Zombies, Part Two: The Movies!

Summary

Ridiculous History – “Zombies, Part Two: The Movies!”

Podcast: Ridiculous History (iHeartPodcasts)
Date: November 4, 2025
Hosts: Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown
Research Associate: Ren Fest

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Overview of the Episode

In this lively, insightful episode of Ridiculous History, Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown dive deep into the evolution of zombies in film, tracing the genre's transformation from early “voodoo” zombies to the flesh-eating undead that dominate pop culture. Building on their earlier episode on the origins of the zombie myth, this installment explores how cinematic zombies became a vehicle for sharp social and political commentary—sometimes intentionally, other times by circumstance. The conversation ranges from classic films like White Zombie and I Walked with a Zombie through George Romero’s groundbreaking Night of the Living Dead and onward to the wild variety of zombie films in more recent decades.

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Segment-by-Segment Highlights

The Spookiness of Costumes and Personas (00:40–02:09)

• Ben and Noel kick things off by discussing Halloween traditions, dressing up (or not), and how adopting personas is a form of “social hacking.”
  • Ben shares: “Sometimes you do have to be a certain different person to get some stuff done. That could be anything from the social hack of wearing an orange construction vest to get backstage at places—unethical. But it does work.” (01:16)

Modern Zombies: Birth of a Movie Monster (05:36–06:41)

• The discussion shifts to the cinematic origins of the modern zombie, focusing on Night of the Living Dead (1968) by George Romero.

  • Noel: “It was a landmark achievement… for the zombie genre in that it really created the modern concept of the zombie as we know it.” (05:41)

• Ben compares Romero’s contributions to how the Faust legend established rules for dealing with the devil in Western fiction.

Night of the Living Dead – Realism, Politics, and Cult Status (06:41–10:22)

• They examine why Night of the Living Dead felt so real to audiences—shot in black and white, echoing the starkness of news footage.

  • Noel recalls effects legend Tom Savini’s take: “The way Night of the Living Dead is filmed takes a very cinema verite kind of slice of life approach… They felt… like they were watching something very familiar, like the news.” (07:50)

• Early critics dismissed it as trash because of its graphic content—yet it later gained cult status, in part due to its political undertones.

Zombies Before Romero: Voodoo, Colonialism, and White Zombie (1932) (10:22–19:31)

• Ben and Noel clarify that Night of the Living Dead was not the first zombie film—White Zombie (1932) predates it and is heavily influenced by sensationalized accounts of Haitian voodoo.

  • Ben: “As you can tell, this film is very heavy on the voodoo angle—a mischaracterization of voodoo, to be fair—and it is light on cultural sensitivity.” (13:13)

• The film’s antagonist, Murder Legendre (played by Bela Lugosi), uses voodoo to enslave other characters—an allegory for real-world colonial exploitation.

• They discuss the context of U.S. occupation of Haiti (1915–1934), forced labor (“corvée”), and the suppression of voodoo rituals as resistance.

  • Noel: “There’s a word for that… it’s slavery. And it’s slavery by another name.” (16:09)

• The hosts highlight how White Zombie’s promotional stunts explicitly played into racist, colonial stereotypes.

Social Commentary in Zombie Films: I Walked with a Zombie (1943) (29:50–35:26)

• I Walked with a Zombie offers a more nuanced, though still problematic, take on the voodoo mythos. The protagonist is a Canadian nurse who serves as an outsider lens through the grey area of colonial history and race/class divides.
  • Ben: “[This film] puts her in an outsider position, kind of a class of one’s own, making her a lens for the audience, theoretically, to more objectively view the cultural complications of the story.” (32:42)
• The film uses powerful symbols like the zombified guard Carafur and the T Misery statue, relics of slavery and resistance.

Cinema and “Sneaky” Critique of Power (35:26–36:21)

• The hosts praise old films for embedding critiques of colonialism and racism that, while often subtle due to censorship or audience expectation, still “cut through the PR and all the propagandistic spins.”
  • Ben: “One thing that’s brilliant… it cut through all that PR and it made the local populations… reassess their country’s involvement in a brutal past. And it did it so experientially.” (34:49)

The Cultural Explosion & Subtext of Night of the Living Dead (1968) (35:58–61:11)

• Night of the Living Dead is revisited, setting the historical context of the late 1960s: civil rights movement, political turmoil, assassinations, Vietnam War.
  • Ben: “There were serious questions about the viability of the United States as a thing. People… were convinced the US was going to fall.” (37:13)
• The film’s production background: micro-budgeted, grassroots, majority of actors were friends/investors.
  • Noel: “If you invest in our film, we'll also put you in the movie. So they appealed to some vanity. Even still… the budget is tight…” (39:58)
• Dwayne Jones, a Black actor, is cast as Ben—the most competent survivor—by chance, not as a political statement.
  • Ben: “He is the smartest one… pretty much all the other humans in the farmhouse are kind of useless and white.” (51:35)
• This “happy accident” leads to a film that (unintentionally) comments powerfully on race and authority in America—especially in the film’s controversial climax, where Ben is shot by a white sheriff and burned with the zombies.
  • Noel: “It really makes it read even more kind of poignantly… All of this not necessarily done on purpose, but it really feels intentional.” (52:05)
  • “Zombie films essentially function as a time capsule of the audience's greatest political fears. They're deeper the more you think about them.” (60:06)

The Evolution of Zombies On-Screen (61:11–66:55)

• From the 1970s onward, zombie films begin to reflect shifting American fears—consumerism in Dawn of the Dead (shopping mall setting), biohazards (Reanimator), and post-apocalyptic threats (Omega Man, 28 Days Later).

• The genre’s flexibility allows parodies and mashups (Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, Dead Alive) and even “zombified pets” (Fido).

