Zombie Book Club
Welcome to Zombie Book Club! We're a Podcast that's also a book club! We talk about Zombie / Apocalyptic horror novels, TV and movies.
Zombie Book Club
Home Alone in the Zombie Apocalypse with special guest EricLloydDesigns | Zombie Book Club Ep 75
In this festive episode, we reimagine "Home Alone" with Kevin McCallister defending his home against George Romero's zombies. Joined by our friend and interior designer, Eric of Eric Lloyd Designs, we evaluate Kevin's original booby traps for their effectiveness against the undead and brainstorm new, zombie-specific defenses. Our discussion highlights childhood ingenuity, resilience, and the creative strategies that could be employed in a zombie apocalypse.
As we brainstorm creative and humorous defense ideas, we explore the essence of childhood ingenuity and resilience in the craziest of situations.
• Analyzing the McAllister household as a strategic defense location
• Evaluating classic booby traps for effectiveness against zombies
• Eric's imaginative and whimsical design ideas for zombie-proofing homes
• Encouraging listeners to think creatively about survival strategies
• Bridging childhood fantasies with survival instincts in a fun, engaging way
Eric Lloyd Designs
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericlloyddesigns/
- Houzz Profile: Eric Lloyd Designs
Relevant Links:
- Home Alone Booby Traps Analysis:
- George Romero's Zombies Overview:
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Welcome to Zombie Book Club, the only book club where the book is a house and the house is full of traps, and the traps might horribly maim you, but you probably shouldn't be in the house in the first place, so you kind of deserve it. I'm Dan, and when I'm not booby trapping my house, I'm writing a book about all the terrifying things in the world. If you only added zombies to the mix.
Speaker 2:And I'm Leah, and when I was a little kid and my parents left me home alone which was A lot, thanks, mom and Dad I would fantasize about all the ways I could escape from scary monsters or serial killers, which has prepared me for today's episode and, in general, the zombie apocalypse.
Speaker 1:That explains a lot.
Speaker 2:It does.
Speaker 1:We release episodes every Sunday on every single podcasting platform. I don't think we missed a single one. No, all of them. If you know one that we're not on, then you win a prize. What's the prize? It's in my left pocket. Oh goodness, let's not let them know what that is so if you want to know what's in my left pocket. But, yeah, if you want to make sure that you are up to date with all the episodes, make sure you subscribe.
Speaker 2:Very important with all the episodes. Make sure you subscribe. Very important. Today is our special holiday episode and we have with us our zom bestie and brilliant interior designer friend, eric lloyd of eric lloyd designs. Welcome back to the show, eric. How are you doing today?
Speaker 3:yes, thank you so much. I'm doing well. I'm feeling as good as the soul of a Victorian sickly child.
Speaker 2:It is eight o'clock in the morning for you on a Saturday. That is the love that Eric has for us, and we love you too. Thank you for joining.
Speaker 3:Yes, I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 2:Yes, and where are you right now calling in from? Can you describe your background for us?
Speaker 3:Yes, I am in a lovely essence of spaceship circa close encounters of the third kind 80s wraparound circular crystal tiled bathroom. I love the crystal tiles. Oh yes, I mean. No home is complete without them.
Speaker 2:This is the kind of thing you could get if you hired Eric as your interior designer. Also, there's a very thoughtfully placed purple towel on the floor to make it look lived in.
Speaker 3:There is oh, I'm sorry. Did I not tell you? I just got out of the bath.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's why you're extra shiny and soapy. It all makes sense.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So, eric, the last time you were on with us was the very first Zombieween game show, so it's been a little over a year.
Speaker 3:It has, it has, and you know this year's. I loved listening to this year's. I thought it was so fun. Everyone seemed to have such a great time, which was very exciting and made for a good listen.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, we still missed you because you're my bestie. So, as a reminder for folks, Eric is one of my besties in actual real life, except for we live across the continent from each other but did meet in Georgia and you are an actual talented designer and artist friend, which is why we have you for this very special holiday episode.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm excited yeah, yeah, um, what are? What are we doing?
Speaker 2:what are we doing? Well, this episode is inspired by a prompt uh from one of our other zombesties from across the pond in the united kingdom, I believe, greg the writer. Greg the writer wrote to us, dm'd us on the instagrams and just said hey, um, have you ever thought about this? Like what would happen if they're Romero zombies versus Kevin McAllister in home alone, kevin has his house in the first movie plus the tree house on the neighborhood we see in the movies, and 12 hours to prep who wins and how. And I was just like we have to. We have to make this an episode, greg, and invite Eric to join us. So thank you for this idea.
Speaker 3:I have a crazy question. Do you guys know much history about the McAllister household?
Speaker 1:I know only a little bit. I know that it's the same house that they ended up in in planes, trains and automobiles at the end, Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:The house itself was built in like the 20s and it's like a Georgian-style home, mm, and I think it it's. The house itself was built in like the twenties and it's like a Georgian style home and it's, I think it's a Chicago area, like Chicagoland and then, but it it got its like first like notoriety of like, where it became like on on the radar for a film location because in like the 1970s I want to say like 75 or 76, the kitchen had been redone and was in better homes and gardens and like the house on the map.
Speaker 1:Wow. So if we just make a really good kitchen, our house could be in movies.
Speaker 3:It could be. Listen, that's what I've been trying to do with my guest bathroom for over a year now, but hey actually, is this the guest bathroom that you're in right now? No, this is my mass. No, this is the primary bathroom, primary bathroom. Primary bathroom right here.
Speaker 2:Tell us about your guest bathroom. Why should it be in a magazine?
Speaker 3:Well, so our guest bathroom first off needs an actual renovation or to be redone, but in the meantime I was like there's nothing going on in here, can I do something with it? And so I basically made like a poly pocket-esque barbie bathroom, where the goal was at its core everything is to be shiny and plastic looking wonderful so um, lots of fun, big swatches of designs on the walls, everything is in some kind of like shiny plastic, um color and uh finish.
Speaker 3:And actually I, whenever I was doing this, I really wanted to find a really bright and colorful shower head for it, and the only one I could find was this company called spruce, and they're a smaller company and they make these really cool like malleable showers that you can take.
Speaker 3:If you move, do anything with, the water actually will turn off with a little button, which is great for people with like disabilities who like need to like keep the shower you know somewhere nearby, but or like have a caretaker perhaps, and like they can like turn off the water while they're like assisting and stuff. So it's a really cool shower thing. And, um, they had a new filter they just came out with and they actually called me to uh help like test it out, and it was such a cool experience and I was like, hey, my bathroom kind of got recognized because they found me on instagram this is the dream, and you too could see this bathroom if you followed eric where um, you can follow me at eric lloyd designs or at my other page, which is just eric zero, one, zero yeah, either way, you'll find the bathroom.
Speaker 2:It's wonderful. It is the complete opposite of the kind of thing we asked you to design for today.
Speaker 3:Yes, but that's okay, I can do it all.
Speaker 2:You can. You're a multi-talented fellow, so what?
Speaker 3:we're going to do.
Speaker 2:One would like to believe that everybody listening to this podcast has watched Home Alone and knows what a George Romero zombie is, but I think we should. We should check in on that just to set the stage, yeah, okay, and also maybe get you to describe the home a little bit more that we're going to be designing for the zombie apocalypse. And then we're going to actually start by looking at some of Kevin's original booby traps from Home Alone because they're pretty good and assess them from like, which ones of them do we actually think might be useful with a zombie? Yeah, and then, eric, it's going to be up to you to tell us how on earth you think an eight-year-old child would redesign their home on.
Speaker 2:Christmas time.
Speaker 3:You know, I really I'm excited to share some of these with you.
Speaker 2:Very excited. So what is a George Romero zombie Dan?
