.jpg)
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
Resident Evil (2002) - Corporations are the real monsters | Zombie Book Club Ep 119
We crack open Resident Evil (2002) to expose Umbrella Corp’s playbook: a secret underground lab, an AI “Red Queen” that chooses lethal containment over humanity, and a virus that turns a research facility into an underground tomb. By mapping the film’s thrills onto today’s corporate landscape, we explore how shareholder‑driven incentives, corporate personhood, and profit‑first logic can become a real‑world horror story—a corporate psychopath that “kills” for efficiency.
From the legal roots of corporate personhood (the 14th Amendment) to the documentary The Corporation that diagnoses corporations as psychopaths, we discuss how the Red Queen’s logic is a cautionary AI‑governance tale and a mirror of unchecked corporate power. We finish with concrete steps: building mutual‑aid networks, supporting cooperatives, and demanding transparency to “shoot the corporate head” before the next outbreak.
Relevant Links
- Wikipedia – Resident Evil (2002 film) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil_(film)
- NPR – “When Did Companies Become People?” – https://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/335288388/when-did-companies-become-people-excavating-the-legal-evolution
- The Corporation documentary official site – https://thecorporation.com/
- Beagle Freedom Project – https://bfp.org/
- Leah’s Etsy shop (Sunset Cloud Parade) – https://www.etsy.com/shop/SunsetCloudParade
Help Keep Zombie Book Club alive!!! - https://www.gofundme.com/f/keep-zombie-book-club-alive
Zombie Book Club Links
- Sign up for our Newsletter!!!! --- https://zombiebookclub.io/newsletter/
- Join the Brain Muncher’s Zombie Collective: https://discord.gg/rn3nPDa4CB
- ZBC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zombiebookclubpodcast/
- ZBC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/710957975263518/
- Zombie Book Club Voicemail: (614) 699-0006
- Zombie Book Club Email: ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com
- Our Merchandise Store (Where you can find our Evil Magic Chicken Zombie Shirts): https://zombie-book-club.myspreadshop.com
Welcome to Zombie Book Club, the only book club where the book is underground, and in a strange twist of fate, AI is protecting it from the prying eyes of humans. I'm Dan, and when I'm not deep underground, I'm writing a book about a zombie apocalypse where mega corporations, tech billionaires, and politicians take full advantage of the crisis to seize control and rewrite the rules to give themselves absolute power. Sounds a lot like the movie we're talking about today.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'm glad that these things only happen in fiction. Only. And I'm Leah. Dan, I need you to close your eyes. Okay, I'm close my eyes. And if you're listening to this and not driving or um grading something unsafe, I'm operating equipment. Oh no! Close your eyes. Okay. Your eyes are closed? Yeah. Okay. Imagine a body that cannot die, has no pulse, and no conscience, yet it's granted the full rights of a human being. What is it? Donald Trump. Also true. I've seen a lot of people say, is that at this point I'm convinced the president is AI. Maybe he knows. Yeah. But no. It's a corporation, legally a person, biologically undead.
SPEAKER_05:Just like Donald Trump.
SPEAKER_02:It doesn't age. Oh. It outlives its makers. It consumes without remorse. Uh the question is: if a corporation is a zombie, what does justice look like? And how the fuck do we shoot them in the head so they're dead? Oh, yeah. Where is the head? You know, um, Luigi Mangioni had some ideas about that. Yeah, but it But that was just one head.
SPEAKER_05:That corporation, yeah. The corporation continues. The man died, the corporation continued. The shareholders demanded that money still be made. Yeah, you know what? This is like that um that sewer zombie in the first season of Dead City, where it had like four or five different heads.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_05:You know, um, not sure how exactly that worked, um, but you had to kill all the heads. So I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know. I don't know either. And um I've been studying this question since 2007, and I still have no good answers. So I don't know what the head of the corporation is.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Well, you know what, I think corporations do have one weakness. What's that? Money.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yes, we can starve.
SPEAKER_05:And then it goes away.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we have to create our own communities and systems so that we don't need the corporations so much anymore. Yeah. Uh today we're talking about Resident Evil. In case it wasn't obvious. The movie, the first movie, not the game. Yeah. I learned recently that one of my nieces really loves Resident Evil, the game. Yeah. That was very exciting.
SPEAKER_05:There's there's a lot of there's a lot of games, and um, I'm partial to the first three. So you've played it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I grew up, I grew up with uh Resident Evil. It was like the only zombie game for a long time. Except for Zombies Ate My Neighbors. That was on Sega Genesis. And actually it was a kind of a good zombie game. Um Leah, we release episodes every Sunday. So Subatomic? I just at this point I'm just looking up words that start with sub.
SPEAKER_02:I'm surprised that we hadn't come to that one yet. We should have used it for Fallout. Maybe when Fallout 2 is out, we can do it again. We're gonna reuse it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Uh well, the cool thing today is that we're talking about a movie that I've never seen before until now. Yeah, this is your first time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And uh I haven't seen it since like the 2000s.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I I actually we have a little Facebook group now. Um, and whenever there's a new person who's joined once a week, I do a little post. It's automated. And it asks, it welcomes the new Facebook group members uh and asks what their favorite zombie movie or book is. And a number of people have said their favorite movie is Resident Evil. Alice B. Sullivan said it was Resident Evil. Um Dee Lee says Resident Evil. I feel like somewhere Brandon Staraki also said Resident Evil. Shoot me if I'm wrong, Brandon, or don't actually. Please don't. We're still waiting on your mustache. Just saying. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Brandon has yet to deliver the mustache.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, from losing Summerween slam down.
SPEAKER_05:He claims that a family member stole said mustache.
SPEAKER_02:Um well, that's what we've heard through a friend of a friend of a friend. I am waiting for Brandon's response.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, we have to confirm.
SPEAKER_02:Our super villain Brandon. Yeah. Uh, but before we get into Resident Evil, we have a couple of things like some quick life updates. Oh. And a very belated elevator pitch that I have literally been trying to share with you all for like two months, but it never seems like the right time. And today is the time. I feel like actually today is perfect. Yeah. From what I know. Yeah. Um, so life updates, Leah. Yeah. What have you been up to since we recorded uh last week?
SPEAKER_05:Um, took a few days off, then went back to work. Uh Wednesday, I was capable of writing, so I did. I wrote a little bit today as well, right before we recorded this episode. Um, it's not great, but you know what? It moves me along. I feel like I've been writing this book for 50 years. Um, and I also feel like I'm still at the beginning of this book. It's not that I'm writing slow, it's just that it's a process, you know.
SPEAKER_02:I can't even imagine this process. Making art like visual art feels so much simpler than when I listen to writers talk about writing. You all fascinate and terrify me.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it feels like a mental illness. Yeah. Um, and maybe it is.
SPEAKER_02:Not to not to uh make light of mental illness. I I have many. I mean, we both do. Uh why did we take off time, just in case folks missed the last episode?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, if you missed the last episode, which I totally understand, what had nothing to do with zombies, except for one very distant call back to zombies right at the end. Uh which I don't even know what was. Um, our little buddy Nero, our our pupper doo, our doggo uh passed away last weekend. Uh right when we were supposed to record an episode and edit an episode and get ready for Zombie Ween that was supposed to come out this week. Um but uh alas, those things could not happen. So we had to push a lot of things back, had to make room and space, we had to take some days off of work um and just be there with our feelings about our little puppy dog.
SPEAKER_02:And Snuggle Ziggy, who is still here with us and is playing his very important role of podcast sidekick. Also, I'd like to remind folks that last year he was voted America's next top zombie. Oh for my cartoon of him as a zombie.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, right, yes. I'm like, uh we're zombifying Ziggy.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I need to get on some making some new zombies to have, and this year is America's next top zombie. Or we should just give it to Nero. Yeah. Because he's he's dead now.
SPEAKER_05:So kind of in memoriam. Oh it's like when they finally give somebody the Academy Awards.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my god, it's his lifetime achievement award. Uh, you know what? I think that's what we're doing. Uh and if you're wondering what the heck is zombie ween, Dan just referenced, it's an annual game show that we do. It's very funny. It features zombie authors and creators competing for a meat crown that uh yours truly Leah, bleep last name person, makes. Um, uh other just brief thank you. I want to say a lot of folks reached out and shared their condolences, talked about their own animals that they've loved and lost, sent us cookies and flowers. And I just want to say thank you. Thank you so much for seeing us and for caring. It means a lot. Um I miss having the podcast be this thing that I do that's fun and not uh I feel like I've been a little bit off my game because I'm also still unemployed. I'm almost officially two months into unemployment. No job. So you should go check out my Etsy page. Uh I am officially launching it the day that this website comes out. There's a few things on there. If you're you like cute art, uh come check out my stuff. I make cute little mushroom incense holders, little trinket boxes, I do custom portraits of pets. I used to do custom portraits of children on the beach. You'd have to pay me a lot for one of those. I don't want to ever do one again. That was a whole trend, a micro trend that happened to me many years ago as an artist. And um, I don't want to paint kids in bathing suits anymore. It gets weird.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I understand that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. But if you want a portrait of your pet or a little clay ornament of your pet, I'm your person. Go check out my Etsy page.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, pets never get weird.