  • Noel: “You start to really see this kind of flurry of spins and twists on that iconic genre…” (61:11)
  • Ben: “We see zombies taking an increasingly secular approach… not quite zombies, like the villains of Charlton Heston’s Omega Man… they’re zombie in all but name.” (62:43)

• The endurance of the zombie metaphor:

  • “It’s always Halloween in America.” (65:38)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the creation of the modern zombie:

  • Noel: “It really created the modern concept of the zombie as we know it.” (05:41)

• On the black-and-white realism of Night of the Living Dead:

  • “...they felt as though they were watching something very familiar like the news. And yet on screen we’re seeing this horde of undead devouring the flesh of the living.” — Noel (07:50)

• On US occupation and forced labor in Haiti:

  • “There’s a word for that… it’s slavery. And it’s slavery by another name.” — Noel (16:09)

• On how subtext can sneak into problematic works:

  • “I would argue that there’s a little bit of subtext that’s hidden in the film that is very cleverly done.” — Noel, on White Zombie (25:56)

• On film as an avenue for critique:

  • Ben: “It cut through all that PR and all the propagandistic spins… and it made the local populations of Americans… reassess their country’s involvement in a brutal past.” (34:49)

• On the accidental casting of Dwayne Jones:

  • “Dwayne’s the best actor. So now our movie is political.” — Ben (48:33)

• On Ben’s uniqueness as a Black hero (and horror history):

  • “In 1960s America, regardless of genre of film, you would not see a black actor punching a white actor on screen. Especially not when the white guy is depicted as a villain.” — Ben (55:13)

• On violence against children in horror as shock factor and metaphor:

  • “Now you’re watching the young eat the old, which kind of feels like a symbol for generational upheaval in the US…” — Ben (57:14)

• On the political bite of zombie films:

  • “Zombie films essentially function as a time capsule of the audience's greatest political fears. They're deeper the more you think about them.” — Ben (60:06)

• On the evolution of zombies post-Romero:

  • “You start to really see this kind of flurry of spins and twists on that iconic genre that Romero created…” — Noel (61:11)

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Timeline of Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:40 | Halloween costumes, subversive “personas” | | 05:36 | Introduction to Night of the Living Dead and modern zombies | | 06:41 | The film’s realism, reaction of 1960s audiences, Tom Savini’s commentary | | 10:22 | Earlier zombie movies: White Zombie, voodoo, and US-Haiti history | | 15:00 | Colonial subtext in zombie films, forced labor, suppression of voodoo | | 29:50 | I Walked with a Zombie, class/race lens, symbolism | | 35:26 | Zombie films as “sneaky” cultural critique | | 35:58 | Social context of 1968 America and the making of Night of the Living Dead | | 39:58 | Indie film hustle: casting by necessity, Dwayne Jones as Ben | | 51:35 | Ben as the only competent survivor—subtext now critical | | 54:42 | Pivotal scene: White character Henry locks Ben (Black character) out, Ben “clocks” him | | 55:13 | Breaking taboo: Black hero gets physical with white characters | | 56:45 | Child death and generational metaphors | | 58:06 | Ben killed by white sheriff—historical resonance, not scripted for race | | 61:11 | Zombies as shifting metaphors: consumerism, paranoia, apocalypse | | 65:40 | Comedy and post-modern takes: Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead |

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Conclusion

The hosts expertly show how zombie films are more than pulpy horror—they tap into the anxieties and power structures of their times. From colonialist voodoo stereotypes to the civil rights context of Night of the Living Dead, to 21st-century fears of contagion and collapse, zombies remain ripe for metaphor and reinvention. Ben and Noel’s energetic, often humorous banter makes the heavy history accessible, leaving listeners with fresh insight into why zombies won’t stay dead in our movies—or our collective imagination.

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Produced by: Max Williams
Research by: Ren Fest

(For more episodes, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.)

Transcript

[A]

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show, fellow ridiculous historians. It's a spooky time, time of year, the most wonderful time of year here on Ridiculous History. Let's give it up for our super producer, Mr. Max Williams.

[B]

They're coming for you, Max.

[A]

Max, are you a Halloweenie?

[B]

I actually am not. You're not? What the heck? Yeah, I mean. I mean, have fun recording your own damn podcast.

[A]

What kind of costumes have you rocked in the past?

[B]

God, I'm that guy who shows up to the. To the party, the Halloween party, intentionally, very much in, like, not a Halloween costume.

[A]

Oh, one of those.

[B]

Yeah. I'm trying to get better about it with age. I'm not a costumer myself. I'm more of a costume watcher. I was. I was a curmudgeon for much of my life, and as I. As I get into my advanced age, I'm trying to become less of a curmudgeon. So I don't know, maybe I'll be.

[A]

Who you are, man.

[B]

It is, man. Be yourself, dude. Experience Halloween in your own way.

[A]

And that is Dole Brown. I am Ben Bolan. I am a huge fan of costumery and Personas. I don't just restrict it to Halloween. Sometimes you do have to be a certain different person to get some stuff done. That could be anything from the social hack of wearing an orange construction vest to get backstage at places unethical. But it does work, and it could be something as ornate as a dragon con costume. That's one of the best opportunities for costume watching here in our fair metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia. This is the follow up to our earlier episode on the origins of the zombie myth.

[B]

Correct. And it's a super good primer for this episode. So do check that one out if you haven't already, which I bet you have. This is an iHeart podcast.

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Learn [e-mail] Holidays this episode of Ridiculous.

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[B]

So we're going to talk about zombie films today, courtesy of our wonderful and spooky research associate, Ren. And we're going to start off talking about 1968's Night of the Living Dead, the most iconic zombie film you know, creator of many of the zombie tropes that we know and love today, of course, by the incredibly talented filmmaker George Romero. It was a landmark achievement for not only the horror genre, but the zombie genre in that it really created the modern concept of the zombie as we.

[A]

Know it, similar to how the story of Faust kind of established the modern rules for the trope of selling one's soul to the devil. Night of the Living Dead is responsible for so much stuff you see in modern zombie fiction and film today.

[B]

Oh, and if you want a little supplementary spooky episode, do check out the episode of Stuff They Don't Want yout To Know. Our sister pod about Selling youg Soul. Ben did some awesome research into that and it's a lot more nuanced than you might think.

[A]

Oh, that's too kind, Noel. I appreciate it. We do hope you enjoy that episode as well. And I love the points that you're raising about Night of the Living Dead because it's one of those films now where even if you don't consider yourself a film buff, even if you don't like horror films, which not all people do, you're still going to be aware of this. It's unnerving, it's haunting, it's black and white, it's pretty unrelenting and it's not exactly, you know, it's not at a frenetic pace. It is a slower, non action packed horror film.

