Ep 673 - I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson

Summary

Podcast Summary: Overdue Ep 673 - "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson

Introduction

In Episode 673 of Overdue, hosted by Headgum, Andrew and Craig delve into Richard Matheson’s seminal work, I Am Legend. Released on October 21, 2024, this episode explores the novel's intricate themes, its impact on modern apocalypse fiction, and contrasts with its various film adaptations.

Background on Richard Matheson and "I Am Legend"

Andrew and Craig begin by contextualizing Richard Matheson's contribution to the horror and science fiction genres. Matheson, a prolific writer born in 1926 and deceased in 2013, is renowned for his genre-defining works, including over a dozen Twilight Zone scripts like "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" ([05:07] Andrew). They highlight Matheson’s influence on contemporaries such as George Romero and Stephen King, noting Romero's homage to Matheson in Night of the Living Dead ([05:35] Craig).

Plot Overview of "I Am Legend"

The discussion transitions to a synopsis of I Am Legend. Set in the mid-1970s across California, the novel follows Robert Neville, portrayed as the last uninfected human amid a vampire apocalypse. Neville's daily struggle involves fortifying his home, scavenging for supplies, and methodically eliminating vampires ([19:24] Andrew). Flashbacks reveal Neville’s tragic loss of his wife and daughter, deepening his isolation and desperation.

Themes and Analysis

Andrew and Craig dissect the novel's exploration of human loneliness and resilience. They emphasize Neville's profound solitude and his attempts to maintain semblance of normalcy through routines and scientific inquiry ([24:24] Andrew). The authors discuss how Matheson rationalizes the vampire myth through scientific explanations, aligning with Matthias Classen’s views on transforming folklore monsters into subjects of medical inquiry ([13:50] Craig). This blend of horror with scientific realism positions I Am Legend as a pioneering work in the apocalypse narrative.

Comparisons to Film Adaptations

A significant portion of the episode contrasts the novel with its film adaptations. Andrew references the 2007 Will Smith film, noting discrepancies such as the inclusion of a dog, which is absent in the book ([19:18] Andrew). Craig critiques the movie's deviation from the source material, particularly the altered ending where Neville is perceived as a monster ([47:37] Andrew). They discuss how the film’s narrative shifts focus from Neville’s internal struggles to action-driven plot points, resulting in a starkly different interpretation of the story’s conclusion.

Personal Insights and Reactions

Andrew shares his personal engagement with the book, highlighting moments of relatability such as Neville's moments of nihilism and his relentless pursuit of a cure ([31:37] Andrew). Craig reflects on the book’s lasting impact on modern apocalypse fiction, acknowledging how I Am Legend laid the groundwork for subsequent works in the genre ([58:05] Craig).

Conclusion

The episode wraps up with Andrew and Craig affirming their appreciation for I Am Legend, recognizing its foundational role in shaping contemporary horror and apocalypse narratives. They encourage listeners to explore Matheson's work and reflect on its themes of loneliness, survival, and the human condition.

Notable Quotes

• Andrew ([07:35]): "It's just so weird to contemplate like before 2020, before the eternal 2020 that we find ourselves in."

• Craig ([13:50]): "Matheson goes to great lengths to rationalize or naturalize the vampire myth, transplanting the monster from the otherworldly realms of folklore to the test tube of medical inquiry and rational causation."

• Andrew ([34:38]): "Maybe he's benefiting from the fact that, like, genre writing already would be considered a little bit low browse."

• Craig ([47:37]): "He's a legend in their culture."

Final Thoughts

For those seeking an in-depth exploration of I Am Legend and its place in horror literature, this episode of Overdue offers a comprehensive analysis enriched with personal anecdotes and critical insights. Andrew and Craig adeptly navigate the novel's complexities, making it accessible and engaging for both avid readers and newcomers alike.

Transcript

[Andrew]

This is a headgum podcast. While Andrew and Craig believe the joy.

[Craig]

Of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary.

[Andrew]

Plus, these are books you should have read by now.

[Craig]

Hey everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.

[Andrew]

My name is Andrew. And I like your haunted Cookie Monster.

[Craig]

The zombie cookie.

[Andrew]

I couldn't tell if it was like Haunted Cookie Monster or Haunted Fat Albert.

[Craig]

I would not do Fat Albert. Hey, hey. I'm haunted. Boo. Boo.

[Andrew]

Boo.

[Craig]

Welcome to Spooktober, the month where we eat spooky cookies and read scary book. My Cookie Monster is better than I thought it was pretty good.

[Andrew]

C is for cursed because that is how I feel about your Cookie Monster voice. Every week one of us reads a book that we've never read before. We tell you about it this month. Things are special because they're spooky.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Every Spooktober, which coincides perfectly with the 10th month of the Gregorian calendar.

[Craig]

Yes, correct.

[Andrew]

Spooky books full of. Full of chill fears and. And spears and other things.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

And we get scared. We scare ourselves and we scare you. And we have a good time.

[Craig]

Get ready. We're gonna scare you.

[Andrew]

You're gonna get scared.

[Craig]

So yeah, we're gonna read. We're gonna talk about a book that we never talked about before. That's the. We don't usually come back to books. That's very rare occasion we have. That's true. You can go check that out. I don't know. Listen to an episode. Have fun. Andrew, what book did you read for this week's episode?

[Andrew]

I read I Am Legend by Richard Matheson.

[Craig]

Oh, you are legend.

[Andrew]

I am legend.

[Craig]

I am legend.

[Andrew]

I imagine I. I read in my head with I am Legend, like an I am Spartacus kind of thing.

[Craig]

Oh, sure.

[Andrew]

We each stand up at the end.

[Craig]

And we always kind of heard it as like a capital L, like I am legend. Yeah, I am the legend. But so I'll be interested to know what you think about that. We. This. We have covered Richard Matheson before, many, many years ago. In a spring, Another Life, Hell House, 2018 or 2019, something like that.

[Andrew]

It's just so weird to. To contemplate like before 2020, before the eternal 2020 that we find ourselves in.

[Craig]

Correct.

[Andrew]

4 kids before all of it. Before we were doing this podcast.

[Craig]

Yeah. What Different. Those were different guys, Andrew.

[Andrew]

Different boys. Probably making basically the same jokes though.

[Craig]

That's probably true.

[Andrew]

Which Is interesting.

[Craig]

It's an interesting thought to think about, but. So you read this book? I have never read this book. I did watch the Willard smith film from 2007, so.

[Andrew]

One of three major cinema adaptations.

[Craig]

Yes, we will talk about. And I, I am being diligent about copying over. I did not plan to take notes during my watch of the film. And then a scene happened where I had to, I had to write down what was happening so I could tell you about it later.