Speaker 1:All right. Well, this is a classic, classic zombie from the george romero movies night of the living dead dawn of the dead day of the dead land of the dead. You know those ones. They are slow, they're dumb and they're contagious, just like your uncle that nobody invited to christmas dinner this year, rim shot beautiful and uh, eric, do you think you could take a try at describing the movie home alone for me?
Speaker 2:yeah, you, you can say no, oh, we can actually read a description, but I thought I'd give you a chance first off I have to say this backstory um, I love the home alone films, love them growing up.
Speaker 3:There are not a lot of movies where I think the sequel is better than the first and I know it may be controversial, but I'm gonna say Home Alone is one of those for me. Just if you haven't seen Home Alone in Lost in New York City, you just got to see it. It's just hysterical.
Speaker 1:My brother would agree with me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's just so good. Marv just cracks me up the whole movie. But in the first one basically we've got a giant family. It seems very like upper class, possibly like maybe for the time could have been considered higher middle class. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:but I think so they're flying to France for Christmas.
Speaker 1:They're flying their whole extended family to France.
Speaker 3:Yeah so whole families get together. Yeah so whole families get together. You've got the younger brother, who's just a little mischief and doesn't have the best ways to communicate his boundaries yet so interesting dynamics with his other family. And, anyways, they all are getting ready to leave in the morning to head off to go on vacation. Anyways, they all are getting ready to leave in the morning to head off to go on vacation. And then, while they are gone, they realize they've left the youngest brother behind and he is left at home to fend for himself. While they try to figure it out and get back to him, chaos ensues when two burglars or bandits decide to case the joint and it goes from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I never thought about it. Kevin has to defend his home as an eight-year-old child from two not very smart burglars slightly smarter than a.
Speaker 1:George Romero zombie. I never really thought about it, but yeah, kevin McAllister has bad boundary issues. Everybody's just walking all over him, and that's why he loves being alone.
Speaker 3:Well, and doesn't have skills or coping skills on how to respond to those behaviors. So you know it's just upset and angry at him. Yeah, a lot of that.
Speaker 2:Compassionate interpretation of Kevin, and when I rewatched this movie again, I will be thinking about it Like this is just a child. I Again, I will be thinking about it like this is just a child. I'm not going to judge this child so harshly as I usually do when I watch it. And who is Kevin McAllister? Dan, I think you had some interesting thoughts on this.
Speaker 1:Yes, who is Kevin? Kevin McAllister is the leader of my cult that I want you to join.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, is this the adult Kevin McAllister or eight-year-old Kevin McAllister? The eight-year-old Kevin McAllister? We watch the two Home Alone movies we're not talking about the third one, but we watch those on repeat all day, every day, and we learn wisdom from Kevin, and I just learned that one of those things of wisdom is that Kevin McAllister feels ostracized and his boundaries are being walked all over. So that's going to be added to the uh, the tomes of kevin mccallister.
Speaker 2:Kevin mccallister. That is a very I mean, that's a much more compassionate description. Our description of of kevin eric was an eight-year-old who's annoying, filthy, rich, entitled white kid who makes cute faces with a heart of gold that his parents bought him.
Speaker 3:That was our description you know what side note, leah? Did you ever go to mcallister's back in augusta?
Speaker 2:it sounds familiar, but I don't remember.
Speaker 3:It was like a deli out at the mall called mcallister's deli.
Speaker 2:I don't think I did.
Speaker 3:It does sound familiar well, good for you, because it wasn't that good anyways, I'm glad I missed out on that.
Speaker 2:Maybe it was Kevin McAllister's future, who knows?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's how they got so rich Selling bad sandwiches to people.
Speaker 2:So this person, this person, mac Rodden, in December 18th 2013. That's a long time ago now, almost 11 years basically.
Speaker 2:Yeah, also on our wedding anniversary Before it was our wedding anniversary, dan december 18th they did it on purpose, apparently was very bored and decided to write an article on cinemablendcom about the best booby traps that kevin mcallister did from home alone one which is the topic of our episode today and so I'm gonna read aloud to you some of these booby traps, and I would like to hear your response, dan and Eric, on whether you think this is a useful booby trap for a George Romero zombie. Yeah, you ready.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, apparently this goes in order from least to most exciting. So this is number 14. Feathers to the face. Pour a sticky substance onto a long sheet of plastic wrap, tape the plastic wrap face high across the room's entryway. Place a mountain of feathers in front of a fan and jam a pencil inside the fan. To prevent it from this is actually pretty diabolical. To prevent it from spinning, connect the pencil to a piece of string on the floor, so when the string is tripped, the fan will propel the feathers forward. And stick to the poor bastard with sticky stuff on his face. Yeah, and stick to the poor bastard with sticky stuff on his face. Yeah, I think it was super glue that was on his face. Super glue, yeah. Would this help defend us from zombies? I?
Speaker 1:don't think it'll be super effective, but I think that it might be slightly effective, because if you get chicken feathers covering the eyes, at least it's a blinded zombie.
Speaker 2:Eric thoughts.
Speaker 3:Yeah, here's the thing. Is it ingenious and creative? Absolutely Do. I think it's very effective. No, because at the end of the day, even if you get your whole body covered in these feathers, just remove the two from your eyes and keep going like it's really, you know, really cool, though I mean definitely smart and thought out yeah, very complex, but not a lot of impact, even with real humans.
Speaker 2:Now that we think, I think about it, I think it was more for the comedy. I think it only made them more angry. Okay, here's another one that brilliant eight-year-old kevin mccallister did for the bandits that were trying to invade his home. Would it work for zombies? Put a slew of micro machines on the ground in front of stairs, spread them out just enough, so they cover a large amount of area but aren't too spaced out to allow an easy pathway through yeah, I.
Speaker 1:I think that this is a pretty brilliant one. This is for. This is a good one for immobilizing zombies you know, if they're coming after you run up the stairs, jump over the micro machines and they just comically slip and fall. They're gonna get back up for sure. I think it might be a little bit more effective if you put those micro machines at, like the the second and third top stair, and then just watch them tumble down the stairs. Maybe you've got like a permanently disabled zombie after that.
Speaker 2:But you're letting a zombie get all the way to the top. That feels risky to me. It's a risk yeah.
Speaker 3:I will say this I I think it's pretty. I forgot about this one. However, I have some very similar booby traps I thought of, so I guess it could be around that realm of being effective. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, I can't wait to hear about it. A cord running across the hallway. String a very tight piece of rope, wire or cord across a hallway, place it a little above knee height for an adult and leave it there. Yeah, eric, do you think that's zombie proof? Do you have anything?
Speaker 3:like that. What happens after they?
Speaker 2:trip. That's it. I guess they get back up.
Speaker 3:No, no, okay, you know I said, I mean it will, it will knock them over yeah, again, this is just.
Speaker 1:This is another good um immobilization tactic again, if you put it at the top of some stairs so far, but uh, we actually we've seen this tactic used in blood quantum. We did oh that's right when, when they, when they were going zombie hunting, they put a trip wire across outside of the the door. They banged on the door and opened it up and zombies came running out, tripped and then they just blasted them while they were on the ground so another slowing down technique.
Speaker 2:I mean, we have to give kevin credit here in this scenario. He does not know he's going up against zombies, yeah I think, I think um.
Speaker 1:The best use of energy is to find ways to immobilize and slow down zombies before you take them out would this one do it?
Speaker 2:do you think, eric, throw a loose tarantula at a zombie's face?
Speaker 3:no, because they won't have the same response as a human like I mean me, yes, me, yes absolutely.
Speaker 2:What would you do if a tarantula was thrown at your face?
