Among The Living
Introduction
Introduction
We have domestic terrorists attacking our own electrical grid. People from the USA are working to destroy the possible USA that they don’t like coming. People are using trucks and guns and fire and guns to attack the electrical doo-hickeys that we need in order for electricity to get from A to B.
Imagine a couple guys in a pickup ramming open a metal gate in the middle of the night, and people jumping out with rifles and shotguns and everyone spends a minute just shooting the shit out of everything that resembles technology before they all hop back in the truck and take off. Maybe there’s a Molotov cocktail or two, if they’re going for extra style points.
It sounds like a bad plot device to explain why the army base that’s under attack in the movie doesn’t have electricity; the bad guys knocked out the power lines before they attacked. When I worked in emergency response, our call center had redundancies for out backups in case our stress-tested and hardened equipment failed. None of this was able to do anything helpful when a drunk in a pickup took out a telephone pole a block away though.
Our building, and everything we controlled- was active and operational. Our umbilical to society had been severed though. I remember people in a panic using their personal cell phones to dispatch EMS and police in other states, it was absolute chaos. That was one drunk with a pickup and no guns.
Ouch. I just branded myself by accident trying to clean off a dab spoon. I held it in the torch for a few seconds, wiped it down, and then tried to reverse it in my grip to clean the other end. Now the pad of my finger has a small smooth patch. Smooth. That’s me.
We almost ended up with a 3rd dog a couple of days ago. Here’s something strange- my wife never opens the door when someone knocks. Her opinion is that she didn’t invite anyone over, so she’s not obligated to go deal with whoever it is who is knocking. I think she’s operating on the assumption that everyone knocking on the door is an evangelical or political bothering.
She has a good point, but I think I need to ask her to be more… open… to opening the door for strangers. It’s not like there’s a lack of firearms and bear spray around the house. I think a lot of it has to do with her not being able to see who is on the other side of the door.
I’m almost positive my crazy neighbor lady reported my dogs abandoned to the police, but the police are no help in actually helping. It really gives me no pleasure to write that. You can tell from the pathetic redundancy.
I’m sad that I live in a town where I’m already known to the police. I’m sad that I’m the kind of person who moves to a new town and then meets all the local police. I’d really like to take that window-punching back, please. Funny how I don’t feel the same remorse about the actual police officer I clobbered when I was 22.
So anyway, there’s this knock at the door, and I open it, and there’s a little puppy in our alcove and a guy a couple steps away from the dog, over near our adventure van. He asks if it’s mine, and I’m thinking he means the van, so I say yes, and he says that he wasn’t sure if the dog was ours or part of the litter that the cop was trying to wrangle down the road.
This causes me to look down the road, and sure enough, there’s a cop car with strobes on pulled to the curb. I say to the guy “Are you asking if I own the van or the dog. ‘Cause that’s my van and I’ve never seen this dog in my life.”
The guy kinda hesitates, then says again that the cop up the street is trying to catch a bunch of puppies, but he didn’t know if the one in my alcove was one of those or what. I could tell the guy wanted to do the right thing, but was about done putting in effort. I looked down at the little guy and told the dude that I’d take care of the dog, no worries. I wasn’t worried. Much.
The way I live, it’s just surfing. If I catch a wave and that wave brings me a dog, I’ve got a new dog. If that wave brings me a cheeseburger, I’ve got a cheeseburger. If that wave dumps me, I try to roll with it and get back to my board. I picked the little guy up and brought him into the house. My wife and the other dogs fell instantly in love.
I think that’s when I realized I’d fallen in love too. I named him Robot. And then, even though I had just finished toweling off after a shower, I stripped down and started the shower again, and took the dog in with me, holding him in the water, rubbing his belly clean, making sure my wife didn’t get too crazy with the soap.
Dogs are supposed to be a little bit dirty. It’s how you tell them apart from cats. Damn, this burn is hurting. So anyway, I take the little guy for a shower, and then my wife wraps him up in a huge plush blanket and he refused to move. The little fellow was in heaven. He just hunched down into a happy huddle and let her roll him around in the blanket until he was dry. Then he took a piss in the middle of the living room.
A-ha! I remembered! I KNEW there was a down-side to puppies. I couldn’t help it though, the minute I saw him start to tinkle I went into training mode and shut him down, got him outside, the other dogs came along and it was urine for three. Three little dogs… peeing on my back lawn.