[B]

And that's true of a lot of older films. Of course, a lot of younger people watching older films sometimes might find themselves to be a little bored or just not move as quickly as they're used to. And that is of course a product of the much more frenetic filmmaking and editing style of today. But you can credit so many of those old films with establishing those rules and making some of the rules that were then able to be broken in interesting ways. One thing that's cool about Night of the Living Dead is I've been watching this. You may have watched it as well, Ben. There's a series on Shudder and I can't remember the name. It's not particularly compelling name, but it's essentially all of these clips of the scariest moments from various horror films and with a lot of commentary from actors and filmmakers. Some of the filmmakers whose works are actually featured are in there, like Fede Alvarez and Andy Muschietti, who's responsible for the modern IT franchise. But Tom Savini, who is a very, very incredibly talented makeup effects artist, one of the most revered in that industry, made the comment of when Night of the Living Dead originally a lot of people just had black and white TVs and so they were used to Seeing the news in that stark black and white. And the way Night of the Living Dead is filmed takes a very cinema verite kind of slice of life approach to the way it's depicting the action on screen. And he said that really made it click with audiences of the time because they felt as though they were watching something very familiar like the news. And yet on screen we're seeing this horde of undead devouring the flesh of the living.

[A]

Yeah, it felt very real. And not people watching it for the first time didn't see it as schlocky or low budget. As a matter of fact, this film, Night of the Living Dead, was quite controversial when it first released. And it got stuck in a certain genre of theaters called grindhouse theaters, the ones that showed really gnarly stuff because it had gore, violence, a lot of unrelenting sadism. And most film critics who watch this, most of like the established legit film critics who might have an article in a trade magazine or a newspaper, they said this was just trash.

[B]

That's right. But it also is controversial for some reasons that you may know about, but if you don't, you might not expect some very political reasons because of some casting choices. The question, though is if Romero's movie was so poorly received upon its debut by critics, how did it rise to such an important cult status, you know, in the canon of not only horror, but cinema, really? I mean, it truly is held up there. And a lot of mega, mega letterboxy type film buffs will often cite Night of the Living Dead as an all time favorite. The spoiler alert here. I already teased. The reason largely that it was elevated to that status was because of politics.

[A]

Yeah, and to be clear, Night of the Living Dead was by no means the first zombie film, as we may have mentioned before, but it is the titular quintessential zombie film. Peek behind the curtain. Our buddy George initially didn't call the monsters in his film zombies. He called them ghouls. His logic here was that, yes, he took inspiration from earlier horror films, but he didn't think his particular monsters fit into the same category of earlier zombies. Because if you listen to our Origin of Zombie Myth story, you'll recall that originally zombies were depicted as creatures created by dark magic by a bokor or a shaman, a practitioner of the arts.

[B]

Who could wield control over them and employ them as their sort of demonic minions.

[A]

Right, Exactly. And Romero's zombies are different because although they are corpses, they're reanimated by radiation from outer space, not by dark magic. They Also can't be controlled. They can only be killed. And they are all inherently cannibals.

[B]

Which was not part of the more voodoo related zombie archetype.

[A]

Right? Yeah. Cause the mythological zombies are not themselves undead. They are living people who have been entranced. Right. And they have maybe been partially dead or mostly dead, to quote the Princess Bride, in case they were buried. But when they're back on the, you know, on the right side of the soil, they're not eating brains. A lot of it is a metaphor for slavery. And we see that there are still inherent social commentary pieces in these zombie stories, especially when considered to be the first actual zombie movie. Victor Halpern's white zombie from 1932, even that has statements about American politics.

[B]

Absolutely. Who are the real monsters. Right. Is almost the kind of cliche trope that this established White Zombie. You may also recognize this as the name of Rob Zombies 1990s kind of metal band was based on William Seabrook's bestselling novel the Magic island, which sounds fun and not scary at all. The Magic Island. The book features a truly sensationalized account of Seabrook's own explorations in Haiti during the US's nearly 20 year occupation of that island. This was spurred by the assassination of Haiti's president in 1915.

[A]

Now, as you can tell folks, this film is very heavy on the voodoo angle. A mischaracterization of voodoo, to be fair. And it is light on cultural sensitivity. I like that turn of phrase from our research associate, Ren. And if you go to JSTOR Daily and you read some articles about this, you'll see the following description. The titular zombie is an American woman stolen from her husband on her wedding night by a rival with the help of the voodoo practicing European plantation owner. Wait for the name.

[B]

Oh boy.

[A]

Murder.

[B]

Legendary murder legendre if you're nasty.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Played by of course, the iconic and spooky and quite complex individual Bela Lugosi. I'm sure that you've seen Ed Wood, the incredible Tim Burton film where Martin Landau plays Bela Lugosi and it depicts this actor kind of in past his prime, sort of. He was most well known, I guess for playing Dracula. And he's talking about that. He's got the hand and the voice and you must be Hungarian and also double jointed, but also struggles with heroin addiction. Do highly recommend that film if you haven't seen it. Also in black and white, which is a super hard sell at the time for Tim Burton, you know, But I think it's his best film and it's very uncharacteristic for him in a lot of ways. It's, it's, it's still got his. His touches though, for sure.

[A]

And I'd love to do an episode just on Bela Lugosi at one point. That's, that'll be an interesting little biopic approach for us. Anyway, this. This guy's playing murder as his literal first name. Yeah.

[B]

What's his middle name?

[A]

Yeah, he operates a sugar cane mill and the employees of the mill are pretty much all victims. He is turned into zombies. They are created through a voodoo ritual. And here we get to kind of the political subtext. Okay, so America's military occupation of Haiti isn't directly addressed in the film, but the lovebirds, our romantic leads, they decide to get married in Haiti because of the business opportunities available to people who can invest in the sugar cane trade and sugar plantations.

[B]

Yeah. And if we're thinking about the cultural context of the time, Haitians were rising up against their own colonial occupiers. And a forced labor system called the Corvette, wherein a government mandate that benefited the US Military allowed the US Military to conscript able bodied Haitians to build infrastructure across the island without pay.

[A]

Right.

[B]

There's a word for that.

[A]

Right. It's slavery. And it's slavery by another name. But it's also similar to the aftermath of the 13th Amendment in the United States, which created prison labor. Yeah, right. Modern prison labor, which was essentially the same thing for quite some time. Voodoo was also in the real world, outlawed during the American occupation, which is very strange given that the founding fathers of our country made such a big deal about the government staying out of religion.