Speaker 3:I'd probably end up accidentally just like I don't know, I don't know. I definitely have some arachnophobia. I have you know nothing. But I've gotten to the place in my life, luckily, where when I see a spider, I'm able to be like okay, can someone get that spider out of here right now. I don't just go to kill them right away anymore. However, do not fear Fear-based for me, I don't know why I can smell your fear yeah.
Speaker 2:Was I the only one watching this movie? That was like feeling sadness for the tarantula Because it was crawling around After it got thrown in the face. It was crawling all over the house the whole movie and I felt so bad for it no, I know exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 3:I've watched movies like that before actually, so it's shocking. It's on, you know, to have that fear, but then, yeah, if I see something like it's still this creature, that's just not didn't do anything wrong, yeah, yeah, but now it's got the whole house to himself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, also that scene I've. I've never seen a more genuine fear scream in any movie, ever, when Daniel Stern gets a spider on his face.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so not effective for you zombies.
Speaker 3:Is that Marv? Yeah, marv, he is so funny, that character is so funny.
Speaker 2:Okay, this one, I think, has some value here Slide from the big people's house to the tree house on a zip line. Then, when the burglars attempt to follow by climbing across the rope, I'm wondering if a zombie would try to climb. Would a George Romero zombie even try to climb across a rope? But it might try to come out the window and follow. Yeah, well, in this one, Kevin cuts the wire with large hedge clippers procured from the open garage.
Speaker 1:Your father forgot to close.
Speaker 3:When he left for paris, I forgot that he cut the wire. I forgot about that entirely. I think the zipline has a lot of value. What y'all come on right, it's. The zipline has value. However, also, this was one where I'd have to go walk into the writer's room and be like really y'all, like it's a tree house. They could have just gone to the tree house and gone up to get them the zip line in this for a, for a human bandit right now, for zombies, absolutely, if you can make sure they can't get up the tree, yes, and the zip line. You know they're not going to come across the zip line, but for a human I was like I'm going to walk in that writer's room and say y'all, I have feelings, come on now.
Speaker 1:They could have just under the tree. Seven-year-old eric just kicks in the door of the writer's room.
Speaker 3:They're like come on absolutely with a giant stogie.
Speaker 1:What's going on here, you know I think the the zipline covers a a topic that isn't discussed nearly enough, which is, like sure, when you have your, your, your barricaded, um safe zone area, uh, what do you do if you're overrun and you, you have to have an escape plan, and a zip line is probably the best escape plan. Like better than a tunnel, better than like a secret car that you crash through a fence, like getting to the other side of a place, like almost instantaneously, with no energy expended.
Speaker 2:Uh, zipline wins I think in general, tree houses are something I'd like to see a lot more of in the zombie apocalypse, like I can imagine a whole society of people living in trees with ziplines between them, because then you have multiple points of exit and entry and you are above the ground.
Speaker 3:I mean, if you take it from a realistic standpoint, you're absolutely correct. That's probably going to have to be. It's going to be that and water, so it's going to be the civilizations on the water and then ones up in the trees I personally, am going up in the trees. I feel like we need to bring back the fact that you were the person who asked us whether or not you thought zombies could swim or float. It's right, because I'm like, listen, in a water world situation, like, can the zombies get to us or is? Is that a good, good plan?
Speaker 2:I think in most worlds they can't, so that's good news, george romero.
Speaker 3:Zombies I don't think that they can swim no, they walk across the bottom, oh, even worse, but like my current living location, because I literally we have the puget sound here, so like it's. You know, probably if I had to hike there or walk there without a car or vehicle, I could probably get there in about I don't know two and a half hours. It's a five minute drive to the water, so I could probably get there in a couple hours, um, but that would take me right out to the ocean to you know so even if you escape the zombies, though, are you worried about the killer whales coming and enacting vengeance.
Speaker 3:You know what that? That is something that I will live with. In that regard, with the zombies, something just tells me that the zombies, there's going to be something about them where it's like we did this, human beings, we did this, and I'm like we're gross. But with the killer whales, I'm like look, if they're like, if they, you know, but they could sense my energy, I'd be like you, sweet, majestic things, I am coexisting with you, I promise, and maybe they'll, they'll spare me that's true.
Speaker 2:They'll know that you stole the yacht in a zombie apocalypse, not that you uh owned many of them at the expense of billions of people I've never thought about a yacht.
Speaker 3:When I visualize it, I always see myself basically on some kind of weird made raft get you a yacht.
Speaker 2:They're gonna be freely available, eric. Yeah, that's true that's true.
Speaker 1:I didn't think about that, yeah, but we all know that the orcas check your credit score before they attack your yacht. Exactly they'll be like and your bank guy is not a billionaire your stocks, probably your stocks.
Speaker 2:I think that's probably what they need to check. Uh, this one, I think is obvious make the doorknob really hot. Hilarious in the movie useless to a zombie yeah, also a fire hazard yeah, what did they make the doorknob hot?
Speaker 3:oh, I'm reading it right now they put electric water heater gadgets on the doorknob inside the house oh, I thought it was like a, almost like a, like a heating element on a stove, like it's like, but it's like a handheld one. You like set it on the door.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember something like that in the movie yeah, I don't know exactly what it's for, but I think, I think it's similar to something that you would put in a like a you know, keep, keep water from freezing, and like a horse trough, um, it might also be like the heating element, from like a like a standalone deep fryer. I always thought it was like a soldering iron or something Like a really big soldering iron.
Speaker 2:I don't know, but this eight-year-old is a prodigy-like engineering kid. Honestly, he's really quite brilliant. Throw water on already icy stairs.
Speaker 1:I think this one's a good idea. A lot like the micromachines, and this is, you know, the tripwire had reusability. The micro machines once they scatter, they become less useful. The slippery area of the steps also super reusable, as long as it stays cold.
Speaker 2:How do you picture Eric like what would happen if, like a horde of zombies, starts trying to climb slippery stairs, if a horde of zombies starts trying to climb slippery stairs.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, it's going to be like a slapstick Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel, like Three Stooges-esque, you know, just hot mess, because you know, I mean, at the end of the day, that's the goal. Right, if you're going to do a booby trap, you either need to be thinking about a way to basically get that head off, or immobilizing, immobilizing, and so if it can immobilize, that's great.
Speaker 2:If it can continuously immobilize over and over and over again, like frozen, you know, the frozen floor, absolutely yeah I think there's a limit to this, because eventually the bodies would like pile on top of each other and create stability, and then the other zombies would crawl over to get into the house.
Speaker 1:The blood and gore might give some traction at some point, I think this is one of the few ones that comes with the possibility of, like a head injury resulting from that's true.
Speaker 3:Wait, aren't zombies also like really warm, blooded right Like insanely warm.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 3:I thought they were like super the temperature wise. I was like are their feet or their body going to start melting?
Speaker 2:the ice. Maybe an infected type could be really warm.
Speaker 1:I think it all depends on the type of zombie. But Romero, zombies are like undead, so like they're corpses, so they'll actually be the temperature of the outside world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I suppose that's more of a new age zombie here's another good one.
Speaker 2:Take an iron and attach it to a long string. Dangle the aforementioned screen one floor below next to a light bulb. When the poor bastard tries to turn on the light bulb, he will actually yank the iron down from the second floor. Zombie, zombie trap or not, I feel like there's a human action which is like they need light on the light bulb. Is there a way you could retrofit this?
Speaker 1:I think there is um like obviously a zombie's not going to go for the for the light switch, but if it was a trip wire it might work as long as they remain standing there the entirety of the time that the iron is gaining speed coming down the the laundry chute it needs a like deliberate headshot though, otherwise it's useless it's like they're like outside of a door and they're banging on a door and then suddenly they, they, they trip the the iron. Then I think that could be a insta kill.
