they're leaving hell and now they're in. [00:32:12] Speaker C: I thought that was a beautiful touch. I love that little collage that with the. Hello. [00:32:18] Speaker A: Right. [00:32:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:19] Speaker D: Very, very cool. [00:32:20] Speaker A: Very cool. Very cool. [00:32:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:21] Speaker C: Yep. [00:32:23] Speaker B: I. The. The ending part there to touch on a different part of the same thing where you see the zombies starving to death on the side of the road. [00:32:30] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:32:31] Speaker B: One of the first times I, for me, at least, that I've seen that kind of a thing. And again, they're not zombies, so they have different rules. They don't need sustenance. Sorry. They do need sustenance as opposed to zombies. I love that idea. Like, not only do we see the military guy be like, I want to know how long it takes for these things to starve to death, but then we actually see them starving to death. You're like, oh, there is hope. Not for Brian. He's gone. But for the rest of us, there is hope in this world. [00:32:52] Speaker C: I mean, we. [00:32:53] Speaker A: There was no way all of us were making out of this alive. [00:32:56] Speaker B: There you go. The weakest link is gone. [00:32:58] Speaker A: I thought I would be the one to go, to be honest. [00:33:01] Speaker B: Usually. Yeah, no, no, I really like horror movies. Sorry, I don't really like horror movies. And one of the main reasons why is because they almost always end with, like, that last jump scare that, like, everybody dies. I liked that this movie had that little bit of little. Give you a little bit of hope. And I know that that wasn't the original ending. The original ending did have him getting shot and dying. And I agree with the test audiences, that's a bad way to go. I'm glad that they kept him alive, and I'm glad they had that little leave you leave you walk into the theater with. Again, I'm gonna just keep saying hope, but, like, leaving you a little happier than just like, I can remember dawn of the Dead again. When they get to that island, they're like, oh, my God, we finally made it to the island and they all just get wiped out anyways. You're just like, yeah, what the did I just watch? I hated that so much. [00:33:46] Speaker A: You said you had the dvd. Is that right, Dan? [00:33:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:49] Speaker A: So it had. Does it talk about, like, there's four alternate endings to this movie or four potential endings? [00:33:54] Speaker B: I only knew of two. I didn't watch this recently. I'm sure I watched the special features back in the day, but I didn't watch. I watched Crave for the version here because I was hoping for a. A prettier version that I didn't get. [00:34:04] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. The 4K. That's so funny to me. So initially they ran out of money and so they were gonna just end it when the taxi crashes at the gate and it freeze frames there. Okay, that was the. That was the end of the movie that Danny Boyle brought to the producers and they're like, here's the bad ending. Well, that's why he did it. He's like, he brought it to the producers and the Bruce are like, no, we can't. We'll give you more money. Because he's like, I have more money to finish it. So they gave him more money to finish the movie. Originally, I believe the ending was written that there is no military. Once Frank, it gets turned at the. The little base there. Jim knocks him out and they take him to where this military the. The man radio message was. Was at. And there's nobody there except for a scientist. And the scientist tells him the only way to cure them is to do a full blood transfusion. And so they do a blood transfusion and they're like, okay, let's do it. And at the end, Frank walks out and Jim is like tied to the table. So, like, Jim was the one that took the hit and, and sacrificed his life for it. [00:35:18] Speaker B: And saying that my brain is like, I, I have seen that, or at least I've heard that before. Like, that. That resonates. I forgot. [00:35:24] Speaker A: I think on the DVD they have like a story. It was all storyboarded out. And so I think in the DVD [00:35:29] Speaker B: coverage, I'll throw some clips up here if it is. I have the dvd. [00:35:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:35:32] Speaker C: If you can see any of it. [00:35:33] Speaker A: Yeah. But again, at the end of the day, they're like, well, that's kind of dumb. They show in so many ways how contagious this is. Just a. Slightest infection drop will just turn you. There's no way a blood transfusion would, like, cure somebody. [00:35:47] Speaker B: Yeah, that. [00:35:49] Speaker A: They scrapped that idea. Then they went to the, the ending that you spoke about where Jim, when he gets shot in the abdomen, dies in the hospital. Which is a nice full circle moment of him waking up in a hospital, dying in a hospital, but super dark. So Danny Boyle was like, ah, it's too dark. Let's. Let's extend Jim into the ladies going to get help from, you know, the flyovers. So that's the ending they kind of stuck with. Which, yeah, test audience wise, it ended well. And it's a little lighter ending, which is nice because it is pretty dark movie overall. [00:36:22] Speaker B: What do you think? I'm gonna go super dark here for a second. We've lost Brian. I don't know what's going on with him. If England or, or an island had a zombie outbreak, but it was contained to that island, do you try and rescue anybody or do you just cut your losses and go, you know what? If this makes it to the mainland, we're