[B]

Well, isn't that also historically interesting? Or at least we see rhymes of this throughout history where an occupying force quashes the local belief systems, you know, and then of course, it goes underground. And then that's where you start seeing some interesting commingling of cultures a lot of times because of things being sort of tamped down and then having to kind of, you know, peek their heads up and sort of inject themselves back into culture sort of in a. In a covert way.

[A]

Right. Through maybe religious syncretism or acquiring new symbols and secret operations. Yeah, the government, the occupying government authorized raids on religious compounds and they would shut down voodoo ceremonies. They also confiscated artifacts and religious objects, especially drums. And drums. This is a very interesting tangent. So drums in the US and throughout different parts of the Caribbean could be used as communicative tools. So it wasn't just a drum circle for recreation or for spiritual practices. This was also a way to shut down local resistance to the occupation.

[B]

Absolutely. And I highly recommend checking out a website, lecouprooklyn.com and if you can just search for it, there's an article in there on this blog by Marcus Shorts called Rhythm Without Haitian Voodoo Drum Music. Little outside the scope of today's episode, but it's got some incredible images of some of these drums that would look sort of like, you might picture a conga drum looking with like a long tubular wooden body and then an animal skin of some kind stretched across the top and held in place with rope that, you know, is used to kind of tighten it from down the sides of the drum and underneath. And they are often emblazoned with various symbol and sigils and things like that. So do do check that out. It's pretty cool. It really goes into some detail about the history of voodoo drums.

[A]

And White Zombie had another interesting twist when it came to the promotion of the film. It was trying to justify Uncle Sam's occupation of Haiti by depicting Haitian people, the locals, as savages from a earlier time. People that were maybe not quite fully human and could not exist in the western world without the help of, you know, oh, these benevolent white overseers. So promoters would go to the local guys having events for White Zombie. Again, this is 1932 and they would say hire African American or hire black performers to dress in quote tropical garments and beat Tom Toms and just yell all over the place.

[B]

Yikes.

[A]

This episode of Ridiculous History is brought to you in part by American Public University.

[B]

You're juggling a lot. Full time job, side hustle, maybe a family.

[A]

And now you're thinking about grad school.

[B]

That's not crazy, that's ambitious.

[A]

At American Public University they respect the Hustle and they're built for it.

[B]

Their flexible online master's programs are made for real life because big dreams deserve a real path.

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Told and that's a half truth is a whole lie.

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We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national TV.

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[C]

My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.

[B]

I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or.

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America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns.

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[D]

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History. We're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years.

[A]

That's how Elizabeth Senate's family waited for justice to occur. 35 long years.

[D]

I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse.

[C]

He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family and apologize. Turn to the left. Tell my family I love him. So he had this little practice. To the right. I'm sorry. To the left.

[B]

I love you.

[D]

From Revisionist History, this is the Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist History, the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[B]

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32 lost nuclear weapons. You're like, wait, stop. What?

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The great Paul Scheer made me feel good.

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I'm like, oh, wow, Angela and Jenna, I am so psyched you're here.

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What was that like for you to soft launch into the show?

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Sorry, Jenna.

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I'll be asking the questions today.

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Let's see how it goes.

[B]

Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know the shade is always shadiest right here. Season six of the podcast Reasonably Shady with Gisele Bryant and Robyn Dixon is here dropping every Monday as two of the founding members of the Real Housewives Potomac. We're giving you all the laughs, drama, and reality news you can handle. And, you know, we don't hold back. So come be reasonable or shady with us each and every Monday, I was going through a walk in my neighborhood. Out of the blue, I see this huge sign next to somebody's house. Okay. The sign says, my neighbor is a Karen. No way. I died laughing. I'm like, I have to know. You are lying. Humongous, y'. All. They had some time on their hands. Listen to Reasonably Shady from the Black Effect podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[A]

However, if you get past that really problematic promotion and you look at just the film itself, it does seem to imply that it is pretty crappy to take away a person or community sense of agency.

[B]

Oh, yeah, Murder le is the big bad. You know, he is depicted as an absolute monster, abusing and taking advantage of individuals, you know, through this magic. It is not seen as like a heroic act in any way, shape, or form. It's tough. Right, to straddle that line, especially in 1934. You gotta. I mean, the promotion of the film, I would argue, is its own thing, separate from the intent of the filmmaker. So let's give that, you know, credit where credit's due. But I would argue that there's a little bit of subtext that's hidden in the film that is very cleverly done.

[A]

Yeah. You could even say they're sneaking it under the radar. Right.

[B]

Of the video.

[A]

So if we're looking at the real world occupation, which is a part of American history that a lot of textbooks don't care to talk about. The real world.

[B]

Inconvenient truths.

[A]

Right, right, exactly. So the real world Haitian people, the locals, at this time, were always against the occupation. They were never fans of it. And they would have continual protest and uprisings and mutinies and strikes, and eventually, in 1934, under Franklin Delano Roosevelt's good neighbor Policy Uncle Sam.

[B]

Sorry, funny name.

[A]

Yeah. Especially considering this next decision. Because of that policy, Uncle Sam officially withdrew from Haiti while retaining, quote, economic connections. So that's where private industry and public policy get really sticky. They figured out a way for, for US corporate interests to continue making money. And then they said the best thing we can do as a good neighbor is to gtfo.

[B]

And often, as is the case with these kind of withdrawals, it certainly led to a period of political upheaval and instability that lasted for quite a long time with a succession of coups and various problematic leaders. It is one of those things that colonialists tend to do when they're just kind of done with a place. They just sort of leave them to their own devices and don't really give them the tools to kind of pick up the pieces and build themselves back up as an autonomous nation 100%.

[A]

And sometimes that's neglect or it's a matter of incompetence in the occupying force. But often, as unpleasant as it is to admit that is a purposeful. That's a purposeful thing. Cause they don't want this former vassal state to ever become fully independent.

[B]

Oh, 100%. And it was around 13 years that the US kind of maintained that political hold hold over Haiti. And that included a lot of those forced labor practices and suppression of dissents, as well as continuing to force this improved infrastructure that benefited the U.S. much more than it benefited the locals.

[A]

Oh, 100%. And make no mistake, the colonial power of France was also deeply involved in similar unclean shenanigans. And it's, it's to a point where the intergenerational consequences of those actions of that statecraft reverberate today. Recently when we were on our work cruise at True Crime Cruise, some of us had the opportunity to visit the Dominican Republic. And it was real eye opener, at least when I was talking with the locals who it was just an eye opener to hear them talk about the neighboring country of Haiti because they're on the same island. And the difference between the two countries on almost every level is just stark and disturbing. I mean, the U.S. created a real life horror story there, 100%.