[Andrew]

Yeah, you gotta take notes if you're gonna record content later.

[Craig]

Yes. Well, I was just thinking like, oh, I'll just get a background and then I can ask questions. But then a scene happened that I needed to tell my friend Andrew about. So we'll talk about that later. Richard Matheson, you can go back. I don't remember the episode number. Andrew, are you able to look up the episode number for Hell House of hell of overdue podcast.com and let our listeners know if they want to go back and listen?

[Andrew]

325. Of course. I didn't have to search. I just knew that off the top of my head.

[Craig]

325. Of course, course. So you can go back and listen to a little bit more background on Matheson. Of course. Born in 1926, died in 2013. His pen name was Logan Swanson, which he used for some of his stories, including the first film adaptation, I believe of I Am Legend, where he worked on the script and then did not like how it was going in rewrites for the Last man on Earth.

[Andrew]

These guys in the movies about their books. We're having a big month for that.

[Craig]

Yeah. So he took his name off and used Logan Swanson instead. He's a very well regarded genre writer of the mid to late 20th century. You have folks like George Romero, Stephen King, King all being like, yeah, I read this guy's story. Like George Romero even said, like, when I made Night of the Living Dead, I started by writing a short story that ripped off I Am Legend. Like, that's, that's where Mason kind of fits into the canon. He, you know, he gets published, get started publishing stories in the 50s. He, his first novel is in 1953. He wrote over a dozen Twilight Zone scripts, including nightmare at 20,000ft. So if you might be a fan of Richard Matheson, even though you don't know that he wrote the thing you're a fan of.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And that's one of the ones Shatner was in too. So.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Intersects multiple fandom spheres because he also.

[Craig]

Wrote an original Star Trek Episode as well. So this book.

[Andrew]

Wait, which one?

[Craig]

He wrote the Enemy Within.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah.

[Craig]

Kirk gets split in two or something like that.

[Andrew]

Yeah, no, that one's good.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

A showcase for William Shatner.

[Craig]

This book, which was published when? 1954.

[Andrew]

1954. Which is earlier than I thought it pretty early would be because I didn't look that up until after I had read it. And the book is set in the 70s, and so I assumed it was also written in the 70s. Though in retrospect, I think if it had been written in the 70s, he would have included more like period touch points. Like, oh, yeah, I got in my giant ugly wood paneled station wagon and I drove to the hardware store. There's none of that.

[Craig]

I yelled at some hippies who had been at Woodstock.

[Andrew]

Yeah, hippie zombie.

[Craig]

So this book comes out in 1954. It is inspired by Mary Shelley's the Last man, which is a novel from, like, the 1820s or something. Author of Frankenstein, of course, that is.

[Andrew]

About Frankenstein's monster Jesus.

[Craig]

About, like, what if a bubonic plague, like, really went ham and broke down society? Like, that is what the Last man on the Last man is about. I did read that, like, the book. I don't know, maybe I need to read this book at some point. It opens in the way that, like, Frankenstein or other novels of that era are like epistolary novels or like a character finds a briefcase with a story inside. In that novel, she says that she found prophetic writings in from the 21st century, like, in a cave. Like, that is where that book comes from. So I just love the people in the 1800s were like, yeah, we have to justify the fiction by saying that I found a Nostradamus somewhere. So he writes this book and it is kind of credited as being one of the forerunners of the worldwide apocalypse trope in 20th and 21st century genre fictions.

[Andrew]

So, like, yeah, I could see that.

[Craig]

The Last man Obviously, is this 19th century work, but he is really installing a lot of tropes that we, you know, know today. So, like. And I'll be interested to know what the depiction of various, like, vampiric slash zombie things are that landed for you, because that is where this book's, like, influence is.

[Andrew]

It's vampire stuff. I said zombie earlier, but. And I. There is more than a touch of. Of, yep, zombie to this. Or at least the two are gonna get mashed up a little bit in pop culture. Because Night of the Living Dead, the George Romero movie, yep, Drew a lot of inspiration from this and that's like the. The ur texts for zombie fiction. So there's going to be some similarity, but in the book they're all vampires. There's no concept of like zombies as a thing. Yeah.

[Craig]

So as we said, this becomes a film called the Last man on Earth in 1964. It stars Vincent Price and that's the one that Matheson worked on and had his name taken off of. Then it becomes a film called the omega man in 1971 starring Charlton Heston, did not have any Matheson involvement at all and to my understanding, removed most of the vampiric qualities other than the people were like sensitive to light. They're kind of like a nocturnal other happening. I literally just understood why it was called the Omega Man. As I was putting my notes together, I never really thought about it being like the alpha and omega.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

I was just like, omega sounds cool. He's the Omega.

[Andrew]

Sound cool.

[Craig]

Yeah, I know Mega man, you know?

[Andrew]

Yeah, I know Mega Man.

[Craig]

Get equipped with loneliness.

[Andrew]

Doctor, why we literally Omega Man.

[Craig]

Just talking to someone about the Mega man cartoon. Anyway, I'm like, I was surprised that it came up. I was so happy.

[Andrew]

The thing we like about the Mega man cartoon because I'm sure that joke landed for nobody is the English dub of one of them. I don't even know which one it was.

[Craig]

I think it's the cut scenes in like Mega Man's 7 or like Mega Man 8.

[Andrew]

Yeah, the PlayStation 1. Yeah. The English dub for. For one of those games has Dr. Light, the. The super smart inventor of Mega man the robot, doing like an Elmer Fudd thing for some reason.

[Craig]

Dr. Wywee.

[Andrew]

Dr. Wywee.

[Craig]

In 2007, they adapt this book as I Am Legend, finally using it as the title. My notes say I am Legend man. Which is not what it's called.

[Andrew]

I Am Legend. No. Another sign that it didn't happen in the 70s.

[Craig]

And that adaptation focuses on the vampire zombies being the result of some sort of Faustian cancer cure. Like a. Which is very modern in terms of a trope.

[Andrew]

Yeah. We tried to fix something, but we made it worse.

[Craig]

Yes. And there's an attraction to like blood and there's a UV sensitivity, but most of the creatures just have rabies.

[Andrew]

My understanding is that. And again, I've not read like a plot synopsis of it, of any of it. I only kind of remember. I've never.

[Craig]

And I've never seen the marketing and stuff.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I remember the, the ads. But my understanding is that even though this is the only one that has the same name as the book. It also kind of totally misses the, like, the. The point of the title. So that's interesting.

[Craig]

Yes. I'm eager to tell you about the ending of that film in its theatrical release. There is an alternate ending that they did shoot that sounds like it's closer to the point of this actual book. But we'll. We'll get into it.