all, we can't stop this. [00:36:43] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. [00:36:44] Speaker B: Like, what do you do? Because I, I hate to say it, but a part of my brain is just like, if most of England is wiped out anyways, I'm just gonna say England, it could be anywhere. If most people's wiped out anyways, you're only gonna save a couple people anyways. I think you gotta say, is it worth the risk? [00:36:57] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. [00:36:57] Speaker B: Right. Like, I know that we're gonna get into that in the next week. I think that's a good chunk of what 28 weeks later is about. But like, I was watching this, this time, I'm just like, I don't I don't think you stopped the plane for them. Like, we don't see the plane stop. Like, who knows? That plane could be there with a missile on its back. But, like, I. I don't know. Like, it. It seems so callous. But also you can save, like, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, as I think someone in Star Trek once said. [00:37:23] Speaker D: Not going into talking about 28 days and rejecting anything of 28 weeks and where we were with 20. One of the things that I had an issue with, I had a problem with, was how quick it went. There's no way that anybody can get anywhere. You have, like, the uk you have Wales and Scotland, you know, and everything. They would be way too involved to either get into the Isle of Man or Ireland or anything. So it's pretty much there. There's no chance that that disease was getting on a plane and making it on the plane, you know, because everybody would turn on the plane, crash into the ocean and die. And then you just go and just wipe them all out. There doesn't just kill them. Kill them all. Kill. You know, and. But if anybody did survive, if there's anybody waving hello, there's like zero chance they're infected. So it would be safe to go down and get them, you know? And like I said, without the premise of 28 weeks, right, where we were with 28 days, where there was, you know, nothing. You either had it or you didn't, and there was no incubation time, it would be safe to pick people up. [00:38:31] Speaker A: Well, I guess it also depends on how much information got out before no communication was left. Right. [00:38:37] Speaker C: Right. [00:38:37] Speaker A: So do. Do people outside of England know how long it takes for these infected to die out? Like, there's so many variables that I. I liked, and that's what I liked about the movie, is that it. It did feel real in a lot of ways. Like if something this contagious got out, it's just gone. And, well, those flying over aren't. Aren't gonna stop for a good while. I don't think. [00:39:03] Speaker C: Right. [00:39:03] Speaker A: Like, I don't think anybody's gonna get involved too, too easily. [00:39:07] Speaker B: Well, and not only that. Like. Like, again, keeping how real it is. She even says at one point, Naomi Watts. Naomi Watts, no name Harris. Sorry, Naomi Harris mentions at one point, like, oh, last I heard, was it hit. I can't remember, New York and France or something before the radio broadcast went on. So you're thinking, like, oh, the world is dead. But that's misinformation. And like, especially in 2025, what's more real than misinformation during, you know, tough times? Like. Yeah, it's just one of those, like. Oh, like. Because I heard that, I'm like, I didn't think it made it anywhere else. And then you find out later that it didn't. Right. [00:39:39] Speaker D: And the first thing I thought, whenever the other soldier that was with Jim, when he said, we're just quarantined, you know, it couldn't make it between here and there, you know, I. I hit, like. Yeah. I mean, anybody who saw how quick that somebody switched and became mindless, they would have known it wouldn't have survived a trip anywhere else. You know, the. The carriage. [00:40:00] Speaker A: Yeah, it would be hard to get it off the island. For sure. [00:40:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:03] Speaker A: No, for sure. [00:40:04] Speaker D: But see, I. I had a problem with a lot of those, like, going back to the nitpicky, you know, the. Again, not talking about the next movie, but with a rage virus. The first thing I, you know, consumed by rage, people just smashing everything, you know, just everything like that. And you see that the monkeys are subdued, even if they don't see anybody. You know, the monkeys are kind of off to their own, not doing anything. The only time they get the rage virus is if they open the door, you know, and then you have all of the infected, you know, chasing the rats and everything. But as soon as the car drives away and gets out of sight, they stop running. Okay. We don't have very much rage in us anymore. The soldier that got infected with the rage virus, you know, he. He ran to the end and he wanted to get at him, but as soon as the person left, he was subdued. To me, that's not a rage virus. To me, it's just over, overwhelming rage. Always consumed with rage. Always around trying to destroy stuff and even rip it yourself because you're so. You know, and that gets into next week, where I think they did better, but for here, it kind of tossed me out of it a little bit. [00:41:14] Speaker B: It's targeted rage. Like, it needs a. It needs something that they can focus on. Right. You do see that these, like. [00:41:20] Speaker D: Did they see say that, though, in the. [00:41:22] Speaker B: No, not at all. Not at all. I'm. I'm making up. It's one of those things, though. Like, these are not mindless creatures. Like, they're. They're not people. They're not going to have a civilization, but they're not mindless like you see in regular zombie