I knew that we had to make a fast decision regarding the puppy, since our attachment was growing with each adorable little interaction. I’d told my wife about the cop up the street, but since I’d already gotten really high, I didn’t feel like walking three blocks to talk to a cop. I never want to talk to cops.
There has been one or two points where I did want to talk to police, and in those moments I either called them or was too busy having a cocaine and IPA induced seizure in my Pathfinder on the side of the road to do anything other than stare longingly into the rear-view mirror and praying through the bile regurgitations.
It’s got to be a very really bad day for me to want to interact with police in any capacity. A bit more on that to come though. So the wife and I take the dog down to the vet, we’re only a couple of blocks from everything.
The receptionist told me that a police cadet had just been in the office looking for a bulldog puppy, and then for some reason it took about 20 minutes of interacting with three different people- one who decided to do a database search based on the dog’s spots or something- for me to just explain that I’d take the dog down to the police. I didn’t need them to take the dog, I kinda wanted to keep the dog.
(12/8/2022)
So… Yeah. Didn’t finish that last night. My old dog kept coming to check in with me, and the mushrooms were making it hard to concentrate, and the last thing my wife had said before she left was that I should spend lots of time snuggling the puppies.
I was procrastinating on YouTube and watched a clip from the old classic Iron Cross, which led me to watching Iron Cross. In bed, cuddled up with the dog and the vape pen. I keep hearing the term “Prussian Aristocrat” in my mind. My wife and I were talking earlier, and I had a realization about celebrities.
Kevin Hart is Chris Rock’s parasitical catfish. Whenever someone can’t get Chris Rock to sign onto a project, the next number dialed is Hart’s. But I spend the night happily watching explosions and shootings and Germans and Russians and it’s really strange to see them fighting then where different people are currently fighting today.
I mean, the movie itself was probably filmed in California, but the soul of the movie occurs in the area around Ukraine. I think. As I said, I was busy scratching the dog and frizzling on fungus, so maybe I read into something too much.
Regarding “Too Much”, I have a bet with my wife that the new Indiana Jones movie is going to be better than #4; The Crystal Skull. She says that #5 will be worse than #4, I’m firmly entrenched in the mentality that there is nothing short of prison rape that could be worse than watching Shia Lebouf swing around on vines, sword-fighting, with a bunch of monkeys.
Maybe if they’d gone full Gonzo bullshit and given each monkey a little leather coat and switchblade costume? And Shia could control them with his mind? I think I’d be able to get behind that one.
But this fifth installment feels painfully old. It feels like my lower back. It feels like my hands in November rain. It looks like a CGI’d remake of Back To The Future 2, if you really want my opinion. Take that opinion with a couple grams of mushrooms though. That’s usually the only way it’ll make sense.
Today we started the journey off of Prozac. We’re at 30mg now instead of 40. I’m not sure exactly how to do this, since both of the people I trust for advice are slightly at odds with each other. I’m going to take the path of least resistance that also has an asterisk attached, which is that if I end up in the fetal position on the kitchen floor at all, I’m going to take more Prozac and decide to keep taking Prozac.
It’s exciting after a decade of medication to be seeing what daily nibbles of mushrooms do for me, as opposed to do to me. Oh, and about that dog, the cute little puppy? I left the vet’s place after about 20 minutes of people all trying to help in different ways that negated each other’s efforts and we took the dog to the police station, which evidently the vet had called ahead to inform them we were coming…
We walk up to the window with puppy and make a joke about bringing in a fugitive, and then this kid in a child’s police man uniform comes out, announces that he’s been looking for the dog, and walks over to me and makes it understood through body language that he expects me to hand the puppy to him.
I asked him if he knew who the owners were. He said that he’d managed to catch the other two, but that this one had gotten away. That’s not an acceptable or relevant answer to the question I’d asked him. This kid is gonna be a cop in my town soon. Gotta start teaching him the rules.
I asked him again: “Are you in contact with the owner?” He looked really puzzled and did the half-reaching to accept the dog body language thing. The puppy was so warm and comfortable in my arms. Something clicked in the kid’s demeanor and he stopped reaching and finally answered that he was in contact with the owner.