[Andrew]

I bet it tested bad.

[Craig]

I bet it did even tested bad. It's also not good. So, like. And the hallmark of all these film adaptations is that the main character is like a prominent scientist and then kind of involve him discovering some sort of remedy. I'll be interested to see if that's in the book. And generally the. The main thing that is like, you can put on a pegboard is like, the evolution of vampire and zombie genre that I think people give Matheson credit for. There's a Danish horror scholar named Matthias Classen who says Matheson goes to great lengths to rationalize or naturalize the vampire myth, transplanting the monster from the otherworldly realms of folklore to the test tube of medical inquiry and rational causation. He instituted the germ theory of vampirism, a take on the old archetype which has since been tackled by other writers. And I do think they're like. Remember when we talked about Dracula and what I've done, like reading on Dracula since. There's like a. There's a we're scared of foreigners angle to Dracula that is very different from kind of the modern. What causes vampirism or why. Why are the zombies the way that they are?

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

That is, like, a little more interested in, like, can we ground. Can we quote, unquote. Ground it? You know? So. Yeah. This book received the Vampire Novel of the century award in 2022 from the horror Writers Association.

[Andrew]

I guess you have to. Yeah. You can't say it's the best one of all time, but you can say it's the best one of the century and not step on actual Dracula.

[Craig]

Huh.

[Andrew]

Toes.

[Craig]

He apparently called it a quote. Rather dubious but interesting distinction.

[Andrew]

Huh.

[Craig]

Said that he had read Bram Stoker's novel during basic army training. Quote. Why? I don't know. I was pretty tired. I should have gone to sleep. I enjoyed it at the time, never knowing I was going to write a book about vampires and certainly not that it would be derived from the idea I had when I first saw Bela Lugosi.

[Andrew]

Oh.

[Craig]

So, yeah. That's. That's his background on the novel basically, is that he read Dracula and then also liked The Last man by Mary Shelley and had an idea or two. And that's where it comes from.

[Andrew]

Let's do some fanfic.

[Craig]

So let's take a quick break and then you can tell me all about I Am Legend.

[Andrew]

All right, Craig, if you want to make a legendary website, you've got to go to the people at Squarespace. This episode of Overdue is brought to you by Squarespace. The people who run the website that makes your websites for you. Yeah, they give you beautiful templates, easy to use, drag and drop tools, 24, seven, customer support, all the stuff that you need to make a great website without having to muck around in code like they did in the olden days. Craig, let me tell you some stuff I like about Squarespace.

[Craig]

Please.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

Andrew Craig, Just pretend that I don't know you for a second.

[Andrew]

Who are you? How did you get in my house?

[Craig]

Hi sir. Have you seen the Lord of the Rings movies?

[Andrew]

I have, but why are you trespassing on my property?

[Craig]

Don't mind me. I just want to know if you've read J.R.R. tol Tolkien's books.

[Andrew]

I have, but I don't know why you've come into my space and now you're grilling me. Well, I've come Stranger strange man.

[Craig]

I'm. I'm coming here and then I'm. I'm going back again. If you, if you're even remotely a fan of Middle Earth, Andrew, because I don't know you, and I don't know this to be true, but it sounds like maybe you are. You owe it to yourself to check out the finest Tolkien podcast this side of Bree. The Prancing Pony podcast hosts Alan Sista and Sean Marchese have spent years. Andrew, years walking their listeners through Middle Earth, from the Hobbit to the Lord of the Rings and even the Silmarillion.

[Andrew]

Whoa. Okay.

[Craig]

They're just a couple of guys, unclear if they're up to no good talking about their favorite books at the pub in the neighborhood. So jump in and have a listen. The Prancing Pony podcast is a great way for first time readers to learn the basics and more. And a welcome deep dive for all the Middle Earth veterans out there. Andrew, do you know who Pando and Alatar are?

[Andrew]

I. Yes. Do you? They're the Blue, aren't they? The Blue Wizards.

[Craig]

They are. I, I, I shouldn't have asked you. I should. No, that was me being like, I bet that these guys know who the Blue Wizards are. And you also know. So you should listen to this podcast, Andrew. Bad puns, dad jokes, Monty Python quotes, hilarious digressions. And an active community of other listeners are waiting for you, Andrew. And you, our listener in the common room at the Prancing Pony Podcast. Like Frodo and the Fellowship, I am calling you to action. Check out the Prancing Pony Podcast. Wherever you listen to podcasts, Andrew, tell me about this Omega Man. Is he a legend?

[Andrew]

I mean, not until the very last line of the book.

[Craig]

Okay. Neat. Oh. Ooh.

[Andrew]

So this we open on this guy, Robert Neville.

[Craig]

Great.

[Andrew]

Who is living on Cimarron street in the mid-1970s.

[Craig]

Great.

[Andrew]

And he is dealing with an outbreak of vampirism. He's living in a house by himself. He seems like he's maybe not doing so great. He's drinking a lot. And he is being tormented every night by these monsters who congregate outside his house. And every day he makes a bunch of stakes, like wooden stakes, and he goes around the neighborhood and just kills as many of them as he can.

[Craig]

Like, while they're sleeping.

[Andrew]

Yeah, while they're sleeping. To try and.

[Craig]

Oh, God, yeah.

[Andrew]

Try and make it a little bit easier for. For himself. He. We learned through flashbacks that he had a wife and a daughter who both died earlier in this, like, zombie. Not zombie. I Keep saying zombie. I don't know why Vampire epidemic trope having.

[Craig]

Having. I'm now an Expert on the 2007 film I Am Legend because I watched it once. It does have, like, zombie apocalypse energy about.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Something about this is a. This is a disease.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

It causes big groups of people to, like, congregate and act weird.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

It is just. It is more in terms of, like, modern horror fiction. It is more zombie coded than vampire coded in a lot of ways.

[Craig]

Yep, yep, yep.

[Andrew]

But yeah, the. The, like, sleeping during the day thing. He's hanging garlic in his window. Like, there's definitely a lot of vampire stuff too. It's just like, all the image, the imagery in my head is like, closer to zombie stuff than to vampire stuff. So I apologize if I keep mixing it up. But that is. But that is why there's just, like, something about how it's wired in my head that is. That is making me do that.