SPEAKER_02:No.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And it's really fun to create, recreate them, and honor them in that way. So yeah, that's uh a way you can support us. And also, I think we are overdue for a shout-out for some people who supported the GoFundMe. As of this recording, we've raised over a thousand dollars. Thank you. Wow. That brings us incredibly close to our six-month goal, survival goal. Um, so that gives us about four months, a little less than four months, maybe like five, actually, almost exactly five months uh of podcast runway, two of which we've eaten by me being unemployed, but still really appreciate that. And there's been a number of folks who have recently donated uh that I don't think we gave shout-outs to. So I'd just like to say some thank yous to them. Uh Nina Caillou, thank you. Thank you so much. You've been a zombesti since the beginning. Rebecca Deshaun, my friend, my beloved from Atlanta. I miss you. Thank you for your generosity. Covey Chintam, uh, former coworker, thank you. Also, um, very cool human being, and a fellow zombie apocalypse survivor community kind of type. Uh Naila, thank you again for your support. An anonymous person, thank you, anonymous. Another anonymous person. Whoa, anonymous is donating? Yeah. Um you know what? That'd make me feel really good if they were. Let's just say they are because they're anonymous. There's two anonymous people. Kate, my childhood best friend, um, who I don't think has ever listened to this podcast. Thank you so much for your money. Uh, Reanimated Podcast, a fellow undead podcast. I've listened to a few of their episodes recently. They're really cool. Oh, good. They're also a co-host duo, and I think we should have them on the show sometime.
SPEAKER_03:You gotta check that out.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, uh, you know what it's like to run a podcast. So thank you so much. Corey McClinton, thank you. And I thank everybody else we thanked on the last episode. So what I would say is we're not actively promoting this right now. Um, but if we are in a position where we need to in the future, we will. I also am thinking of some ways to offer additional value and have a pay what you can sort of opportunity on Patreon. But we're still cooking that up for 2026. There's no solid plans yet, but just a heads up.
SPEAKER_05:Actually, I have have some ideas that I was gonna tell you about um about things like Patreon and stuff, because I've been I've been exploring Substack. I'd be interested to know if anybody listening knows what Substack is.
SPEAKER_02:I'm sure many people know what it is. Sylvester Barzi has a great Substack.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Um I I really like Substack, but I haven't really fully launched on it yet. You know, like I'm still trying to kind of like finding my place in Substack. But I did create a Zombie Book Club podcast uh Substack. I just haven't posted anything yet.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's like it's hard. You know, there's like a million places we could be. That's what I get confused about. Um, but for now, you should join the Zombie Book Club Podcast Zombesties public Facebook group. Yeah, come hang out with us there. Tell me what your favorite movie is and let me know if it's Resident Evil. If you're on if you're a Facebook person, you know what? Maybe you're an Instagram person.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I think it's time, well overdue, for us to share an author elevator pitch from our friend Zelinda Morrison. Yeah, you don't want to push it off until next week? No. Because next week is Zombie Wien Game Show 2025. Also, Zelinda had a uh a free deal for Kindle. So I actually just got their book on my Kindle and um have not started because dog died. Financial employment crisis. I haven't been doing a lot of reading yet lately, other than job descriptions. One of them was actually very zombie-esque. It said that uh they were looking for somebody who could show their teeth. Quote unquote. Direct quote from a job description. Literally or I don't know because I'm not the person who wrote it, but I instantly said, this is a sociopath. Who would put that in a job description? Comfortable showing your it's not comfortably showing your teeth in disagreements.
SPEAKER_05:Oh.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. I mean that that sounds like they're looking for a very specific kind of person.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so I applied.
SPEAKER_05:No, I didn't get a call back. Um, let's let's hear this groan from Zelinda Morrison. All right, you ready? I'm ready.
SPEAKER_00:Hi, this is Zelinda Morrison introducing Harsh Light, my zombie novella. It explores what would happen if sleep were a privilege. What if you had to earn points to sleep? What if you had to rack up merits at work to be allowed to sleep at night? And if you didn't, you'd be awake for days. And what happens when nobody on the planet sleeps and infrastructures collapse? You can get this on Amazon, and um, if you have Kindle Unlimited, you can read it without having to spend money other than the monthly subscription. Thank you.
SPEAKER_05:Wow. I uh A, that sounds like a horrifying world to live in, and B, I kind of feel like that's already the world I live in.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because you don't have time to sleep. Yeah, like you get to sleep when you're off for the season.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I I sometimes, you know, usually, usually I'm done by 12 hours in a day. Sometimes it's 14, sometimes it's longer than that. But I I feel like I come home, I've got about an hour to shovel food into my mouth and be a human. And then immediately, like, I'm like, if I want to get six hours of sleep, I better go to bed right now.
SPEAKER_02:And sometimes we revenge bedtime and you get four hours of sleep.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Some sometimes we're watching a dumb Netflix show that we get hooked on and we're like, well, let's just do one more episode. Shout out Sneaky Pete. Sneaky Pete's all right. It's all right. It's all right, it's not it's not like groundbreaking. No, but you know what?
SPEAKER_02:If if you're like if you're mourning, if you're mourning the loss of your dog and you need to dissociate and not think very hard and be mildly entertained, yeah. Sneaky Pete's your guy.
SPEAKER_05:Sneaky Pete. Um yeah, that's uh that sounds horrifying. Um, because I I could absolutely see a world where you have to earn your right to sleep if capitalism continues down the path that we're going. Like, you know, that they they already want to do away with like retirement age, um, you know, like workers' rights. They just they they just want you to work the whole time. I don't know when they we're supposed to spend our money on the products that they're making, um, but we're just supposed to keep making the products.
SPEAKER_02:Well, the working all the time makes us buy the products because we have no time. So like convenience items, skyrocketing. Like, why is everything like disposable? This disposable, that one meal, put it in the oven or the microwave. It's because they we don't have time. But I don't I don't want to see this world, Zelinda, except in fictional form, because if I don't get nine hours of sleep, I'm I'm an angry zombie.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I need to get five. Five is five is my minimum.
SPEAKER_02:I cannot function on five. That is way too little. Seven is fine. Uh, as Zelinda said, you can check them out on Amazon, on Kindle Unlimited. They also have a Reddit uh thread that I'm gonna put, or Dan, I should say, I'm I'm Dan's going to put it in the show notes for you.
SPEAKER_05:I'm gonna put it in there.
SPEAKER_02:And their handle on Instagram is Zelinda Morrison. Uh Z, look at me slacking like an American. Zed. Z-E-L-I-N-D-A. Morrison. Just like it sounds, it'll also be in the show notes. So thank you so much for uh submitting that for us. I know there's a whole series uh that I am looking forward to digging into.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it's it's it sounds fascinating and horrible horrible.
SPEAKER_02:It also is perfect for this episode because we are talking about corporations in the apocalypse in this episode.
SPEAKER_05:We are. I forgot what we were talking about.
SPEAKER_02:Uh one last thing. We're going to reveal the 2025 Zombie Wien game show theme and lineup at the end of this episode. So if you have been waiting with burning venereal disease anticipation, um is venereal disease a slur now? I don't think so. Now I'm worried. Venereal disease. STI disease. Yeah, a sexually transmitted infection. That is the better term. What were we talking about? I don't know. Um, I have no idea why I brought that up. This is what grief sounds like.
SPEAKER_05:Something about burning.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. If you have a burning itching need to know who the uh contestants are for Zombie Wii and Game Show 2025, we will announce that at the end of this episode. Yeah. Let's get into Residential Evil.
SPEAKER_05:Residential evil.
SPEAKER_02:The movie. You know, you know, residential evil. I've been calling it that all week, and Dan has been laughing at me, and I honestly didn't realize I was saying it wrong. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So Resident Evil, it's a movie, it's a game, uh, it's a movie game, and uh came out in 2002. I remember seeing it in the movie theater. Wow. When I was in training in the army. Um, and it blew my mind then. And you know, this uh this came before uh 28 weeks later, it came before the reboot of um Dawn of the Dead, like it came before Shawn of the Dead. This is kind of like a reawakening of the zombie genre because I feel like for a very long time there wasn't a single decent zombie movie until Resident Evil. Wow. Um, correct me if I'm wrong. I was still in high school in 2002. Wow. Yeah, I was I was almost finished with my first year of training.
SPEAKER_02:I know you cradle robbed me. We met in 2002. Wait, no, that's not true.
SPEAKER_05:No, we did.
SPEAKER_02:We did, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:It was the end of 2002.
SPEAKER_02:I feel like I've got to do math in my head to make sure that's true. I bel I think you're right.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah. I I remember everything based on what I was doing, and I knew that I was uh actually that was after training. So I I just um got to my first duty assignment, um, and I was sent back out to do more training, because that's how it works in the army. Train, train, train, and then one day you get to use it. Um what were we talking about? Resident Evil. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So tell us about it, Dan. Let's do a quick summary and some key characters, and then we'll get into what we thought about this movie.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, so our characters, we got Alice, who's the main character, played by Mila Jovovich. Um, we got Spence Parks, who's uh Alice's supposed husband. Um, we got Rey in Ocampo by uh played by Michelle Rodriguez. Uh this is like right after she was in The Fast and the Furious. The first Fast and the Furious. Uh the second one hadn't even come out yet.
SPEAKER_02:I actually learned uh in preparing for this episode that Michelle Rodriguez said to her agent that if they ever made a Resident Evil movie, she wanted to be in it because she loved the game.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Uh we got Matt Addison, who's an environmental activist. What? This can't be right. Yeah, I don't think Matt I think this is uh this is incorrect. Um ah man, I don't know. I gotta go back to the movie. Was Matt Addison an environmental activist? I didn't notice that vibe. It might have been in the game. Sometimes, like when we pull up uh facts about things, if there's a game and a movie and if they differ too much, we might get the wrong thing. Uh at the very beginning, Matt introduces himself as a cop, um, but he might have been lying about that. I don't know. I think he was lying. I know he was there to try to find his sister who was working in uh the place. The hive. We'll talk about the hive later. Uh Chad experts, you should listen to us talk about this movie. Uh Chad Kaplan, the team's computer expert. Um, and then we've got JD Salinas, uh, who's uh somebody you added to the list with no context. No, JD Salinas is a part of the team. You had somebody else's name there before, but that was from the video game. Uh we can't forget the Red Queen. The Red Queen. Uh I kind of I probably would have left it out because I'm like, that's an AI. We don't we don't give credit to AI. If corporations are people, then the Red Queen is a character in this. Yeah, so uh the Red Queen is the hive's the Hive, it's an underground bunker, we should say that. Um the Hive's AI defense system. So like she has like a hologram going on, lots of lasers, and she's an absolute psychopath. Modeled after uh one of the corporation people's executives' uh children. Yeah, the designer's kid. Um, so the movie takes place, it starts off uh in the mansion. The mansion's actually where the first game takes place. Like the hive was actually just kind of like a creation for the movie, as far as I'm concerned. Unless, I mean, I didn't really finish the first Resident Evil game, but I'm pretty sure it all takes place in the mansion. Um but yeah, so the mansion is like the top of the hive, and both Alice and Spence are kind of like guardians of that door. Like they're highly trained people who are supposed to just keep people out of the hive. And what is the hive? The hive is this underground research facility that's uh like 2,000 feet under the city, the raccoon city.