I’m not sure if it’s the information he gave, or the respect, but I decided to reward him with a puppy.
Fortunately for all involved, I had one available, and since I can’t let anything go without making it ridiculously awkward for everyone involved, as my wife and I walked out of the station, I called back over my shoulder “Happy adventures, Robot!” and I sensed the kid stiffen up out of confusion and indignation. I yelled a thanks for his help and called him Dood, and I think he figured out that my first utterance had been intended for the puppy.
So that’s how we almost ended up with a puppy right when we’re counting down the dawns with our old lady. If the Universe wills it, I’ll grab that puppy and surf until I can step-off, but I have to be honest that I’m relieved not to be taking on another 12 years of obligation.
Maybe there’s something to my wife’s practice of not opening up the door. Maybe there’s equal validity and worth to be found with my stance of “What’s up, world?” when the door knocks.
How did I take my socks off? Why did I take my socks off? I’ve been running out of socks lately. Or rather, since I’ve been throwing them out due to heel holes, I suppose it could be said that I’ve been running out of my socks lately. Through them would be more accurate, but threw them would have been more fun.
Amazon, prepare to right a wardrobe wrong! Among the Living. That’s tonight. “Stranded in the countryside in the aftermath of a deadly outbreak, older brother Harry fights to protect his younger sister, Lily, while he desperately searches to find refuge with their father. Harry and Lily are determined to survive their journey as they strive to avoid an infected population with a thirst for blood as well as the greater threat of other survivors.”
This seems to be a pretty straight forward “keep the kid alive” story, but these also dangerously veer into “let’s use the apocalyptic end of society to film pretend snuff videos to illustrate the evils that men do.” “And stuff.”
I completely understand and accept- hell, I’d take zombies over humans any day, zombies are simply hungry, people are evil. But I knew that since I was 7 and left alone for a summer in a high-school library where I studied the encyclopedias, since my parents thought that leaving a young child reading about the atrocities committed by the Germans in WW2 and learning about The Sex Pistols‘ social furor was better than paying for a babysitter.
So, I’m looking forward to this, it could be pretty fun and intense, but I’m afraid that after the first half or so, it’s just going to turn into people being brutal to each other and one man experiencing extreme duress while attempting to save the life of their loved one. Whoah.
I just thought I saw a cockroach floating in the bong, but it’s a slick of oil and thank god we don’t have cockroaches up here like there were in Hawaii or California. I’m fine with spiders, since they’re just weird little marvels of nature; tiny robot alpha predators in their own ecology, squish-bait to children and the squeamish everywhere.
It took a lot of begging, but my wife finally gave into my love of spiders and no longer asks me to kill them, but instead, to catch them, which sometimes turns exciting. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and there’s a glass upside-down on the floor. It took me puzzlingly picking one of these up and a spider charging my foot for me to realize that she had grown strong enough to confront them, she kind of enjoys trapping them.
I will say though, that most of the spiders she ends up trapping have seven legs. I guess it’s better than going squish, though. Yuck. Imagine if she kept all the little legs in a tiny doll suitcase? Would that be better or worse than if she simply ate them? The dismembered legs, not the trapped spiders. I get to let the trapped spiders free in the morning. It’s almost as good a ritual as waking up and watering a room full of pot plants.
Review Notes
Review Notes
So… Really high.
I’ve lost my coffee.
A bunch of different sounds and voices. A message to daddy. Someone going “Dayeh- uh, ehuhhnuhnuh”
Wow, accents.
Heading to dads. Walking. With Harry.
I like the song.
I really like the song.
A game of tag…
Seems like foreshadowing.
Lots of beans.
Who wats to remember this?
That is the most abysmally set up tent in the history of camping. Full fail.
Oh, there’s a lot of sounds at night.
Someone running around.
Someone coming in!!
Some woman just tried to come in but Harry kicked her out. Seems like a tent is really not a defensible space.
Oh, they got a zombie out there! Or a really hyperventilating badger.
Seems tents are zombie-proof. I can’t wait to tell my wife and adventure buddy.
I can’t understand a fucking thing he’s saying.
“Take a risk.”
Some bald Viking in a dirty down jacket? Gesturing to hide?
An SUV?
Some guy coming back to the house?
Whoah. Screaming. I’m… not sure that’s a fighting style.
It’s the Viking again!
