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Episode 14 - Zombies After Blitznight
15 Plays4 months ago
Nylene talks about some of the dark consequences of the London Blitz and the murder of Rachel Dobkin. Nym decides to start perusing various horror tropes, starting with zombies. Lots of Nightmare Fuel to be had!
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Transcript
00:00:29
Speaker
Welcome to Nim and Nyleen's Nightmare Cottage, where we discuss dark locations, sinister media, and other tales of the macabre. I'm Nim. And I'm Let the nightmare begin. Let the nightmare begin.
00:00:49
Speaker
Welcome welcome to the Nightmare College!
00:00:58
Speaker
as that As I was telling Nim, I've had cookies, so I am just so sugar high right now. Yeah, we really should start pressing the record button earlier and catching more of our dumbass shenanigans and Just B-roll of me just freaking out like a cat running around.
00:01:16
Speaker
By the way, that's been a whole thing, which I'll talk about in a minute. No, talk about it now. Oh my gosh. Like, I love sushi so much, but the like- Sushi the cat.
00:01:27
Speaker
Yes. Sushi the cat. Yes. Thank you. we We do have to specify that. I honestly thought that everyone who owns a cat was just kind of exaggerating a little bit.
00:01:38
Speaker
About the like, the level of zoomies. after like two in the morning yeah ah like just losing it going everywhere like all around and just jumping all over just you just you're in a room and you just hear something fall over and you're like i can't i woke up the other day and one of my plants was just knocked over just one there's six of them in a row and the middle one just slapped it over i guess fuck that plant in particular just so
00:02:11
Speaker
so Yes. She's sitting so innocently under the table next to us acting like she's not a terror. Yes. I mean, she's, she's so sweet. and that's the worst part. Like you're like, how, why, are you, did why are you like this?
00:02:23
Speaker
As you know, they do horrible things. Not that horrible, but. ah And they are saved from being murdered by the fact that they're so freaking cute. That's true.
00:02:35
Speaker
Actually, I have been accidentally kicking her quite a bit. Oh my god. It's not on purpose. Like, she just, she, like, walks directly in front of me.
00:02:45
Speaker
Oh yeah, that's what they do. And I'm just like, and it's dark, and I don't see, and I'm like, so I accidentally, like, you know. You'll get used to it. I i know better than to not expect at any point me walking unless I can see him laying down somewhere in my field of view.
00:03:01
Speaker
I have to assume he's probably going to try to dash directly in front of me and try to murder me. And see, like, I feel bad because like, especially when it's dark, I accidentally kick her.
00:03:13
Speaker
And then I just hear a little, and I'm like, are you okay? And then she's just rubbing up on me. And I'm like, I feel so bad because I just kicked you. And you're so nice this. Well, it's because you probably didn't actually kick her. And she's more or less like nudging, like muzzling up against your leg.
00:03:29
Speaker
She's been incredibly loving and an incredibly good kitty. If you hear jingling, that's her. But yeah, she's she's been great. Definitely been helpful with Bash being sick because Bash was...
00:03:41
Speaker
So sick last week because, you know, daycare and everyone has everything going on right now. So he had the flu. Luckily, it wasn't too bad. it was nice having a little kitty to cuddle with and keep him company. And everyone was so snuggly. It's really nice.
00:03:57
Speaker
have you been? Man, I've been sick. I actually, I don't like taking off time from work. And I took two days this week and just was fatigued and sore and tired and brain fog. And yeah, you didn't answer me for like a whole day. I thought you died.
00:04:14
Speaker
Like you never do that. Never, ever. Yeah. I was just out of it, man. I was so out of it, but which is hilarious because not to spoil anything, but my topic this week is zombies. Oh,
00:04:28
Speaker
So you became a zombie? I was, yeah. i You became a zombie while researching zombies? While writing about zombies, I was thinking like maybe I should start writing about rich people because then I could become a rich people.
00:04:39
Speaker
What? Oh! Writing about zombies becoming one? No? Okay. I'll cut that out because it didn't land. That did not land. Oh gosh, I'm sorry. How's everything else? You know...
00:04:50
Speaker
work is work and i don't know man being sick really i mean it it makes me even less interesting than i am on a regular basis because i i don't even at least have like work or something to texturize my plain existence feel that don't feel that feel that you don't feel that you have a chaotic existence on like a constant level yeah oh i also real quick want to say that i am not certain about our content on instagram anymore feel that i'm not sure how i feel about social media at this time and i'm still kind of working through that i hope you all understand all like 12 of you or whatever ah you you precious few that are hanging on with us i think
00:05:35
Speaker
Yes, thank you. But not that we've really had much engagement with the Instagram account. Anyways, I just, we're gonna probably focus more on website. And we will let y'all know if that changes. Yeah, probably adding a lot of her Instagram content to the website. Exactly. Yeah.
00:05:53
Speaker
yeah we'll we'll try to keep you know promises of kitty and puppy pictures and whatnot on the website so we can at least fulfill that but all of our show notes and everything like that the website's going to 100% still be where it is and maybe more and if anything else we'll let you know you can still find me as nightmare nim on the fable app i don't use it a whole lot yet because i'm still a good reads person i'm trying to use it because it's actually really cool
00:06:22
Speaker
think it's time to dig in. All right. Dig in we shall. um I actually needed to clear my throat. I'm going to leave that one in.
00:06:35
Speaker
Hold on. Let me just die real quick. No, no dying. I understand that this is a nightmare, but if you die in your nightmare, you die in real life. and So no dying. But then maybe I'll come back as a zombie. Too soon.
00:06:47
Speaker
Anyways, so the story I'm going over today takes place in 1940s during World War two London was one of the areas of Britain that was heavily targeted during the Blitz.
00:06:57
Speaker
what What do you know about the Blitz? I'm familiar. There was bombs dropping over actual England and that they had bomb shelters and would have to leave during raids or whatever. and Actual England as opposed to fictional England? Well, I said England because I didn't know what beyond London it was. and i was just trying to...
00:07:16
Speaker
Cover my bases. Well, as you mentioned, I'm just going to go into it a little more. the Blitz was a period of 57 consistent nights where bombings of London took place fueled by Nazi Germany.
00:07:27
Speaker
It was mainly meant to demoralize the British people during the war. But every morning was just a new horror and reviewing what had been destroyed and who needed medical attention that night. Due to the bombings at night, citizens would hear the air raid sirens and immediately try to find their closest public air raid shelter, no matter where they were.