SPEAKER_02:It's a city full of raccoons in the near future, uh wherever then whatever the near future is when you're watching it, basically.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it might be, um but also it might just be that the corporation just has like lots of really good technology. Like it's it's a high-tech company, the umbrella corporation. They've got their fingers in like uh uh pharmaceutical stuff, um, technology, biological weapons, yeah. And unbeknownst to most of society, they have the most of their money is made through government contracts making bioweapons and genetic uh experimentation and therapies and uh other interesting things. Um so fun. Uh the Umbrella Corporation, uh good thing we don't have anything like that. Not at all. You know, corporations that have a friendly face on the outside, and they're like, we're making your life livable, and make and we make your hamburgers and your medicine. And then on the other side, they're like, also the bombs to kill you with.
SPEAKER_02:I really love the name Umbrella Corporation. Like it could not be more on the nose. And I forget what the exact status is, but I think it was like nine out of ten things you buy in this universe from Umbrella Corporation. Amazon, Walmart.
SPEAKER_05:Um feels like so many mega corporations at this point.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Uh, if you look at, I think we only have like three or four actual grocery chains left in the United States, despite all their names. Uh, most of the brands we look at are actually all from the same companies. Yeah. Uh the umbrella corporation is a real concept, a real or a real thing in real life. A real thing in real life. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And like all of your streaming services, like a lot of them are just owned by the same umbrella corporation.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Uh which you would think like if if Paramount and HBO Plus and Disney are all the same thing, couldn't we just subscribe to one thing? No, they want more money. They don't want$20, they want$60.
SPEAKER_02:They want you to think there's differences, just like the no name brand stuff is made up in the same place as the fancy name brand stuff. Uh, but basically a virus leaks, one of their biological weapons leaks and kills everybody inside of the hive.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Or does it so it infects everybody, but I think I think the Red Queen kills everybody in the She definitely kills everybody in the elevators.
SPEAKER_02:That's right, because the Red Queen has the directive that if something like this were to happen, you just kill everyone so that you don't have the outbreak spread to the outer world. Uh so basically we enter the the movie when Alice is waking up in the mansion, uh, in a shower, naked, of course. Very important detail, uh, with amnesia. She doesn't know who she is or where she is.
SPEAKER_05:You know, the amnesia thing is something that's that's used quite a bit. Like 28 Days Later used it, The Walking Dead used it a little bit to some extent. Like, ah, where am I? How did all this happen? Um, and I think it's actually like really interesting in this context because like since the movie's based on a video game, like you, as the player of the video game would kind of come into something with no previous knowledge of anything. So Alice being like a blank slate, that's you playing the role of Alice. You're you're hopping in and you're like, I don't know anything, and neither does Alice. And she's got to figure things out and let us know when she figures it out. But all of a sudden, there are these umbrella commandos leaping into the mansion. You think they just come in through the front door, but they just bash in through the through the through the glass. Um, yeah, we don't really know why. They just do it.
SPEAKER_02:It's uh it looks cool, and they just tell her, like, oh yeah, you don't know who you are because you were you got sprayed in the face of something that makes you forget who you are.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, you had you had forget forgetful gas.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and also you're also an umbrella operative, and you're gonna go underground to the hive with us to investigate what's going on. And Alice goes, Okay.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and then we also meet the guy that's like that's there for some reason, and he's like, uh, I'm a I'm a police officer, and they're like, whatever, buddy, we're gonna handcuff you, and you're also coming into the hive.
SPEAKER_02:That was maybe a bit of uh don't look too closely at the plot, the starting plot, or why it is that these people seem to care so much about each other, even though uh it feels like they don't know who each other are half the time. Um so they go underground, yeah. Into the hive.
SPEAKER_05:Into the into the hive. Um in the hive, you know, they have to take a train into the hive. Important to know because they have to take a train back out. Um, but they take a train, they go into the hive, and they find it like empty, and they're like, Well, that's weird. And then they start finding corpses, they find the the labs have been flooded. Oh, that was that was a crazy part of the intro sequence when uh the Red Queen was killing everybody. Like most people, she killed with gas or she dropped them down an elevator shaft, but the uh the laboratories, um, all of a sudden their fire extinguishers just started spraying. So, like their airtight room is just filling up with water. Drowning doesn't sound like a great way to go. I'm not a fan. No, no, no, thanks.
SPEAKER_02:Um, yeah, and they discover zombies.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I don't think they call them zombies though. No, they can't, it's against the rules. Um, you know, you gotta they they gotta be naturally confused about the zombies. So they're like, like, hey, what's this lady doing? She looks all messed up, and then uh she attacks them, like bites Michelle Rodriguez in the hand, and then they push her away, and they're like, What? She's crazy, and then they shoot her five times, and then she lays, she goes down on the ground, and uh then they're like, Where'd she go? I don't know where she went. Zombies usually go in a straight line, but this one got tricky and decided to go hide somewhere for a while. I'm so glad you remember things.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Until it was convenient for her to come back out, and they're like, She's supposed to be dead, and then they shoot her 75 more times, and uh, and she's and she's still like, ah, hey guys, I'm a zombie.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so does that sum up the do you like my rendition of this movie? So far, I think you gotta talk about the mutant creatures that are also zombie-esque, but they're like they've been mutated.
SPEAKER_05:So let's talk about the zombie types because we got Resident Evil is as as a franchise is has has always had crazy zombies in them. You got your standard run-of-the-mill George Romero zombies.
SPEAKER_02:You say standard, but having like watched a lot of George Romero films and then been mostly immersed in zombie world from like 2010 onward, I was like, oh, these like look and move like George Romero. Like the makeup was very George Romero. It was distinct for me.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. So again, this is like this is before 28 days later. So there hasn't been a movie with fast zombies in it. I mean, again, correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think I am though. Um, the idea of a fast moving zombie isn't even in the cultural zeitgeist. So the only really good zombie movies have been George Romero movies, and they kind of set the the standard for what a zombie is. So zombie movies all all they all moved like Romero zombies. Um so I I thought the zombies were really great, and one thing that I really loved was how how scary they actually made these slow moving zombies. Like they actually they actually uh gave it some tension. Um so I think they did a really good job with it. Uh we also have zombie dogs. How did you feel when you saw the zombie dogs?
SPEAKER_02:I was pissed because before they were zombie dogs, we saw them as Dogs. Yeah. And they were in these really shitty cages with like they didn't even have a bed. They were just like in little cubicles. They were all Dobermans for some reason. It was clear they were being experimented on, which um I don't think it'll shock anyone that I'm I'm not pro-animal experimentation. I think they're not consenting.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, and they do some horrible things to them. Check out the Beagle Freedom Project if you're interested in learning more about actual dog animal experimentation. They do some fucked up things to beagles. There's a whole organization that basically just tries to convince andor take slash rescue beagles who have been uh in experimental labs and then give them new homes and like they've never touched grass, they don't trust human beings at all. It is fucked. So my immediate reaction was like, that's awful. So when they became zombies and like broke out of their cages, I was like, good, good for you, zombie dogs. The zombie dogs are rising up. Yeah, I was okay with that.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Um, I think they're all Dobermans because that's what they were in the game. Oh, okay. And because this is like a game from 1998, you've got one model of dog. That's that's all the all you have all you have memory for is one kind of dog. Um, but yeah, they're all their skins peeled off because they had to they had to crawl through a wire cage, they had to chew their way out of their their their cages. Um, and it's upsetting. They're not slow though, they're actually really fast. They are dog fast, they are dog fast. Um, and there's a third type of zombie in this movie, and one that Leah did not see coming. Uh, I knew it was coming because I played the games. It's the liquor. Did you know it was called a liquor? I did not. Yeah. Why? Because that freaky tongue. Tongues! And their tongues can shoot out and whip your ankles and drag you into their mouth.
SPEAKER_02:Well, what was interesting about them was like we knew there were these things called they were not called, they we knew there were these cage things, and you kind of see them at first. But like, what was the umbrella corporation doing making these things? Yeah, are they supposed to be weapons? Probably. Oh god, are they like mutated dogs with really long tongues?
SPEAKER_05:They could be. I don't have the answers to that. Um, but my belief with the dogs is that um if they were making biological weapons, um, they would want something that you could train, but you could also give them some really heightened abilities. And maybe that's what they were using the T virus for, is like we can enhance their abilities. Maybe they were making liquors. I mean, they run around on all fours, so they could have been dogs, I guess. Um, they're doing all kinds of like genetic research down there, so but if you're trying to sell something to the military, the military is like, well, we need canine units, and they're like, Well, what about super canines? Those things are fucking scary. You know, everybody else will think they're normal, but these dogs run like 97 miles an hour.
SPEAKER_02:I really enjoyed the shot of them uh cutting the tongue off, cutting the tongue to like help save somebody.