Now they’re creeping.
Oh, they’re bad men. They killed the lady. I think.
Oh, shit. Zombies. Eating on the dead lady.
Not much talking in this, is there?
“Who’s he?” (asking about the new guy walking behind them)
“Don’t know.”
Oh, shit. The Viking is a mute.
“Do you know sign language?”
(mute shakes his head)
“Me neither.”
Wow, these guys are having a nice-off. Ought to be Portland drivers.
It’s morning and it looks like the Viking took off.
Raiding a house for supplies… taking the batteries.
Oh, shit, she cut herself!
Duct tape. One of many uses.
Oh… SHIT!! ZOMBIE!!
Crawling up out of the trap door! It’s a new type of Hand!!
Zombies don’t like light!
Wow, that’s a bit of a hike. I’m jealous.
Why would you give her a knife? She’s already proven she’s not to be trusted around pointy things.
You can tell they’re not actually hiking due to the speed that she went back up the hill to take a piss or whatever. When you’re really hiking, you never go uphill unnecessarily. Fuck hills. And fuck berms.
Who is he, a junior ranger?
Say “TOILET.”
Oh, shit! She got stuck in a trap! DUCT TAPE!!
He doesn’t know the rule about the magic corner with tape.
Sounds like something smells her!
Piggyback!
Zombie metal-head…
Say “BATTERIES”
Another trap!
Got the zombie!
Rice pudding? That’s a bit…
Ain’t gonna find rice pudding in a root cellar.
So strange to watch zombie movies set in cultures where the knife is the standard of violence, not the gun.
Or, in this case, a hammer. And a Doc Marten.
Kaal.
That’s a cabin? Sploosh.
That house is gorgeous.
Why is this movie about whether kids should drink or not?
Quite the domestic evening.
Had to put the fucking subtitles on.
Wagon Driving? And a Biologist.
An accountant.
So, the subtitles say it’s ominous music, but it doesn’t feel that way to me. Fucking sociopathy. Shit is hard to understand.
He got her bag. Ok. Moving the plot along…
Great- she’s blaming her brother for her accident. I hate people.
OH!! She got hit in the head with a ball!
And the subtitles said that the kid was fake laughing. Sounded like laughter to me.
Harry is being kinda creepy.
Shit, she’s bleeding again!
Harry, what the fuck are you doing?
Kaal is off into the woods… with his hammer.
Oh, that’s a dead zombie.
Looks like Yolandi.
Strange movie about people being dangerously polite to each other.
Lotta walking around under high-tension electrical lines in this movie.
Kids and their playing with dirt and sticks. Never gets old.
Meanwhile, back at the farm…
Meanwhile, a little bit later, back at the farm…
“No school. No homework. No point.” I’m not sure if I agree with that or not. I’m very, very conflicted.
Tom and Lily alone in the tent? Wowie.
And now sneaking out! WOWIE!
THROUGH A SECRET PASSAGE!! WOWIE!! WOWIE!!
Now… a gorgeous path of lights strung through the woods along the path? What the fuck is that all about?
I mean, it was wonderful to look at, but what was the practical point of it? Either then, or in general? Where did the electricity come from?
Why is Harry sneaking around with a mip?
Well, he just found a woman with a pitchfork.
Now she’s got his knife.
Oh, shit! That’s the tent woman!
She wants him to kill her. She got bit. She’s blaming him.
Ok, it’s good, but it’s manufactured.
WE don’t have long, either. So let’s get to the zombies!
It’s still light out and he’s washing his hands. How does that compute? He agreed to stay with her until dark and then killed her?
He left her and she had to slice her wrist.
Wow. Lily is babbling. Shut up!
Oh. Bad parenting. Bad parenting.
I… I think I’ve seen this guy before in something. He’s good.
Oh! Metalhead zombie!
Harry pulls a Hobbit!!
Thing looks more like a werewolf than a zombie the way it runs.
And… Harry… goes for a swim.
Looks like metalhead zombie doesn’t want to get wet.
You’re out walking in the woods. Right now.
Oh! It’s the evil people!
Good. She stabbed him.
No! Don’t drop the knife!
Well, I suppose you have to so they won’t come after you, too.
Should have thrown the knife at the other guy. Just getting a smear on him would have worked.
