Night of The Living Deb
Introduction
Introduction
Looking at the date, that’s a lot of twos. I wish I was dumb enough to believe in the soft mysticism of astrology and crystals and numerology. Don’t get me wrong, I love numbers and finding special ones makes me happy.
Like this- my past two zip codes have been the size of old ford engines. 302 and 351. See, if it was chevy engines, it’d be 305 and 350. But I think the 302 is better than the 305- which I regard as suited primarily as a boat anchor. I don’t know anything really about the 351. I’ve never owned one. But I do believe whole-heartedly in the lusty power of the throaty 350 roaring through a pair of Flowmasters. It warms the cockles of me wee little cold heart, it does.
Here’s the reason though, for those cockles being so fucking cold. The pipes have frozen. This 1880 farmhouse, which I recently redid the entire bathroom of- from soup to nuts, whatever that means… well, for the first time in the 6 years of owning it, the damn pipes have frozen.
My wife had to leave early to shower at the gym on her way to work. I feel like this new couch is trying to kill me. It’s comfortable until you start doing something in it, and then you start realizing that it’s too short in this dimension and too long in that one, and as a result you’ve contorted yourself into The Scream or whatever that painting is called. I suppose it’s better than a couch that thrust you into La Guernica though. That’d really be disturbing.
More disturbing than having to flush the toilet manually by dumping a big pot of water into it, so that natural gravity and such does the flushing for you, since the toilet isn’t getting any water on it’s own. My wife got the shower’s hot to drip, and was excited by this progress until I explained that even if it did start coming out unimpeded, it was going to be straight, scalding hot water, since there is no correlation or connection between the hot and cold pipes.
They’re not even pipes, really- they’re PEX, a plastic tube of contort-able properties with your choice of plastic or brass connectors. They’re much like Legos if you think of them that way. (I suppose by this logic, they’re also indistinguishable from both raccoons and spaghetti, as well)
Like the guy said in Bravo Two Zero “I can and I just did.” or something to the effect when creating an anagram out of Saddam Hussein‘s name and changing the M to a T. The rest of the movie? Sean Bean in filthy underwear getting the shit kicked out of him by caricatures of ISIS evil-men. All it was lacking was some good monologuing and concurrent mustache twist-straightening.
We have gotten plans back from the builders and given them the final OK. We’re moving on to the CADD stuff. And then we submit that to the town for the permitting process, which leads to us building a new house.
A new life to go with it, too. I’ve never been great at hosting unless we’re talking about drunken house-parties, if so, I’m a lesser prince of some great notoriety for some of the shebangs I’ve thrown. On my 18th birthday, when the police showed up to ask us to move cars into actual parking spots, they declined to come in, even though there was a two-foot bong sitting proud on a kitchen table too crowded to hold yet a single ‘nother beer can.
Later they showed up again with a missing member of our party, who had met some guys downstairs and then passed out in their bathroom. She… well, I would say something derisive, but if I’m being totally honest, it’s the same woman I lost my virginity to, so… I’m gonna be nice, and keep my mouth shut about visiting Spain and taking a dissociative amount of LSD or Molly or god knows what and then wandering the streets for a month in a drug fueled state of panicked amnesia?
Or the weirdness of calling me up later, meowing like a cat, and then asking if I had any marijuana that I would come bring to you and then give you and then leave, nothing mentioned about hanging out or anything? Just “Do you have any marijuana you can bring me?”
I’ve got 2.5 grams of mushrooms on board, and it’s cold as hell in here- it’s 61 degrees last time I was up and checked. I’m typing with hands that are stiff with the cold, and painful in movement, but… shit. That’s life. We spent the last couple days out in the van wandering the state. We did our loop of the Christmas Valley Sand Dunes, the Alvord Desert, and then a secret stop at a secret Butte. 3 nights out. It was amazing, even if we did A: Possibly kill the van’s engine, and B: Get into a minor fight about a Polaroid camera.