SPEAKER_05:Uh yeah, from the liquor.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And in general, I know we're not the parts where like things we love, but I loved watching a movie that like all the scary stuff was cutaways, which is perfect for me because I can't I look away for all the scary stuff. And if there's any like body horror stuff, I'm looking away. I don't like to see it. I just asked Dan to tell me when it's done. So I was appreciative that like most of the time we didn't even see the thing that was happening, we just had it implied through a series of cuts.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Um a fourth type of zombie was mentioned in the movie. Um, and I don't think you caught it because you haven't played the games, but when I first saw this movie and they were carding off one of the characters, and they're like, put him in the nemesis project. I'm like, oh shit, is the next movie gonna have nemesis in it? I'm down to watch it. I'm here for the whole series now. So they mentioned Nemesis at the very end, but we didn't we didn't see Nemesis. Um, and uh that's all I'm gonna say about that.
SPEAKER_02:I you know, I will say it's it's people's favorite movie for a reason. I thought it was pretty quality for 2002.
SPEAKER_05:You know, I I've avoided re-watching it for a very long time because I don't know, like I I I liked other zombie movies and like Resident Evil kind of takes this more sci-fi approach to the zombie apocalypse and uh and sometimes has some some cheesy elements. Um so I kind of just willingly forgot about the Resident Evil franchise. I watched three of the movies and I was like, yeah, I can stop there. But when we re-watched it, I actually did enjoy it. And I was like, you know what, this actually is a pretty good movie.
SPEAKER_02:I don't think I ever watched it, but I did have a memory of a naked lady, which it which stands. There is uh she's naked a lot, or implying nakedness, yeah. Um, but I really don't remember watching it from back then. However, this is me. It's possible I did. That is more than 20 years ago now that it came out. Uh, should we get into the existential questions that this movie brings up?
SPEAKER_05:Let's do it.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. The first one that I was wondering as I was watching it is okay, a virus has been released. It turns people into zombies and animals, apparently, too. All living mammals, at least we know, are gonna be zombies. It's bad, could kill the universe. So the Red Queen, the AI who controls the hive, says, I'm gonna just kill everybody to make sure this doesn't get out. And all of these folks are being sent back in as the operatives by the umbrella corporation because they want to know what happened. My instinct was like, is this so bad? Does that sound terrible of me? I was like, is it is it the right thing to just go ahead and kill everyone and contain this thing that otherwise is going to destroy the rest of the world? Yeah. Or was that amoral?
SPEAKER_05:Uh questionable, right? Yeah. Um, I feel like, you know, the the beginning sequences where the Red Queen was killing everyone, some of it was pretty brutal, like dropping people in an elevator shaft. We had this one person who um in on IMDB is only known as Miss Black. And she was in one of the elevators, and there's this whole scene where she's like trying to crawl out through the elevator door. She can only get her head out. Oh, and the elevator and like suddenly the the brakes on the elevator drop, and uh, and and the elevator falls just enough so that she's like face to face with the ground. And Red, like, ah, oh, say saved her at the last second. The take that, whoever's doing this. Red Queen. You know, you're not gonna get this person who we assume at this point is the main character of the story because she's gotten the most lines, and then uh and then the Red Queen's like, No, no, no, I'm gonna go up, and then raises the elevator up and then decapitates her. And so doing it in the down direction, did it going up. Did they show her being decapitated, or did I look away? I don't know. It might have been a cutaway. You were looking away because you're like, tell me when it's done.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:As soon as she put her head through that hole, you're like, I'm not watching.
SPEAKER_02:Limb, any kind of like limb removal of some kind is definitely triggering for me. I don't want to see it. It's upsetting. Yeah. Um, well, I think that from the point of view of the corporation and the way that she's programmed, she made the right choice. But then I asked the question, like, is there could there have been other alternatives to the just killing everybody?
SPEAKER_05:I mean, they already had a cure for the T virus. So yes. In the very same lab that they released the T virus, there was a cure. This AI is not very smart then. Yeah, I think the AI is just like, look, I'm working with what I got. They tell me, they tell me that this is a big threat, I'm gonna act on it. Um and then like I guess they could have just done a shutdown procedure and just been like, look, everybody's getting vaccinated. But I guess in the context of how it was released, which was when somebody went in, an unknown person that we find out at the end of the movie, um, they were stealing the virus and they intentionally threw a vial uh to disperse it and infect everybody. Um and I guess in that context, if you have a willingly malicious person inside the facility who wants to get out with it, then I guess your only option is to kill everybody. Because like a lockdown might not work because they're gonna get out. Like if it's a if it's somebody that isn't supposed to be there and wants to leave, like they could hide, they could get out, and that's a big risk.
SPEAKER_02:That's true. I I you know, I think there's a temptation to say, well, they all knew what they were in for, right? Like they were working in this top secret facility doing fucked up shit to animals, uh, creating biological weapons. And I it felt like everybody in that movie was sort of a pawn for this corporation, and the Red Queen was sort of the metaphor of of the folks who control the corporation and their interest. She was the queen. Yeah, but we don't actually see the people who really are making these decisions or what how they're benefiting. Obviously, they're getting wealthier, because why else would they do this? Yeah, they're getting one more yacht for their collection.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and then in this hive, obviously it's a loss. You know, a lot of uh labor loss, research loss, product loss. You've got the infrastructure loss of the hive, but they probably have insurance on all that. So they probably came out ahead of it.
SPEAKER_02:That's horrifying. Yeah, but uh corporations are horrifying, which is why I wanted to make the main part of this conversation a comparison of Resident Evil with the 2003 documentary, which came out one year after this, uh, Canadian documentary, Go Canada, uh called The Corporation, the Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, because it is, I think, almost verbatim the same critique that the umbrella corporation is making, but in a documentary style versus a film.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:What kind of zombies does it have? Um, none. Basically, it's a deep dive into what a corporation is. It asks the question if corporations are legally people, which they are, what kind of people are they? Like if McDonald's, if Amazon, if Walmart, if Monsanto, uh, if Pfizer, if they were a person, what kind of person would they be if they really are people? And this documentary argues that they're a psychopath, that the corporations pass all of the diagnostic checks for being a psychopath. Uh, and so this documentary basically very methodically goes uh diagnostic criteria by diagnostic criteria to show that corporations are indeed psychopaths because their entire purpose for existing is to make people richer. That is their bottom line, literally. And everything is in service of that. Uh so basically, do you know how corporations became people?
SPEAKER_05:I mean, it's in the notes that I'm looking at right now, but why don't you tell me?
SPEAKER_02:Uh, in a nutshell, after the 14th Amendment was passed in 1868, corporations began to claim the same legal protections as people. So here's a quote from historian Ebon Mowglin. Uh, from the moment the 14th Amendment passed in 1868, lawyers for corporations, particularly railroad companies, wanted to use the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection to make sure that the states didn't unequally treat corporations. So legally, corporations became treated as people united in one body for a purpose. So even though there's lots of people who work at corporations, they can't be held liable. So even though Luigi Mangioni allegedly killed uh Brian Thompson. Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare. Right, uh, he could never be legally held responsible for the choices that he was he was a part of making in terms of denying people coverage. Um, the corporation could technically be held liable. Yeah. But weren't. No. And also corporation can just like in fact, like corporations have in their budgets lawsuits. Like that they just expect that will happen because they know they're gonna have to pay for those things. In fact, the budget is the same.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, the cost of doing business sometimes is how much is how much money will we lose doing things the right way versus how much is a lawsuit gonna cost?
SPEAKER_02:So everybody working in a corporation, their bottom line job is to make the corporation more money, and none of them are responsible for the things that they do as long as it's within the, you know, they could be uh sued or go to jail for doing something like fraud as an individual, but what the the corporation itself decides to do, like we're gonna dump toxic waste in this river and not tell anybody about it. Um, we're gonna start making this data center work by putting gas turbines in and just bypass all of the regulations. They can do that, and nobody inside of the corporation can be held responsible. So a corporation is a person with immense power, no conscience, no biological capacity for empathy, and they're just there to make more money for their shareholders. So I wanted to go through basically how the umbrella corporation is a psychopath. All right. You ready? Yeah, I'm ready. So in the corporation, they use the DSM 4 criterion to apply to real-world companies and Resident Evil, uh, and in Resident Evil's Umbrella Corporation, it scores a perfect six for six of the criteria. So the first criteria to be a psychopath is callous disregard for the safety of others. Do you think the umbrella corporation has regard for the safety of others? Um, it doesn't seem like it. Yeah. They built a secret lab under a populated city. They experimented with bioweapons intended to harm people, they didn't give a shit about the people working in the facility, and they have no trouble killing everybody when it leaks.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. It was the cheapest way for them to deal with their problems, so that's how they did it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And if you think like, well, why would they do that? Were they doing it to save humankind, or were they doing it to save their own ass and keep making money?
SPEAKER_05:I mean, if it's the corporation making the decision, it was to save their own ass. Yeah. And make more money. Because they because the corporation doesn't give a shit about humanity.
SPEAKER_02:No. Everybody in that movie is a pawn of the umbrella corporation and entirely dependent on it for their survival. The second criteria is deceitfulness. Is the umbrella corporation an honest fellow? Is Mr. Umbrella a a nice honest guy with transparency and integrity? Mr. James Umbrella.
SPEAKER_05:Um, I'm imagining this guy with a monocle and a top hat, and he's just like, Are you uh questioning my integrity? Well, obviously he's holding an umbrella, Dan. He's got a red and white one. And he's like, I don't even have an umbrella. What umbrella?
SPEAKER_02:What monocle? What top hat? I'm just a harmless pharmaceutical company. I'm here to help you survive. I'm not even real.
SPEAKER_05:Um, yeah, it doesn't seem like they are um trustworthy. I mean, if I mean if they're building secret underground research facilities, then that's that's not exactly above board behavior. No.