She’s up a tree and you’re not. And you’re bleeding and zombies are coming.
I think that was just the most evil threat that I’ve ever seen. The bad guy has been stabbed, and he checks his wound, and for some reason, there’s not a lot of red, but he tells her that he’s got time and sooner or later she’ll have to come down and he’ll be waiting. Now, if he means that he accepts that he is going to die and turn into a zombie and thus trap her in the tree until she comes down to be dinner, that’s scary as hell, since you can’t protect yourself against someone who is willing to die to get you. Or to die before you in order to get you. Or, I suppose, real-life check-mate you.
“Wet thud, repeating.” That was the caption.
Oh, shit. That girl is insane. She just bit a chunk off her thumb and spit blood all over that guy’s face.
Now she’s sucking her thumb.
Those retractable batons are serious business.
Oh, shit! Didn’t see that coming!
I don’t see any part of what Kaal is saying is wrong.
Metalhead zombie is out there!
Oh! That’s right- they don’t like the light.
Tom just isn’t the brightest bulb, is he?
Harry finds… the Viking’s coat.
Flashback to running with the Viking.
Flashback to turning down the Viking’s coat.
Sorrow! Sorrow, dammit, so much sorrow!!
Oh! The sorrow is turning. It’s turning… to… Oh. I guess we’re not there yet.
Harry, you’re not very good at this, are you.
A-ha! It’s a jacket of being fucking mute!!
He chained Kaal to the stove? What the fuck is going on?
Oh, fuck… enter Metalhead zombie!
I kinda think Harry is the bad guy here.
I think Harry just killed Kaal for no proven reason. Suspicion, sure, but proof? Nope. Unless I’m forgetting something. That happens once in a while.
Flashing back to before it all went to shit. News talking about the vaccine not working…
Harry just locked Zombiemom in the bathroom.
“She’s not feeling well, alright?” (while holding the bathroom door shut with all his might as Zombiemom rages to get out)
Now it’s the THREE of them wandering the woods aimlessly.
And Tom has lost his coat.
Harry doesn’t have the Viking’s coat any more, either.
Why not just stay together?
Tom, you rebel!
Lily, you follower!
Worst stone-skipper ever.
Nice fish/subsistence-rating system you’ve devised there. Thanks for sharing it.
Free boat! See, here’s the thing. I’ve taken a free boat. We were really high one morning and walking to the diner for breakfast, and I see a free boat in a lawn on a trailer. Ok. We head home, get the truck, I do the BEST trailer driving that I’ve ever done, and then we have like, a slightly rotted 16 foot speedboat in the shop. About two weeks later, we got the Jeep back from being stolen and whooptied by an obese transvestite. So we decide to clear the boat out of the shop for Jeep space. The boat had to go. We took a Sawzall to it. Cut the entire thing down until it fit into the back of my F250, and then drove it to the dump. Accidently hit my wife with a chunk of it too, which I’ve never lived down. Once you hit your significant other with a large section of a vehicle, they tend to remind you of it in “trust-fall” type scenarios. My bad.
Breaking into the boat…
Harry is breaking down and Lily is oblivious.
So, I guess that’s an ending?
————End Transmission——————–
Plot Autopsy
Plot Autopsy
- Harry and Lily are wandering around out in the forest and Harry doesn’t believe in sharing.
- Harry turns down a down jacket offered to him by a mute Viking.
- We summon a cellar-zombie by stealing his batteries but learn that they cower at light. Good to know.
- They meet Kaal, who is… much more of a bad-ass than they are comfortable with him being.
- Since we don’t trust anyone, we chain Kaal to the stove and steal Tom. That’s the only way to look at it. Tom isn’t a sentient creature any more than a horse is. If there’s horse-thievery, there can be Tom-thievery. Which is quite different from Tom-Foolery. Don’t make me show you the difference.
- Let’s just steal this person’s boat and regret our actions for the rest of time while babysitting two idiots.