00:07:45
Speaker
There were enforced blackouts where there were no street lights and all cars had blacked out lights, if they were even on the road. All homes and businesses were ordered to have blackouts over their windows to ensure no light would come through.
00:07:57
Speaker
So a fun fact, apparently around this time is when the white lines on roads were introduced to help people see the roads better without any light shining on them. The blackouts were to try and make it more difficult for bombers to tell where the big populated areas were.
00:08:12
Speaker
So, you know, they'd be less likely to hit right and kill more people. But crime at the time went up by 57%. And there was a lot of looting and murder going on. There were a lot of traffic accidents due to the dark roads and people were just getting lost walking home at night. They couldn't see anything. People would get fed up with the state of living in London and just pack up their families and leave or sometimes just flee on their own and leave everything behind.
00:08:36
Speaker
The police force at the time was cut short due to men being drafted to fight in the war, which made it harder for the police that were left to really patrol, investigate, and keep order. To make matters worse, in September 1939, their government made the decision to release all minor criminals from the jails.
00:08:52
Speaker
Oh. Yeah. So on top of all of this, um we have more convicted criminals out on the streets in the middle of these blackouts taking opportunities they wouldn't normally have. It's a dream come true, right? Right. And if they were minor criminals, I understand. well I don't know if it was like that then, but you know, they say prison is crime school, right? Yeah. Yeah. I imagine they probably didn't have as many guards and people watching.
00:09:14
Speaker
So fast forward to 1942. After the bombings had ceased in London, people are attempting to clean up all the debris of the bombings and rebuild. laborers working in an old church in Vauxhall, London, that has pretty much been reduced to rubble at this point. One of the workers is moving around the rubble and finds decomposed human remains that have been badly burned under a pile of loose rocks.
00:09:36
Speaker
As alarming as this sounds, it's... I mean, for the air raids, you would think that might... Kind of normal for the time to find bodies from the bombings, especially in a building that had been burnt down. I mean, horrific, but not shocking.
00:09:48
Speaker
Correct. Yeah. So the police were called and they took the body away to a mortuary, as you do. Like you do. So Dr. Keith Simpson, he was the forensic pathologist over the case. In examining the body, he was able to tell it was a woman.
00:10:01
Speaker
as she was still had her womb intact. ah It seemed that she had passed around 12 to 18 months before, which would coincide with the time of the bombings. But Dr. Simpson started to notice that it seemed like the body had been dismembered.
00:10:15
Speaker
She had been decapitated, and her arms and feet had been cut off, not so much blown off or tornt torn off, for lack of it better description. Yeah, absolutely. So she didn't have any fingerprints left, so they couldn't identify her that way. There was a little bit of hair left on the head of the skull, which looked to be brown and gray.
00:10:31
Speaker
This led him to believe that the woman was 40 to 50 years old. In his review of the body, Dr. Simpson decided to dissect the voice box of the victim and found that there was blood pooled in the area, which meant that the victim had to be alive when damage to this area had happened. Is that typical?
00:10:49
Speaker
Is that a normal thing? to Like, I feel like maybe nowadays, like if, if they're trying to find the cause of death, but I found it odd because it's like, we know that these bombings were happening. Like what made this so suspicious? And I'm assuming it was just like, okay, well, it looks like these body parts have been cut. Like clean cut. Yeah. So they're like, okay, maybe we should see if anything else is going on here. Right. That would be my assumption.
00:11:15
Speaker
yeah fair but yeah so from what they under understood at the time the only way this could have happened was by being forcibly strangled so this led him to believe it was actually a murder sorry so um did we um i suppose there's no way to know if they strangled her and then cut off her stuff or well i think that's kind of what i mean they didn't find like a lot of blood in the area or anything like that you know so maybe she was killed elsewhere and brought there Anyway, sorry, go ahead.
00:11:43
Speaker
I'm trying to solve a crime. was going to say, it's already been solved. Let's just let's just move on. All right. um so detectives started investigating what they could with the very little they had, which wasn't very much during the time. People went missing all the time.
00:11:58
Speaker
Most of the time it was assumed that they either died in a bombing or they'd fled elsewhere to try and find safety. But they looked into the missing persons registry regardless, which was nothing even close to what we have today. um It was likely just paper after paper of notices and maybe a picture that the family had left behind if they had picture. Yeah.
00:12:18
Speaker
Yeah. detectives tried to narrow their search down to women around the age of 40 to 50 who had gone missing in the surrounding areas of the church where she was found. One of the names they found that seemed to fit their victim was Rachel Dobson. Rachel was 47, married to a man named Harry, and had a son.
00:12:35
Speaker
She was reported missing on April 11, 1941, by her sister Polly. This was right near the end of the Blitz, but still in the thick of it for the London police. They did what they could to try find her at the time, but again, things weren't so easy to track at that point in time, and even in a normal situation. Add in nightly bombings, people scattering to different air raid shelters, and it's near impossible.
00:12:58
Speaker
But at the time she was reported missing, police did end up finding her purse in a post office about 30 miles south of London with a train ticket inside for the date of her disappearance. um To investigators, it seemed that maybe she had fled or lost or abandoned her purse along the way, right?
00:13:16
Speaker
So when this body was found and the missing persons paperwork seems to point to this possibly being her, investigators were a bit confused. There are no other missing persons that matched. So the forensic pathologist that was overseeing her case, Dr. Simpson, decides to try something new, something that has never been done before.
00:13:32
Speaker
He took a bunch of pictures of the victim's skull and sent the pictures to Mary Newman at another hospital. Newman was a forensic photographer furthest at their hospital. It only having been 1942, forensic photography was still in its infancy.
00:13:47
Speaker
But Mary Newman decided to try and place a negative type image of Mary over the picture and the skull to see if the bone structure matched. Oddly enough, it did. This is something that hadn't really been done before, it of course...
00:14:00
Speaker
That's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. um But because it was so new, it wouldn't hold up in court alone. So Dr. Simpson decided to look at Mary's dental records now that he was almost certain that this was Mary he had on his table.
00:14:12
Speaker
Each and every filling and missing tooth, all the dental work matched Mary perfectly. So now they're trying to figure out what happened, right? It's obvious now that this was a murder and not just a random happenstance of Mary being caught in a bombing due to strangulation pattern on her voice box.