[Craig]

As we mentioned before the break, like, there are, like, Romero and then everyone else who follows Romero, like, they're building off of this book. Even if this book is like, yo, it's vampires.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Right.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

So we get a few years through. Through the book. We get a few years in the life of Robert Neville. There are like three kind of different phases. The first phase is like a year, ish, give or take. A couple of months after the epidemic has. Has spread and his wife and daughter have been killed where he is just, like, he is trying to learn more about what happened so that he can, like, more effectively kill the vampires. A lot of, like, experimentation.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And just like, trying to figure stuff out. It's funny to me that the character in all the adaptations had to be a scientist because Robert Neville in this book very much seems like just some guy. Like, he worked at, like, some plant or, like, factory or something beforehand. It didn't seem like he had any particular expertise. But then he goes to his local library and this is why libraries are so important.

[Craig]

Great. Yes.

[Andrew]

And he picks up, like, a book, the first book he reads about bacteria. He's like, oh, eureka. It must be a bacteria that's creating the vampire.

[Craig]

Vampire.

[Andrew]

And it's maybe it's not the first book that he reads. Like, there is a. There is, you know, a sense of, like, some time passing while he's doing this research and reading and stuff. But it does very much seem like, oh, I do my own research and I, a layperson, have totally figured out this microscopic virus and everything about how it works just by. By reading and by Trial and error.

[Craig]

And at this point, like, you are to understand that he is solely alone. Like, there's no other social structure. There's nothing else.

[Andrew]

No signs of other people. But there are signs that some of the vampires, like, retain some sense of. Of whoever they were before. Like, there's a. There's a neighbor named Ben Cortman who Robert had, who keeps yelling his name outside his house every night and telling him to come out and then, like, disappearing during the day so that Robert can't find him.

[Craig]

Oh, boy. Okay. So they can talk. That's interesting.

[Andrew]

They can. They can talk, though. They don't. They don't usually.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Okay. And, yeah, so. So he's dealing with, like, a still pretty new sense of, like, isolation, even as you encounter him. You know, he's got, like, a generator set up. He's got frozen food. He's got a car that he basically knows how to keep running. He knows, like, what grocery store to go to to get, like, the canned food and stuff. He knows what hardware store to go to to get tools and stuff for, like, fixing his house. He's got it. You know, he's not really sure why he is trying to persist, but he is persisting despite himself.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And you get other flashbacks. So it's interesting to talk about this as, like, a progenitor of, like, modern apocalypse fiction, because one thing that I think most apocalypse stories need to decide at some point is, like, how much is, like, how it went down part of the story. Like, how important. How important is it that we go back and we figure out stuff about how exactly this happened and what the breakdown looked like.

[Craig]

Is this book concerned about that a lot?

[Andrew]

There's. It's a little. It's, like, vague in spots, but specific in other spots. Like, you don't really know where the bacteria came from in the first place. Okay. But when we get flashbacks to, like, when society is still basically functional, but, like, a lot of people are getting sick with this weird thing, and it was very, like, very pandemic, talking about, like, whether we're going to send the kids to school. And I'm sure that they, like, the authorities would say if we shouldn't be sending our kids to school. Just, like, cool stuff to kind of think about again. But there are, like, these big dust storms that I think are caused because of a bunch of, like, weapons tests.

[Craig]

Oh.

[Andrew]

That are just blowing this dust everywhere. And it's implied that that is part of how the bacteria spreads.

[Craig]

Oh, weird.

[Andrew]

What? Yeah. What? Robert.

[Craig]

How very 50. So.

[Andrew]

Yeah. What What Robert figures out is that it's like a. It's a bacteria that wants to exist in like an oxygen free environment. Like it does anaerobic something. I know anaerobic means without oxygen, but so it exists without oxygen in a human host and slowly like kills the humans that it is infected. And then there is a second stage after all the blood has gone where the bacteria become like a fungus.

[Craig]

Oh yeah.

[Andrew]

And so there are two kinds of vampires. Basically. There's like people who are still alive but who are being manipulated and controlled by this bacteria. And then there are actual animated corpses who are like still moving around because of the fungus inside them. But they aren't. Like there's a distinction between the two of them that becomes important later.

[Craig]

Yeah, sure.

[Andrew]

And Robert Neville figures out that if you stake like when you stake one of these vampires, you let enough like oxygen into the system that it dusts them like Buffy style. Basically. Like oxygen gets in there and they just dissolve. Huh. But those particles flying through the air is part of how the disease spreads. Robert is just. He is immune. We don't know how. It's not important.

[Craig]

It's just important that he is.

[Andrew]

He just is. Yeah.

[Craig]

Which like I, some sometimes when I encounter that like the, the, the story is like trying to take great pains to explain the immunization, but sometimes or.

[Andrew]

Even doing like a last of us thing where oh, you're immune. Let's try to use that to make some kind of a cure another way. The story is. But sorry, go ahead with.

[Craig]

Well, just, just that like it would just happen that some people would be immune. Like it's just like. Or some people would have, would not be as susceptible to it. Like that.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

I mean that is believable.

[Andrew]

Yeah. It was always a huge thing with COVID is like everybody gets it like totally differently.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

There, there was. I don't know if they're still investigating people who like still haven't gotten it.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

If there's like something about them that makes them immune to it or like, you know, what, what dictates whether you're going to have a mild response to it or be hospitalized or. Yeah, it's, it's, it's. I at least think, you know, like because everybody gets a cold differently too. But I think enough of the markers are the same that it's basically a universal experience. Like I think of getting the flu or getting norovirus as something that's pretty identifiable. And then Covid was like way, way all over the place in a way that I Don't think we had experienced in our lifetime.

[Craig]

No, not at all.

[Andrew]

But yeah, I totally get how. Yeah, just like. Yeah, it's just like. Oh, I don't. I don't know. Don't worry about it. Some people are immune. That's fine.

[Craig]

Yeah. It's interesting in the, in the film. This will be my first invocation of the film. It is not explained why Will Smith is immune other than, you know, plot armor, you know, to use YouTube.

[Andrew]

He's Will Smith.

[Craig]

Yeah, he's Will Smith.

[Andrew]

He's gonna punch the bacteria for making fun of his wife. Jesus.

[Craig]

The movie was filmed way pre slap, but we do.

[Andrew]

Yeah, but he, the slap was still in him, you know, he was still there.

[Craig]

We're talking about the slap for years.

[Andrew]

We're still talking about it.

[Craig]

We're still talking about it. But it is slapper around the world. He was one of the scientists working on this cancer cure. And so his character's whole deal is like. And then the movie is set in New York City and it's all on like, they basically quarantine the entire city. Then it all goes to. To heck. But his like driving force is he's like, I helped cause this somehow. I am going to try and fix it and I'm never going to leave until I can't. Like, that's his personal kind of neuroses about it.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like way toward the end of this book, Robert Neville is talking to. To somebody else, which is you. We'll talk about that later. And he hypothesizes that like while he was down in Panama once or something, he got bit by a vampire bat. And maybe that made him immune. But it's not like, it's never like you do have to kind of give his guess some weight because he has apparently deduced accurately everything about this bacteria just from like reading books and reading the vibes.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

But that's all. Yeah, that's all you get by way of like possible explanation.