Zombie Description
Zombie Description
Fucking scary as hell. A new version of it, if that’s permissible. These are kinda-ape-ish, kinda-undead, have sharp teeth and black eyes… well, one of them really looks like a metalhead, and it’s kinda hard to think about the other zombies when metalhead zombie was so prevalent. But anyway, if you get bitten, you turn, and if you’re a zombie, you hunt by smell. And this hunting by smell is like zombie shark-squared spider-sense blood-sniffing ability. So, if you’re bleeding, you duct tape your ass back up and bail out. And if they catch you, shine a flashlight at them, since they can’t stand the light and will cower away from you. Sort of makes it hard to understand how zombies could really get the upper hand if they can’t operate by day and at night simply remaining well lit makes you impervious. Lotta little oversight things like that here. Things that get missed in a labor of love.
Where the money went
Where the money went
Pointy sticks. The color green. Incomprehensible accents. *Sharpened* pointy sticks.
Best Weapon
Best Weapon
Well, for once, no-one got brained with a fire-extinguisher. I think I’m giving this one to… well, I can’t really think of anything that was weapon oriented and cool. However, I think the nearest weapon type thing pertinent is the movie’s use of home-built traps. Whoever Kaal is, he knows how to utilize pointy sticks. I have NO idea why Harry spent so much of the movie obsessing over who set the traps. Who gives a fuck?
That was new!
That was new!
Its new to have a song that’s actually good music in a zombie movie. Really started the movie off with a good, open slate, and more colors of chalk than we realize we’re used to playing with. So many movie’s soundtracks go the route of Troy Duffy and The Wombats that to hear good, original music… It was kinda of stunning. In a beautiful way. It was new for me to see Duct tape used so… correctly. There’s duct tape in every good emergency kit. The military uses it to keep the red on the inside in extreme situations. This movie’s use was both novel and true to life. I don’t know if this even occurred, or if I just read too much into stuff, but when Lily was up in the tree and the stabbed-guy was threatening her, he told her that he had plenty of time and wasn’t going anywhere. IF he meant this as “I’m gonna die and then my zombie ass will kill you as soon as you leave that tree and that’s good enough for me to die happy.” then they really should have emphasized this more. They came really fucking close to perfection in this scene.
Can I get a hand?
Can I get a hand?
A completely new and novel addition to the Hand series is presented here; the “someone in your party got cut and now a zombie has smelled the blood and is crawling up out of a trapdoor in the floor to find it” variety. And it’s fucking awesome and scary as hell. Unfortunately, this occurs quite early in the movie, and aside from metalhead zombie making the occasional cameo, there’s not much zombie for the next 50 or so minutes. There is, and mayhaps this should serve as a trigger warning, a scene of a woman cutting her own wrist, and that makes it here since it’s… hand-related. And occurred.
Overall Recommendation
Recommendation?
Strange little piece of perfection hidden here in an art movie? Like, a nugget of the world’s finest chocolate hidden in a very tasty toffee-popcorn mix. Eventually though, you’re just not in the mood for sweets any more and you want something more meaningful. This movie is expertly done, but I’m not sure they all knew what the others thought they were doing. The consensus appeared to be absent. The overall story arch of how Harry goes from righteous protector to guilt-wracked murderer is both given center lane as well as reduced to an afterthought. The amount of time spent on waste was obvious. The perfection of the zombies only made their scarcity all the more noticeable. What I’m saying is that this needed more, if only more of the same. Huge ups to the Ranaldi’s for a great song and a heart-tug of a name. The thing that really has me confounded is how absolutely… dark they were able to go. Nietzsche’s idea of turning into a monster due to battling one is applied here with precision. Lily biting her own thumb and spitting blood all over her assailant? Harry tricking Kaal and leaving him to die? The movie presents this all in a way that didn’t bring the impact that I feel like they thought it would hit with. I watched all of this, enjoying much of most of it, really loving this and that, and at no point did I think “Whoah, why are the good guys doing doing *BAD* things? What’s that there all about?”. Once we started playing in the “Evil that Men Do” playground, I’ve learned that a certain one-upmanship will occur over who will go farthest in the name of survival. I guess that’s all this was, but it was dressed up as something more substantial at first blush? Or maybe I read too much into it? I think this movie is too… dependent on human empathy being present for me to really understand it. Hell, I had to turn on the subtitles just to understand them, and then I kept learning new things about the music that the movie was using. It was ominous, it was foreboding, it was rising in tempo… But any and all little bitches aside, if you love zombie movies, this is worth stashing away for a rainy afternoon. I wouldn’t host a marathon around it, but if you need a good, comfortable fix, this is the warm blanket for you.