movies. They'll, like, butt up against stairs and they don't know how to climb them. This one, they. They knew how to get around those shopping carts to get up there. They knew how to get. They knew that the car driving away meant, like, well, we can't catch a car. Like, there's no point. Right. Because if they'd even chase them down the road and you out drove them, that'd be one thing. But they literally just saw the car driveway, like, all right, we had our chance. [00:41:53] Speaker D: Right? [00:41:53] Speaker B: So, like, I. I kind of like that. They're not 100 gone. They're just consumed by their rage. [00:42:01] Speaker D: Right. [00:42:02] Speaker B: That's what I was taking away from it. [00:42:03] Speaker A: Yeah, it's tricky. I mean, it's also. It's like how it was. How it was created is also weird because you see the chimps watching all of these horrible, you know, human interactions throughout the world. [00:42:15] Speaker D: Yeah. Kind of like Clockwork Orange type thing. [00:42:18] Speaker A: Totally a Clockwork Orange vibe. Right. And. And those, Those. All that footage is based off, like, real events through history, which is, like, super scary as well. And like you mentioned earlier, Dan, like, when he's, like, picking up the money in the abandoned area, that's based off of, like, a journalist in I can't remember where it was. Sierra Leone or something. There's like, a lot of this and a lot of it is all based on, like, actual events and actual photos. And I, I really thought that was really cool because it, it, it made it so much more real because it was. It's based on reality. Right. Like, what. What is happening? Right. [00:42:59] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know. [00:42:59] Speaker A: It's just interesting. [00:43:02] Speaker D: Even the rage virus itself can be, you know, put in, like, mob mentality as soon as you see one or two people and they just go nuts and they go after everything. And so, I mean, it's. It's true to form. I think that's why I liked it so much. Because it's plausible. [00:43:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:17] Speaker D: To say the least. [00:43:18] Speaker B: Okay, that's. That's what I like about this one and about Last of Us is there's a bit more science behind it. It's a little more realistic than just like, oh, the dead live again. You're like, okay, yeah, for sure. [00:43:29] Speaker A: All right. Brian, you're back. [00:43:30] Speaker C: Yeah. What did I miss? Sorry. Everything. [00:43:33] Speaker A: We were just chatting. I got a question for you, though. Okay. Just because you're MIA for a moment, at the end of the movie, Jim kind of utilizes his own rage. What did you think of that? That whole idea and how it was executed? [00:43:48] Speaker C: Okay. I thought everything about that was really cool, except why did he have to lunge at the girl at the very end, that was longer than a heartbeat. Like, it seemed like. Like he's pushing it a little. I get what they're going for. She doesn't know if he is infected or if he is just taking care of business. And that was fine. But I was waiting for him to go, it's okay, it's me. Like, calm down and say something. Instead, he, like, lunges at her and they kiss. And it was like. That seemed pretty risky to get a kiss. Just saying. I would have taken a different approach there, but I did like the. I did like the contrast or parody, I guess, of him killing these guys out of rage. I liked that. I thought that was really cool. I felt a similar. [00:44:44] Speaker A: I felt similarly, aside from. I wasn't super upset about what you mentioned, like, lunging at her. It almost felt like he fully embraced rage to the point where he couldn't pull himself back until, like, the last moment. And that's kind of what it felt like. He embodied this rage, but to the benefit. Right? [00:45:07] Speaker C: To be productive and. [00:45:09] Speaker A: To be productive and like. And. And showing that. Yeah, exactly. But showing that rage is it. Or anger is an important emotion or whatever you want to say within humans, but you have to utilize it for good, obviously. Right? Yeah. And he. Somehow he managed to do that. I thought it was just a cool parallel of, like, all this rage causing the destruction of everything, but also being used to kind of save the day as well. [00:45:35] Speaker C: No, I. I definitely like that. Have you guys talked about the thing or things that you don't like in the film? Because I've got one that drove me nuts. [00:45:43] Speaker A: The whole film hit us with it. Hit us with it. [00:45:46] Speaker C: At the very end. [00:45:48] Speaker B: It was the child actor. [00:45:49] Speaker C: The two girls are expecting to be raped by the whole crew. And so the. The chemist is giving the little girl some, like, Valium, I think it was. [00:46:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:01] Speaker C: So that she wouldn't feel anything and she wouldn't care. Yeah, wouldn't care. The. My problem was is that somehow that little girl found the bag of Valium at the very beginning of the movie and continued to take that Valium all the way through the film until the very end. She just acted without any kind of emotion. She seemed very robotic in nature, everything she did or said. And then at the very end, when she is supposed to be high on Valium, she basically just said, it's okay. I'm okay. And she's obviously not. But it just felt like they just turned the volume up on her being on Valium instead of her actually Taking it for the first time. She just looked drugged out and dumb the whole movie and took me out of the film. She didn't seem like a real person at all, ever. I did not like her character at all. [00:46:55] Speaker A: Okay. Like, throughout. Beginning to end. [00:46:58] Speaker C: Beginning to end. [00:46:59] Speaker A: Okay. [00:46:59] Speaker C: The only time she acted normal was at the end when she was on Valium. But that's how she kind of acted the whole film. She just seemed like she wasn't there. She wasn't reacting to anything. She wasn't really getting upset or really scared or anything. She was just there. And I didn't like that at all. [00:47:18] Speaker B: So they do mention in the movie how it's Naomi. I can't think of her character name. Talking to Jim, talking to Killian Murphy. Like, these two haven't lost anything. Like, these two still have each other. Like, you have nobody, I have nobody. We've kind of found each other. But these two, like, I can't remember the exact wording that she uses, but, like, these two still have each other. Like, these still have a. Their past. They still. [00:47:39] Speaker A: They have a normality, right? [00:47:41] Speaker B: Yeah. So, like, she's been living in an apartment with her dad this entire time. It hasn't hit her in the same way that it's hit everybody else until her dad dies, and then she's emotionally sobbing until she gets the value. Like, all of a sudden she goes from. I'm just on a road trip with my dad and these two strangers who I met who seem really nice to. My dad is dead. The military guys are super creepy. We're about to. I want to use that word as little as possible so I don't have to blank it out. We're in dire trouble. Like, all of a sudden, reality hits her hard. And the girls was like, no, you got to take these drugs. Like, you've got it. Like, just. Just go back to the way you were. Like, go back to not caring. [00:48:20] Speaker C: Express that I see what you're saying. And I just would have liked somebody in there who could handle those transitions better and showcase that more highs and lows. I didn't see enough variation. And I think they should have had more sequences of her looking around in confusion and awe when she comes out of her apartment. Because if that's the first time she's really experiencing any of this in 28 days, then she should show more, should react more, should be more human. She was just there. That was it. And it bothered me. [00:48:52] Speaker D: And think about, she was the one changing the tire when all of the infected were coming, you know, she had the lug wrench. She had everything. She was down there. She was under control. I mean, have you ever been, like, scared or angry or anything to the point where you're trying to pick something up, your hands are shaking, you keep. [00:49:11] Speaker C: Are you kidding me? My dad made me hold the flashlight while he changed the tire, and I was scared out of my mind. Okay. She has zombies chasing her down and she's Cool Hand Luke the whole time. It just didn't, it just didn't set with me. [00:49:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think, I think the idea behind that was her real only character trait was that she was down for driving and she was good at at vehicles. Right. She, like, she slid up to them at one point and she's back into [00:49:37] Speaker C: the zombie and he gets the guy [00:49:38] Speaker A: out of the window, she drives them out. Like, that was her, like that was her character thing. So, yeah, it was a little on the nose. I think you're right about that. I guess because she's just like a minor character compared to everyone else, it didn't bother me as much. And then I, I, I don't know, maybe with age, I've always reserved judgment on how people handle their traumas. So once her father dies, how she handles that, I can't judge that much. Would have been nice to see some more highs and lows was. I can't argue that either. It would have been nice. [00:50:11] Speaker C: Yeah. But her father getting infected, that sequence, that was amazing. Yeah. Yeah, that was, that was amazing acting, especially on his part. Hey, you know, Jim, get her away from me. He knows he's going to be infected. You can see he's starting to get angry and push her away. Like, it was so good. That was such. And, and coming just after the grocery scene. Right. Makes that high into that low and it really, it's. Yeah, they hit contrast. [00:50:37] Speaker A: Beautiful contrast. Yeah, amazing. [00:50:40] Speaker B: I, I didn't hit on it when I watched this the first couple of times, watching it this time. Like, I don't know how long that zombie is supposed to be sitting up in the, the rafters or whatever when he's kicking the wall and the blood drip comes down. But, like, it feels like that that area has been like that for a while. Like, whatever happened there has happened and has been sitting. Like, wouldn't the blood have coagulated? Like, what are the odds that a little drop would fly? Like, again, it's a great scene, so it really doesn't bother me. It's just one of those weird, like, huh. All right. [00:51:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And again, I think the the point. The finer point of it is it's that easy, right? Like. Yeah. [00:51:16] Speaker B: Which is why you don't try and save anybody. [00:51:18] Speaker A: Exactly. Don't try to save anybody. Just die alone in your apartment and. And hold the one you love. [00:51:28] Speaker B: Well, it does kind of make sense thematically. I'm kind of going back on what I just said. Like. Like, as much as the blood drip is a little bit weird, it makes sense that it's a part of the movie where he's. He's kind of lost his hope. Like, they're like, we need to keep going. He's like, to where? And he's kind of already getting angry and he's losing it. And then the blood drip is just like that little bit more like just that little push into madness, as opposed to him