SPEAKER_02:No, and they willingly uh spray gas into their employees' faces so they have amnesia. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Um, so I'm gonna go with uh yes on deceitfulness. So two for six. I think we'll probably see more examples of these things in later movies. Um, but from what we've got to work with.
SPEAKER_02:Do you think Mr. Umbrella has an interest in maintaining lasting relationships? I guess it depends on with who. Because psychopaths don't. Psychopaths have a specific inability to maintain lasting relationships.
SPEAKER_05:Uh sounds like somebody I know. Um I think yeah, I mean lasting relationships, I think, is the the operative word. I think psychopaths make many relationships throughout their lives. I think the umbrella corporation makes a lot of uh relationships with those that they uh can benefit from, um, and probably is how they got to the top. Um, but lasting, I I I doubt it. I feel like all those relationships they made, whether it was with politicians or um other corporations or other important voices in the world, uh got gobbled up by the umbrella corporation.
SPEAKER_02:Let's think of the term human resource. That's fucking creepy. Okay. People are a resource. Yeah, it puts us on the same um playing field as inventory. Yeah, coal, paper, the laptop. Yeah you're a cost on a spreadsheet. I know that very well. Somebody was just laid off. Uh, but essentially, yeah, it saw folks as dispensable as long as they weren't making them more money. So absolutely passes the inability to maintain lasting relationships check. Failure to feel guilt or remorse. I think this is really um embodied in the Red Queen. Yeah. The Red Queen is not feeling any remorse for brutally murdering murdering people. You know, I think she could have even done it. It's a laboratory. You're telling me they didn't have any kind of sleeping gas. They couldn't just like release some carbon monoxide and let people have a nice nap.
SPEAKER_05:She killed most people with halon gas, uh, which is a fire suppressant. Um, but then other people she drowned or drop down an elevator. Yeah. Unnecessary. Uh, and then the dogs were just left in their cages.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And then the actual people who are like, hey, what the fuck happened in the hive? were like, let's send some people down there. Everybody's dead and nothing's working, so let's send more people down there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I think I think the the human side of the corporation was like, we need to know how much of our assets are lost. They were basically just insurance adjusters, these these sources. How many of those resources of humans? Yeah. We need well, they they needed the to go down there and turn off the red queen. That was the mission that they were following. Um, because they could they wouldn't be able to uh recover their assets if the red queen was out there lasering everybody into cubes. Which uh, to be fair, when they went out on that mission, they should have told them that there was a laser field that'll cut you into cubes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah. Also, why did they just cut off parts of their body and not just start with the cube laser? Because the queen wanted to have fun. She wanted to show off.
SPEAKER_05:Maybe it costs costs money per laser.
SPEAKER_02:I think uh that already, you know, callous disregard for the safety of others, deceitfulness, inability to maintain lasting relationships, failure to feel guilt or remorse, being like, you know what's gonna be fun, guys?
SPEAKER_05:I've just been using one laser this whole time.
SPEAKER_02:Let's cube some people, size them up.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. This guy wants to do acrobatics and hang from the ceiling. Check this shit out.
SPEAKER_02:Criteria number five: reckless disregard for safety and laws. Yeah. I mean, do we need to say more? Completely unrelated, yeah, unregulated human animal testing. Yeah. Uh laser grid. Yeah, that's not that's they put that in there. Yeah, which is also a wild choice. Licker mutant creatures. Yeah, they're like, let's make these. And you know, maybe those lickers are sent. I mean, that uh they are sentient. Maybe they're not the bad at they're just misunderstood.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, they have brains. You can see them right on the outside of their head.
SPEAKER_02:It's true.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, big brains.
SPEAKER_02:They didn't choose to exist, they're just pissed, they've been in cages this whole time. Yeah, they just want to climb the walls and lick people. The lickers are the real victims here. They really are. They didn't ask for anything. And the dogs, and the people. All of them are really. Uh, except for the people that are up above in Raccoon City making these decisions because they don't want to upset their shareholders and they want to make sure they get a really good bonus this year. I doubt any of them live in Raccoon City. Good point.
SPEAKER_05:Or actually, no, I take that back. I know one does.
SPEAKER_02:Last criteria incapacity for empathy.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Need we say more. You know, using the Red Queen as an embodiment of the Umbrella Corporation is kind of perfect because she's an AI and she doesn't have capacity for any of these things. Um, it gives it gives what is a heartless, soulless corporation that's considered a person, uh a personality.
SPEAKER_02:And a very innocent face. Like choosing a child with a cute little voice is very much like the marketing we get from corporations.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it's true.
SPEAKER_02:We're friendly. Like how many she's the Afflak duck. The what?
SPEAKER_05:The Afflak duck. What's that? That's an insurance company, Afflak? Oh, I don't know this. And there's this little duck, and it's the the voice of um ah fuck, I can't remember his name. Uh Gilbert Gottfried. And the duck just says Aflack. Okay, that's cute. See how they get you? Yeah, and that's a that's a soulless corporation. That's an insurance corporation who when you when you've been paying for your insurance for decades, and finally you're like, I need to call my insurance company because something horrible happened in my life, they're like, sorry, this is a pre-existing condition of being in a car accident.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Like the Geico lizard.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. The Geico Lizard, yeah, he's a friendly lizard with a New Zealand accent.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, McDonald's all Ronald McDonald and all of his friends.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:They humanize themselves in nice ways. All of the uh food corporations that put really happy farm images on food that you know those animals were not okay. Yeah, really happy. Had a great life in those uh, what are they called? Not meat lots. Um uh feed feedlots.
SPEAKER_05:Feed lots, yeah. Yeah. I they should they should they should have like a carton for milk that shows like a really cool cow with sunglasses holding on it to its udders and just being like, suck on my teets.
SPEAKER_02:I think I just really love uh that that's what makes me like this movie is the corporate part of it. And I also love that it it doesn't really get into like why they're doing this, it's sort of implied. We all know that it's because somebody's making money somewhere.
SPEAKER_04:Money.
SPEAKER_02:But just to like bring this to a very honestly, like relatively benign real life example. A friend of mine works for a corporation and she explained to me that there's things called growth companies. And I did not know that this was a thing. But basically, if you're a growth company, which is most corporations, traded corporations, you have to always be growing. You can't be satisfied. If you're if your profit this year was um a hundred million dollars, it better be 150 next year. Otherwise, yeah, there will be layoffs. She was literally told verbatim, if we do not make more money this year, we will have layoffs.
SPEAKER_05:It's it's so crazy because you think you think that it'd be good enough just to make profit.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:But you have to make more profit because of the shareholders. Yeah. The company, the company can make a profit, and that sounds like a good thing. But if the shareholders don't see their number turn green instead of red, then they're like, I've lost money because you haven't profited enough.
SPEAKER_02:Here's where it's extra sick, though. Who are the shareholders? Where does my 401k come from? Uh I'm a shareholder. If you have any kind of stock at all, if you have a 401k, you're a shareholder. And my 401k 100% is money that I've put in with this idea that I'm gonna get something back. And every time that money goes up, it's because some growth company is growing. Obviously, I'm a fucking minion in this deal. I'm not the people who are making a ton of money on it. But we have all been sort of ushered into the system where we're complicit.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. You know, it's we we used to be offered pensions.
SPEAKER_02:Yep.
SPEAKER_05:Um, and now we are offered a gamble.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. This year I'm really glad I made the choice. We talked a lot about it. I've been talking about it for years. Like, do we keep paying into the 401k? Ethically, it's questionable because uh when you get your 401k from a company, you don't have a lot of control over like what's it being invested into.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, so there was that. But then there's also the like, I don't know if this might shock you, listeners of the podcast, but I'm not sure money's gonna mean very much one day. And I'm not sure that the rate of growth I'm seeing on my 401k is going to equal me being able to survive when we're old.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Yeah, we should just um invest in bullets.
SPEAKER_02:We should invest in each other.
SPEAKER_05:That way when we retire, we can we have lots of bullets.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um, but yeah, we're all shareholders. And also in the same way that like we're eating ourselves, nine out of ten products in this world, the Resident Evil, are made by the Umbrella Corporation and we're all consuming it. It's these corporations are fucking masters at making us be snakes eating our own tail.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Very difficult to create a new system or a new cycle that gets us out of this situation. Hence, how the fuck do we shoot corporations in the head? With a lot of bullets. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:They all have to be very well timed, though.
SPEAKER_02:So I I think I just want to end this part before we get into a little bit of a lighter fare. What we loved and what we didn't overall is just that the umbrella corporation is not a fictional villain. It's a very clear critique of corporations and that corporations are psychopaths. And if you want to see real life examples, uh, you can watch the corporation for free on YouTube. It is uh probably one of the things that radicalized me, to be frank. I remember watching it for the first time in university and being like, holy fucking shit.
SPEAKER_05:So Yeah, what a horrifying world we live in.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. It's run literally by psychopaths because corporations are people and they're psychopaths.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I was I was thinking this week um about how like you are forced to be a member of society. Like society as a whole is a fine idea to have uh other individuals that you can lean on and other systems that help take care of certain things so that you're not lone wolfing it because that is uh is an impossibility. You mean community? Yeah, uh, which is what society promises. Um but the one that we have, it's like e even if you didn't want what we have, like you're like, I don't want to pay into the 401k, I don't want to buy a car, I don't want to work every minute of my life to pay for a house, can I just leave? And society's like, no. For a price. This exists everywhere. There's nowhere you can go that this doesn't exist.