00:14:28
Speaker
So one of the top theories was maybe this particular victim belonged to one of the many apparent serial killers that had been discovered during the time of the Blitz. Yeah, and they used their bombings to hide the fact that they were murdering people. And there's so much more to come on this because this is like a whole episode on its own. Just how many serial killers there were at the time. Jeez.
00:14:50
Speaker
Mm-hmm. So this led detectives to take another look at the location where Mary was found, the chapel. hundred The chapel burning down wasn't initially seen as an event out of the ordinary since buildings were burning down left and right due to the bombings.
00:15:03
Speaker
But one interesting thing about those bombs was that they were incendiary bombs. Each bomb held somewhere around 70 little bombs that would spread over a big area where they were dropped. Think like buckshot if you know anything about gunfire.
00:15:17
Speaker
So due to the way that these bombs would fall and spread, the city had fire watchers all over the city that would report that a fire had started and needed to be put out. On the night of the chapel burning down, they did notice there was a fire watcher present in the area, but the fire was not reported until two hours after it had started and the building had been badly damaged at the point that it was reported.
00:15:38
Speaker
Additionally, there were no records of a bombing raid that night over London, so why would the building have burned down? They looked at the record of who the fire watcher was the night in that area, and it was Harry Dobkin, Rachel's husband.
00:15:51
Speaker
What a dick. Right? So a little bit about Rachel and Harry. They were both Jewish. They had an arranged marriage by a marriage broker. Since this marriage was seen as a spiritual one, they did not register it as an official legal marriage with the courts, which wasn't unheard of at the time. Harry worked on ships between America and England. He wasn't really around that often. And apparently their marriage really only lasted about three days.
00:16:12
Speaker
I guess spiritual marriage, you know, their cordialness, if you will. So in those three days, Rachel did become pregnant with Harry's son. Since they weren't legally married, there wasn't much Rachel could legally do to force Harry to support her and her son because now she's just an ad-wed mother running around. God, everything is so fucked.
00:16:30
Speaker
Yes. So investigators found that there were actually quite a few legal disputes that were filed over child support payments for their son. This led police to believe that this may have been a motive for her murder. Right? Surprise, surprise. Yeah.
00:16:43
Speaker
So police did talk to Harry about Rachel's disappearance when she was reported missing back in 1941. Harry said that he did meet with her the day she disappeared and that after they met up, he went off to work at his normal shift at the grocery store.
00:16:57
Speaker
There were a lot of people who would have seen him there, but police didn't really look into it since they had found her purse with the train tickets in it and assumed that Mary had left willingly. The investigators decided to bring Harry in and question him again.
00:17:09
Speaker
In the questioning, they told Harry that they felt there was something he was hiding and that he had not given investigators the full story the first time. Well, no shit. Yeah. At this, Harry requested a pen and paper and wrote a statement that included the words...
00:17:25
Speaker
I am not withholding any information about my wife's murder. The police had never mentioned anything about murder or his wife's body even being found. So investigators knew they had their smoking gun and were like, you're dumb.
00:17:37
Speaker
Good job, dude. Yeah. So they decided to take Harry to the chapel where Rachel's body was found and took him straight to the cellar where her remains were to ask him about the scene. What did he know about this area? Yeah.
00:17:48
Speaker
Harry denied ever having been anywhere near the cellar, but as luck would have it, a local police officer recognized Harry as someone he had seen go into that cellar specifically many times. Like, what are the chances?
00:18:00
Speaker
With all this evidence, Harry was taken to court for the murder of Rachel Dobkin. In court, it was found that he was very abusive and that Rachel had filed numerous reports about him being abusive and assaulting her. Again, it was brought up that Mary was trying to get child support from Harry and at one point was ordered by the court to do so.
00:18:17
Speaker
Harry still refused to pay and was imprisoned for a time for missed payments. So Harry figured the only way to get out of this was to kill Rachel. It's confirmed that he strangled her to death, dismembered her, buried her in the chapel, and started the fire to try to burn the evidence.
00:18:31
Speaker
Investigators also found train ticket stubs at Harry's home that matched the ones from Rachel's purse. I feel like all of these are rookie mistakes. I mean, they didn't have any CSI or anything back then to watch and like get ideas for how to hide your fucking crimes. But man, it just seems so sloppy. Yeah, because like, I don't know, at the same time, especially if it's like a murder of opportunity or murder of passion. I feel like think of like any time that you've done something you're not supposed to, you know, like murder people um happens all the time. But no, like, I don't know, think of when you were a little and your mom told you not to do something, right? You have that adrenaline rush while you're doing that thing you're not supposed to do or even after of like, oh, I could be found out, right?
00:19:11
Speaker
It makes it so much harder to hide what you've already done. And especially i feel like... Gotcha. Okay, so you're that that panic of the moment. It's like, okay. I feel like that's what makes it sloppy. It's that panic of the moment.
00:19:23
Speaker
But then you get into premeditation. Hey, guys, don't murder people. Ever. Don't premeditate it. Don't. Or do it. Don't meditate it. Don't post meditate it. Don't post meditate Don't do anything.
00:19:35
Speaker
Don't murder people. Murder is wrong. Or animals. Or things. Well, I mean, okay. Just... No killing. No killing. Just don't do it. All right. Now that we're done with that, it seemed Harry went so far to attempt to cover up the murder that he made it look like she had skipped town. In the end, the jury convicted Harry of Rachel's murder just after 20 minutes of deliberation because it's kind of cut and dry at this point. Harry was sentenced to death on January 7th, 1943 by hanging for the murder of his wife, Rachel Dobkin.
00:20:04
Speaker
Doing big, dumb things. Big, dumb things. Are those new glasses? My work glasses. I've never seen those. They're purple and green. I love them.
00:20:18
Speaker
As I've mentioned, I've been sick. So I did my best. Okay. Just while I was researching this story and putting it together was on my sick days. You know what? Let me just get into it. Okay.
00:20:29
Speaker
Along with the dark Hollywood idea of having several stories in one, I found another topic I couldn't do with just one episode. Okay. So this will also likely become some kind of a series.
00:20:41
Speaker
I'm going to be exploring different horror tropes. Okay. Horror. Horror. Not whore. four <unk>s and So that's an endless well of awesomeness to dig through. Some topics like today's have a lot of history with folkloric origins that I think are really worth knowing.