being, like, complete. Like, it's as if he'd been in the grocery scene and got infected. It would have been out of nowhere. This is. You're seeing him at his lowest, and then he was a little bit lower. [00:51:57] Speaker D: And then you see him trying to battle it, you know, when. When he's actually wrestling to keep everybody that he cares out. Away, you know, and he's. Yeah, he just succumbs to it, but he's fighting so hard to get. I. I think it was pretty powerful [00:52:10] Speaker B: part of the movie, I will say. I actually thought the little girl did a pretty decent job, especially considering this is the second thing she's ever acted in. And she actually gave up acting after this to pursue music. And she apparently is relatively successful in her goth punk band. But that was kind of what Danny Boyle was going for. Is like, unknown actors now, Obviously, Killian Murphy is very famous now, but at the time of this, he was an unknown. Naomi Harris was an unknown. Megan Burns was an unknown. You was only like Brendan Gleason, who's like a fairly known character. He's not on any of the box art. You don't know that he's coming. The first time you see him, he's wearing a mask. So when you get to him, he's kind of like, oh, that guy. [00:52:45] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:52:46] Speaker B: I know him from things. [00:52:47] Speaker D: And as soon as I saw him, I knew it was going to be good because I've liked everything that he's. Yeah, I mean, everything. He's just phenomenal actor. [00:52:55] Speaker B: So it was kind of a cool idea to just like, no, we don't want to sell this movie on the back of Brad Pitt. We want to walk into this as. As blind as possible. We want the movie to sell the movie. And yeah, as far as that goes, I thought, I thought they all did pretty, pretty good. Like, you never know you're finding somebody that unknown. [00:53:12] Speaker C: When you talk about zombie movies, 28 days later always gets brought up into the conversation. [00:53:17] Speaker D: It's one of them. [00:53:19] Speaker C: It's a movie that is in, in this genre and has become iconic in this genre. A lot of people know it for a variety of different reasons, but I think about this movie and will think about this movie going forward as very well shot, well produced, thought out with a good script. This is just a solid film for me from start to finish. [00:53:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And like most zombie movies, or at least most good ones, the threat is humanity. The threat is the world falling apart. Like the zombies are the catalyst, but they're not really the threat or. [00:53:53] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and there are, there are different themes throughout this that have to deal with tribalism and dealing with loss and change. And I, I like those. I think they touch on them very well. They give them their moment and they thread them throughout and, and they're. They're done. Well, I, I just enjoy the stories that's being told following these characters. [00:54:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:20] Speaker A: It's nice when it's more than just, here's a bloodbath, here's another bloodbath, you know. [00:54:24] Speaker C: Right. [00:54:25] Speaker A: There's a little more to it to hold you, hold you accountable. [00:54:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:29] Speaker C: It wasn't, it wasn't super deep by any means, but it had a nice couple of threads that went through it that you could follow and latch onto that made it relatable, that made it intriguing, that made you care about these people. You know, there's other shows like Black Summer, which has fast moving zombies. I don't care so much about the people in this show because they don't give me threads. It is just the instinct and survival kind of issues. And there's lots of zombie movies and stuff that have those. This one has more and I think that's why it stands out as a leader in the genre. [00:55:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Well said. Anybody else? Anything else or if we go to scoring. [00:55:04] Speaker D: Well, I don't, I don't. For, for me, just about everything, you know, was, was correct. I love the soundtrack. Like I said, a little bit, you know, mundane. It just. It sounded like the same score over and over again. The cinematography, it was just. Certain scenes took me out of it. You know, the beginning scene just. It was terrible. It looked like you were watching it on an old console where the green and the red had bled into the picture, you know, but something that I really couldn't get around was just how things weren't correct. You know, like it takes them 28 days, five weeks to starve. You know, that's good. But they're. They're eating people, you know, so would. Would that be it? They would die a lot quicker if they didn't have water. So were they, you know, drinking the blood? They were also vomiting up huge amounts of blood, you know, so they would die of dehydration. They would die of some type of infection because of. Of raw human meat and the blood, you know, so it's stuff like that, that it was just, like I said before, little tiny things that just didn't add up to take me out of the reality that that's possible. Other than that, I have no complaints at all. [00:56:23] Speaker B: So I'm gonna. I'm gonna push back a little bit there. Not with any of your complaints, because they're all very, very valid. But when we say these aren't zombies, they're not eating human flesh, right? Like, they're just ripping people apart. Like they are just spreading the madness. But do we ever actually see them? Like, they bite people, I guess, but in a way to rip people