SPEAKER_02:Not to get really geeky, but that's actually what my master's or no, it wasn't my master's thesis. That was about the globalization of the food economy. Um, but my undergrad research paper was on um how indigenous, some indigenous cultures are still able to weave in and out of empire, like they participate in it, but they have more pockets of autonomy. Of course, corporations have a vested interest in removing those pockets of autonomy as quickly as possible, hence the destruction of the fucking Amazon and and making everything private property so that places that have been traditional territories of indigenous people for millennia are suddenly private and they're not allowed to go onto anymore.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. You know, right now, um uh federal land is being auctioned off to corporations so that they can do what they want with it instead of us uh going out and enjoying the untouched spoils of majesty. Um they they wanna they wanna put something there. You know, they're like, look at all this wasted space with mountains and trees and streams. We should put an Amazon facility here.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, something's really broken. We should mine all of this for cobalt. Well, cobalt's more and places like the Congo that are out of sight, out of mine for us, and we all benefit. Again, like this system has made us all complicit. None of us here uh exist without blood on our hands, but I think that's why systems change is so important and why I think the real revolution is mutual aid and figuring out how to take care of each other outside of these systems. Like, for example, we know that um starting in November, snap benefits for American citizens. If you're not from America and you don't know what that is, it's I don't even know what it stands for, but basically it's a food assistance program and it's often called food stamps. Because of the government shutdown, uh, they which is not a precedented thing in government shutdowns, they are going to stop providing folks who have been relying on food stamps to fucking feed themselves and their children. Um, and the only solution to that is for us to feed each other. And I was thinking about this like we've got um literal buckets of rice and beans over there, and I think we should take some of them and take them to the food bank because we don't need them right now. And our society and our culture tells us to hoard, hoard, hoard, hoard, hoard because one day it'll be us. And like I'm currently unemployed and I'm scared. But I think that if we want to believe in community and reciprocity, if we have a little bit, we got to share a little bit. Um, again, I will reference back to the Black Panthers. They had free breakfast programs for children, they were providing free medical care for each other. Um, the only way out of this is to start to create our own systems, and they're not going to be perfect, but they're at least human and not run by governments that are really plutocracies that are owned by corporations. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. I mean, that's that's that's just it's how that's how it is.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. But you know what? The beauty of talking about this stuff in the context of a zombie movie is we can just zoom right out of that housecape and talk about the fun parts of this movie. Other than I think the critique of corporations was pretty great. But what else did we love?
SPEAKER_05:You know, I thought I thought the critique was really great. Um and And you know, the era that this movie was made, uh, the expectations of it being like an action horror movie, like you don't expect it to have a big message. Um, but Resident Evil has always had that message. That is the purpose of the series is hey, look how shitty this is. Um in fact, I think like the the last Resident Evil I remember uh watching somebody play was like the one that came out in 2010. I think it was Resident Evil 5. And that one takes place in I want to say South Africa or somewhere in Africa. And it's all it it starts off just showing like the exploitation of African people and like what what they have to live in, and then then they all turn into zombies. What part of Africa?
SPEAKER_02:I don't know.
SPEAKER_05:I don't remember.
SPEAKER_02:Do they just like have this whole like Africa's a country, not a continent?
SPEAKER_05:No, I think they say where it is. Uh but it's it's literally been 15 years since I saw I was watching over the shoulder of somebody play it in a basement. So I didn't I didn't gather a whole lot at the time, but thinking back, I'm like, yeah, this is absolutely a critique of like um how how that the the whole continent is just exploited for its resources and they don't give a shit about the people there, so yeah, why not infect them with a zombie virus?
SPEAKER_02:Oh god, do I ever want to get into HIV AIDS right now? But I'm not going to.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I'll just say there's a parallel between what you're saying. I'm gonna sound like conspiracy theorists. I don't think that HIV is not real, is that what I'm saying? I do think it's convenient as a way to oppress people who are already oppressed.
SPEAKER_05:Do you know who uh invented the idea of the conspiracy theorist? Who? The CIA. Hilarious. The CIA, um before before there were conspiracy theorists, conspiracy theorists were people who were doing research to find all of these areas where it's like, why is this happening? What are these people up to? Why isn't the government telling us anything and demanding oversight and demanding transparency? So the CIA started creating the conspiracy theorist archetype. And they would highlight certain crazies, nut jobs who are like, I was abducted by aliens, and they put they put a whole bunch of stuff in my butt. QAnon told me this. And that would be right on the front page of the tabloids because that's what this the CIA wants you to think about a conspiracy theorist. Wow. But a conspiracy theorist is somebody who has a theory about a conspiracy. They don't even want you to associate conspiracy with what it actually means, which is that there is a conspiring within an organization that's supposed to be doing something different. There's something happening within this organization that is being kept secret and it is wrong. So when you're when you are theorizing about a conspiracy, it's not that you're you you think that there's little green men in your bathroom. It's that you're like, why is the CIA experimenting with LSD and uh and giving uh elephants at the zoo a large enough dose of uh LSD to kill it? What? I did not know they did this.
SPEAKER_03:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Uh um MK Ultra. It was fucking crazy what they did with MK MK Ultra. They're doing science, but the people doing science were CIA agents and not scientists. So they're just like, what would happen if I just filled up a crank dart with LSD and see and and shoot an elephant at the zoo?
SPEAKER_02:I mean, frankly, scientists were doing some pretty suspect shit. That's why we have human subjects research protocols. But I that's I feel like we this is this is turning into a tangent. A good one, though.
SPEAKER_05:There was this whole um uh part of uh MK Ultra where they were experimenting on prisoners with LSD. There's a little offshoot of this conversation.
SPEAKER_02:This is again why we have human subjects research protocols because prisoners are considered a specially uh vulnerable population.
SPEAKER_05:So they were volunteers. They're the CIA came to the prison, they're like, Do you want to volunteer for a thing? They didn't tell them what it was. It was like, it's it's an experimental thing, we're gonna do some science, and it'll give you some time off of your sentence. I feel required to say this would not happen in 2025. Well, we'll see. So they're they're like, Yeah, I want to get out of prison early. Um, and all I have to do is some of your science experiments? Sure. So for a year, they gave prisoners large doses of LSD every single day to document their their um experiences to see if like maybe it would transform them and make them into more compassionate people. But really, they wanted to see if they can control people's minds with LSD. Um and they uh made them journal about it every single day, and like these journals are crazy. They're like they're like, I think every single one of them is like, I think I'm losing my mind. I don't want to do this experiment anymore, but they have to because they signed up for it, so they keep on giving them LSD every single day. One of those people was a person named Whitey Bulger. And Whitey Bulger was a mafioso in Boston and also a notorious killer. And when they let him out, because that was the agreement, they're like, you can go now. He went on to murder so many people. Oh my god. And he was uh a famed serial killer. LSD forcing him to take LSD every single day for an experiment did not make him a better person.
SPEAKER_02:I have no I am blown away. Mostly that these things live in your head. It's great living with somebody like Dan because you never know what like detailed facts are about to be shared.
SPEAKER_05:So a conspiracy theory would be I think that there's thing this thing called MKUltra, and the CIA is trying to create a mind control drug. And they're like, you're crazy, just like that guy who thinks that there's green aliens that live inside of his butt on the tabloids.
SPEAKER_02:It's so hard in this day and age, though, because misinformation is is so rampant, it's really hard to know what to trust.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. That's why I think really good kind of works in their favor, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02:It does, but really good journalism um and research, evidence-based research is like the only way to go. But though that takes years to do. The corporation's a great example of that. I think it's it's not a conspiracy theory in the sense of it's not a maybe that's the key here is the term theory. Um, what we're describing is like factual evidence in documented that Dan has something in his eye. You okay? Yeah. Is that a conspiracy? Did somebody put something in your eyes and screw?
SPEAKER_05:There's aliens in my eyes. So um How do we talk about Resident Evil now? If it is a theory, that would mean the meaning of theory is is uh is that there is evidence to back it up.
SPEAKER_02:Well, uh the scientific meaning of theory is that all evidence points to this one answer and nothing refutes it yet. But I don't think that's what people are saying when they say conspiracy theory.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, because the the CIA um gave a context to that word.
SPEAKER_02:I hear that. And I I guess what I'm trying to differentiate is like while they have done a really good job of making uh people just look at each other and be like, well, you're a whack job because you believe these things, the difference is whether or not there is a solid evidence base behind it or not. That's like there are real conspiracies. There are people conspiring to do fucked up things, and it's not always aliens. But we have to be able to differentiate between a conspiracy theory in the way that the CIA has branded it versus um factual evidence that like things like corporations are psychopathic and not in our best interest. Or I wish I could remember the name of the book right now, but I think you read it. It's um basically documents the way that the US government has assassinated people all over the world to basically keep capitalism on top. That's the short story, and make sure people kept making money, hence plutocracy that our government is basically serves corporations and rich people. Um, there is tons of evidence behind why it is that continents like Africa overall are exploited and oppressed and continue to be, because it's not hidden behind closed doors. It's an international law, like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Those are things that are, yes, people in a room made those decisions, but they're very they're not like some people in a room who have some lines and dots on some pieces of paper. There's this is like factual stuff. Am I making sense? I'm trying to differentiate between the two things because I think otherwise we're gonna spin out. Do we want to finish talking about Resident Evil? Yeah, let's talk about what we loved. All right, the zombies were actually scary. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I enjoyed them. Yeah, I I think I think they uh they followed the the Romero zombie um archetype and they effectively showed scary zombies.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Um there were even some like really good-sized hordes.
SPEAKER_02:It made me really appreciate a good 2002 action flick slash horror. I think there's more action than horror, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_05:There was some horror elements. Like it felt very like, you know, a lot of like early 2000s horror movies like The Ghost Ship. I don't think I've seen that. Um or uh I don't know, like a whole bunch of movies around that era where they're like, we can use CG to make ghosts.