Speaker 2:I'm just reading through a few of these that are obviously not going to work with zombies. We have to do an honorable mention, because this one haunted my dreams for so long. Put tar on the stairs and hide a face-up nail. Oh my god, that visual yeah, agreed disturbing not going to work with the zombie.
Speaker 3:They don't care the tar might be effective though it was effective against uh, against daniel stern, I've always forget his name, merv the uh, he always got the I kind of felt bad for them sometimes.
Speaker 2:This one is okay. This is a good one. Chuck paint cans down the stairs oh yeah the swinging paint cans of death, yeah attach a rope or sturdy piece of string to one of our paint cans down the stairs. Oh yeah, the swinging paint cans of death. Yeah, Attach a rope or sturdy piece of string to one of our paint cans which makes it reusable. Right, you can pull it back. Maybe attach that string to string to something heavy. Swing the paint cans when someone tries to walk up the stairs.
Speaker 1:Honestly, I feel like this should have killed the burglars, like that was a direct blunt force trauma to the head. Enough energy was expended through that full can of paint directly into the head of a human being that it sent them flying down the stairs onto the micromachines. They should have been dead.
Speaker 3:I'm just hearing Daniel Stern. Is that his name? Yeah, I'm just hearing it because it's Marvin Harry, and I'm just hearing his, because it's Marvin Harry, and I just like hearing his voice and he's like in the second film. He's like going up the stairs. He's like Harry. I'm coming up Like another one, and another one, and another one.
Speaker 2:Shoot someone in the dick with a BB gun for the doggy door. Ooh.
Speaker 1:I mean obviously not, not gonna work for zombies, but I don't think a bb gun is gonna help you very much in the zombie apocalypse that's unfortunate, because that was a great one too yeah do you think a different type of ammo coming through at that area would at least immobilize, maybe like a shotgun, like if's like it's going to rip through you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, like, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you go big enough and they'll do something yeah.
Speaker 2:This is number one and I think there's real promise here. A blow torch to the head. Attach a string to a blow torch. Attach the blow torch to the top of a door and to the handle. When someone enters the room, the pulled string will start the blowtorch shooting fire at the entranceway.
Speaker 3:Well, they're not going to think to get the fire out as quickly as the human. So yeah, I think it could be effective. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Also Romero. It could also set your entire house on fire with flaming zombies. Romero, zombies were famously super flammable.
Speaker 1:Their biggest fear was fire. You could hold them back with oh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:If there was a lot of light and fire, they would run away.
Speaker 1:The only thing that I would change about this is I would put the blowtorch on the outside. You know it's a big brick house, so I feel like if you keep the fire outside of the house, you're pretty safe for the most part well, that's.
Speaker 2:That is it for this segment. But I have a important question for you, Eric, before we move on to your interior design ideas Are any of these aesthetically pleasing that you would actually say you know what? I think we should keep this in a real home as a safety mechanism and for aesthetics the booby traps.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no.
Speaker 2:I mean the zip line. Yeah, I think that's kind of fun you can make oh, I yeah, you can make the tree house really cool right, yeah, we have a at our house here.
Speaker 3:Our upstairs bedroom is like it has one of um, there's a like a like a like a sunroom and laundry room on the back end of the house and the upstairs bedroom. If you open the, there's kind of like a lower little roof piece there where you could actually step out onto it If you want it. I'm like that'd be so cool to fly from there to a tree house in my backyard. It's possible you can make it happen.
Speaker 1:Also, I think that the the zip line is like this is peak eighties parenting, where they're like like mom, dad, we want to have a zipline go from the attic to the tree house and they're like all right, that's cool yeah I agree, I definitely agree with that so now we get to the real tofu of this discussion, which I'm most excited about it, which is how we think kevin would design zombie specific booby traps to survive in this house and the surrounding area.
Speaker 2:So the house counts, the neighbor's house counts, there's the little supermarket that's nearby, um, and we've got 12 hours to prepare. And, uh, maybe we should just start the description of the house. We know it's a mansion, we know it's brick. What else should people know about this house as a point of 1920 georgian style it's three stories. It's got a very scary basement with the laundry and a very scary furnace terrifying.
Speaker 1:It has two dining rooms. It's filled. The basement's filled with mannequins.
Speaker 2:For some reason yeah, for some reason, has a finished attic yep, and it looks like it was in the 1990s. Everything has really terrible wallpaper, pretty much. Yeah, I think that's all you need to know. There's multiple entrances. There's a back door through the kitchen. There's a front door, there's the zip line through the upstairs window yeah anything else. It's very rich and it's cold, that's all I got.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can ride a sled down the stairs right out the front door.
Speaker 3:Yes, important, I have a question for you both before we get into this. Okay, so do you have in the Home Alone franchise? Do you have a favorite booby trap?
Speaker 2:I think it's when they use the uh, when he uses the uh, the movie which I don't even know, the movie called it's like black and white movie, gangster movie, yeah merry christmas to your filthy animal yeah, and I have an idea for how I would use that.
Speaker 1:It's the only idea I have, where he puts the firecrackers in the pan and plays the movie.
Speaker 2:I have a different idea, but I don't. I don't want to ruin your thunder, eric. I don't know if you should. I warm us up with my half-baked idea and then get into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah okay, this is my only idea is use the neighbor's house as a point of distraction and a trap. So what you would do is you would play the movie um over there very loudly, right by or right by the top of the stairs down to the basement. Obviously, Kevin would need to use power tools, which I think he can. I think he proves to us he can do that.
Speaker 2:So he has to get a chainsaw or something a regular saw from the garage and saw the stairs down to the basement off and then get all the mannequins and make them dance and make lots of bright sounds over by the, the visit or the neighbor's house, and then they all, just like, walk into the basement, fall in the water and drown. That's my best, my best idea for this yeah throw a couple bodies in there, just for the scent like yeah, maybe throw some aftershave in there to make it feel like there might be a human down there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, zombies famously follow the scent of aftershave and ax body spray.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's my one. That's my one idea. I'm tapped.
Speaker 1:I really love the flamethrower because I feel like it's a reusable trap and I think it's an effective trap. I again, I would make it outside the front door, not inside, but Mm-hmm, I like anything that's reusable. If you combine that with the ice staircase, you've got a hilarious and effective defense. That's yeah, and they'll keep falling for it every single time, it's true. And if they start to disperse, you just open the front door and you're like over here, and then they, then they come after me again, you close the door and they set themselves on fire and slip down the stairs it's perfect.
Speaker 2:So, eric, how did you approach this, uh, this challenge that I gave you randomly via text as an interior designer?
Speaker 3:Well, I more so I think you know I have. I looked at the floor plan and the floor you know, following the floor plan was important to understanding you know what you're, what you're working with with each space when it comes to like stairs and windows and doors and all of that. So I think I approached it just kind of thinking about all the entry points of a home and how to basically combat the zombies right there at that point and if, and then having a secondary point inside of a trap once if they possibly get past that first line of defense and did you imagine yourself as eight-year-old kevin?
Speaker 2:while you were doing this, or how did you like, come up with your ideas?
Speaker 3:um, I came up with my ideas by literally just letting my brain do what my brain does. It's god awful and insane.
Speaker 2:I only know one of them because you gave me a preview of one of them. Um, but yeah, feel free to give us your. What's that tv show? It's, uh, the tv show where you get cribs. This is like your cribs show oh my gosh okay, the mccallister.
Speaker 3:So I think it's funny because, like some of the things, as per usual with collaboration, there are even some things I I created as we traps that, as we've been talking and I've heard both of your perspectives on things, I'm like, oh, actually that wouldn't work but I hadn't thought of it, because I hadn't heard that, that perspective, but I will say this.