[Craig]

Okay, okay. So you said there were like a couple different, different phases. So the first phase is like there are people outside his house. It's pretty early in the whole.

[Andrew]

Yeah, he's like, he's. He's mourning his wife and daughter still. We're still getting a lot of like flashbacks to what society was like before. He is. He has a couple of episodes where he gets way too drunk and like the, the most exciting, I think action sequence, like early in the book is he's out staking vampires and he's just kind of made a discovery that if you throw them out into the sunlight, like, they. They die. Or at least he thinks they die. And he's like, man, I would love not to have to, like, lathe four dozen stakes every single day to go out and do my dark work. What if I could just throw them out into the sunlight? And so he's trying to bring a vamp who he's just thrown out into the sun back with him so he can, like, observe what happens after the. After the sun goes down. And he looks at his watch and he realizes that it is stopped running. And it's like an overcast day, so he can't easily tell what time.

[Craig]

Oh, yeah.

[Andrew]

He's like, oh, no, it's gonna be night. I'm not gonna get back in time. I gotta race back. And so he's, you know, he's zooming through the streets and he's trying to. He has to fight through a crowd of vampires to get in, and they wreck his car. And he left the garage open because he was feeling very, like, nihilist that morning. And he was like, well, that was stupid. This is all stupid. And it was very relatable for me, I think, because, I don't know, just sometimes you don't think about stuff or you have a day where you're like, ah, this is all stupid, and I'm not gonna pay attention to anything or be careful, and then it comes back to bite you.

[Craig]

That is a very human thing that, like, really, you don't have that wiggle room in the apocalypse, which is just like, what if I have an off day?

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

What if I don't want you today? And you just can't. You can't call a sick day in.

[Andrew]

The apocalypse second episode in the book. And. But. And this is like, a very narrow strip of book.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And I'm. I'm curious to know what the. How this is handled in the movie, but he sees a dog in the street, and it's. It's like. It's out in the sun, the sunlight. And he is so hard up for companionship. Early in the book, he has these vivid descriptions of how, like, the vampire women are like, like, displaying themselves outside, like, trying to tempt him to come out of the house.

[Craig]

How is that?

[Andrew]

He's like, yo, man. He's like, man, I'm so horny. And I. And it's really tempting for me to go out and, like, do stuff with these vampire ladies because, man, oh, man, I am so alone and I'm so, so horny.

[Craig]

That's bananas. They do not talk about that.

[Andrew]

All in the movie, Will Smith doesn't have a section where he's like, man, I'm so horny.

[Craig]

No, he doesn't. Both Nora and Ambrose in our Patreon Discord were like. The only thing I remember is this unexpected focus on how horny this guy is.

[Andrew]

He's so horny. And he stops eventually. But in this early phase, he. He is. That is one of his main, like, the main things that he doesn't have is he doesn't have, like, companionship, like, emotionally. And he also is so super horny.

[Craig]

One of the, like, critical reviews. And this is like 50 years after the book, after it's kind of been, you know, fully canonized and whatever. Dan Schneider for the International Writers Magazine called it perhaps the greatest novel written on human loneliness. And I do, like. I can envision how this book is. Is about human loneliness. I also appreciate that it includes the part I would not assume, which is it is lonely to be horny and have these sexy vampires outside.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Well, I don't even know if they're sexy, but they're making you think of sex.

[Andrew]

They. I mean, they just look like people. So. Yeah, sure, I imagine you would find sexy ones and less sexy ones depending on just your own personal tastes.

[Craig]

But it does, you know, and it's. It's just like, when you hear, like, greatest novel on human loneliness, you don't think, like, guys got apocalypse blue balls. You know what I mean?

[Andrew]

I just. I. You say you wouldn't think about it. I. I would amend that to say I would think about it, but I assume that they would skip that part.

[Craig]

Yes, exactly. That's. No, no, that is what I'm saying. I'm just not saying it that way. You're totally right. Like, I would not expect that to be in the book that we would label a great book about human loneliness. There would be a. It's more the. Like, what is a book? That is the meme of Joey from Friends. Like, All By Myself. The. The Rain is on the Window. You know, they're sad. Is it Ross? Doesn't matter. They're all friends. They're all the same.

[Andrew]

They're all the friends.

[Craig]

But I would not expect the guy really wants some part of it to make it past the editors.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's in here. It's in here, man.

[Craig]

Maybe that.

[Andrew]

Maybe he's benefiting from the fact that, like, genre writing already would be considered a little bit low browse. Yeah. Maybe sneak in some stuff about being horny without really, like, Your editor's probably a sicko too, so it's fine.

[Craig]

Okay, so what's the middle section of the book? You said it was kind of a narrow band.

[Andrew]

He sees this dog out in the sunlight and he's like, oh, this dog must be, like, alive. It must be.

[Craig]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

And I am so hard up for, for any kind of companionship. And so he starts putting out, like, plates of hamburger and some like, water and milk and stuff for this dog. And he, he places, he also places a ring of garlic around the plate of hamburger just in case the dog is like a vampire dog.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

But the, the dog does go in and get the hamburger. And so there are, there are these weeks where his whole. Robert Neville's whole existence is scheduled around the times that this dog comes to eat and, like, slowly getting in good with this dog and, like, getting this dog used to the sound of his voice and like, trying to get this dog to trust him so it can be his dog.

[Craig]

Huh?

[Andrew]

And then one day the dog doesn't show up, and he doesn't show up for a couple more days. And then a few days after that it does show up again, but it's got this, like, look in its eye that he recognizes from when his wife was sick, that he knows means that, like, it's not a vampire dog yet, but it does have the bacteria and it's going to be gone soon. And he's, you know, he, he does attempt to, to formulate a cure, but he is, I think that would have really broken the, the, the realism for me is if not only was he able to like, just grab an off the shelf microscope and discover all the stuff about these bacteria that he did, but also he, a layperson would be able to formulate a cure for a complex disease. All right, yes, he can't do that. So he does end up killing this dog out of mercy, basically. After fully winning it over and petting it and living with it for like a week. He does earnestly try to, to cure this dog. But the, the section ends with, like, the dog was dead within a week or something. You never. There's not a scene of him, like, explicitly killing the dog. Okay, but you can. You kind of read between the lines.

[Craig]

The movie, it, the movie.

[Andrew]

I understand the movie to be mostly about this guy and his dog.