Regarding the primary, we whooptied it the first night through a lot of sand and snow, and things took a beating, but no issues. The next day, we stop to get gas at some no-name… Actually, it HAS a name, I just don’t want to use it here, since that’s extra marketing for them… but the minute we fill up with gas from this place, Baked Alaska (that’s our van’s name)(has nothing to do with the right-wing mouth-douche)(it’s about A: we’re always baked, and B:the van was built to be taken to Alaska, and that’s what we intend to do) starts running like shit, and the Service Engine Soon light, which had up until now remained solid- began blinking.
The radio made some weird alerting sounds too, after a while, but the van was still running and driving and we needed to get home. We already know how much it costs to rent what it takes to tow a busted 4×4 back across the state. The answer is “More than way too much” yet “a fair cost for adventure” if you believe the more mayhem, the louder and more intense the adventure. I kinda do.
I think I have to, by nature. I crave adrenaline, therefore, I am. In the adrenaline vein, I’m going to have a lot of it soon. And most probably, less functionality from my fingers. I’ve taken the plunge and declared my intent to join the jujitsu class. That’s gonna be the start. I hope to add boxing and muay thai kickboxing once I get my chubby ass into fighting shape.
I think I’m starting to feel the mushrooms. My hands hurt. A couple nights ago I ate a bunch of mushrooms and then went and accidently fell asleep cuddling with my old dog. I woke up and had no idea where I was. None of the sounds felt normal or were recognizable, when I opened up one eye without moving, all I saw was dark on darker and shapes that meant nothing to me but seemed larger than they needed to be.
I lay there, not moving at all, thinking about all the possible places that I could be waking up. Since I’ve stopped drinking, this exercise is significantly shorter than it used to be. Now, “I have no fucking idea” is no longer really an option. I mean, medical emergencies and mental health lapses and all that, “I have no fucking idea” is sort of always a possibility, but now it’s reserved for worst case scenarios, as opposed to simply having too much fun the night before.
I felt like I could be camping, but my body wasn’t being cramped, or snuggled, or twisted up in a sleeping bag like the myopic larva that I turn into once placed into a mummy bag… eventually, I’d laid there for a few minutes and although I still had no idea where I was (remember- a shit-ton of mushrooms and then accidently taking a nap and awakening while they’re peaking at full strength) I was pretty sure that I was safe.
No one was around me, I was pretty sure. I opened both my eyes, stretched a bit, looking around… It was the glow from the pellet stove that finally clicked for me. I’d forgotten that we’d moved the bed downstairs to cease our old dog’s usage of the stairs for her own sake. Mind, we’d moved the bed a full two months ago, so I really have no logical reason for not figuring out that’s where I was. Everything just looked wrong and off, if that makes sense.
Mushrooms are powerful things. I suppose sleep is a powerful thing. It’s amazing how we can know where we are the instant we wake up, like at an airport. It doesn’t matter which one, they all have the feeling of energy, of movement, it’s as if you can feel all the sensors and radars flowing through you. The ground is constantly in motion, vibrations from subways and luggage chutes and the feet and movement of all the fellow travelers.
Most places we wake up in, we know where we are, and that’s not necessarily due to perfectly remembering where we went to sleep last. It’s like waking up when you’re backpacking- you know where you are- you’re outside, in a tent, and you have a long way to walk and hopefully it’s not raining or mosquitoing.
The same thing is felt when woken up in class after dozing off, when waking up in a cinema… well, there was the incident of waking up towards the end of The Simpsons Movie in a drunken panic and spilling myself out horribly… but think about it.
Most places have a “feel” to them that we can instantly hone in on and understand immediately when we wake up there. I remember my friend who drank far too much at a bonfire party, and then slept in the back of a stranger’s pickup when he couldn’t find his own. The owner of the pickup had no idea my friend was passed out behind him, and drove home after the party, and then to work the next morning… where my friend woke up in the parking lot of a supermarket that he’d never seen before in his life.