00:20:56
Speaker
And there's just really a ton of horror tropes. And I think there's a lot of nightmares that can be found there. So I'll be dancing through that ah across episodes. But it was really hard to pick a first episode. But as I mentioned, I finally landed on zombies.
00:21:09
Speaker
I know you're familiar with zombies. How do you feel about zombies? Do you enjoy the media? Do you do? i think they're unrealistic. Yeah. That's okay. All right. Why why so?
00:21:19
Speaker
I just think it's it's just an unrealistic trope. I don't know. Zombies. zombies aren't scary because I don't feel like they could really happen. That Ebola scare was like the first time that it was like, because people were, there was just so much stuff with social media just starting like to pop up that it was like, what is happening right now?
00:21:39
Speaker
But beyond that, like, it's just like every horror movie for me that involves zombies is more of just a jump scare. and see how yucky you can get them to look. But besides that, they don't really... It's not a scary thing for me because it feels unrealistic, which is hilarious because I feel like spirits and things are really scary. But I think it's more because I don't know if I can see them, if they're real.
00:22:03
Speaker
Okay. Does that make sense? It does. That's just like like completely the opposite of my view. So I'm fascinated that. I actually... And I feel like I get into this here in a bit. I don't remember. I've always felt that zombies...
00:22:16
Speaker
are like the most relatable monster because it's everybody. It could be anybody. It doesn't discriminate. It doesn't discriminate. And you're just like this person. It is anybody person that's just decaying.
00:22:29
Speaker
and And depending on the trope they and how they pass and stuff. Right, exactly. I mean, there's, we'll get into some of that. But yeah, it's, know, because zombies are us. And I think that the idea of some kind of a virus or an infection getting out there or something in my little sci fi horror brain, I feel like, you know, i can I could see it.
00:22:49
Speaker
I can see happening. I can't see an ancient vampire being or whatever, being a real thing. like I don't believe, like most of that stuff could ever says the vampire.
00:23:01
Speaker
Listen, we don't talk about that. But anyways, I'll get into more of that. But that that's that's a fascinating thing. Do you think you would survive a zombie apocalypse? I don't think I would survive any apocalypse.
00:23:14
Speaker
Not because... I think it's just because I would stop giving a fuck so fast. Like if everything had gone to shit, like what am I working for at this point?
00:23:25
Speaker
Like it's true. You are very goal oriented. I am. So to me, I'd just be like, I mean, I'm just going to go get me a pack of cigarettes because I don't smoke anymore and something to drink and maybe other things to smoke.
00:23:38
Speaker
I'm going to find a really tall perch and And just hang out there for a while. Yeah. And it's just because it's like, what are going to do? Like, I could sit here and slaughter animals and try to feed myself and have some semblance of civil well life that like it current currently is, but it's it's not going to be the same. And it's not to be the same for a long time. So like, what's the I don't know, to me, it's like, what's the point?
00:24:05
Speaker
What's the point if you can't live in your current cushy suburban existence? Not true. Because I really do love being outdoors and camping and stuff. But to me, the point of that is like, it's a choice. It's a choice. It's peace and quiet. And, you know, away from the everyday. Yeah.
00:24:21
Speaker
And not it being the everyday. Yes. Yes. Great place to vacation. Don't want to live there. Exactly. Got it. Yeah. I don't know if I would survive, but i have definitely run through scenarios in my head because that's the kind of fucked up person I am. I, you know, I, if I find myself daydreaming or whatever, sometimes I will end up like if the zombie apocalypse happened right here, right now with where I'm at, how would I proceed? Would i try to get to anybody specific? You know, what would I use for a weapon? What is the nearest place I could go to like get supplies or whatever?
00:24:52
Speaker
some of my favorites involved when I was in uh still working retail I would always imagine using the crash bars that we use to lock the back doors as a weapon frequently when I'm gardening and I've got like my hoary knife which is a serrated trowel and like my were like a fork thing like those are my weapon you know like stab it with a fork and then you know whatever through the eye with the t-forina anyways i like how once it's a zombie it becomes an it it's no longer a person but your your biggest not your biggest fear but your fear about this situation is how likely it is because it's it can so easily infect others right but once that switch happens it's like to you they're no longer human
00:25:31
Speaker
Yeah, now I don't know how I would feel about that if, say, Monkey turned into a zombie in front me and I had to kill him. Oh, no, I already told Ace, like, if he ever became a zombie, like, I will just have a zombie on a leash. Like, I i can't, I will not kill him.
00:25:46
Speaker
And if someone else does, i will kill them. And see, that would be another thing is, like, My survival would be dependent on if my child was still okay. I was going to bring that up but I thought it might be too hard.
00:25:57
Speaker
No, because if he was okay, then of course I would be trying to survive. But like, if he wasn't, then nah, fuck it. Ace is a big boy. He can figure his own shit out.
00:26:10
Speaker
So you assume you will die, but he would still survive. You think Ace could survive without you? Oh God. i don't think anybody really knows what is actually capable of.
00:26:22
Speaker
Fair enough. He puts on a good mask. Anyways. Yeah. So now we're going to get into zombies. I just wanted to kind of like see where your thoughts were on that. As it's probably obvious by now, i've ah I've been a long fan of zombie fiction in the arts.
00:26:37
Speaker
I remember playing several zombie board games. Monkey and I even did a zombie walk. ah where a ton of people got made up of zombies and splashed with fake blood and we walked like zombies through the town to a horror convention.
00:26:48
Speaker
What? Yeah, super cool. This is so funny. I know that. Dude, I wish I could find the pictures, but that was like three computers ago and i I'm pretty sure I lost them. And that was like, I think, MySpace days, so... But yeah, this like the early 2000s till the end of the mid 2010s.
00:27:03
Speaker
Zombie media was just everywhere. and I'll talk about that more in a bit. But first, you know, I like to dig into folklore and traditions and that kind of thing. So we're going to go back quite a ways and look at the origins of the zombie.
00:27:15
Speaker
This takes us to Haiti in the 1600s. Haiti is located in the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Yes. It had been part of the Spanish Empire since Christopher Columbus landed um until a rule transferred to France in 1697. The conditions for growing sugarcane, coffee, and fruits were ideal. So France did to get quite a bit of profit from that.