[Craig]

The first 60% of the movie is this guy and his dog and he has the dog.

[Andrew]

Like, this movie is why that website about whether the movie has a dog who dies in it exists, basically.

[Craig]

And if that's not true. That's. That's spiritually why. It's why it feels.

[Andrew]

It feels.

[Craig]

Yes. He has the dog because in the flashbacks, his wife and son had just gotten a puppy, and he's sending them on a helicopter to get out of New York City. And the kid is like, okay, dad, here's a puppy. Like, I keep the puppy to remember us. Which doesn't make any sense because his dad has to go try and find a cure for the evil vampire disease. How's he gonna care for this puppy? But that's what the kid did. And so he has this puppy. And then in the present tense, Will Smith and this dog are best friends, and they spend all their time together. So there's not the I'm going to befriend this dog plot. It is more like it's me and this dog against the world.

[Andrew]

This is. And my dog. The dog is my link to my.

[Craig]

Yes. And it does not work out well for the dog. It's kind of sad. The. The way that the movie works is that the disease is airborne for humans, but only transmitted through, like, blood and wounds for other animals, for whatever reason. And in a fight with both some of the creatures and some of their own vampire dogs, which is a weird wrinkle, the dog gets infected, and then Will Smith has to, you know, take care of the dog. It's very sad.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And then it kind of breaks him. And then the movie moves into its third act, which is pretty bad. The movie was pretty good until the third act, which just kind of gets weird.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

So. Yeah. Okay. So. So he. This dog does not make it in the book either, which is.

[Andrew]

Dog. Doesn't make it in the book. But the dog also isn't, like. Doesn't factor in until after we've already kind of established our. Our relationship with Robert Neville and, like, some of the stuff that he's going through and the extreme horn. The extreme horniness that he's enduring during this apocalypse. The. The third act of the book is it's a couple years later. Robert Neville's still surviving. He's got it pretty much all figured out. He is.

[Craig]

And this is set in, like, LA or something? Like West.

[Andrew]

This is out in California. Yeah. It's interesting, the movies in New York. I assume that the movie also has some element of, like, are my wife and son still out there somewhere? No, you just.

[Craig]

Not at all.

[Andrew]

Okay. All right. I think them. Them leaving on the helicopter. I thought maybe left the door open. I think.

[Craig]

I think there's a helicopter crash.

[Andrew]

Wow.

[Craig]

I think, yeah.

[Andrew]

Whoa.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Was the pirate. Does the pilot get like infected or something?

[Craig]

And like, I think a different helicopter has a problem and then they collide. If I, If I want. If I understood that hastily edited scene correctly, I think that there was a non shown helicopter crash.

[Andrew]

Huh. Okay. That's an interesting way to do it, I guess.

[Craig]

But he's, but he's firmly like, this is. I caused this. I can't leave. I have to fix this. This.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Okay, well, Robert Neville here is just like a survivor, sort of not a mountain man because he's not in the mountains, but like, yeah, just a. He is. He has become accustomed to, to solitude and to loneliness and to just kind of existing. To exist. Like, he, he doesn't have. He. He doesn't have high hopes of achieving some kind of a cure or something. He is just like, this is, this is what I'm doing. This is my life now.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Until one day he sees in the sunlight a woman in the distance kind of like walking around. And so he gives, he gives chase to this woman and he's like, wait, I just want to talk to you. Like, tell me, tell me who you are. Tell me how you're still alive. They go back. Well, he brings her back to his house. There's no bold Robert blessedly. There is no like, God. There's no like sexual assault or anything. By the time you finally get to this point, like, they do have like a nice hug.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

There seems there's like a mutual spark there. But he is like, man, I've been alone for like three or four years. It's been so long since I've even thought about having those kinds of feelings.

[Craig]

Sure, sure.

[Andrew]

Anybody that. They're kind of not even there anymore.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

But she, she says that she, she had a family and that she doesn't anymore. But he is. What he doesn't know is whether she is infected or not. And this is, yeah, the big question. He's like, you just gotta let me, you gotta let me test your blood to see if you're infected or not.

[Craig]

Oh.

[Andrew]

And before he is able to do that, they do establish kind of some rapport and some level of like, trust. But he looks at the, he looks at her blood in the microscope. She does have the bacteria and she kind of knocks him out and runs away. And she. I believe this is all delivered in a, in a note to him. But basically there, there are a bunch of people who did become infected with the vampire virus, but also like stayed people and stayed people.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

And they are. And they've developed, like, treatments that can, you know, it's not a cure, but it does keep the virus kind of at bay so that they can continue living. And Robert has killed a bunch of them.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And she doesn't have anything against him. She is totally cool with Robert Neville and his whole deal. But we are building a new society, and they are gonna come for you eventually and you should leave.

[Craig]

Oh.

[Andrew]

And he doesn't. And eventually, kind of a new vampire SWAT team comes to his house and kills Ben Cortman, who had been hiding in a chimney during the day the whole time.

[Craig]

Oh, no.

[Andrew]

Brutally kills a bunch of vampires. And at this point, Robert Neville is like, oh, man, I really am not going to be able to, like, charm my way out of this with the New Vampire Society. So he is taken. The last scene in the book is him captured, bleeding. He's going to be executed. Ruth, the woman comes in and she's like, man, I'm a ranking. I'm a ranking member of this new vampire society, okay? And I tried to warn you and I tried to, you know, tried to tell you to get out, tried to tell you to go, but you just. You wouldn't. You wouldn't go. And you can't fight everybody, and so they need to, like, make an example of you because you killed so many of us. And Robert, like, gets it. Like, he can't. He have no knowing that he killed all those people. He can't, like, judge them for what they're.

[Craig]

Oh, no.

[Andrew]

To him. But Ruth, like, leaves him some. Some medicine he can take to, you know, to kill himself without being, like, executed. But he. His, like, last act alive is. He, like, looks out the window of this building that he's being held in, and he sees this big group of people, and they see him, and he sees how, like, horrified and angry they are. And he realizes he's having this string of realizations, and suddenly, I'm the abnormal one now. Normalcy was a majority concept, the standard of many, and not the standard of just one man. Abruptly, that realization joined with what he saw on their faces. All fear, shrinking, horror. And he knew that they were afraid of him. To them, he was some terrible scourge they had never seen. A scourge even worse than the disease they had come to live with. He was an invisible specter who had left for evidence of his existence the bloodless bodies of their loved ones. And he understood what they felt and did not hate them. His right hand tightened on the tiny envelope of pills so Long as the end did not come with violence, so long as it did not have to be a butchery. Before their eyes. Robert Neville looked out over the new people of the earth. He knew he did not belong to them. He knew that, like the vampires, he was anathema and black terror to be destroyed. And abruptly, the concept came amusing to him. Even in his pain, a coughing chuckle filled his throat. He turned and leaned against the wall while he swallowed the pills. Full circle, he thought, while the final lethargy crept into his limbs. Full circle. A new terror born in death. A new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend.