Speaker 3:So if a zombie is coming in the front door of the house, if they're like you know what, we're going to come right through the front door. I'm not going to get very far, my friend, because right when they open those doors, they're going to be met by a beautiful design that I have collaborated with Lori Calcaterra on. Which is.
Speaker 1:Lori Calcaterra was, which is Lori?
Speaker 3:Calcaterra was consulted. No, no, I piggybacked off of an idea.
Speaker 1:Did you put a bear on the?
Speaker 3:house A dead bear Right. If you try to get into the house, you are going to be assaulted by four directional cannons filled with precious moments, by four directional cannons filled with precious moments. So the precious moments are just going to come flying out in all directions and they've been broken into pieces. So they're just shards at this point, and so we're hoping that the the amount, with the intensity of them coming out of the cannons will just kind of possibly get some right through the head. Yeah, you know, a shrapnel weapon, a shrapnel weapon a unicorn.
Speaker 2:Precious moments would be really helpful in this case because of the horn. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh sure You've, um, you've, let's see, I think about this. Yeah, the ripped up pieces, the jagged pieces, you've essentially, um, you know, home, home, cooked up a claymore, mine, yes, exactly. So it was the first thought that came to my head when I was thinking about this. Was this little precious moment so precious? And that house has lots of precious moments? I think this needs to be. If you make it past, if you make it past that first line of defense, you're going to be met in the foyer.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you for saying that in francais foyer. Yes, you know the foyer.
Speaker 3:Um, uh, you're going to be met with the bear traps. Uh, right there. And uh right. And if you, if you make it past the bear traps and you try to come upstairs, this, this is where I was like wait, if I only have 12 hours to prepare, where am I getting all of these items? Maybe too deeply so, because the stairs all the way up the stairs are covered with swinging pendulums. Oh, which, which I have labeled classic pendulum stairs, so giant bladed pendulums. Oh, which, which I have labeled classic pendulum stairs, so giant bladed pendulums, swinging I mean, that could be like a scythe.
Speaker 2:A scythe from the, from the local store. Yeah, I can see that, perhaps.
Speaker 3:But I've also. I've apparently had the time to sharpen them enough that it would slice right through a zombie.
Speaker 2:But also I'm like where do you get the bear traps from? That's the real question mark for me. Look, wait.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, there's an actual diagram. Oh, yes, I actually drew it out.
Speaker 2:Can you send us a picture of this so we can include it in the post? Sure.
Speaker 1:It's beautiful. Yeah, the scary old man that Kevin's afraid of had a very sharp and deadly snow shovel, so I feel like that could be your pendulum right there.
Speaker 2:He probably has a sharpening stone. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Now, let's say you don't go up the stairs and you decide instead to turn to the right towards the dining room. This is where you're going to be met with a large, open dining room. The dining room this is where you're going to be met with a large, open dining room, but once the zombies go inside, the doors shut and lock and above them is a giant. Imagine, like a, you know, like the, those like, uh, the, the playgrounds in the 90s, the cool playgrounds that would have the giant rope like, like the rope ladder. It's basically just like a giant net and you can climb up the net to the next level of the playground. So one of those just stoked in a lethal acid and it is attached in a way that it will drop and secure to the ground and the zombies are stuck under it as it just literally acidifies through their body.
Speaker 2:Now does it acidify all the way through the floor yeah, well, I you know, we're thinking fictionally here, so well, that could be useful, because then you have an area that they can't get put through anymore that's true, I didn't think about that.
Speaker 3:See collaboration. That's smart there is no.
Speaker 1:I in team Pull a Jesse Penguin on the floor.
Speaker 3:Now, if they decide to go the other direction, to the left, and go towards that open room again, another door they can go inside. The room has been flooded completely, doors close and there are multiple, we'll say, sources of electricity. I called it the zombie zip zap room, so basically the entire room becomes just like an electrified field on the floor.
Speaker 2:I like this one yeah you know, I'm trying to picture how the zombies would be like. I don't know how to describe this with my mouth doing how, how do?
Speaker 3:what are some examples of how zombies handle electric shock?
Speaker 1:I don't know. Yeah, I'm not sure, but the way I understand Romero zombies is that the zombie virus basically takes over the nervous system and moves the body that way.
Speaker 2:so I feel like, as they're being electrocuted, like it's going to do damage to that nervous system and eventually it's just going to render the body like completely, um, immobile if you found a way to actually like deliver the shock straight to the head, like if they had to like slip somehow when they got in so that their brain, they went brain first into the electric shock, that would probably help too with the immobilizing their brain brain first impressive.
Speaker 3:The. The next like fake style. The next big style uh booby trap I came up with was from the kitchen into the basement, so I called them the dish soap death stairs. So the stairs are just coated in thick layers of dish soap and at the bottom of the stairs, okay, imagine a giant metal box or cube, so that as they slip and fall, they go into this box. However, the box is also has layers of sharpened thin sheets of metal inside, so as they fly into it with that.
Speaker 3:That momentum they basically just slice into pieces as they go in, and and as they all go in, they just keep pushing the next one further into the box, more and more. Yeah, it's a very gory box of death, but I was. I figured they just, they would just keep falling and when that momentum just keep pushing the next one in now let's say yeah, let's say they somehow don't actually get into the box um, they fill up the entire floor.
Speaker 3:Yes, the the entire floor of the basement is just so covered in oil. So they're it's just going to be a slippy sliding show forever, like they're never going to get out of there. It's going to be set up in a way that they're just stuck now.
Speaker 2:You know, I think this is an underrated idea. I really this is my favorite one. I think it's the most realistic because you could use things that you have around the house easily. But also, when we first moved into this house, it was previously inhabited by mice. Before we moved in, and we had a very long conversation with mice to get them to vacate our house, and one of the things that we did because there's this, what's that? Youtube channel Mousetrap Mondays- yeah.
Speaker 2:You can look up Mousetrap Mondays on YouTube and see this guy who tries to find all kinds of ways to trap mice, and one of them is to put a bowl out with peanut oil in the bottom and they'll be attracted to the smell and they'll hop into the bowl, but then they can't get back out again because they become covered in grease. And dan, do you want to describe what we found?
Speaker 1:oh, my god there was so many mice in this bowl. This was like a like a glass mixing bowl. It's very tall and there was like six or seven mice in this and they were all just like constantly running. It was horrible Completely slicked with oil, and they were trying to run up the sides but they couldn't and I had to grab this bowl and then take it outside and they're running the whole time. Some of them are just too tired and they just gave up at the bottom and they're just like I'm just going to eat the peanut oil, I guess.
Speaker 2:It was kind of awful, to be honest. We were trying to find a way to not kill them. We tried so many ways to humanely exit these mice and that was one of them. But I think we learned. I was like but now they're covered in oil.
Speaker 3:I don't, it was. This was to find some way to humanely get them out of the house. But I was like what, what are y'all about to do? They fry up real good, listen, listen, legit. I mean, I'm from georgia. Okay, my family in middle georgia.
Speaker 1:They're disgusting I told you that story.
Speaker 3:One time that happened where I was down at a family member's funeral and the night before the funeral they're having a big party and oh, there's a mouse. And they're like here's what we should do, let's toss it to the fire. And I was like, oh my god, I was like losing it. And I remember telling you about it and you were like, talk about cultural anthropology. I'm like, yeah, like the culture anthropology of the redneck, my god the ethnography of the southern redneck, I would read that it is I mean just anyways okay you know that we've disturbed
Speaker 1:ourselves and everybody listening on that topic. I have a short story to tell, okay, um, as a kid I was, I was burning some, some yard waste, like bark and uh, like all kinds of all kinds of all kinds of stuff from our yard because you know, it's springtime, it's time to do some spring cleaning. Um, you know, we split our own wood and stuff, so we had like a large pile of firewood and a lot of like the. The remains of that were going to the end of the fire. So I'm just using a pitchfork and I'm just pitchforking like bark and sticks into a fire. Oh no. And um, and I, and I throw one in and I realize I just tossed a mole into the fire. No, oh no, and it upset me so much I had nightmares after that that I was throwing puppies onto a fire, oh no.