00:27:36
Speaker
A vast amount of the Atlantic slave trade went into Haiti at me Yeah, at that point it was called Saint-Domingue. Conditions were so horrendously brutal that half of that number were worked to death literally, and then more were just brought in to continue the work.
00:27:49
Speaker
While taking their own lives did happen, the Haitians were terrified of losing their souls. If they die naturally, they'll go to Guinea or Africa, which is like their, it was their afterlife paradise dream, you know.
00:28:00
Speaker
me But if they took their own lives, they'd be doomed to continue in the brutal enslavement for eternity, stuck inside their bodies with no control or zombies. These were merging of beliefs from the native Taino people, Taino, Taino, and of the traditions brought over with the African slaves.
00:28:16
Speaker
So France didn't really know how math works. While there were over 700,000 slaves in Saint-Domingue, only about 25,000 French settlers were in residence, and then there was 20-ish thousand freed slaves.
00:28:29
Speaker
ah Discourse over civil rights erupted between the French and the freed slaves, and the slaves, the still current slaves, saw a window of opportunity. Yeah. And the they formed armies and began a revolt.
00:28:40
Speaker
Even to this day, Haiti is the only country in history to be formed by a slave revolt. And that was in 1804. Oh, wow. Yeah. didn't know that. Yeah, I didn't either. That's pretty cool. Yeah. mean Yeah, as we have to clarify. Right. Yeah.
00:28:53
Speaker
So fast forwarding, which I seem to put in all of my stories. Fast forwarding. From 1915 1934, the United States occupied Haiti. So there was a lot of American soldiers there learning from the locals of the traditions and cultures.
00:29:08
Speaker
There is a 1929 travelogue called The Magic Island by W.B. Seabrook. And it was the U.S.'s first widespread exposure to these stories. And that was our introduction to the word zombie. It was called what? That sounds cool.
00:29:21
Speaker
The Magic Island. And you can get it. It's available. You can still get it now. I'm write that down. That sounds cool. Anyway, sorry. ah Seabrook recounted working with a voodoo, which is different than voodoo. Okay. A voodoo priestess and participating in rituals with goat sacrifice and the drinking of blood.
00:29:38
Speaker
He also described seeing dead men working in fields. He said they were corpses reanimated with magic to do labor. He also referred to them as the living dead. This book inspired the 1932 film White Zombie starring Bela Lugosi, which was the first full length zombie movie. It depicted the mindless husks of people under the power of an evil sorcerer.
00:29:58
Speaker
There had been other fictional works with quote, living dead prior to these that didn't have the Haitian origin. Frankenstein's monster while not a zombie is a living corpse. Okay. HP Lovecraft, who got his inspirations from like Edgar Allen Poe rather than the magic Island.
00:30:13
Speaker
He wrote several living dead stories in the twenties and thirties. But the living dead zombie, the word zombie, came from Haiti. In 1983 article in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology, ethnobotanist Wade Davis wrote that while traveling in Haiti, he learned that a person could become a zombie by mixing two powders into a wound.
00:30:32
Speaker
One is a toxin taken from a puffer fish and the other is a hallucinogen. These powders, when they're administered by Boker, which is a Vodou sorcerer, the victim enters a death-like state and can be manipulated.
00:30:44
Speaker
There have been some studies on these powders, but they're limited, but they basically are just susceptible to being like, they just have to, they they yeah just follow orders basically. Interesting. So how did we get to the Vodou Haitian zombie to what we see today?
00:30:59
Speaker
Arguably, the shift was brought on unintentionally by George A. Romero with 1968's Night of the Living Dead, which is widely considered to be the most influential piece of zombies as far as like stoking the flames and making it popular.
00:31:12
Speaker
Funnily enough, Romero actually got his inspiration of a lot from i Am Legend from Richard Matheson, which was vampires and not zombies. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. But the creatures the Night of the Living Dead were never called zombies in the film. That moniker was applied by fans who were familiar with things like White Zombie and the other, yeah, other Living Dead stories.
00:31:31
Speaker
So what I am finding interesting so far is just the origins are based on ah spirituality. yeah It's based on your loss of your, of your actual self. Yeah. But in what's become more of like media culture,
00:31:47
Speaker
it's always based on like a virus that starts it instead of, you know, a choice that you made. Right. Well, and it wasn't even ah a a choice so much, but ah you know, something that was inflicted on you purposefully by a person. I thought it was only suicide. Okay. Well, there's a lot to the history.
00:32:05
Speaker
There was Vodou priest that was kind of like, sorry, I didn't write any of this down. So I'm just piecing it together out of memory. He was like the person that they followed and Oh, like a coal leader. Yeah, kind of. And so, you know, or a religious leader.
00:32:21
Speaker
you want to go that way. They were following his teachings, which you had to not anger him. And by angering, like by suicide was one way to anger him, but there was other ways to end up in that boat. But basically that person or in their religion, somehow the choices you made determined if you were going to become a zombie and live in internal hell as a slave, or if you were going to go to paradise.
00:32:45
Speaker
It's crazy. It is. It's sorry to get you off topic. yeah i It's just weird. But anyways. But yeah, so they didn't actually in Night of the Living Dead, they they never called them zombies in the film. that Like i said, that was... yeah um That's crazy. Yeah. Romero didn't actually adopt the term zombie until 10 years later in the original Dot of the Dead movie.
00:33:04
Speaker
Though the popular fascination, okay, I kind of skip ahead here. But there's in the 70s, there was a ton of you know zombie movies and things like that that had come out. But then it kind of started to wane a bit.
00:33:14
Speaker
Like in the 80s and early 90s, it kind of mellowed and wasn't really there. But Japan got ready to unleash zombies on the world in a whole new way. Capcom's Resident Evil and Sega's House of the Dead, both released in 1996, were hugely popular. Video games provided a unique way to experience zombies and put people in that survival kind of headspace. We later got ah iconic games like Dead Rising and Left 4 Dead, among a lot of others. There's so many amazing zombie video games and like just kind of the the programming is, you know, easy to set up. You know, you just have all of these things meant to go towards those other things. So and then you can kind of build the world around it. i played a lot of zombie video games.
00:33:53
Speaker
And then back into, okay, so everybody really wanted that. Everybody wanted to be able to put themselves into a zombie scenario without being in a zombie scenario. So video games really kind of supplied that and started getting people back into the idea of zombies are fucking cool. In 2002, we got 28 Days Later.