[Craig]

Whoa.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And so he just. He now. Now he. It used to be the vampir was the. The legendary creature and that he was a normal. Just a normal guy. But now he's. He is the weirdo.

[Craig]

He's a legend in their culture.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Okay. How did that land?

[Andrew]

And these vampires do have culture. Yeah. I thought it was cool.

[Craig]

Did you. What did you. I didn't ask you. What did you know about this book other than the Will Smith trailer?

[Andrew]

Just the Will Smith movie. A dog in it and that vampires. So you didn't have it.

[Craig]

You didn't have an inkling that this is where it was going to go necessarily?

[Andrew]

No, no, no, no. But it was cool that it went there.

[Craig]

Yeah. I thought.

[Andrew]

I always. I guess I always understood. And I think that's because Will Smith was, you know, in 2007. I think he is. He is past the peak of, like, Will Smith, bankable action star. But he is still mostly doing those movies at that. At this point in his career.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

I just thought I am Legend is like, yeah, I'm a cool, like, vampire hunter and I'm really good at it. And that's why I'm legendary. Like, I did not. I didn't really think of alternate reads on what the. What the title meant. So I thought where it got to was kind of neat.

[Craig]

Yeah. I think I knew that that's sort of what the. Where the book wound up. So I was kind of intrigued when I was watching the film. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Tell me about the film.

[Craig]

I'm happy to. So did you know that there's a scene where he watches Shrek?

[Andrew]

No.

[Craig]

There's a whole scene where he watches Shrek.

[Andrew]

I guess in. Okay. First I'm figuring out whether this had anything. It's distributed by Warner Brothers. Is Dreamworks. Like, I'm gonna just look and see. I have no idea these movies are connected in any way. I guess if you had unlimited time and nobody else around you would eventually get around to watching to do it.

[Craig]

So he, you know, he. He lost his wife and kid. He's in Manhattan all by himself. He's holed up in this. You know how like, big, big brownstone off of Central park or whatever, and he's got, like, the big thing. It was interesting to hear you mentioned the watch and, like, him trying to get home before sundown because that is a big part of the movies. Like, he's like. He's got a routine that involves if he's gonna leave the house, he needs to be back, and he needs to do his travel during the daytime so that they can't track him back to his house. Yeah, in the film.

[Andrew]

Yeah, in the. In the book, it's. They're just, like, all congregating outside his house anyway. But he's, like, fortified it enough, and they're like, I think the disease makes them too stupid to operate a door knob. They are not a problem.

[Craig]

They're kind of feral humanoids. In the film, it's like a mix of a 28 days later. And what if they were maybe a little smarter than that?

[Andrew]

I remember mostly looking like Bat Boys.

[Craig]

They look very much like Bat Boys. There is a YouTube comment that made me laugh when I watched the alternate ending where someone says, woody Harrelson goes crazy about his wife. And then I rewatched it, and one of them does look like a weird Harrelson, and I couldn't stop laughing. But so Will Smith has, like, holed up in this brownstone. He has, like, stockpiled supplies. He has. He goes to this, like, Blockbuster Video like, every day and talks to the mannequins and, like, rents a new. Quote, unquote, rents a new movie. But he does have Shrek on dvd. And so when this lady. When this lady rolls up to have.

[Andrew]

Come into an apocalypse at that exact narrow slice of time after DVDs became the most popular way to distribute movies, before Blockbuster Video stopped being a thing. Yeah, man.

[Craig]

Pretty good.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

This lady rolls into Manhattan with a little kid and, like, saves him from his nihilism after the dog dies. And he, like, almost gets killed by the vampire. Vampires on a dock. And then the third act of the movie starts where she is now there, and she's like, we got to go to this colony in Vermont. That's what we're here to do. Like, would you. We heard your broadcast on the radio. Like, oh, you're the doctor guy. That's interesting, because he also has a Lab in the basement where he is experimenting on. He's been experimenting on all the, you know, dark seekers or the whatever, the.

[Andrew]

Creatures to try and find vampire non zombie thing that we have to call the monsters in our monster movie.

[Craig]

And he can't find a cure yet. It just, like, he can. He has one that's alive in his basement that he's, like, cooled down and maybe someday he can find something to help her, but it's unclear. And this lady is trying to talk to him, and he's kind of like. Like, flipping out because he doesn't want to leave Manhattan. And the little boy is watching Shrek, and then he goes over there, and there's a scene with, like. It's Shrek and Donkey talking about how Donkey is alone and he needs friends and he's gonna hang out with Shrek and Will Smith instead of, like, relating to them as a person. Just starts doing the dialogue with the scene out loud. And she's like, you're not good with people, are you? And he just goes, I like Shrek. That's like, what is happening? But then the whole movie takes a turn where, like, this lady who's going to Vermont is like, I think, like, God has a plan. Like, I think there's like, a. Oh, man. Higher plan.

[Andrew]

It's like full cult.

[Craig]

No, it's. It's actually not at all. It is, like, meant to appeal to an audience who would want there to be some sort of, like, higher plan for how we're gonna survive this, I think. And so it's like she. She has a butterfly tattoo. His son, before the helicopter crash, like, made a butterfly thing. It's like some weird signs stuff. Okay, that happens. And then when the. When the vampires invade the house and the one, the head, the Woody Harrelson vampire is banging on the door. He makes, like, a butterfly shape in the glass. And Will Smith is like, oh, it's a sign. I need to sacrifice myself. Oh, I. I found a cure in this one. Vampire's blood. The lady needs to take it to Vermont, but I'm gonna sacrifice myself here in the basement. And because of this butterfly that I saw that makes me believe that this is all part of a higher plan. And the end of the movie is the lady monologuing about this guy who gave up his life and his legend. And you're like, what?

[Andrew]

So my initial sense of what the title might mean was actually pretty close to what the movie version is in that version.

[Craig]

But they shot a different version also where they're in the basement and the Woody Harrelson monster does the butterfly thing, but I don't know if Will Smith notices at all. And he realizes somehow it's not well written, so it doesn't matter. This. The scene anyway. I think the script is fine, but not this scene. But he notices that, like, maybe they just want their lady back. Maybe they just want this lady that he kept in his basement back. Like the Dark Seekers. Maybe they do have culture, even though the movie's not really spent any time on that. And so he wheels her out and gives them to her. Gives her to them. And the vampires, like, kind of leave. And he has a moment where he sees all the photos of all the vampires that he tested his vaccines on and didn't work and he was killing them all. And that's, like, the closest it gets to what the book did of, like.