Damn. It’s half an hour later and the mushrooms are very present. My face is itchy. Night of the Living Deb “After a girls’ night out, endearingly awkward Deb wakes up in the apartment of pretty boy Ryan, only to be ushered out the door…and into a full-scale zombie apocalypse. Now, the mismatched pair must fight for survival and discover that the only thing scarier than trusting someone with your life is trusting them with your heart.”
This sounds like the most realistic plot of a Rom-Zom-Com that I’ve come across. Going through trauma with someone is one of the best ways to get to know who they really are. Like my buddy says- You have to travel with someone and be with them through loss of someone (including pets, they’re people too) (Dogs, at least. Cats are still the living embodiment of tormenting evil.) before you can decide to marry them. Oh, I think you have to live with them too. This is probably the best example of his wisdom. Other bits are not safe for work, nor politically correct.
Very strong physical presence in these mushrooms. I feel so completely stoned, like… unsafe to drive level stoned. I don’t have the urge to murder anyone for a pizza though. Meaning, I don’t crave pizza. I’m not sure where the violence came from. It’s disturbing to me, too. And that’s after my living with it, nay- hosting it for almost five decades.
Just had to take some time off ‘cause the mushrooms were really kicking, and then I had to take time off taking time off since the dogs were hounding me (bad pun, but I’m in the mood for it) for *more* treats after I just gave them half a loaf of fucking blueberry bread because my friend bought it for me and I ate half of it before reading the “This product causes cancer” warning.
How the FUCK do you sell bread with a cancer warning on it, Franz Bakeries? You should all be lined up against the wall with the cigarette salesmen and oil lobbyists and shot to death with marbles from the slingshots of a thousand outraged eight-year olds.
Jesus wookiees cookies, it’s coming down icky out there. I just reached out to my wife about driving her home in the morning. Fuck. I pray the gym isn’t closed tomorrow. For me and my wife- she’s gonna need a place to take a shower.
My left hand hurts. And I had to stop and think for a second which was my right and which was my left. It still seems strange to me. I feel like my left hand should be my more prominent one, it’s the jab that stays in your face like a buzzing gnat, it’s got the tattooed finger for the wife, it’s the one hurting me at the moment. My right hand seems… weak and ineffectual by comparison.
I might be confusing the amount of sensory input with perceived prominence, meaning, my left hand is throbbing, so it must be the most important. The principle of the squeaky wheel. As much as it hurts now, I know tomorrow I’ll wrap it up and go back to the bag. I feel like I have a knuckle out of place. More out of place than usual. More out of place than before. But I’m not sure before *what*.
It didn’t hurt until I started typing in the cold. Maybe I should wrap my hands for typing. I feel the same way about our relationship; speaking both to the screen before me and any reader to follow. It’s the ache of a cracked knuckle that maybe wasn’t ready yet, or perhaps that should have been a pop instead of a crack, one is soft and relaxing, the other hard and rewarding.
I have no idea what I’m writing, but the hands keep moving. The hands keep moving, and the hands keep hurting. I don’t understand how wool works. I understand it’s warming properties, but I don’t understand how it’s turned from animal product to clothing constructing material. I know it has something to do with a big “spinning wheel” and bonnets.
It’s equally mystery and magic as server routing details and database calls are to me. If you move backwards or forwards along the technology line, it’s just a matter of increments before you’re left puzzled and relying on “because… it does.” as your level of comprehension. I desperately need to see a chiropractor, but I’m afraid of them. Are cars afraid of mechanics?
(12/23/2022) I shouldn’t have eaten so many mushrooms last night- things really spiraled into a time-suck of epic scrolling proportions. My hand never stopped hurting, either. I finally fell asleep with it wrapped in a heating pad. That felt deliriously comfortable.