00:34:07
Speaker
we got twenty eight days later Yes, the movie is so good. Yeah. In 2003, we saw a Max Brooks' zombie survival guide hit bookshelves and explode in popularity, as well as the beginnings of the comic The Walking Dead.
00:34:18
Speaker
And 2004, we had the release of both the Dawn of the Dead remake and probably my favorite zombie movie ever, Shaun of the Dead. Mm-hmm. In the renewed popularity, we see some shifts in the trope.
00:34:29
Speaker
Zombies are no longer just slow-moving corpses. And 28 Days Later, don't at me, I know that they're not zombies. They're not dead. They're infected with rage. I get it. But I'm going to still include it because they act like zombies. Yeah, they're still part of the zombie trope.
00:34:43
Speaker
Yeah, so we saw it. But that's when they became we started to see fast-moving zombies, which is a totally different kind of terrifying. Though I would argue... I can't run if I have a common cold, let alone being dead. yeah but I feel like at that point, i think that's one of the one of the parts that's so unbelievable for me, because what I've noticed for most of the tropes, it's like, you're not consuming anything, you're not expelling anything. i mean, sometimes bile, but you're decomposing, you know what I mean? So how are you?
00:35:12
Speaker
i don't know. Like, I understand the brain is still alive, but the rest of you is decomposing. So to me, it's like, how are you even running? are even walking? Right. Well, that's why to me, the slow zombies really kind of en encapsulate the... Just kick them in the face.
00:35:26
Speaker
Like, what are they going to do to Well, what is one going to do to you? But what is 50 going to do to you? I mean, just cut them in half. What are they going to do? You still have to apply some effort there. Just get a machete and a... What those fire blower things?
00:35:40
Speaker
Blowtorch? Yes.
00:35:44
Speaker
Don't talk to me. Read the story. ah wow. Yeah.
00:35:49
Speaker
and Zombies have long been metaphors for societal fears of slavery, of sort of uncertainty of the future. The idea of being a vampire or a werewolf is generally romanticized.
00:36:00
Speaker
But a zombie? No one wants to be zombie. Yeah, because they're usually like gross and decomposing. Yeah. ah But there's also no coexistence possible with zombies. yeah They feed and turn and feed and turn until there's no one left yeah In Dawn of the Dead, the original, Romero has the zombies, flock well, actually in both of them, um has the zombies flocking to the mall out of familiarity.
00:36:18
Speaker
Spoilers. It's at the beginning of both of those movies, so you can just calm down. Well, beginning-ish. um Have you not watched those? I'm not trying to accuse. I'm just saying, do I need to... Okay, I'm sorry.
00:36:32
Speaker
I realize that came out accusatory. I apologize. You're being very aggressive right now, man. Sorry. and But yeah, so they flocked to them all out of familiarity with zombies being a metaphor for consumerism in this case. And that one I kind of identify with the most because of those previously mentioned years I spent working in retail. Yeah.
00:36:51
Speaker
We would have hordes of people waiting for us to open the door and people become wholly awful people when they shop. And they're so frequently mindless and they're just going with the flow and just doing what they need to do. And geez, just...
00:37:04
Speaker
That was also when I did that, I was also in the height of my obsession with zombies. So, you know, it was really easy for me to correlate those. yeah I think people also have a fascination with zombies, at least in part, because it's easier to see ourselves in them, like I said before. Because they're human. Yeah. Yeah. They aren't unachievably attractive historical rakes. They're not hairy monsters that turn and into wolves at the full moon. They're run down, decaying versions of everyone. Yeah. And it can be anyone. Yeah.
00:37:31
Speaker
I think another part of the fascination is seeing how the living cope or don't with the changes around them. I think that's why the walking dead, which is a horror show that became one of the most popular things in the country, which like the horror doesn't get that kind of attention. It just doesn't.
00:37:44
Speaker
But whether it's the fear of becoming a zombie or thoughts of how to live through the zombies, most people can identify with the trip on some level with that. That's really kind of the end of my explanation, but I was going to give some of my favorite zombie works. Okay. and This is going to kind of replace Nightmare Fuel for me. Like all of these are recommendations. I think that if you are interested in looking into zombie stuff, these are ones i recommend.
00:38:04
Speaker
This is a part of where the research lacked because I was sick because I'm not sure. going to mention some video games I recommend, but I don't know what they're playable on anymore because it's been a while. So Dead Rising is awesome for both story and the way you like combine items and stuff to make weapons and other useful things.
00:38:20
Speaker
Great series. Recommend like one through three for sure. Left 4 Dead. Yeah, it has you fighting through various zombie filled scenarios and emphasizes working with others. So that's kind of cool. So if you like teamwork kind of stuff, that's a really cool one to do. See, and that for me, i will say, okay, so the zombie thing doesn't scare me. What scares me is the chaos. Yes.
00:38:39
Speaker
I can't do chaos. well And so, i again, I think that's why I would give up. And that that's what Left 4 Dead reminds me Just the chaos. of It's overwhelming when they get you. Yeah, well, and Left 4 Dead zombies are fast. So there's that again. The way they swarm to. Yeah, yeah.
00:38:56
Speaker
Did you see World War Z? Yes. Okay, and you know that part where it's so fast and mounding. and That's not on my list of favorites, but that's if you want to see some killer fast zombies.
00:39:08
Speaker
And the last video game I was going to mention is Stubbs the Zombie, which was a hilarious game. It sounds horrible. It was funny. it was a comedy game. Poor guy. But that was that was from the original Xbox, so I'm not sure if that one's kind of remodeled.
00:39:20
Speaker
And then you see zombies like that, like if it was real, and I would feel so bad, and I'd try to help them. And that's how Nyleen dies. Yeah, but like, I know I'll stay on the back end where the mouth isn't. But like, you know, just put a problem up or something. Stay on the ass end.
00:39:37
Speaker
If they have an ass, if there's any left. And see, like, at what point? But what point do they like fully like even after they've decomposed? Like what point do they fully stop working?
00:39:49
Speaker
Well, that depends on your zombie lore. Something I found really interesting, i lasted through with The Walking Dead longer than most people did, but I did stop before the end. Something that they did in The Walking Dead that I thought was really cool was at the beginning of the series, the zombies are fresher.