apart. They're not. We don't really see them feasting, throw up on them, and then they move on. [00:56:48] Speaker C: Yeah, right. [00:56:49] Speaker D: See, that's what I thought. So is that why they're starving? Because they didn't eat the people? If they did, you know, eat the. The meat, would they last longer? Are they stopping to drink. [00:56:59] Speaker C: Drink water? [00:56:59] Speaker D: It. It was those questions that made the life not be able to fully enjoy the movie. [00:57:05] Speaker B: I think it's those questions that make me enjoy it a little bit more. Because they don't spell everything. That leaves me going like, oh, I wonder how this would work. I wonder what that would be like. There's a lot of things in this movie I've never seen before. Whether they've been done before or not, I personally hadn't seen them. So not only this movie do a lot of things I'd never seen, but it also left me with kind of like questions that don't bother me when a movie leaves me with a question that. That annoys me, that can really take me out. But, like, the idea that the zombies are starving to death I thought was super cool. And I didn't really go deeper into why are they starving? Why didn't they starve earlier? How do they not dehydrate? I mean, their, their bodies are eating themselves at that point. You see the people on the side of the road. They are skin and bones. Like there's not much left there. Like it. Whether it's dehydration or starvation doesn't really matter to me. [00:57:48] Speaker C: I think we're gonna approach these questions even more in the next movie, 28 weeks later. So tune in as we go over that film because it talks about the virus reemerging after much longer periods of time, and we have to explore how and why. And so we may or may not get into some of that. And I'm curious to see what you guys have to think next week on. On that one. But for me, these little things that Bubba Hotep pointed out didn't bother me much. Like Dan, I think that it. They left a lot of questions unanswered, but gave me enough openings that I can thread my own needle and figure out a way that it still makes sense to me and didn't take me too far out. What about you, Will? Did the movie hold up, you know, logically for you? [00:58:39] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm similar to you and Dan that it. It gave enough to know what the threat is, but then allowed us to focus on the story of these people that it's trying to tell. You know, that was the backdrop that this infestation happened. The whole place was wiped. And now how are people surviving and dealing with that? That was the. That was the topic for me, and that's what I latched onto, what the minute specifics are on how this virus worked. I think it left it open enough so you could interpret it a little bit, or maybe it could. Could slot into various potential future problems we may have in 2020, say, you know, who knows? So, yeah, I didn't mind it that much. I didn't get hung up on it. But, you know, I can totally understand where some people can because, you know, there's. It's a lot happening and it's super scary. So you want to understand it, right? [00:59:39] Speaker B: Yeah. One thing none of us touched on, and I meant to and I just didn't, is Naomi Harris. We kind of. We've mentioned her a little bit here and there, but this was shrieking Let there be carnage, which we all hated her performance in that one. I thought she did fantastic here. [00:59:56] Speaker A: That's why I never blame the actors out of the gate. I blame the writing. [01:00:00] Speaker B: Right. [01:00:01] Speaker A: But that's coming from an actor, so I'm a biased a little bit, But I just. [01:00:06] Speaker B: I felt like that was worth mentioning at least once before we get out of here. [01:00:09] Speaker A: No, it's always good. Do that. Always good. I love the tie ins through the different movies and franchises we cover. So that's great. [01:00:15] Speaker C: And her, her acting made that sequence at the end that they built up and alluded to over the course of the entire film. And he says that was longer than a heartbeat. It's be. She pulls that off, that that sequence works because of everything she built throughout the movie and that's, that's for her and, and so high praise for her in this movie. [01:00:34] Speaker A: Yeah, it was great writing for those characters, right? Like they, those two characters had such solid writing. Her journey of like, oh, accepting and finding new hope and his journey of like what building up to like how do I stand up and how do I make it in this world. [01:00:54] Speaker C: Right. [01:00:55] Speaker A: Like his, his growth of character through. It's, it's really cool. [01:00:58] Speaker D: Right. But you can even tell with her, you know, she comes across as a hard ass in the beginning, you know, and even with her partner and she didn't hesitate, you know, at all. And you see her soften and that kind of goes back to like the family aspect that Brian was talking about, how she softens and she actually has a genuine care. And we don't know how long she was with this other, you know, partners and they just didn't have the same dichotomy, you know. So she did a great job at it. I all around like it. The movie, it reintroduced my love for zombies. I love the new take on it because the undead was, the undead was old, you know, just regardless. And it, this really did re. Spark zombies. So I love it. The cinematography at the beginning, I almost like stopped watching it. Just how grainy and how terrible the lab looked, you know, it just looked like a warehouse. And the scientist was more or less a janitor, you know, taking care of a bunch of monkeys. Between that saying that, I'm