SPEAKER_02:I thought the practical effects in this movie were good and it stood the test of time. And I frankly, like I said earlier, appreciated the cutaways. I don't need to see somebody's body get mutilated. Thank you. You can just imply it, and that's disturbing enough.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. They were probably trying to get a PG 13 rating. I don't know what this is rated, but uh let's let's look it up. Given that it's based on a uh video game franchise, they're like lots of kids are gonna want to watch this, so we gotta keep it PG. It's a solid R. Oh, okay. Well, never mind then.
SPEAKER_02:The video games are rated M for mature. Yeah. Um anything else that you really loved? I thought the acting was okay.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's okay.
SPEAKER_02:Uh and the story stands the test of time. It's not one of those examples where I'm like, I wouldn't watch this again. I think I would watch it again when I was in the mood for something that I didn't have to think too hard about.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. So the thing that I really liked, and it's probably what I noticed this time watching it and didn't notice it when I first watched it, like 20 years ago, um, is that the movie really felt like the game. So, like, the game, uh, like every room has like some kind of visual puzzle. Like, you know, how how do I get out of this room? I gotta move a statue out of the way. Um, I've got to go investigate this little broom closet to see if there's a key inside of it. Um, oh no, there's a zombie inside, and it just lunged at me. So I kind of had a lot of uh a lot of moments like that where like tonally and visually and with the sound design, it's like I feel like this is the game.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I can't pick up on those things because I don't play video games, but I will say that I've heard two different reactions to this movie, which is like obviously a bunch of people who loved it enough to tell me it was their favorite movie ever. Um, but there are folks who were like, I played the video game and I love this because they took the concept but not the storyline. They made a new one. Yeah. And then I recently read an article that was like, they fucking butchered my favorite game. I hate you forever. So, like all art, it's subjective.
SPEAKER_05:Well, I appreciate that they made their their own storyline with it because uh exactly that. Like, I don't feel like they butchered the the franchise because they didn't follow it. Um, they made their own thing, starting from you know, maybe not the first scene because we start off in the mansion, but like right after that we go down into the hive and it's like, oh, this isn't in the video games. Like, we're we're going a different path. This is a different story that just you know uses the characters and uh and the atmosphere and world of Resident Evil.
SPEAKER_02:Let's get into what we didn't like. There's a few. Yeah, I think we disagree on this one. I will say outright, I did not love the Quippy one-liners. I felt that um most of the characters had one dimension at best. Yeah, and the Quippy One-liners from Michelle Rodriguez's character, Reino Campo, were like notably bad.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, cheesy.
SPEAKER_02:So cheesy.
SPEAKER_05:No, I agree. I okay. I'm I'm not on the side of loving one-liners. In fact, I had to go down a rabbit hole and like learn about this because I'm like, I feel like there was a point where this type of writing kind of stopped. So what I found out was that uh the Quippy one-liner was used between the 70s to the mid-2000s. And that's because at that time all we had like like media was mostly movies. Like there weren't a whole lot of highly produced TV shows. If you wanted to be entertained with a story, you went to the movies, and usually you know, they got you for 90 minutes. It's not part of a big franchise, we're not talking about sequels, it's one time. Um, and they have very limited amounts of time to reflect who these characters are. So what these one-liners were was a shorthand to remind you of somebody's personality quirks. So, like with Michelle Rodriguez, they want you to know that she's the tough girl, but she's also like the tough girl who can hang with the fellas. Like she's going out to the bar with her squad after they deal with this hive situation.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And she's gonna let you know that by like after she's been bitten several times, she's gonna be like, after we get out of here, I'm gonna get laid.
SPEAKER_02:You know the one that like really killed me because it felt like inappropriate, but it was with zombies, but she was like squeezing, they were up above the zombies. I don't remember how they were up there, but they were above the zombies, and she hurt she was bleeding her hands, and she just was like squeezing the blood out of her hands when the zombies were eating it as it was dripping on them.
SPEAKER_01:Like, yeah, you like the taste of that? You like that? Yeah, you like that. I was like, this is fucking so cr. I don't like that.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, they're they're telling you that she's like she's she's uh she's taunting them. She's like, that's her personality. She's like not necessarily scared, she's not afraid of death, and she's kind of pissed off that she's going to die. So she's like taunting them and trying to, I don't know. I don't know where I was going to.
SPEAKER_02:I appreciate you for making it, trying to make it interesting, but I just found them like really they took me out of the movie. Again, probably 2002 Leah would have liked it because it was a different era in movies, and frankly, my tastes were not as uh defined as they are now. I think my standards were probably lower because I think everybody's standards were lower in 2002.
SPEAKER_05:I want to be clear, I don't like one-liners. So one-liners were also a marketing strategy for action movies. They needed something that was quotable. I'll be back. Exactly. And like Arnold Schwarzenegger based his whole career on Quippy One-Liners. I you you most of his movies, you couldn't name the characters who were in the movies. Like, who did he play? I don't know. Arnold fucking fucking Schwarzenegger as a robot. Yeah, you know. Arnold Schwenzer in uh kindergarten cop, one of my favorites. He's like, it's not a tumor.
SPEAKER_02:You know, it's true. And then like Americans, especially, I feel like love to quote things. So the Quippy one-liner does um support that cultural habit. Uh yeah, I think I'm glad they were both in agreement. Other things I didn't like. There's definitely some racist, sexist, colonial, ableist misogyny of the living dead in this film. Yeah. Um not as much as I thought there would be. No, it was only marginally sexist. Yeah. You know? It's like could be worse.
SPEAKER_05:I was kind of relieved. Because like I I I knew what would be an issue, which is like main character has to be in a skimpy dress.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Nipples poking out. Nipples poking out.
SPEAKER_05:Which honestly shouldn't be sexualized, but she's gonna be doing spin kicks where you're like, it's it's that that dress could be going anywhere.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Her the dress making no sense. Um constantly, you know, naked, and the possible the possibility that the very strange hospital gown we find her in at the end is going to like slip, or the towel that she finds is gonna slip, uh, or that they're gonna just give us a little peek of something more. So whatever. It's 2002. I'm unfortunately not surprised they needed to have that, especially for like an action horror flick. You know, you gotta feed the male gaze. Yeah. But it would, it could have been worse, and has definitely been worse in other things we've watched. Um, so I guess that's where we're ranking it. I would put it on the it could be worse scale of sexism.
SPEAKER_05:The last big thing that um Mila Jovovich was in before Resident Evil. I mean, I don't know what other things she was in between then. It was like a five-year gap, but she was in uh the fifth element, and that also had those moments where it's like she's wearing basically an ace bandage around.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my god, I didn't realize that was the same person. Yes. Same person. Yeah. Um, which, you know, Michelle Rodriguez characters was a nice counterpoint being like to the tough girl. But it was like, okay, you get to be two things if you're a woman in this movie, tough girl, or I mean, you can't say that Alice uh Mila Jovovich, I can't say her name, uh, wasn't also a tough girl.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. And that's what I appreciated about the movie, which like it it was very much not done until like the late 90s to early 2000s, where you had the tough girl archetype where it's like she's she's the action star here. Everybody else, they look cool with their with their guns and they do a lot of stuff, but Alice, she'll run up a wall and spin around and kick a dog in the face.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Uh, there was some racial diversity, but not a lot. Main characters were white. Um, I was just reading about it, and there were some people that were upset that from the video game to movies in the future and Netflix that they actually changed the race from being primarily white people to racial diversity. Sorry about it, y'all. I think people need and deserve to see themselves in movies. Uh, there's no reason to keep it all white. But again, was it like the worst offender? No. I it wasn't the kind of movie that I had to turn off because it was it was offensive. And Dan, you know I have a a threshold around these things where I'm like, I just can't watch this, it's gonna piss me off too much. So it it passed my I'm willing to like deal with some of the problems of this film test. Attention span, I think I paid attention most of the time. Yeah, which was impressive because I was in the midst of grieving.
SPEAKER_05:So yeah, there was only a couple times where um I had to like nudge you because like things were happening and you were looking at your phone.
SPEAKER_02:I was looking at pictures of Nero. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Uh he was so cute. But there was only a couple times like that. And for the most part, I like I remember a few times like we had to take a break in the middle, and you're just like, I am I like this movie. Yeah, I was surprised. Pleasantly surprised. So was I. That's good. Yeah. Even though I'd seen this movie before, I'm like, okay, it's a little bit better than I remember.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, like World War Z still has is like objectively a great zombie movie, but is pretty problematic and annoyingly so for me, like more than Resident Evil. Yeah. In terms of the tropes around, like, man, save world. Women have zero dimensions, let alone one. Uh, are there any survival tips you think we could glean from this film? Bring more ammo.
SPEAKER_05:Um they they took a long time to catch on to the whole headshot thing. Uh I I think a lot, like all of their main weapon ammunition was wasted on the first horde where they were just kind of like trying to blow them to pieces. Um, and if they'd realized, hey, they're not going down like we expect them to, let's shoot them in the head and see what happens. Um, that could have saved some ammo and maybe they would have made it out of there, okay. But at the same time, um I think that like one of the tropes of the zombie apocalypse is like the first the first four shots go to the chest, and then you're like, then the characters the uh makes the realization, oh, I have to shoot them in the head, and that's all done in like almost one scene. And in this one, it took a few scenes for them to be like, oh, right, the brain. These are zombies. I've never heard of zombies before because in my universe, zombie movies don't exist. I mean, I kind of appreciated that.
SPEAKER_02:Uh the survival tip that I gleaned from this movie, actually, there's two. One, let's practice radical transparency. What if what if like you just couldn't have secrets like that? What if corporations could not legally do this? Uh, they had to disclose things. Uh I oh oh also, what if we uh withdrew their person status and individuals became culpable again for choices?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Uh that would be a great survival tip. And my last survival tip from Resident Evil is seize the means of production.
SPEAKER_05:Uh what what uh what production would we seize?