00:40:02
Speaker
But as you go season to season, they're starting to decompose. Like they're more and more falling apart. And and yeah. So that I thought was really cool because they were able to do that over time. In World War Z, at least the book, I don't remember if it was like this in the movie.
00:40:15
Speaker
They just, it ended up once it got cold, they slowed down enough to where they were able to take them out. Yeah. So it just, it depends on your zombie lore. that Same thing with vampire lore, you know, different things kill different vampires.
00:40:27
Speaker
which I'm sure we'll get into in some episode at some point. All right So movies, i mentioned that Shaun of the Dead is probably my favorite. and I think it's excellent. Like it's not just a comedy. It's not just a zombie movie, but it shows so much. There's the scene at the beginning that is just amazing.
00:40:43
Speaker
One of my favorite scenes from any movie at any time. And it's the scene where the apocalypse has like the zombie apocalypse has started. And you kind of see hints of it in the background through the whole beginning of the movie before anything really hits the fan.
00:40:56
Speaker
But then there's this morning, he's like walking to the shop across the street to grab a ah drink. And misses all of these cues of everything falling apart around him. and just, just so like in your own, but yeah in his own way, being a mindless zombie, right?
00:41:11
Speaker
And then you see characters from the beginning of the movie before there's zombies. And then you see them as zombies later. And it's just, it's so fucking good. Really recommend that one. So I will say there is one, a more recent one, but I'm a sucker for like a good romance, dark comedy. Yeah. and So Warm Bodies. Have you seen that one? It is on my list. I have not seen it. You need to watch it. It's really, it's really, it's kind of cute and sad.
00:41:33
Speaker
And you're just like, oh, but yeah, definitely. It's a good one. That's awesome. I always love adding them to my list. Let's see. I will also recommend Dead Snow as one.
00:41:45
Speaker
was wondering about that one. I was like, I've seen, I've been seeing that one. Yeah. Recommend. But then the last one I'm going to recommend. Well, no, not the last one. The Dead Don't Die is a more recent one. It's, oh my God.
00:41:59
Speaker
it's, it's It plays itself straight, but it also doesn't. But it's got like a ton of big names. It's got Bill Murray and Adam Driver and Chloe Sevigny and Tilda Swinton, who I love. I'll watch anything with her in it.
00:42:12
Speaker
And it's about this small town that there's zombies happening and they're figuring it out. And there's a little bit of fourth wall breaking and it's just really dry, but also hilarious. I was trying to find this one I watched recently.
00:42:24
Speaker
It was so good. i should have told you about it. How dare you not? I know. I just forget. Okay, sorry about that. I can't find it. Okay. And then the last one I'll mention is Day of the Dead, which was, I think, the third Romero zombie movie, third or fourth.
00:42:40
Speaker
And it is the standard for zombie practical effects. In fact, actually, the guy that did that, the special, the the practical effects in that, one of the two, both are legends in their field. and Unfortunately, I cannot remember Either of their names because I'm an asshole. One of them is the one who did a lot of the direction in Walking Dead. And the other one has done a ton of really like iconic horror movies over time. I feel like an asshole for not remembering this, but I'll maybe throw some extra notes in here to be added to the show notes if I find it. Awesome.
00:43:07
Speaker
But if you want to see some really killer, pun intended, zombie practical effects, like bodies being ripped apart, practical effects, not CG. Yeah. Day of the Dead, recommend.
00:43:18
Speaker
And then my last recommendations for it will be I like to play board games. Love me some board games. Two of my favorite board games. Well, two of my favorite zombie board games of all time. Dead of Winter. See, I wasn't never very able to really able get into that one. Well, that's because when we first started to play it, if you will remember, and I'm going to tell everybody this, Monkey, my wonderful husband, is the one who will, every time we are going to play a new board game, he's the one who learns the rules.
00:43:41
Speaker
He sits there and he learns the rules and figures it out, and then he teaches himself how to play. And Dead of Winter is a robust game, and there was a lot of setup and a lot to understand. was getting it ready to set up for like an hour and a half while Yumi and Ace were in the other room, like hanging out yeah bullshitting around.
00:43:57
Speaker
And we finally get in there. And the very first things he he does is he rolls the die. And one of the dies, if it lands on a tooth, means your character instantly dies. ah And this was before we knew that if your character dies, you're going to get a next a new one on the next turn. It's not a big deal. But he roll that's the first thing that happens in the game. He rolls that, his character dies, and says, nope.
00:44:15
Speaker
So we didn't play the game that night. But we've played it several times since, and it's so good. It's a lot of fun. But then the other one is Zombicide Black Plague. Yes, I like that one. That one's amazing. There's a billion expansions with a billion characters that do a lot of really cool things and there's minis and Monkey Paints minis and so we have like this army of amazing cool painted dudes that we play this really cool zombie game with and the end. That's zombies. Painted dudes I play zombie games with.
00:44:43
Speaker
Me too. not not drag queens oh dang it painted little tiny plastic tiny plastic dudes not life site this is a bad a bad example but anyways that's that's zombies my sick mind covering zombies i love it
00:45:07
Speaker
I am going to say that generally my nightmare fuel is everything that I just talked about because lots of good content there if you enjoy zombies. Yeah, and I think it also like zombies is one of those things where it can be so it can encompass so many things depending on the the storytelling, right? like Yeah. It really just depends like the level of zombieism. i like well there was There was even there's a show i don't know if you've seen it, iZombie.
00:45:31
Speaker
Also on my list. Yes. You should watch it. It's really good. I love it because she's it's you and me oh it's it's she's just dead and cannot eat real food but she's still normal and so it's like if anyone figures it out then what you know i read a book once called i was a white trash or i'm a white trash zombie it's kind of the same thing like she she has she has a taste for brains she ends up having to get a job at a morgue so she can have access to brains yeah otherwise she's fine otherwise it's like what do you do right so
00:46:04
Speaker
That would be a situation because it would just add stress to my everyday life. You're able to understand and feel. And I feel like as a zombie, It's like once I'm a zombie, give fuck. Like what?
00:46:14
Speaker
Right. Like, okay. I'm wondering how much of you is left in there, you know? Yeah. But yeah. I also like the idea that zombie movies are so rarely about the monsters that are the zombies, but like how humans adapt and, and how we treat each other, how we can build or not. And, you know, just depending on the stories, there's, there's a lot of really interesting stuff out there.