[B]

And a lot of historians, this is a term that I just stumbled upon in looking up some of the history of the US occupation of Haiti. Refer to the legacy of this occupation and withdrawal as having left, dealt rather a psychic blow to the concept of independence there in Haiti. And then the US came back in, in 1994, not necessarily as an act of egalitarianism, but More self serving stuff again, to restore a democratically elected president that of course they we, you know, had a relationship with. Right, right, right.

[A]

And then we see this kind of interference throughout the US sphere of influence at the time in the Caribbean and Latin America. And so what we're telling you here, folks, is that a lot of really good horror tells a different story. Right. And tells it through metaphor. It makes you think it's not all just the Final Girl and gratuitous stabbing. Although that does have a place in these categories of horror. Zombie films are in particular ripe for this kind of commentary. If we go just a few years later in 1943, we'll see I Walked with a Zombie. In this film, we're back in the Caribbean. There's a young nurse who takes a job caring for a comatose woman on a fictional island that is definitely not Haiti, but definitely is Haiti. And she is. Is all of a sudden plunged into an underground, a cultural underground, where the ghost of slavery haunts the present and voodoo priests are weaponizing their power to summon the living dead. So again, commentary.

[B]

Well, yeah, and because of her station as a nurse, you know, caring for folks in the working class, she is able to kind of mix in with a lot of the locals and start to really be the stand in for the audience. Audience and kind of being plunged into that class divide.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. And she is there to help. So this is much more nuanced than one could argue.

[B]

Still a white savior trope a little bit, but I think it, you know what I mean? It's not egregious. I haven't seen the film though, but my understanding is that it's not her.

[A]

Her intentions at least are pure, which makes her a better protagonist. So in the couple in White Zombie Goes to Haiti because they're getting married and they want to have an upper class, exploitative, agrarian lifestyle. But the nurse and I Walked with a Zombie. Our character's name, Betsy. Here she is positioned as someone who is, yes, white, but is also working class. So she's there because she has a job. She's not an investor. She's taking care of the wife of a wealthy plantation owner. But she is interacting more directly with black workers, with people who are locals, who are descendants of those previously enslaved people. And that brings to the forefront this class and race divide running through the film.

[B]

Not to mention, Ren really astutely points out that Betsy is Canadian, which obviously as a country has legalized links to French colonialism as well.

[A]

Yeah, that's a really good point. There her history as a character is not tied to racial prejudice and slavery, which makes her unique amid most of the people she meets in Haiti. And so the film really puts her in an outsider position, kind of a class of one's own, making her a lens for the audience, theoretically, to more objectively view the cultural complications of the.

[B]

Story, which are personified by two very important key symbols. A character named Carafur who is a zombified guard, you know, complete with like bulging eyes, who kind of lurks in the shadows waiting to be summoned by his master, as well as a statue known as T Misery, which was formerly the figurehead of the Holland family's slave shield. And similar to Night of the Living Dead, I Walked with a Zombie was super controversial when it came out, similarly, because of some of these slightly ahead of their time political critiques.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Putting a critical lens up against the narrative that people were being taught in school and in the press. They were looking at colonialism, they were looking at the consequences of chattel slavery. And they were saying, hey, hey. I don't know if this is a hot take, but maybe this wasn't all on the up and up.

[B]

I think maybe this wasn't on. Maybe this wasn't quite on.

[A]

Maybe this was a swing and a miss historically. So they didn't gloss over the facts. For American audiences, and a lot of audiences in the early 1900s here on mainland America, they might not have had much of an opinion on the occupation of Haiti because it was making some people who are already very wealthy and powerful more powerful and more wealthy. But the average person in Oklahoma or something just hears about it occasionally when they read the paper.

[B]

Right. And it wasn't like the top story either.

[A]

No, at all. And this kind of one thing that's brilliant about these films and it shows the power of film is that it cut through all that PR and all the propagandistic spins and. And it made the local population, or it gave local populations of Americans the opportunity to really reassess their country's involvement in a brutal past. And it did it so experientially. Experientially. And I'm thinking it did it in an elegant way that wasn't talking down to you, it was telling you a story.

[B]

And it's interesting because of the time and some of the attention that would have been paid by powers that be to films like this. Some of that. The fact that it wasn't heavy handed or overt is probably a product of the time and them having to be a little Bit crafty about it and not come right out and say the quiet part loud. Had to say the quiet part a little quiet. But it is clear that I walked with the zombie. Did so a little more aggressively than white zombies.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. And this all brings us back to the Night of the Living Dead. So we're fast forwarding a few more decades. It's 1968. The United States of America has had a rough go for a couple of reasons. There were some really good things. There were some really terrible things. The Civil Rights act was passed four years earlier.

[B]

Right.

[A]

In 1964. But racial inequality was still still very much a thing, even more so than today.

[B]

All of this stuff is top of mind because speaking of experiential, this was lived, this was right in front. This was practically a new Civil War kind of moment where there was a huge divide that was very clear in terms of the folks who were pro mistreatment of African Americans and the folks who were on in their corner. This also all was roiling around during the Vietnam War, which is its own bag of badgers, as we say, on stuff they don't want you to know. So what started as an anti Vietnam War protest at the National Democratic Convention in Chicago turned into an absolute show all out riot.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for the beep there, Max. We have, we have to emphasize this, we have to highlight it and put it in italics for anybody who wasn't around during this time. There were serious questions about the viability of the United States as a thing. I think that's astute to point out a possible Civil War movement. But people for one reason or another, on all imaginable sides of political divides. A lot of people in different camps were convinced the US was going to fall. We saw public figures like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr assassinated while delivering a speech at a hotel balcony in Memphis. JFK had already been assassinated. His brother Robert F. Kennedy is also assassinated by June of 1968.

[B]

I can't help but feel reverberations with the present moment that we're living in right now too. And also the fact that that zombies have had another big moment if they ever really went anywhere. But yeah, to your point, it is a great way of pointing out some of these inequalities and some of this like us versus them mentality without having to be overtly political about it.