SPEAKER_02:Well, in this case, it's too late to seize the hive. It's it's been uh I think the hive got seized. Yeah. And that's why everyone's dead inside. But I think in I would say more broadly, like, what what ways can we take back control of how we take care of ourselves and each other away from corporations? Every single small choice you make uh is something. Uh this is not going to be a battle we we win overnight.
SPEAKER_05:You know, there was a little B plot that I always forget about, um, which is that like when Alice starts to remember things, she realizes that she was making this back alley deal with this woman who worked inside the hive. And the whole idea was that she wanted to get the virus out so that she could expose the umbrella corporation for what they're doing in the hive. And then um her fake husband overhears them um because he's spying on them, and is like, well, I'm gonna take it up a notch and I'm going to uh infect everybody in the hive, steal the virus, and then sell it on the black market so we can make lots of money. Um and Alice had the intention of bringing down the corporation with the truth. So like there is that thread of um trying to use uh trying to use transparency as a weapon and therefore seize the means of production that way. And they seize the means of production, but they did it a very different way and for a very different reason.
SPEAKER_02:That's a good point. Um, I think wherever impossible wherever you have power to demand transparency, do it from our government, from the place you work, which obviously, like many of us are in positions where you just gotta do what you're told, you know, just gotta do what you're told because you gotta survive. But that's again why we gotta think about ways we can help each other to slowly but surely create more pockets outside of this fucked up system we're in. And how many Zeds are we giving this, Dan? I'm gonna give it seven and a half. I liked it.
SPEAKER_05:I think that's pretty fair. I was gonna say seven. Um, yeah, and I think I think I only give it a little bit less than you because um I don't like that they're in the hive the whole time. I when I'm in the zombie apocalypse, I want to be out in the open air.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it doesn't that happen in the future movies?
SPEAKER_05:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:Which is why I like uh Resident Evil 2 more. But um I was I was uh I was surprised. I was it was nice. It was nice to go back and watch this movie because I had I had not the best memory of it, and I'm glad that I watched it because now I I appreciate it more.
SPEAKER_02:And I appreciate it for the first time. So thanks everybody for the recommendations. Um I don't know, you know, I I think I know why I didn't watch it because I just thought it'd be naked lady the whole time. But turns out that was a small subplot. Uh, and you know, not the worst version I've seen. So hey, worth watching. Uh in the meantime, next weekend, we have Zombie Wien Game Show 2025, the highlight of my year. Um, possibly the most embarrassing episode because I do speak in an old English accent pretty much the whole time. I'd say half. Half. Half the time. Yeah. It's coming out next Sunday, November 2nd, so a couple days after Halloween and um Sawin, the pagan celebration, but it is gonna be good enough because we had to delay it uh because I wanted to make sure we had time to promote it appropriately for all the folks who took the time to be contestants. The theme this year is Game of Thrones, hence the weird English accent. Um, but also Jeopardy. But also not Jeopardy, because you don't actually have to know the answer or rather the question. You just have to make Dan laugh. Dan was the judge again this year. Yeah. Uh players collect beans for survival instead of points or money. And there were some wagering moments and very high stakes rounds that frankly changed everything. Yeah. Called the Daily Beans.
unknown:Oh.
SPEAKER_05:The Daily Beans.
SPEAKER_02:What was your favorite part of this episode?
SPEAKER_05:Oh boy. Um I don't know if it's my I don't know if I'd say it's my favorite part, but I I just want to say that there's somebody who probably should have won because they won more beans than anyone, but got screwed over the most. And absolutely did not win. Um, that's all I'm gonna say about that. I'm sorry, you know who you are.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I I think you should have won if we were just if if if things if things didn't happen the way that they happened, I think you should have won. That's all I'm gonna say about that.
SPEAKER_02:Um, I I really enjoyed the fact that despite there being two folks who were supposed to participate, we're supposed to have a uh around uh five people participate. Two folks had personal emergencies. I swear this happens every year for Zombie Wien. Whenever we try to have more than like one guest, there's always at least one person who can't make it. Uh so two people could not make it. But Jack Callahan, I'm gonna announce right out right now, one of the contestants again for Zombie Wien Game Show 2025. Literally asked him the morning we were recording. And our wonderful friend Jack said, you know what? Yes, I'm probably not gonna win. Also, what are we doing?
SPEAKER_05:Thanks, Jack.
SPEAKER_02:Um, and as usual, absolutely one of my highlights. Uh fucking hilarious. We love Jack. Who else is our contestants for 2025, Dan? Oh, are we doing that right now?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Well, uh we have our reigning zombie ween king of 2024. 2024, Sylvester Barzi.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, back to defend his crown.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, to defend it um and maybe do more with it. Uh, we also have Lori Calcatera, former um Zombie Wien Queen of 2023.
SPEAKER_02:Uh, she's seeking redemption for her lost title in 2024. But I think it's also important to remember that Lori has already had to defend her title as 2023 Zombie Wien Queen from Brandon Staraki, who challenged at the summer in the Summer Wien slam down, whose mustache was wagered and lost because he tried to get her crown. Brandon, you didn't show up again for 2025's game show, despite repeated invitations. And we have not seen evidence of your shaved-off mustache. Yeah, you owe Lori a mustache. You are the villain of Zombie Wien.
SPEAKER_05:I still love you though. And um last but certainly not least is uh Alice B. Sullivan.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, who showed up despite having a serious sinus infection.
SPEAKER_05:That's right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Alice was like super sick. Yep. I think Sylvester was also a little sick too.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's I think everybody was sick. Yeah. We were uh we were uh dressed up, ready for a wedding. I will say this episode is great. I laughed so hard that I ruined my makeup for the wedding. I had to redo it in the car on the way there because we scheduled this to be butting right up against the time we had to leave for a wedding because I'm I'm me and I make those kinds of silly choices sometimes.
SPEAKER_05:I also ruined my makeup.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but I literally died. Well, I didn't die as I am still here, but I cried laughing. Um, you will know the moment when you listen. It is absurd and my own fault because I created this particular prompt, not knowing just how insane it would get. Um, what's on the line for the contenders for the throne, the folks who have not yet ever won a crown? There is uh on the line again a homemade, um, handmade custom zombie meat crown that I will be making the winner if one of the contenders for the throne wins. If it's Lori or Sylvester, I'm going to make a meat scepter. I have no idea how I'm gonna do this or what it will look like. But if I can make a meat crown, I can make a scepter. So somebody could, if they have one, uh add to their collection.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. I I don't know, I don't know what would come after a scepter.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know either. I mean a meat robe. I really don't I don't know how to sew, so this is gonna get real strange uh over time. Uh and also if you are dissatisfied with who we choose, and by we I mean Dan. Dan was the ultimate decider, even though he has regrets, apparently. Are you putting that on the record that you have regrets? Look, things did not go the way I thought they would go. Are you saying the person who won didn't deserve it?
SPEAKER_05:I'm not saying that, because obviously I wouldn't have picked them if they didn't deserve it. That's right. Um I feel like we're about to create online beef here. But let's just say there was some chaos. Some chaos reigned. Yeah, choices were made. I thought things were gonna go one way, they went a different way, and uh and and I think I you know we're gonna need people to weigh in to see where they stand. Yeah. Because for the first time ever, we're going to have uh a listener's choice.
SPEAKER_02:It's called the Zombesties Choice Award. You can pick any one of the four contestants, even the person that Dan deemed winner. Yeah. So they could be a two time winner if you wanted, and they are going to get a tiny crown or tiny scepter, depending on. I don't know. As tiny as I can make it with my with yeah, I. Thinking like a ring.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Um, because they deserve that too. I will say everybody who participated was a winner. They're gonna get a t-shirt. There's going to be a poster and a shirt that you can purchase. I haven't even made it yet, but it exists in my head and it will be available by next week. Nice. Yeah. Uh voting's going to open on November 3rd, the day after the episode comes out. And it is a good one, y'all. You can make fun of me because it's I sound like a fucking idiot. But the contestants, as always, are hilarious. Congratulations to the winner. You did deserve it. Um, and again, this is all arbitrary. That's all I'm gonna say.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Thanks everyone for joining us on the Zombie Book Club. Uh what do you think? Did we nail it? Did we fail it? This episode? This episode? What do you think? I don't know. Yeah. It was a journey. Um, if you want to give us some support, you can leave us a rating or a review. Uh you could send us a voicemail even. On the telephone, you could call us with your telephone. You know, you pick you you pick it up and you say, Gladys, connect me to the zombie book club. And then Gladys types uh dials in 614-699-0006. And then you could leave us a voicemail up to three minutes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and uh a couple episodes ago there was somebody who called in about some uh gaggle of zombies, granny zombies, right, yeah, eating construction workers, but we don't know what they were eating because it wasn't what they thought they should be eating. So could you please call with an update? We're concerned.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, they were they were eating them and then they were doing other things. Yeah, yeah. So we need to know more. Um, you could sign up for a newsletter um so you can stay in touch with us or follow us on Instagram uh at zombiebook club podcast. Um, you could also join our Discord, the Brain Muncher Zombie Collective. Everything is in the description. You just click the link and it takes you there.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And uh when we make some uh promo announcements for the Zombie Wien Game Show contestants coming out next Sunday, go give them your love and support. You can't vote yet, but you couldn't declare your intentions or predictions. There could be friendly wagers, you could bet money if you want. I'm not in charge of this. Yeah, they have apps where you can just bet on anything. You could bet beans. As we discussed in the episode, you can indeed mail beans. So if you want to bet some beans, go for it.
SPEAKER_05:You can mail anyone you want beans. Yeah. You can just pick a name, mail them beans.
SPEAKER_02:And in the meantime, the end is nigh. Bye, bye bye. Baby bye, bye bye. Bye bye, bye. Please don't die. We love you. Don't die. Also, tell us if we're idiots. Okay, bye. Goodbye.