00:46:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:39
Speaker
Do we have our palate cleansers ready? I have a little something. You have a little something? Yes. I think I have some more questions for you, but these are like, would you rather?
00:46:50
Speaker
i have some would you rather for you as well. Okay. But mine are like really stupid and I love them. So I'm just letting you know right now. Oh, mine are dark and horror related. Oh, fun. Do you want to go first?
00:47:02
Speaker
Well, no, let's have you go first. Okay. Let's you do one and then I'll do one. Would you rather be controlled by a mantis shrimp for a day and be forced to watch him make stupid shrimp decisions or be the most wanted pirate on the seven seas for a month in the 1700s?
00:47:18
Speaker
Do you see what I mean? I was just like, I need this. I don't think I was ready for that quick about face in um options. I think even though it's probably a horrific idea because I know what happened to female pirates, I think I'd be a pirate.
00:47:33
Speaker
i think you'd be good at being a pirate. I think I'd have fun being a pirate. I'd be. ah You would definitely be a horror pirate, but you would be a pirate.
00:47:42
Speaker
that Sounds like fun. Would you rather be turned into a zombie or watch everyone you love get turned into one? Oh, no, I would need to turn into one. Yeah. The first, the second one would make me sad.
00:47:55
Speaker
To me, that's my big thing is the, I can't, I can't give any more fucks if there's nothing to give fucks about. who But if they're all zombies, I'm going give some fucks.
00:48:06
Speaker
Sorry for all the fucks, guys. I'm not. Would you rather there be a ding sound every time you wink or have a cartoonish gun sound go off when you make a finger gun? Oh, I can't have both? No, only one.
00:48:19
Speaker
I think that the wink is more my style. Ding. Ding. Especially really awkward moments. Ding.
00:48:30
Speaker
Would you rather escape the end of the world by living underground forever or in space? Space. Really? Yes. Okay. I know Ace would disagree. He would. a hundred Actually, he would just probably kill himself because he does not like being underground and space terrifies him.
00:48:47
Speaker
Great. So yeah, for me, it's like space. At least I might see something cool. And then if I ever get tired of it, I'll just open the door. It's fine. What? That's a good quote for life. If I ever get tired of it, I'll just open the door. It's fine.
00:49:00
Speaker
Do you see why I was saying love how resilient you are and that's why I look up to you? Because I'm not. I'm like, I, minor inconvenience. I'm done. ah This will be my last one for you. Would you rather know the date of the end of the world or its cop?
00:49:19
Speaker
Neither. Well, you have to pick one. Date. That way I'd know how long, like, I have left to just You know, like if it's coming sooner rather than later, then like, fuck it.
00:49:30
Speaker
I'm going just not work and go find a beach somewhere. Follow up question. Do you think that younger you would have tried to stop it if you knew the answer? If you knew what it was? Do you think that younger you would have had that call to action to be the adventurer that saves the world?
00:49:45
Speaker
I mean, depending on what it is, because I just don't feel like one, there's a lot of control, right? Where I am. And two, convincing people, you know, that this is happening they're just gonna think you're crazy like things are gonna happen regardless to me i think but i am a pessimist so no shit
00:50:08
Speaker
uh let's see i have two for you okay okay hold on i don't like what your face yeah um whatever that is you have to say that Would you rather be forced to say m'lady every time you address a woman or yell I'm an atheist as loud as possible every time someone says God bless you?
00:50:29
Speaker
i already have strange reactions when people sneeze because of my propensities. But I... I'm sorry, what was the first one again? Because just that idea. Milady. Every time that you address a woman.
00:50:44
Speaker
Well, okay. Again, if you're talking about real life me who doesn't like to call attention myself, I definitely wouldn't be shouting I'm an atheist living in the South ever. But Milady, I'm a female. So I think I could get away with it better with the whole Milady thing.
00:50:59
Speaker
No, you're looking at me like I'm wrong. I'm start calling you Milady. i will punch you. That is an a and actual trigger i have. Wow. Yeah, no, I don't like either of those really, but I do think I'd get away more with the m'lady than I would screaming I'm an atheist.
00:51:18
Speaker
Would you rather every time you sneeze, a random person around you shits their pants grows a mustache knowing that you caused this? Like just spontaneously grows a full mustache, man or woman.
00:51:34
Speaker
I think I'd probably make them grow a mustache because you can shave that shit off. And I know you can wash your pants, but that feels a lot more traumatic. What if you did like multiple sneezes though? And it just like grows up like a pole. Or does it just hit a different person? Oh, maybe.
00:51:52
Speaker
Could you imagine the shitting your pants one and they just kept sneezing? You're like, please stop. They wouldn't necessarily know. Because I assume, again, it wouldn't be... mean, after the third one like, you sneezing them shitting, feel like you would notice. So here's the thing. Like, I'm picturing this... For some reason, I'm picturing this in a restaurant. Like, I'm at a restaurant. Oh, my God! I know, right? This is horrible. But I'm trying to think of, like, a place where I'd be around a lot of people. So I'm, like, at a restaurant.
00:52:15
Speaker
And I sneeze. And one person shits their pants. Now, one... Would that person correlate hearing a sneeze and that shit? They'd be more concerned about the fact that they have shit their pants. yeah And they're like, what happened?
00:52:28
Speaker
They'd probably try to be as inconspicuous as possible trying to get to the bathroom or something to handle it. That's true. So happening multiple times. They probably just think they had diarrhea or something like that. Yes. Now, unless it was like several many people. Yeah. Like if like 10 people are running to the bathroom because they shit their pants.
00:52:45
Speaker
Yeah. No, if it was in a restaurant, I'd think something they got served. Oh, yeah, you know what? You're right. about poisoning people or Talk about using your situation to your advantage.
00:52:58
Speaker
my god i was thinking just going to restaurants and sniffing peppers that your villain story get people to shit their pants oh my god this is a very crass way to end this one okay i know i'm sorry i mean it does sound like an actual nightmare
00:53:19
Speaker
All right. Well, we have reached the end of our nightmare for tonight. So ah everybody have a great week. Don't get sick. Don't let the bed bugs bite.
00:53:30
Speaker
Sweet dreams. If you have topic requests, book or movie recommendations, or just want to say hi, email us at nightmarecottage at gmail.com or visit our website at nightmarecottage.com. Sweet dreams. What are you doing?
00:53:44
Speaker
What are you doing? Thank you.