Speaker 1:And it still bothers me to this day.
Speaker 2:I feel like this episode officially needs some sort of trigger warning, but I'm not sure what to call it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe. I should edit that part out, because that is a dark story I'll say this I definitely am a believer of that.
Speaker 3:Oh, you know, try to do something to an animal like that. If it runs back in your house and catches it on fire, you deserve that karma, yeah that's true also.
Speaker 2:I see you've changed locations in your own home to hang out with your lovely dog Mitzi.
Speaker 3:Yes, I have a background of Mitzi lounging.
Speaker 2:What kind of dog is Mitzi again?
Speaker 3:She's a Japanese Chen, or a Japanese Spaniel, as they're called, and they're very interesting dogs because they are first off. They're quite rare to come across outside of Japan or probably, I mean, I'm sure they sure they have, you know, all over the world, but uh, they're not very common here. And they're very interesting because you can literally like, trace their like lineage back and they genuinely were just a dog created to sit on the lap of japanese emperors and royalty.
Speaker 2:It looks like royalty it does, yeah do you think Mitzi would be a good helper in the zombie apocalypse? God, no Are you kidding?
Speaker 3:She has a thing about the house. She has a protective thing about the house. Specifically, I have friends who will come over and she loses it when they come over. But then she'll see them like at work and totally fine with them, no problem. Which is how we learned it's the house. Yeah, it's something about's, something about her face, but like no, she sees somebody in her house that's not usually here and she's like running for the back door. She's ready.
Speaker 2:She acts like a dog who's afraid of fireworks, but she's not afraid of fireworks, it's people but she'll respond like that yes, so we need a mitzi backup plan for safety in the zombie apocalypse, but I feel like we have gone really far off our rails.
Speaker 3:What's next in our home tour, Eric? Okay, so we go upstairs. Let's say you've somehow made it past all the pendulum stairs the one, two, three, four, five pendulum swinging through the stairwell. Once you get upstairs you're gonna have to get through. There's a music room that will draw the zombies in and then, once they get in there, there are a set of flashbang and grenades that will go off. Um, and if they make it through there and try to start going up the stairs to the attic, the? Um, the ladder to the attic first office is out. Um, or the the stairs to the it's, they're off.
Speaker 2:They're not there. They've already been thought off. They're not there.
Speaker 3:But if you somehow make it up upstairs, um, there's going to be a zombie maze that basically hides. Like where that hides? Where the window is to the zip line, out to the treehouse.
Speaker 3:It's basically hidden so you can't see it if you don't have critical thinking to think about where it could be so it just keeps them going around in a circle around the attic, um and uh, to get into that little space where there is the zip line. There's going to be a ladder or like a like, a like, a client like oh, what kind of ladder is that? Like in a playground where you kind of monkey bars, it's going to be a set of monkey bar ladder to like get yourself over there so you'd be going over top of a maze of zombies on the monkey bars this is also story time where this only works for an eight-year-old or an athletic adult, because, well, yeah, as in, not me, because I broke my right ankle on monkey bars at the age of 26 yes, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:There's absolutely no way I'd be able to do this.
Speaker 3:But for an eight year old, absolutely I'm just imagining an able-bodied, you know, the child of eight, you know, is possibly doing this. They bounce and they're very light. Yes, the zip line will take you over to the treehouse, which is covered on the outside. A like, a like. Imagine a giant moat. That is a spike pit, oh shit. So it is a like, the like, the spike pits, but in a moat fashion. So all the way around, um, which means, during that little section on the zip line, you better, you better hold on tight, because you're gonna fall in if you don't. So, um, but it's a full pit with spikes, all the way around, um, to keep it protected in that fortress way, um. And then on the other side of that like, at the base, the entire base of the tree is covered in barbed wires. Wow, so they can't very sharp, prison style barbed wires and is the tree house where kevin is hanging out.
Speaker 3:That's a safe space I would say that is but having that zip line if, in case, of course, we need to get back in to do an evacuate out of the house, um, but that was kind of the ones I focused on. There was a room, uh, the the attic has two rooms. The room on the other side of the attic was actually a Christmas tree maze where I was going to have just a bunch of Christmas trees in it and it was going to be gasoline soaked, just in case we need. Just in case we need to light the room on fire. I'm aware that it could cause the whole house to burn up. However, I'm getting on that zip line and going right back to the house or to the tree house and yeah, you know, plan z, right like this is, which would be maybe a good home alone.
Speaker 2:Plan z that's the name of this movie. This is. Everything else has fucking failed, and I'm just gonna burn it down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that I feel like we need the applause button. Yeah, I'm gonna snap for you. That was. That was really amazing.
Speaker 3:I um well and I feel like you've got to have in in homo, in fashion, you've got to have a couple of, like oil fuel, fire-esque booby traps. So you do but is that one the one in the, the second film with the rope, where he's like now, why would anyone want to soak a rope in kerosene?
Speaker 2:I forgot about that, and then they let it, he's like yeah, the bandits are only slightly smarter than a romero zombie, and the other disadvantage they have is nerve endings oh yeah, that's true because if you, if you have nerve endings and a lot of uh, kevin's original traps are terrible, but for a zombie it's like doesn't matter, which is why this is I mean I mean, my favorite booby trap in the whole franchise isn't even really a booby trap, it's the scene where he's just throwing bricks at marv from the roof also would work for zombies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he just keeps looking up. He's like, right, I forgot about that one. I need to watch home alone to the forehead marv takes a lot, but you know what?
Speaker 3:he is truly the comic genius of that film, I believe.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I've watched Home Alone 2. That's my admission.
Speaker 3:Oh, needs to be changed. They're both so good, it's just, I don't know, it's just. It seemed like in the second one they were like, yeah, these were good booby traps, but let's take it up three, four, five notches.
Speaker 2:Like the booby traps just got so much better in the second one all kevin mcallister made, which is why I believe you. I think the when you were describing your house, I was thinking okay, so there needs to be an army surplus store nearby and a hunting store nearby, and then this all week, oh, and a gardening store. If all those things are in the neighborhood, I think it's plausible yeah, well, it's the suburbs in the eighties.
Speaker 1:So I feel like that's probably all yeah.
Speaker 2:Dan, do you have any ads? Oh, I think you might've covered it, eric, it's a very comprehensive plan. You're like every single room.
Speaker 3:I did. I did Well, I was trying and at a certain point I realized I was like oh, I've still got some rooms that are loose. But I was like, honestly, I don't see them getting to those rooms. I just don't think it's. I put up a first, secondary and third, like potential to like stop them.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and there's some where the kevin's got to hang out. That's not booby trapped, right?
Speaker 3:so you've got the treehouse and maybe one of those other rooms, bedrooms, yeah, yeah well, that's kind of why on the second floor I put like where they're kind of lured into that room with the music, because the rooms on there's like three rooms on the other side of the stairs and I didn't do anything to those. Those are kind of like a safe spot, so the music draws them away, other side yeah it's brilliant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think this is a pretty solid plan. Um, you know it's, it's got. It's got everything you need. It's got the it's. It's got. It's got redirection for the zombies. It's got. Uh, you know it, it can. It can. It can take care of business and also there's an escape option.
Speaker 2:You need to have that escape option yeah, I think the only the only achilles heel of this plan is kevin mccallister himself and his love for aftershave, because then they're all the zombies would know where he was like if he decided to do that, while just hanging out in a safe zone is not safe anymore yeah, no, because zombies as we know love sound love the smell of after shave yes, after
Speaker 3:the enigma music and like a commercial, just like after shape for zombies.