[A]

Yeah. And just a year earlier, in 1967, one of the millions of people reading all this terrifying news is a young guy named George Romero. Now George at the time is directing commercials which is how a lot of filmmakers get their start. He scrapes and scrounges and saves to start a grassroots production company called Image 10. And he does this with a couple of his college buddies. They don't have a lot of money. They've got like 6,000 bucks. When they decide to produce a horror movie outside of their hometown in Pittsburgh, they need more than $6,000 even back then. So they go around to beg and cajole friends and family and other anyone they can find, really anyone they can get a pitch meeting with. And they ultimately raise $114,000 for the final film. Which sounds like a lot of money, maybe to an individual, but as we know, is very much not a lot of money when you're trying to make a whole ass film.

[B]

Well, the funny thing, like, I guess it's time to do it. If we could get a boop or two. Inflation calculator, that bad boy and a boop. It does add up to about what you would consider the most modest budget of an indie film today, which is $1,085,841.64.

[A]

Boop. Great. Yes. And this here's the twist. Here's how they get all this money. Even though they're basically some kids just out of college, they go to their investors and they say, hey, if you invest in our film, we'll also put you in the movie. So they appeal to some vanity. Right. So even still, with this consideration, the budget is tight and they blow a lot of it renting the rural farmhouse where they wanted the film to be set.

[B]

Yeah, it's funny, cause originally they wanted this to be much more of an Ed Wood Plan nine from Outer Space, kind of sci fi, Cold war era alien picture, you know, which was much more of a trope at the time. But because of limitations and constraints, they had to get a little more creative with it. And in doing that, kind of made a new thing.

[A]

Exactly. Yeah. Because the makeup effects for aliens can add up pretty quickly. So here's what they end up with in the final plot. The story follows a lady named Barbara. Barbara travels with her brother to visit her father's grave. And when they get to the cemetery, they're attacked by a guy in the cemetery. He kills her brother. She runs in a panic, a valid panic, and arrives at a farmhouse. And then she and several other people that she doesn't know, they end up hiding from this horde of hungry zombies who continually lay siege to the house. The hero of the group, the guy who kind of assumes the leadership position is a dude named Ben and he is played by a black actor named Dwayne Jones. Everybody else inside the farmhouse, like the humans, they're all white actors.

[B]

Yeah. And I mean, you pointed out the whole thing about, okay, you invest in us, we'll give you a part of what a genius structure. To be able to do that and not have to depend too much on people's acting chops, you just, you know, throw them in some pancake makeup and have them shamble around and go, oh, yeah. But to that point there they had a friend who was, of their close group, the best actor, the best guy for the job. The fact that he was black had nothing to do with it, but. But in the end, it made that cultural impact even more stark.

[A]

This episode of ridiculous history is brought to you in part by American Public University.

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They literally made me say that I.

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Took a match and struck and threw it on her.

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Gas on her.

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[D]

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History. We're going back to the spring of 1988, to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime, perhaps would spiral out of control. 35 years.

[A]

That's how long Elizabeth Senate's family waited for justice to occur. 35 long years.

[D]

I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often suffering worse.

[C]

He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family and apologize. Turn to the left. Tell my family I love him. So he had this little practice. To the right. I'm sorry. To the left.

[B]

I love you.

[D]

From Revisionist History. This is the Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[B]

Hey, it's Ed Helms. And welcome back to Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw. On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu every single episode.

[C]

32 lost nuclear weapons. You're like, wait, stop.

[B]

What? Ernie Shackleton sounds like a solid 70s basketball player who still wore knee pads.

[D]

Yes.

[B]

It's gonna be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of guests. The great Paul Scheer made me feel good. I'm like, oh, wow. Angela and Jenna. Jenna, I am so psyched you're here.

[C]

What was that like for you to soft launch into the show?

[B]

Sorry, Jenna.

[A]

I'll be asking the questions today.

[C]

I forgot whose podcast we were doing.

[B]

Nick Kroll. I hope this story is good enough to get you to toss that sandwich. So let's see how it goes. Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Decoding Women's Health. I'm Dr. Elizabeth Poynter, Chair of Women's health and Gynecology at the Atria Health Institute in New York City. On this show, I'll be talking to.

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[A]

Yeah, this is interesting, right? Because it feels like if we're trying to spin a narrative, we would say Romero and team were so progressive and ahead of the time. We're not saying they're not progressive people and we're definitely not saying they're bad people. But we do think it's important to realize the reality of independent filmmaking, which is a lot of time, a lot of times you look around at your friend group and you say, okay, sorry guys, Dwayne's the best actor. So now our movie is political.

[B]

Yeah, but that's also the thing that's so neat about art, is it can often and be a product of happenstance, those happy accidents that Bob Ross is always talking about. That's true for music and creating things with limitations, like if you have every tool in the arsenal, sometimes you get kind of stymied or a little bit overwhelmed. But when you're forced to make choices because of a lack of resources, oftentimes accidentally magic happens. And that's exactly what happened here with Dwayne Jones. Who is the guy we're talking about, about here, who played Ben, our hero, Ben.

[A]

Yeah. Yep, this guy is. This guy is the saving force of Night of the Living Dead. And it's interesting because, you know, like we mentioned at this time, Hollywood had this thing that seemed almost like a calculated quota on who could or could not be a lead role actor. And Sidney Poitier was like the only black actor who was allowed to be the lead man. So we want to be clear, it is never mentioned the idea of race relations here. It's never explicitly mentioned. It's never a story point. Nobody gives the Ben character a tough time about being a black guy trapped with these white folks in this zombie flick. He plays the entire role as a unlucky stranger who is stuck in this house with other unlucky strangers trying to survive the night.

[B]

A ragtag band of, yes, strangers who will become the allies I Want to backtrack just ever so slightly for a quick moment to mention the Hays Code, which was often just known as the Code. There's an era of Hollywood called Pre Code Hollywood, which is what the two films we talked about earlier fell on Under White Zombie and I Walked With a Zombie. The Hays Code was established in the later in the 30s and ended in 1968, which was kind of the precursor to the Motion Picture association of America ratings board and you know, our rating, et cetera. But it was a essentially a form of censorship that imposed self regulated prohibition of topics like profanity, graphic violence, nudity, sexual relationships, improper sexual relationships, aka probably interracial, you know. So 1968 is actually when that ends. And I'm just wondering if the lack of this kind of oversight was largely what led to this film being able to exist. Although we already mentioned that it was mainly underground when it came out. So this is probably. It's not like when a thing ends, all of a sudden everything changes. So I'm sure there was still a sense of this kind of puritanical, you know, attitude from audiences and critics, right?