glad I didn't shut it off. I think the cinematography really pulled together and it just became better after that scene. The music, as I said, kind of mundane, you know, it just kind of the same. But the way that they used it, the way they introduced it and they had, you know, the impactful parts hitting, I think that was great. All around the questions that I had, it just took me out a little bit. And it didn't like immerse me into the world because I was thinking that couldn't really happen, you know. So it reminded me that it was just a movie which brings it down a little bit. But all around I give it a 71. I, I really, it, it's, it's just Good for me. I just liked it. [01:02:54] Speaker B: Very nice, Bubba. Hotep, Steve, we'd love to have you here. I'm probably not going to include your score in the final score just to keep our rating as per normal, but I do love to hear what you have to say about it. So just so we're all. We're all clear. The scores on the board will always. Well, theoretically will always just be the three of us. [01:03:12] Speaker C: Till Dan pisses me off and then Bubba. [01:03:16] Speaker B: Or your Internet craps out halfway through the episode again. [01:03:19] Speaker C: That's the first time I've had problems in a long time. And that was my PC that was in the bedroom. [01:03:23] Speaker A: That's fairly here to keep us going strong. [01:03:27] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:03:27] Speaker B: Well, Brian, we normally start with you, so should we jump to you next? [01:03:30] Speaker C: Yeah. Okay. I love zombie movies. These are my jam. I used to collect these films and re watch them over and over. Big fan of the genre. And this one, like I said earlier, I think it is a leader in this genre. It's definitely a game changer for the zombie industry, I guess. And I think there's a lot of reasons why. If you go down my list of items of what I do, they all scored really high. I think direction was one of the highlights in this. I also liked the sound effects, the way they built it with music. And of course the cinematography. Like we talked about, it looks beautiful. Acting's great. It's a really phenomenal movie. The only things that I didn't like was the opening sequence. It didn't feel right. It didn't fit right. It didn't look right. It felt cliche. It felt, I don't know, tired and not done well. I just didn't like that opening sequence. Thank goodness it didn't last very long because the rest of movie was great. And then I didn't like the little girl. Not because she was a child actor. I just don't think that they encouraged her to showcase enough emotion and her character wasn't thought out well enough. I don't know of any kid that would act the way she acted and do the things that she did. She was unbelievable, unlikable. She was unrelatable. I didn't want her in the film. I wanted somebody else that I actually cared about and I didn't care about her. And I think those were the two things that brought down my score the most. But overall, I gave this movie an83. Originally coming into it with an82, but talking with these guys, I gave it one more point as they pointed out a few things That I did enjoy about this film. Very, very solid zombie film. And I think that it changed so much about the way we think about these kinds of movies and allowed us to create so much better ideas going forward from here. So it's a big film for me and I. I really think people should definitely watch this one. [01:05:31] Speaker B: I'm gonna mirror a lot of what Brian just said, except for I'm going to start off by saying I don't like zombie movies movies. So this one had an uphill battle to go with and I liked it anyways. Or maybe I liked it despite that. I feel like I'm a bigger fan of independent cinema and that definitely is how this felt. Had a pretty good budget, but it. It felt like more of an independent movie. I really liked some of the tones, some of the things they were trying to say that weren't just look at how the zombies can kill people. There aren't actually very many zombie deaths in this movie until you get to the very, very end of it. Most of this movie is people. How do people react in certain situations? How do people interact in certain situations? And that's what I'm here for. The opening, not the opening scene, but the second scene where you've got Killian Murphy waking up in the hospital. This is before Walking Dead. This is the first time we'd seen something like that where he's just alone in the world and he's walking around London. I can't express much how much I love that scene. Not only the way that it was filmed or how it looked, but even just the feeling that it gives you, that feeling of loneliness, of emptiness, of just like, what would you do in a world where you are the only person around, around. Because we don't. He doesn't know that he's going to run into people. Like, at that point he is completely alone and it's terrifying. The opening scene, I. I wouldn't say that it was cliched for me because the raid virus feels like a different thing, a unique thing, but I will say just the only scene that feels cheap. Everything else, all the set pieces, all the acting, all the makeup, everything feels so good in this movie. That opening scene is the only part that feels really, really cheap to me. I love that they brought in unknown actors, gave them a chance. Killian Murphy is an absolute star. I believe he won an Oscar last year for Oppenheimer. Like, he is just a phenomenal actor and he brings a lot of weight to this movie that it needs. The sound design is really, really cool. I think the zombies or Rage Monsters sound amazing. I think the music builds up really nicely. I really don't have