Speaker 2:Feels like a lorry. Is that a? Is that a aftershave? Do either of you use aftershave? Is this a thing?
Speaker 3:no, no I don't shave. I have true, I have. I have this like stuff I put on after I shave, called like repair moisturizer or something. But, um, I probably should get a new one. I've had it for a long time. Doesn't that stuff go bad for like 12 months? There's usually it's like like cosmetics and things they have. They always are like body goods. They always have like that little which I I learned a couple years ago, like that little jar on the label and it'll tell you how many months to keep it for I'm gonna be honest and say I have some makeup I've been using for years.
Speaker 2:I'm sure that's gonna disgust somebody out there, but I don't care.
Speaker 3:I mean yeah, I'm like it doesn't look weird, it looks the same. It's a powder.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not like whatever. Yeah, I mean I think like creams and stuff maybe we're thinking about, but uh, we're going off on a tangent together. Of course we are. Do we think ke Kevin would? Well, let me, what would you rate this yourself in the number of Zeds? For, for feasibility, how feasible do you think your plan actually is for Kevin to execute?
Speaker 3:To execute Not very, but, but then again I mean, look what this kid apparently did in so many hours. It's hard to say for me. I think more so about like the things I would need to make a lot of these, Like handcrafts Right, or giant medieval-style pendulum blades.
Speaker 2:That one feels realistic. To me, Does it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, like where in the Chicagoland?
Speaker 1:suburbs.
Speaker 3:Easier to get than hand grenades. I'll tell you that, yeah, but see, I'm not thinking like. I'm thinking like giant, huge, like I'm talking like could take up an entire hallway. It's that large, like big pendulum blades.
Speaker 1:Um, I just don't know where he's gonna get them, or the acid that one is a little problematic yeah, that might be the easiest one to find where are you gonna?
Speaker 3:get that, but the hardware stores oh but to expect that an eight-year-old is gonna know how to handle this chemical acid and and soak a giant rope net and then?
Speaker 1:no, no, not at all yeah, he'd probably die yeah, he'd definitely get acid all over his hands, for sure.
Speaker 3:Oh my god, absolutely that'd be very painful yeah, I think of the acid that you hear about like documentaries about serial killers, where they would, like you know, put the body into like, yeah, like sulfuric acid but if this was a movie this is a movie how many zeds would we give it?
Speaker 2:I'm gonna give it a nine out of ten zeds, because I would be very entertained. I don't know if my suspension disbelief would be a hundred percent, though there would be those moments where I'm like I don't know.
Speaker 3:No, listen like this, this being my idea. I'm like when someone's like what do you want out of this movie, I'd be like I want my film to be on par with the room, like I would need to be that level of like. Please smoke the fattest joint and watch this and go. What the hell did I just watch. I want it to be like that.
Speaker 2:It should be that absurd this is our next uh discord watch party. What would you name your movie?
Speaker 3:um, uh, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Don't step there, barbara I uh, I think that, um, that both plans the original um kevin mcallister plan, as well as adult kevin mcallister ie eric um plan uh, I think, I think that not only is is it feasible, but I feel like it's the only way that an eight-year-old left their own devices in the zombie apocalypse could survive. I think that they would have to do things like this and like creating a horrifying kill house maze is probably the best thing that an eight-year-old could do if they were on their own.
Speaker 2:I think there's some transferable skills here survival skills here, the maze. I think the maze is brilliant Skills.
Speaker 3:I did. I thought you were going to say transphobic skills and I was like what's some transphobic skills?
Speaker 2:what is this podcast? That'd be shocking. Transferable, transferable skills yeah, I think the the maze is a great survival tip for zombies yeah, um, there's, there's so many, and you know, and ethical, ethical, totally ethical the soap, uh just so yeah, the soap is ethical until you get to the box of slices, slicey things, yeah, that's more diabolical.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that's that, that the, the kill box really, really stepped it up a notch, and I think that was a brilliant trap. Um, it's like. It's like the pungy stick trap, only evolved to have like razor sharp pieces of sheet metal at the bottom.
Speaker 1:Um, you, know, I feel like momentum around the same time as home alone, there was another movie and it was not a kids movie, it was uh, it was the third in the series of the Phantasm movies. Phantasm was a movie in the 70s. This would be the third one and there was a kid in a ghost town left alone in his house that the main character discovers, and this house is full of spinning saw blades, chainsaws, falling from the ceiling like all kinds of crazy stuff, and this kid was absolutely deadly with this house was that, lord of the?
Speaker 1:dead. I don't know the third one. It might, it might have, it might have been. I don't know what the individual names of of each one.
Speaker 1:I only know the numbers the kid also had a frisbee that had razor blades along the outside of it and he just throw it at his enemies and the enemies are like frisbee that had razor blades along the outside of it and he just throw it at his enemies and the enemies are like frisbee okay, I'll just catch that and cuts their fingers off yeah, there was like a ball, yeah, with like, with, like things came out of it yeah, floating ball, that would.
Speaker 1:That had a drill bit that stuck into your head and drilled your brains out and I remember there was that lady in it, that lady of color.
Speaker 3:She had like the like black, like strapless shirt on with the like just giant necklace. Do you remember that?
Speaker 1:I don't show them, I think if we're talking about the same one, I think I've seen it it's been a very long time, but I I just remember that, like around that same time there were there were two movies about kids who were left alone in their houses it wasn't.
Speaker 2:It was definitely a regular thing back then.
Speaker 3:I don't know if y'all were left alone a lot, but I was like a lot oh yeah, I can remember my parents like waiting for the where they're finally like wait, we ain't gotta have somebody watch them, perfect yeah, it was like I was probably like by like 10 or 11, I started to be at home for a few hours by myself and we lived out in the country. So it was like down a long driveway in the middle of nowhere. If anything, I had a young age with my creative, imaginative mind.
Speaker 3:I created my own, like probably initial levels of paranoia, by being like out in the middle of the woods by myself at night in the dark, and I'd be like I would like think that I saw things or heard things, and I'm like I bet I did something to my brain back then with all that imaginative, scary thinking.
Speaker 2:This could be like a longitudinal study of millennial babies growing up out in the woods, because I think I had the exact same experience. But my coping mechanism was like what are my escape plans? I had so many escape plans because all of my neighbors were very far away. So it was like which neighbor could I if they came through this door? Which neighbor could I get to first? What do I do if they're not home? That was like always my next level. I'm like oh God, but what if I get somewhere and they're not even here? Takes me like 20 minutes to get there, and then the next person down there is another.
Speaker 3:Well, like in living out there, I also I have a sister, but we, when I was younger, growing up, we didn't grow up together. She lived with her mom and I lived with my dad and mom and but living out in the country as an only child, basically I didn't have any friends that would come over after school. So I would like just spend time by myself all the time. And I remember I even knew how to get out of my bathroom window and climb there was a branch right outside of it Climb out of the window onto the branch, up the tree onto the roof. You had a plan.
Speaker 3:You're ready so well like no, it was just something I could I knew how to do so I'm like at the end of the day when I think about oh yeah, if I had to have an escape route, I could have done that easy it's funny when you think about this.
Speaker 2:That's why I also think that kevin mcallister is maybe just an eight-year-old kid. When our brains are like really flexible and we are able to come up with new ideas quickly, they're not like stuck in their stupid ruts.
Speaker 3:I don't know I mean it's why. It's why when you learn a secondary language when you're little, you can pick it up like that, because the brain is just consuming it yeah, whereas nowadays yeah, I know a friend of mine who was visiting recently, molly.
Speaker 2:We were talking about like are we just stupider now that we're older?