I believe there was even a moment there where I felt so comfortable I swore off fighting any more, but that didn’t last. I need to get this review done, so I can get to sleep, so I can wake up and go pick my wife up from work. The ice is a half inch thick over everything. The van likes going sideways. I almost tagged my Jetta trying to get off of the curb. So… I’m going to eat… some mushrooms. But not much. And take a final toke, and then we’ll get started.
Review Notes
Review Notes
I like cartoons.
I like island music.
I like Ray Wise.
Bar. 4th of July.
She likes him.
“What if he slaps me?” (said by the cute redhead)
“What if instead of writing the Declaration of Independence George Washington wrote the Declaration of Suffering in Silence with your Lady Boner.” I’ve… never heard “lady boner” before. I like it.
Gandalf call out! Whoot!
Her friend is a good friend. A good drinking friend. I was not that good of a drinking friend.
She’s waking up… And the cat is glitching already. She’s not home. She has no idea where she is. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. I’ve had to pull over half way home to puke because of the hangover.
She’s still at his place and he doesn’t know how to get rid of her.
Back at the bar, she’s awkward as fuck.
Ryan is engaged and to a really mean woman and he doesn’t want to take over the family business and she’s being mean to him about it.
Oh… Shit. She just got called a Fraggle. That’s fucked up.
A White Russian. There is so much history for me with that drink. One Ex, and one night at a casino… $3,000 down before I even started gambling, due to money-shifting my buddies 3000GT and ripping the 3rd gear synchro to shreds.
They’re cat people? I… I have no words.
No, you don’t pretend to sleep more.
She’s fucking awkward to watch weirding out.
She’s a fucking Wrecking Ball.
She’s gotta still be drunk.
No drunk could remember all that poetry. Longfellow.
She’s crazy and coked up and fucking crazy as fuck. I would run as fast as possible, too.
A phone call full of anger and growls.
Not monster. Crazy. Nutty.
Like, using the word caca.
I love her old Caddy.
We have children zombies eating patriotic intestines. That should be a punk rock band’s name.
“The parade’s really gone down hill this year.”
No-one wants Ryan’s money.
“Dude, why are you eating a FOOT?”
These are good zombies. They’re perfect.
Deb saves him! By running over a bunch of them.
“They’re really old school, of the cerebral palsy variety.”
“Hey! That’s Manny from up the street! He really *does* have cerebral palsy!”
Oh, that door… I did that once and almost broke her nose. That was a bad night. I suppose my laughing hysterically didn’t help matters. Fucking ASPD. Always messing up my groove.
Fighting over the remote.
They’re… the radio in the shower.
Oh. Shit. He just got caught in a lie. “If you never tell a lie to her… you don’t have to remember anything.”
Dude, he doesn’t know his girlfriend’s phone number.
Deb is petty.
Deb’s phone is crappy.
Deb is needy. And clingy.
Damn, I’m hungry.
I like his air plant.
Nice bike diss!
She’s kinda wrong about this.
They’re fighting over what to do with the dead old lady’s eyes.
I’m pretty sure that I’ve seen someone strip a wire to electrocute a zombie recently, but I can’t recall any specifics. Maybe they were using it for… like, a defibrillator?
The Clapper! Nice!
Out the fire escape…
These two are not working well together.
Although… zombie rodeo?
Ryan killed the zombie and she face-planted!
“WOO!”
I really don’t like Chris Tucker.
I want to go to yum-yum town.
Otis is a good car. Stop arguing about it.
“Drive around in a hovercraft…”
Deb tells such shitty stories.
Bonding over family issues.
Oh… Ryan is a Waverly person and they’re pure evil. Good to know.
Yule Mart?
“You’ve had a gun this entire time?”
Tap Out.
“Oh, I’m sorry Ryan, I haven’t worked out the math on our murder suicide yet.”
Fuck you, Animatronic Snowman!
Fuck you, Animatronic Christmas Tree!
Ryan says that it takes 10 years to grow a Christmas tree. I did research on this once- I can’t remember why though, but I found that it takes 8 years.