[Andrew]

He was slaughtering the scary monster. Yeah.

[Craig]

Yeah. But that's not really what the movie is about at all.

[Andrew]

Sense of which is the original ending and which is the. The reshoot or did they just do two, like, simultaneous.

[Craig]

I don't know which is which. But I do know that in every conversation around a possible sequel, which has been in pre production for years, they say that they're gonna use the alternate ending.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

Which is the one that's truer.

[Andrew]

The one where he would be alive, which is important. Yeah. To the continuation of the story.

[Craig]

But even that ending ends with, like, a weird, like, you know, positive note of him being like. Yeah. And then I realized I was the monster. And then I got in the car with this lady and her kid who, like, Shrek, and we, like, drove away, and we're like, maybe it will be better. It's a weird. It's a weird ending to a movie that, like, taking it as a vampire castaway performance for Will Smith is, like, pretty good. Even though all the CG has aged terribly. Oh.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah. I'm sure. Yeah.

[Craig]

They. They decided against using people in prosthetics because they needed them to move differently.

[Andrew]

So this is also, like, if you're talking like, 2000s, I think we're still high on, like, the Lord of the Rings. Like, look how many guys we can make. Yeah.

[Craig]

You know, there's some. There's some fully CGI lions that looked pretty terrible to my eyes here in 2024.

[Andrew]

Feel that way when I see animal on a TV show that's been made with cg.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

TV CG is often still pretty. Pretty. Not good in that way.

[Craig]

But it was a big success. So, like, I don't feel like we often have to talk a lot about the movie adaptations, but, like, because this one, this book has churned out multiple successful ones. And this was the first one that was like, we're gonna use the name of the book, but we're gonna fundamentally change the ending and it's still gonna make hundreds of millions of dollars.

[Andrew]

Sure. Because it's got Will Smith in it.

[Craig]

Because it got Will Smith. You know, he wasn't fully. He. He still hadn't even made Hancock was the year after.

[Andrew]

Okay. He was coming off like the high.

[Craig]

Rope one that he was in After Earth. After Earth. That's the.

[Andrew]

I think of that one movie. I think of that one as being kind of a dividing line where he's. That is doing as much of the. Of the Will Smith action hero stuff anymore.

[Craig]

Correct. Well, because he was trying to make his son the Will Smith.

[Andrew]

Yeah, right.

[Craig]

That. That' 2013. So that's a little ways away. But it sounds like you dug this book.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it was fun. I enjoyed it. Do you like. A little heavier on, like a. Just a guide reading about bacteria than I thought it would be, but it was entertaining. Yeah.

[Craig]

And how did it feel as like a progenitor of apocalypse stuff? Was like, we kind of touched on it a couple times. I feel like sometimes it's hard to separate from our. Like we've drowned in it for 40 years.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like, not not knowing it was I. I think even thinking it was not like innovating a bunch of stuff, I still thought it was like an interest, you know, interesting take. Like.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Working with a lot of like, story structured things and tropes that I was familiar with, but in like, an interesting way. Yeah. But knowing that it did come out like, as early as it did and is a little bit closer to like the beginning of modern. Yeah, like modern film, modern pop culture as we recognize it today, it becomes more impressive, I think, as an achievement. Yeah. But it sounds like, you know, if you were the thing that inspired George Romero, then, like, you have a lot of things that exist downstream of you, but they're not like, looking back directly at you anymore. They're looking at stuff that you influenced. Does that make sense?

[Craig]

No, totally. We've certainly read books like that before.

[Andrew]

Like, I can see why the Romero films would survive as an overt influence more than. Than this specific book.

[Craig]

Yeah, sure. Cool. Well, I also. There's no Shrek in the book, so.

[Andrew]

No, no Shrek in the book because Shrek had not been invented yet.

[Craig]

That's a bummer.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I mean it's, it's a, it's a bummer to contemplate a world without Shrek, but that, you know, we, we were born in the world without Shrek, Craig.

[Craig]

Oh, we're in that interesting generation where we, we lived both in like the good Internet and we remember, yeah, we.

[Andrew]

We remember time before Shrek and we remember and we were there for Shrek and now we, huh, live in Shrek.

[Craig]

It's worth thinking about, you know, it's.

[Andrew]

I think about it all the time.

[Craig]

Especially when you're reading stories that are like, oh, I'm the monster. Like, it's worth considering.

[Andrew]

Worried to me it'd be like kids born after Shrek came out can vote now. I hope that they do and like rent cars and stuff.

[Craig]

Okay, everybody at home, thanks for listening to this week's episode of Overdue. If you have a DVD that you would watch in the vampire zombie apocalypse, if you had a bizarrely unexplained source of power for your brownstone, let us know what movies.

[Andrew]

Gotta be a generator, right? In the book, it's a generator. It makes sense explicitly about it.

[Craig]

Okay, that's cool. Willard Smith is just, you know, running things. Doesn't matter. Tell us about your, your Shrek equivalent. Overdue podmail.com or hit us up on social media at Overdue Pod Bluesky Instagram is where we hang out these days. Thanks to Robert, Jeremy, Maria, Megan T. Summer and many more for reaching out this past week. Thanks to Nora and Ambrose for your comments about the horniness in this book. In the Overdue Discord, our theme song is composed by Nick Laranjez. Andrew if folks want to know more about the show, where do they go?

[Andrew]

Overdue Podcast.com is our Internet website. We have all the books that we're reading for that month. We have a little embedded player thing that you can use to play the episode on your computer if that's how you roll. Craig next week, how are we closing out? Spooktober 2024 the Silence of the Lambs he's reading the Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris. If any of you didn't hear that thing that he just said, I'm going.

[Craig]

To read the book with some fava beans and a nice.

[Andrew]

We're doing, we're doing voices at the beginning and at the end now, so that's exciting. Patreon.com overdue pods our Patreon page. Support the show financially. Get us books and equipment and get access to our Discord community. Get access to bonus episodes early, including our new long read project about the babysitters club called Sit Me Baby One more Time, I dare you, and all kinds of other stuff. Patreon.com overduepod all right, everybody, thank you so much for listening to our podcast for another week. I think we are legend, Craig and I. And you at home.

[Craig]

That's what I was gonna say. You at home. You are legend.

[Andrew]

You are legend.

[Craig]

We are myth. You are legend.

[Andrew]

Until we talk to you next week, please try to be happy. That was a headgum podcast.