[A]

Yeah. And there's a reason Ben is the leader, the character here. Because look, if you rewatch the film, if you're a horror buff like us folks, you'll notice that pretty much all the other humans in the farmhouse are kind of useless and white. Ben is trustworthy. He's the smartest one. Barbara, our character that the story begins with, she is in a state of shock for most of the movie cause her brother got killed in front of her.

[B]

He got eaten.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Not cool. It's interesting though because the whole starkness of the medium, the black and white film, and then there's this like central character who's black, everybody else is white. All of this not necessarily done on purpose, but it really makes it read even more kind of poignantly. You know, the whole thing just feels really intentional, even if it wasn't. But yeah, Ben is our hero. He's the most competent one of the bunch. He's more or less single handedly keeping these dum dums in line and making sure that they don't get eaten.

[A]

So he will do things where he's trying to get to know other people and he's asking Barbara questions about what's going on. What the heck is that outside? She's no help.

[B]

Get a hold of yourself.

[A]

Right. Slap, slap. But he hurries. He immediately assesses the situation. He tries to board up the house, he fires a rifle, he lights fires outside. He tries to keep back this trail of zombies who have started to discover them. And it's almost like ants will follow upon other ants. Maybe we talk a little bit about the other folks there. Cause right now we just talked about Barbara and Ben.

[B]

Yeah. There's also a middle aged couple who have found refuge in the house. Their young daughter named Karen Aaron has been bitten by a zombie. We are, I guess, waiting to see at this point whether or not that's a thing where you turn, you get turned. Because we talked about how there is a story point that this was caused by radiation or some sort of like, you know, anomalous UAP phenomenon. Very Lovecraftian. Like the color out of space. Right. That's a, that's another story point. Or probably he was aware of, remember.

[A]

Or Night of the Comet. You remember that one? Man I loved Night of the Comet.

[B]

So we're waiting to see if she's going to turn. I think it's implied that that is what's going to happen. We've also got Henry, who's a real pill, he's got a bit of a temper, who's a bit of a misogynist and is really kind of mucking things up and just bringing bad vibes to the party.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. He's one of those, one of my least favorite people in an emergency or survival situation.

[B]

Or an escape room.

[A]

Or an escape room. He's just like blustering around, yelling at people and being dead. Thinks he knows better and all his ideas are terrible and he has no listening skills.

[B]

Right. So at one point Ben has to leave the farmhouse to help other stragglers outside and Henry just takes it upon himself to lock him out.

[A]

Yeah, classic Henry. And this is where we get to that point that I think we wanted to explore a little bit more. Keep in mind, this is the late 1960s in the United States. When Henry doesn't let the black character Ben inside the house, they go back and forth, Ben finally gains entry and he just clocks the crap out of Henry. He's just had it. This did not happen very often at all in cinema at the time. No.

[B]

And part of the reason that this did happen, I think we mentioned the idea that his race was not a story point, but it goes even further than that. Romero talking to npr, said that Jones was simply the best actor from among our friends. And we didn't change the script from when Dwayne agreed to play the role. Therefore he plays the entire thing as a white actor would. And there is no implied racial limitations. And yet that act as depicted is such a powerful moment. Like that first interracial on screen kiss in Star Trek.

[A]

Yeah. And in 1960s America, regardless of genre of film, you would not see a black actor punching a white actor on screen. Especially not when the white guy is depicted as a villain. Ben also gets physical with other characters in the story. When Barbara is having one of her freakout episodes, Ben does slap her in attempt to get her back to life, back to reality. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[B]

A trope in and of itself. Snap out of it, woman. You know. Yeah. Or whomever.

[A]

And we also know that due to the way race relations were depicted on screen at this time, black actors certainly didn't hit female white actors on screen in the 60s. Not even in the context of, hey, I'm quote, helping you. Eventually, shockingly, as we tease, Ben does have to kill the girl, Karen. Yeah.

[B]

She succumbs to her bite, and he does, you know, do her a kindness and put her down after she begins to. It's not like he's just doing it in advance. She goes full zombie and begins to devour the flesh of her father, which, you know, we didn't love that guy. You kind of love to see it getting his comeuppance a little bit.

[A]

Yeah. But what a terrible way to go.

[B]

Now we're dealing with the death of a child, which is also absolutely shocking for the time.

[A]

Yeah. And now you're watching the young eat the old, which kind of feels like a symbol for generational upheaval in the US and then, despite, again, the context, the audience is watching a white child character being killed by a black character. And to some people in the audience, that was incred. And as some film critics, that was incredibly controversial, even though that's the nature of a good horror story. Right. In the end, our character Ben, is the last human left. He is never infected with the zombie bug. But when he's trying to finally reach the authorities, he is shot by a sheriff who. Who thinks, well, Ben might be a member of the living dead.

[B]

And again, it would have happened that way in the plot even if it had been played by a white actor. But the fact that it was a black actor and the police brutality of it all, and it's just. I mean, so much of this stuff was happenstance. And I don't know, it's like you have to move so quickly and be so nimble in an indie film production like this. You might not even have time to think about how this is going to have this kind of cultural impact. But, boy, did it ever. And it really still reads and hits today. I know that you're a fan of Jordan Peele's work, both his comedy work and his film work. And the breakout, obviously, masterpiece of his in the horror genre and satire was get out, which originally he had written the ending where the main character, as he's escaping the kind of creepy, murderous, zombifying white family's nightmare home, he. He gets killed by police or arrested. I don't remember if he gets killed, but Instead. Spoiler alert. 3, 2, 1. His buddy from the TSA swoops in and saves the day for a nice little comedic punch at the end, but that absolutely was a reference. And you're also even expecting that that's what's gonna happen to him because of this.

[A]

And we should mention the sheriff in Night of the Living Dead who shoots Ben. He is a white guy. Again, the argument is, as we said, that he. It just happened that way because Dwayne, who plays Ben, was literally the best or the least worst actor they knew. So the film closes with Ben's body being burned on top of a pile of the living dead of these zombies that he had spent the entirety of the story fighting.

[B]

It's tragic.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So during the 60s, black Americans were obviously struggling to prove their worth and rising up economically, bettering their lot in life in a system that was kind of designed to prevent them from doing so.