I would not agree to be Ruby-Zombie Bait.
“Did I hurt you in a past life or something?”
“What are you doing, Rain Man?”
“I deserve the things I want. My needs are worthwhile. I’m not hurting anyone by being myself.” That’s a pretty decent mantra. I’m a big fan of them. Mine is “This is what I do. This is who I am. My body is strong and my mind is focused.” Mantras are important. Everyone should have one, if only for the necessity of knowing yourself well enough to find the correct one.
I love Chaz.
“58008. It’s boobs. Upside down.”
My brother and I are equally disparate, although with time and maturity we’ve become slightly less antagonistic of each other.
Oh, SHIT! Chaz had an Accidental Discharge.
God, Ray can be the most frightening person in the world.
Turns out the city water gave everyone the zombie virus. And Ryan’s dad knew something about it. I’m a bit faded.
“Nutmeg can be a bit much at times, but that’s no reason to abandon it.”
Topper?
“Society crumbles without rules.”
I want some brownie.
She’s like a human female TinTin.
The Ichabod virus?
Topper taking the brownie is the funniest shit I’ve ever seen! I’m laughing so hard!!
More Longfellow?
A roaring bear-face firework? I want one.
The brownie was drugged?
“Sometimes you need to put your own oxygen mask on first.”
Chaz wants the jerk girlfriend.
Hug it out! Hug it out!
Topper is snoring. Deb is reading about Portland.
Stacy is very distracting.
Stacy is very distracting.
Chaz is taking life out on his sandwich. What a great scene!
Deb just bounced out!
And Topper is dead meat.
Chaz just let Stacy get eaten.
And then Chaz just let Chaz get bitten. Things have gotten out of control quicky.
Now Ruby-Zombie wants out of the trunk. And Deb feels bad.
(farts) “That’s a no.”
Chaz was adopted? Ha!
“What is real?” Dude sounds like Kanye lately.
She can’t leave. She has to go back? Bummer!
“There’s social media, there’s… twerking, MySpace…”
The governor is… an evil little man.
The governor is a dead man.
Oh, shit! He’s horrible with trigger control.
Ruby-Zombie is awesome.
Graffiti correcting graffiti. Yes, that’s New England for you.
Self-serve frozen yogurt.
Her dad was exposing himself to a basset hound? What the fuck?
Ha! He’s eating a container of sprinkles…
They’re both punch drunk.
Nice! Aliens easter egg!
Head stomp!
Newscast.
Oop! The zombies got out of the room!
“Woman falls in love.” Wow. Kinda laying it all on the line here.
Oh, fuck! Deb got bit! Never saw that coming. What the fuck?
I want a burger.
“Prior to that, she was employed at a Lady Foot Locker, until she was let go for staging an unauthorized sock puppet production of Jesus Christ Superstar.”
So much for he big speech!
That was pretty awesome.
Up on the roof…
So… you can’t get it from a bite.
“We’re alive and we’re under arrest!”
They’ve started the bombing!
And the kissing!
It’s the ending!
————End Transmission——————–
Plot Autopsy
Plot Autopsy
- Deb makes you cringe with awkwardness but you think she’s a pretty cool person.
- Deb makes you cringe with awkwardness and you’re starting to get tired of the Deb thing.
- Deb makes you cringe with awkwardness and then the zombie movie really picks up and she’s not the absolute center of attention anymore and the focus is on the story, not the character.
- Fucking zombie-hooligans fuck shit up and don’t give a shit!
- Turns out it’s something in the water, and Ryan’s dad is to blame, and then Deb gets bit- a complete WTF moment.
- Surprise! Getting bit *doesn’t* turn you into a zombie. Only getting exposed to the bad water does.