much negative to say about this movie other than it's just not really my genre and it succeeds despite that. At the end of the day, this movie ironically gets an 83 from me as well. So Brian and I are tied in this one. [01:07:33] Speaker A: Very nice. [01:07:33] Speaker B: Very shockingly high for a horror movie for me, but this is one of the ones I really like and I go back to. [01:07:39] Speaker A: Well played. Well played. All right, well, I don't know what else to say. Brian mentioned throughout, like the 90s zombies were kind of a joke. They were kind of one off things here and there in sitcoms or whatever. On Halloween. This movie definitely put them in the front and center to nausea. I am sick of zombies now because of it, and it's all this movie's fault. But do I blame this movie? No. I celebrate it because it brought it original idea to the table and, and masterfully displayed it on the screen for us. I love the stylistic choices. I think Danny Boyle is, is a great director and his choices and styles are amazing to see on the screen, even if it's confusing to youngsters today, being like, why isn't this 4K? I'm talking to you, Dan, you youngster. What else could I say? I, I, I also think Danny Boyle did a great job of, of telling us about the zombies, telling the characters told us stories about what happened while Jim was in his coma and how the world went to, and you don't actually see a lot of the zombies until it's like right up in his face, right up in his grill. And I like that. It's kind of like the alien approach of like seeing them in the shadows, running the shadows in the tunnel, chasing all these mice. And, and you don't see a lot of the zombies until, like, you know, the big action scenes. But I think that really helps help build the suspense in this movie and, and really let you feel like this was a real place that people could try to survive in. Overall, it's, it's got really top marks all the way around for me, this movie. I'm coming on the high 86 out of 100. [01:09:30] Speaker C: Not to be missed if you're into [01:09:31] Speaker A: the John B. AKA apocalyptic genres, this is a, this is a go to film. [01:09:39] Speaker B: All right, so with that 28, 28 later trilogy, because I really didn't know what to call this, jumps to the top of the board with an 84 now. I have not seen 28 day weeks later in a very long time. Can't speak to that one. And of course, 28 years later is in. Not even in theaters yet. So I really don't know how far this trilogy is going to go down, if it's going to go down where it's going to land, after all. But I think this movie is, dare I say, a modern classic. And I'm not sad about this being as high as it is. [01:10:11] Speaker C: I think it landed right where it should be. I'm expecting a downturn with the next one and hoping that they'll come back with a third one and have excellent, solid writing. I think they made the sequel because this one was a success, and I hate when they do that. I like it when they make a sequel because they have a story that they need to tell well. And I. I don't think that's what's gonna happen next week. [01:10:35] Speaker B: And it doesn't bode well that Danny Boyle is not attached to the next one. [01:10:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:10:39] Speaker B: But I believe it is on the third one. [01:10:41] Speaker D: And Bill told me that I thought Danny Boyle directed it again, and he set me straight. He said no. He kind of consulted on it, but he didn't. [01:10:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I believe he was a producer on the film, and I believe he directed a portion of the beginning of the film, but I haven't seen it in a long time, so I have [01:10:55] Speaker D: to watch it again in the beginning of the film. The. It actually looks different from the rest of it, so that would make a lot of sense. [01:11:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:11:03] Speaker D: Okay. [01:11:04] Speaker A: Well, that's. That's next week. Can I just say, though, thank you, Chat, or whoever's been picking the movies recently, because, like, that's three in a row. Like Dollars trilogy, we had high starter. Never Ending Story. We had a real high starter. Now this is another high starter. I like coming out of the gates high. I really do. [01:11:20] Speaker D: Yeah, I think it's doing good. [01:11:22] Speaker B: Dollars built high. I don't. I don't think the first one was a high one One. [01:11:25] Speaker C: But yes, overall, Dollars had three solid movies. Yeah. But Never Ending Story was. [01:11:35] Speaker B: It started well. It started well. We'll stop there, right? [01:11:38] Speaker C: Pinnacle on a cliff. [01:11:42] Speaker A: Exactly. [01:11:43] Speaker B: That's fair. This is also the first time we had to use the new poster, so Highlander is now on page two where [01:11:50] Speaker C: it belongs, where it should be. [01:11:55] Speaker D: Cult classic. I love it. I'll always love it. But it was by no means a good movie. [01:12:01] Speaker A: It's got some issues. [01:12:03] Speaker D: One or two. [01:12:03] Speaker B: We're gonna clip that for later. You never use that against us again. [01:12:06] Speaker D: Yeah, that's right, I'll have to switch to Evil Dead. [01:12:10] Speaker B: All right, that's our rating of 28 days later. But what's yours? Let us know down in the comments below. I'd love to hear from you. We record this live on Twitch TV slash them ongooly show on Thursday night nights at 9:00pm Eastern Standard Time. So you want to come and hang out with us? You can do that over there, or if you made it this far in the video, hit the like button. Hit subscribe so you see more great content like this. And I see you in the next one.