[A]

Yeah, well said. And we know that look. We know that that was true then. It's true now. There's a reason that final scene of Night of the Living Dead with Ben's body atop this pile of zombies is the reason it hit so profoundly. Zombie films essentially function as a time capsule of the audience's greatest political fears. They're deeper the more you think about them. And spoiler alert for American history. The US did survive the 1960s and went on to have other shenanigans in the 70s, the 80s, and even now in the 2000s. The 70s were a little bit calmer in some degrees because yuppies were leading the charge for consumerism. The country was no longer technically at war. And then you see zombie movies start to evolve in step with that. Now you get reanimator. Romero goes back to the well of the undead with Day of the Dead, which is literally in a shopping mall.

[B]

Yeah, for sure. And it's excellent. It's in color. Obviously. It is his, like, really blank check kind of version of the zombie movie. And it's excellent. It is schlocky, as I'll get out. The gore effects are bonkers, but it does also still have this underlying commentary, social commentary. Then you also have just the utter schlock of things like Reanimator, like you mentioned, and Peter Jackson's Dead Alive, for example, the Evil Dead films. You start to really see this kind of flurry of spins and twists on that iconic genre that Romero created with dawn of the Dead. Even himself doing a spin on his own thing with Day of the Dead, kind of taking it to the next level. Then you also see Michael Jackson's iconic music video for Thriller, directed by John Landis, I think is his name, the guy that made American Werewolf in London, which is an incredible effects. And again, taking some of these tropes and this genre from the underground squarely into the kind of, you know, zeitgeist.

[A]

Yeah. And we also see the evolution of things that are zombie like, but are a world away from voodoo. Because in the 1930s, one of the fears that filmmakers were really drawing from is the fear of other cultures, Right? Xenophobia, the fear of unfamiliar, your magic or spiritual practices, which is built into.

[B]

The thing from the earliest days, that whole us versus them mentality.

[A]

But as. As scientific progress continues and as society overall evolves, we see zombies taking an increasingly secular approach to their origin stories. And we see things that are, you know, not quite zombies, like the villains of Charlton Heston's omega man from 1971. That's very post apocalyptic, but the monsters are zombie in all but name. And of course, Night of the Comet, Absolute Banger, 1984 Sci fi comedy horror film about. I think it's like a lady and the main character ends up safe from a dangerous comet because she falls asleep in a projectionist booth, but everybody else goes outside to watch the comet and it turns them into monsters.

[B]

Oh, man. Yeah. And it also reminds me of just. I mean, a lot of this is Frankenstein based. You know, we've got the Gugliel del Toro Frankenstein adaptation coming out soon, but just this idea of an abomination, you know, an unstoppable other. Right. That maybe even is of. Of who we are in some way. This kind of bastardization of, like, what it means to be human. And that also is a trope that you see in all kinds of alien invasion movies, the Body Snatchers and the Blob. Just this unstoppable force that is going to subsume and devour us. All. Right?

[A]

Yeah. And then we see kind of a Venn diagram when we get to other types of undead creatures like vampires who are Sort of the honor students of the zombie world.

[B]

Much sexier, much better dressed.

[A]

I've started to get back into.

[B]

The.

[A]

More gritty depictions of vampirism, like the str.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[A]

Or Let the Right One in Love.

[B]

Let the Right One in. The American version is a banger, actually, but the original is where it's at.

[A]

And then we also see weird zombie films like Fido, where the zombies are domesticated pets.

[B]

Yeah. And of course, with 28 days later by Danny Boyle, you start to see this evolution of zombies into these more raging, kind of of like not shambling anymore, but like hauling ass, you know, and they're incredibly muscular and deadly. And of course, we just had the third installment in that franchise come out this year, 28 years later, which I really loved a lot. And it has a lot of COVID kind of themes. And again, this sort of like, what does it mean to exist in a world like this? How do you survive, like, taking that not just from like on the day, but like much further down the line and what does it look like and how does that then become part of your culture and part of your traditions? Right, yeah.

[A]

And there's so many other great zombie films to name. There's a lot of really good comedy horror like Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead and so on. So we can't wait to explore some of these because as we have to say pretty often nowadays, it's always Halloween in America. Big thanks to Our super producer, Mr. Max Williams, his brother Alex Williams, who composed this slap and bop and gosh, is Alex back in town?

[B]

He isn't at the moment, but I know he's coming soon. Okay. Yeah, very soon. He'll be back very soon.

[A]

Wow, you made it sound like he's outside.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. He's scratching on my door like a zombie. Huge thanks to our favorite shambling, zombified creature of the night, Jonathan Strickland, the Quizzter, AJ Bahamas Jacobs, the puzzler.

[A]

Ah, yes. And the rude dudes at Ridiculous Crime, if you dig us, you'll love them. Big, big thanks. Our research associate, Ren Fest.

[B]

Yes, this one was a banger, as was the previous zombie related episode that Ren delivered for us. And we're really enjoying her work a lot. Yeah, huge thanks to you, Ben. Love, love talking zombies with you. Do it any day of the week.

[A]

And also with you.

[B]

See you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[C]

The murder of an 18 year old girl in Graves County, Kentucky. Kentucky went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[B]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns.

[C]

Listen to Graves county on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[D]

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History. We're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control.

[A]

And he said, I've been in prison 24, 25 years. That's probably not long enough. I didn't kill him.

[D]

From Revisionist History this is the Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist History the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[A]

Hey, I'm Kyle McLaughlin. You might know me as that guy.

[B]

From Twin Peaks, Sex and the City, or just the Internet Stand.

[A]

I have a new podcast called what.

[B]

Are We Even Doing?

[A]

Where I embark on a noble quest to understand the brilliant chaos of youth culture.

[B]

Each week I invite someone fascinating to join me to talk about navigating this high speed rollercoaster we call reality.

[A]

Join me and my delightful guests every.

[B]

Thursday and let's get weird together in a good way. Listen to what Are We Even doing.

[A]

On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Nora Jones and I love.

[C]

Playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing along is Back. I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting. Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Levy, Rufus Wainwright, Mavis Staples. Really too many to name. And there's still so much more to.

[A]

Come in this new season.

[C]

Listen to Nora Jones's Playing along on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[B]

The Rich Russians Falling out of Windows podcast is back. Sad Oligarch Season 2 Since we left you in 2023 after season one, many politically motivated Russian millionaires have continued to die in suspicious circumstances. Season two gets very weird. Listen to Sad Oligarch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.