Zombie Description
Zombie Description
“They’re ordinary citizens that happen to have contracted a parasite borne virus that makes their corporeal bodies decompose and gives them an insatiable appetite for human flesh.” That’s what these zombies are. Ray said it very succinctly. As he put on his flowered apron. Turns out there’s more science to it than that- there’s something about UV rays in the water… I think they went a little thick into the causation- but the zombies were amazing, and amazingly done. Ruby-Zombie is a hoot, the hordes of them were intense, oh! And you can’t get it from a zombie biting you. You have to drink or bathe in the treated water to turn into a zombie. That’s new.
Where the money went
Where the money went
I’m pretty sure that a lot of the resources, if not actual money, went to the Deb person. I feel like she’s a bit too central to the first half of the movie for there to be enough variance to allow for the need for balance. I loved most of the minutes of it, but I was aware I was watching something. It’s like how watching a stripper becomes ridiculous if you step out of the moment and just imagine everything objectively. The zombies needed for nothing- they were great. I couldn’t shake the thought that the one that eventually bit Deb was Kal Penn. I think that’s his name. I doubt Ray comes cheap, either, but he seemed to be having a great time playing his role.
Best Weapon
Best Weapon
Otis the Caddy.
That was new!
That was new!
We’re less than two minutes in and I hear a new term: Lady Boner. I love it. It’s… immature and stupid and sexual and makes sense to both me and most 9 year olds. What more do you want? We’re less than two minutes in and I can tell that this is going to be witty. And then they end it with more new than I can really wrap my head around… they end it with the proposal (completely against the cannon grain) that one might not contract zombieism from a zombie bite, but rather, what if it was this other X over here? It almost becomes science fiction more than horror, but in either perspective there’s a lot of out of the box-free thinking in this movie. This energy is reminiscent of Safety Not Guaranteed, but with someone other than Plaza.
Can I get a hand?
Can I get a hand?
So, this is where they intentionally left the silo empty. This is a zombie movie that dares to ask “What would a zombie movie be like if getting bitten by a zombie didn’t turn you into a zombie?”. I mean, this belongs in the New section, but it also explains why there was so little zombie lore or inclusion; they were paving the way with the ideas in the script they’d written. There was a whole lot of zombies behind the plate glass walls, smearing red everywhere and biting at nothing. It was great. Even if I did notice a bit of condensation from the zombie’s breath and exertions.
Overall Recommendation
Recommendation?
First and foremost- I found myself laughing my ass off multiple times. This is written as strongly as Shaun in regards to the buddy element and consequent bickering. The one-liners are hilarious, and the zombies are great- but you never lose sight of this being a Rom-Zom-Com. Or whatever the correct order of those is. The central element to the plot, the titular character, both makes the movie and sort of irritates the fuck out of me after a while. I feel like the movie couldn’t have succeeded without her input, but maybe I’d like to see a take where the female lead wasn’t played by a professional stand-up comic. There was a… lack of timing awareness, or maybe simply a different style of performance… there was something to the way she said her zingers and interesting lines that made you feel as if they had to stop and set up for a special sequence every time. There was an element of Whose Line is it, Anyway? in her approach and delivery, and I love that show. I’m not sure about how well it’s entirety translated to the big screen. The plot had about the same element of seriousness that Roger Rabbit showed, and there was a plethora of very enchanting side characters- nothing in this movie is played straight. Even bringing in Ray to play the affable villain… he’s such overkill for this role. It’s be like using William Dafoe for a porter. (Winks) Now, let’s get down to the nitty gritty detail of the review, the dissecting table where I flay and label and set with pins against a rubber backing… I found myself laughing my ass off multiple times. You know that laughter that you get with a sibling when they do something that has always made you laugh, and it’s dumb but it feels good, so you keep laughing every time they do it? This has that warm, comfortable feeling to it. You might not want to take a road-trip with Deb (Especially after witnessing the glee she gets from driving over people) but you’d definitely stand up for her in a brawl. If we look at Ryan’s story ark, we see that this dichotomy defines his entire existence. As for me, I found myself laughing my ass off multiple times.