Speaker 3:no, you know what that's so funny? You say that because I was thinking something recently where I was like my gosh, I have always been so good at spelling and I'll be like wait a second, how do I spell that? And I'm like what's happening?
Speaker 1:I'm like losing the skill to spell it's always like a simple word, like you just look at it and you're like you spell like switch and you're like that's not how it's spelled.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is it is the internet says it's correct, but it doesn't look right the word which, to me, like w-h-i-c-h, I'm like that's not a word. What is that? That's not a word.
Speaker 2:It's a lie, yeah it happens it's okay.
Speaker 2:I I told molly it's. It's gonna be okay because we replace our intelligence with wisdom. I don't know if that's always true, though between us here on the podcast, lots of old people are not very wise, um, but I hope to be one of the one of the wiser ones, even if I lose my smarts and all of my noun retrieval and memory of everything well, we live in a we live in a time where I think, like a lot of people are like resisting against, like change and adaptation and like understanding what, like you know, like growth as a person looks like.
Speaker 3:And so I think like, as long as you're for you're ever evolving and allowing your brain to continue to evolve and grow, you're just fine, I mean this is why we should all microdose mushrooms yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I was actually talking to a friend the day about that, where we were talking about that about then I said you know, I'm still riding off the last time I ever experienced those. And I said you know, I'm still riding off the last time I ever experienced those. And I was like, and I'm at a place in my life where I can tell that if I did it tomorrow, the plant teachers would say what the hell are you doing here? You're doing just fine, because if we need you, we'll find you that's true.
Speaker 2:That is very true. We don't always all need all the time, but I would love to microdose. Just because my brain is more flexible is what I know Absolutely Well. This has been fun. I don't know if we have any other words of wisdom from Kevin McAllister that we need to close with.
Speaker 1:Let me Google Kevin McAllister quotes quickly Say your prayers, you filthy animal Right. Wait, is that what he says? I don't know what he says I'm over the moon for you.
Speaker 3:Johnny, here's a great one but this is alone too.
Speaker 2:You can mess with a lot of things, but you can't mess with kids. On christmas also, it's a nice night for a neck injury that's the one.
Speaker 3:Listen you know what else in. If you look up like the soundtrack to the home alone movies, there is this. My favorite song from any of them is like it's again. It's in the second one, though, but it's when he's like what he walks past this like.
Speaker 3:I guess it's like a at the orphanage, um, and this, and you hear this song and it's like this kid looking out at the stars and I can't find that song anywhere and it's on the soundtracks and I'm like I'm on a mission to find out that song. So if you know it, please tell us somewhere, in a comment or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're on the hunt, Somebody knows it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that song that Eric just did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and tell us what. What did Eric miss? What would you have done? What would you have added to the booby trap house? I feel like it was pretty damn comprehensive. So curious if anybody's got any other ideas, and maybe we can do home alone too next year in New York city.
Speaker 1:Also, what was your favorite trap?
Speaker 2:yeah, let us know which one is. Which one should we actually try and create in miniature?
Speaker 1:yeah, I like the. Uh, I like the box at the bottom of the stairs.
Speaker 2:I just had a brain wave. Okay, I don't know, eric, if you sell these ever, but people should know. Not only can you have eric lloyd design your home, you can also have eric lloyd create miniatures of things, and I'm just realizing I might need to commission a miniature of this house whoa, I do.
Speaker 3:I. I currently am working on a full dollhouse at the moment, so that's amazing.
Speaker 2:What's the dollhouse?
Speaker 3:theme, um, it's um, each room is very different. I love to do that where I kind of make them all different, but the one I have right now is it's an actual like dollhouse and when you open it up it's like it's got a each room's kind of got a groovy mod vibe to it. One of the rooms, the kitchen, the kitchen's backdrop is literally the kitchen from the golden girls.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, that's amazing. Yeah, so you can. You can also, if you can't afford a full home renovation, interior design although Eric is very creative with the budget too. You can absolutely contact him, and if you're free, you got you could make a little commission miniature yeah, you know, maybe you can't afford a full-size home, get a little tiny one.
Speaker 1:I mean who can't afford a full-size home nowadays, this is your best shot at home ownership yeah, maybe you want um a miniature with all these traps in it.
Speaker 2:I kind of do actually, I think I need to save for that.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh I can already feel the exhaustion for making all the teeny, tiny little like booby traps and you're just searching the internet like where the hell am I gonna find an acid rope? I can use toothpicks for the spike pit mode oh, very smart.
Speaker 1:You're at home depot and you're like will this acid dissolve a dollhouse?
Speaker 2:eric any final words of wisdom for all of us how to survive a home alone christmas my final words are think like an eight-year-old Life, isn't that serious.
Speaker 3:Have fun.
Speaker 1:Beautiful From the guy who made the razor blade box at the bottom of the stairs.
Speaker 2:Yep, thank you, eric. I hope you have fun holiday shopping after this. Thanks for being here. Thank you, bye everybody, bye-bye, bye. Well, that was fun. That was fun. I'm really grateful that Eric had a full-on plan, because we were originally going to each have our own full-on plan and then ask you, the listener, to rank whose plan was best, but then we didn't because we had a snowpocalypse here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, remember that episode several episodes ago, when we didn't have electricity. That's when we're doing this.
Speaker 2:Yes, we're recording this on Saturday, novembermber 30th, the day we just got internet back after not having it for a while.
Speaker 1:I'm having power for a long time.
Speaker 2:Yeah again.
Speaker 1:This is our past for your future oh, we're talking into the future with technology.
Speaker 2:It's amazing and they're going into the past to hear us but a big thank you to eric, who I imagine is listening to this, for coming up with some brilliant ideas and saving the day.
Speaker 1:I love the kill box.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really just am into the slippery thing because I think that that's very realistic and we saw it with the mice. It does work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, home Alone and all of Eric's traps really emphasize how great it is to have a system in place that utilizes minimal amounts of energy for you. Yeah, yeah, just like slippery stairs, that could do that. That could do so much for somebody in a in a zombie apocalypse.
Speaker 2:Slippery stairs with a slippery bottom so they can't get up back up again. Brilliant, brilliant Mazes, brilliant. Yeah, I never thought of that. Hedge maze, hedge maze, yeah, christmas, christmas tree maze, that was very fun. Uh, we hope you enjoyed it too. Let us know what you would, what you would do, if you were a Kevin McAllister and home alone with zombies. We want to know. Tell us what your favorite trick was your favorite booby trap.
Speaker 1:How they could? Uh, they could join our zombie horde, they could. How do they stay in touch with us, the zombie book club? They could do that by uh going to the discord, the brain munchers discord, that ollie made um link in the description. Also we got a link tree. But also you can find us on instagram. Follows on instagram.
Speaker 2:We do stuff we hang out a lot. We're there and on Discord for the most part. You can also leave us a voicemail at 614-699-0006. I'd actually love some more voicemails. They're very fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, google's been threatening us, so send us some more voicemails so that they don't cancel our number.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you're a books and you can also email us at zombie book club podcast at gmailcom. Lots of ways to get to us. Yeah, so many ways. We do not have a lot of fortifications, except for that. You don't know our last names. That's really it.
Speaker 1:And where I work, or middle names yeah, true, uh, true, but thanks everybody for listening. We really appreciate you. It's been a great ride so far and I love what this? Community has become. It's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and whatever you're doing, wherever you are, I hope you're warm and cozy and happy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, be warm and cozy, Be happy yeah.
Speaker 2:Don't be a A Grinch, don't be a Grinch, don't be a Grinch, don't be a Grinch, don't be a mouse in a bowl of oil. That's my final survival tip for you. Yeah, have a great day, everybody. Have a great night, bye-bye.
Speaker 3:The end of the night.
Speaker 2:Bye-bye.
