Oct 21, 2026 · 1 hr 3 min · 11 segments
On this episode, we hunker down in our local farm house with the movie often credited for reanimating the zombie sub-genre. A true staple of independent film making that pushed audiences in directions…
And part of the reason why I thought that this was the first zombie movie is because of how much it reinvented the wheel of it.
Where instead of having the person possessing them or taking control or however you want to phrase it, it was just more of a force that just happened to these people.
What do they say in the movie? Like
it was radiation from a satellite coming back from a planet.
They blew it up in orbit and the radiation caused these corpses to come back to life, which I thought that was super simple concept, truthfully.
But like, it's believable.
It's like, oh, radiation from another planet.
Yeah, probably.
And we're talking about how they relate to what's going on in the time the space race is happening right now.
Like something that people could be fearful of.
And these fuckers made a movie that showed the absolute worst situation that could happen.
No, the audience reactions and critical responses to this movie was crazy.
Because Roger Ebert went and saw the movie, and he described these horror movies or whatever.
Parents would just drop kids off by the dozen to go watch these things.
Most of the time, there'd be some shrieks and some laughter.
During this movie...
It was silent because it was genuinely terrifying.
He says at this point, the mood of the audience seemed to change.
Horror movies were fun, sure, but this was pretty strong stuff.
He continues to say, I felt real terror in that neighborhood theater last Saturday afternoon.
I saw kids who had no resources they could draw upon to protect themselves from the dread and fear they felt.
Censorship isn't the answer to something like this.
Censorship is never the answer.
For that matter, Night of the Living Dead was passed for general audiences by the Chicago Police Censor Board.
Since it had no nudity in it, it was alright for kids.
And part of the reason why I thought that this was the first zombie movie is because of how much it reinvented the wheel of it.
Where instead of having the person possessing them or taking control or however you want to phrase it, it was just more of a force that just happened to these people.
What do they say in the movie? Like
it was radiation from a satellite coming back from a planet.
They blew it up in orbit and the radiation caused these corpses to come back to life, which I thought that was super simple concept, truthfully.
But like, it's believable.
It's like, oh, radiation from another planet.
Yeah, probably.
And we're talking about how they relate to what's going on in the time the space race is happening right now.
Like something that people could be fearful of.
And these fuckers made a movie that showed the absolute worst situation that could happen.
No, the audience reactions and critical responses to this movie was crazy.
Because Roger Ebert went and saw the movie, and he described these horror movies or whatever.
Parents would just drop kids off by the dozen to go watch these things.
Most of the time, there'd be some shrieks and some laughter.
During this movie...
It was silent because it was genuinely terrifying.
He says at this point, the mood of the audience seemed to change.
Horror movies were fun, sure, but this was pretty strong stuff.
He continues to say, I felt real terror in that neighborhood theater last Saturday afternoon.
I saw kids who had no resources they could draw upon to protect themselves from the dread and fear they felt.
Censorship isn't the answer to something like this.
Censorship is never the answer.
For that matter, Night of the Living Dead was passed for general audiences by the Chicago Police Censor Board.
Since it had no nudity in it, it was alright for kids.
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