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Overview
If you want to see a great zombie movie, this is it. This is not a Walking Dead action movie, but it is very engaging.
In keeping with our friendship theme, this is about two teammates stuck in the zombie apocalypse. The Battery reference is a baseball reference the pitcher and catcher – which is what these guys were in the ‘real’ world.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2272350/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battery_(2012_film)
This movie has won several awards, which is pretty impressive for a movie like this.
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Transcript
Stephen 0:42
So hey, Reese, welcome. This is our second movie analysis. How crazy is that?
Rhys 0:47
That’s pretty crazy. We stuck with it this long.
Stephen 0:50
Yeah, you’re right. Well, you know, we had the band thing. We did that for years. We did. They got together and did things afterwards for years. So, you know, maybe it’ll like taper off and we’ll get down to Okay, season 22 there’s three movies that you’ll get them in the next year.
Rhys 1:07
Here’s to hoping we make it to season 22.
Stephen 1:10
But that’s the thing with podcasts, you know, we could very easily do a season a week, so we could do.
Rhys 1:16
That’s right. You’re hoping people are still listening by season? 22?
Stephen 1:21
Right, we got plenty of movies. So that’s right.
Rhys 1:24
We could kill God. Yes. Um,
Stephen 1:27
okay. Um, so the movie today that we are going to talk about is the battery. Which is not one I had ever heard of like most of these. In the brief. It’s a zombie movie, but it’s not.
Rhys 1:42
That’s true. It’s really not about zombies. I mean, there are zombies involved.
Stephen 1:50
Very few. There’s like five.
Rhys 1:53
That’s right until the end, you’ve read it again. And again, we’ll be talking about the whole thing. So if you don’t want it, this isn’t a movie with a ton of spoilers. But if you want to avoid them all, stop listening now and go watch it, you can find this one pretty easily. It’s on a couple different streaming services. So
Stephen 2:13
and it I mean, if you’re if you like walking dead, and the action and the just tension of the zombies, this is not that movie. erect. It’s it’s a story set in a zombie infested world. But it’s not about the zombies
Rhys 2:27
to play. Yes. And this is the first and I’m gonna try and limit these to about one a season. But this is the first of a special classification a movie for us. This is the micro budget
Stephen 2:41
horror movie, compared to the last movie.
Rhys 2:45
Yes. Compare the last movie had $3 million budget, which is still a low budget horror movie. Cuz your typical movie runs about $50 million to make, right? The battery falls into that micro class, which is 990 5% of micro budget horror movies are horrible, right? They’re just
Stephen 3:07
awful. They try and do too much.
Rhys 3:09
They do. And the only time you ever actually hear about micro budget horror movies is when they succeed. Blair Witch Project cost $300,000 to make. And they made something like $118. For every dollar they put into it. They made it some portion of that paranormal activity was even more outrageous, because it was 15 grand to make that movie. And they made so much money off of it, you know, it became a thing became this whole chain. But the battery has all of those beats. The battery was made for $6,000. Yeah, oh, we could make it. We could. And it’s really crazy. One of the big problems that I’ve run into with low budget or micro budget films, is you will have one guy trying to do too much. You will have the guy who wrote it, the guy whose passion project this is he will have done everything in this movie. And in the battery. That guy’s name is Jeremy Gardner. He wrote it, he directed it, and he stars in it as been one of the two protagonists in the movie.
Stephen 4:21
Right? And right there is 75% of the cast.
Rhys 4:25
Yes, exactly. Yeah, the cast is pretty small. His his friend, in this case, you know, with going with our theme for the season of friends. His friend in this case is Mickey, who was played by Adam Crone, Haim who was the producer for the film. So both of them are doing at least dual duty, if not more than
Stephen 4:45
that, right? It’s an American movie, right?
Rhys 4:49
Yes, this is an American made movie. It was shots in 15 days. And it was shot in Connecticut. So The whole thing is, you know, American as you can get with the exception of the soundtrack, which we’ll talk about
Stephen 5:07
later. Yeah. So for those of you that like to visit sights movies are shot at this one’s completely doable because they didn’t have enough money to rent places. They literally found things.
Rhys 5:18
Absolutely. I was reading an article in bloody disgusting on their website. It was an interview with Jeremy Gardner from when this movie came out. And he was saying, the guy, the guy is interviewing him. Lauren Taylor, is the guy who’s doing the interview, or girl, I guess I don’t know, who was doing the interview with Jeremy Gardner. And they’re like, how could you make this for $6,000. And Jeremy Gardner basically says, Well, I’d like to say it was all very careful planning on my part, but it really wasn’t because we just like would wait around until there was a hole in the schedule and we could jump in and film our scene and then get out. So the whole thing apparently was done very haphazardly,
Stephen 6:02
which is reminiscent of return or neither Living Dead narrow, you know, what
Rhys 6:07
are the the fog? I mean, Carpenter wrote the music for the fog, because nobody else was doing what he wanted done. So it was like his passion project he wanted done. Specifically, Jeremy Gardner’s the same way with this movie had very specific things that he wanted to do. In fact, the funding for this movie was he went around to 10 of his friends and said, Give me $600 to make a movie. And they all did good friends. And he made the movie. Now what you can’t find is how much the movie has grossed. Right. And you’ll have this with micro releases because they never actually get a box office release. This appeared first at the telluride horror festival in 2012, and was released on DVD and streaming services after that, I don’t know that it ever did a run like in theaters.
Stephen 7:06
Right? And but regardless, it’s won quite a few awards. Yeah, like seven awards.
Rhys 7:13
Most of them aren’t, you know, super prestigious things you’re gonna know if I mentioned who won it, you know, who awarded it. But still that’s a lot of awards that this movie is won
Stephen 7:23
any nominated for even more. So I mean, at least acknowledgement of the good movie it is. Now you
Rhys 7:30
did bring up the W word earlier. And so I had to dig into this a little bit. The Walking Dead, as you are aware, was originally a comic book series, right? I dw I believe were the ones who have been publishing at the time. Was it, Jeff? Okay. And it became a comic, it became a TV series on AMC.
Stephen 7:57
And I’ve heard of that, I think a few people have probably watched it.
Rhys 8:00
Yes, that was released in 2010. Now the reason it’s, it’s an issue with the battery. Instead, the battery has kind of a little bit of that feel where there has been a zombie apocalypse. And you have these guys walking around trying to navigate their way through a post apocalyptic zombie filled world, right. And it does kind of have that Walking Dead field. But the funny thing to me is that it was released in 2012, two years later, which means if you consider the shooting time and the production time, it was probably being done about the same time The Walking Dead was right. So I don’t I wouldn’t go out and call this like a ripoff of The Walking Dead or anything like that. They have very different fields. But just in case, you know, if you have Walking Dead fanboys out there who want to jump on the bandwagon, this movie is done, like, concurrently. Not afterwards,
Stephen 8:58
right? Yeah, absolutely. And really, I was thinking about for the story itself, you know, you could have chosen to do like a Mad Max post apocalyptic thing. It didn’t have to be zombies, because the zombie part, again, isn’t a big focus there. They’re not even worried about like in Walking Dead, where they’re worried about creating a home. These guys are just surviving. You know, it could have been a meteorite that wiped everybody else out could have been the plague, which we came close to doing. So I’m just saying that because they chose zombies, but I don’t think it was influenced by walking dead. Did you ever see the road? Oh, God. Yes. And I read the book and yeah, okay. Yeah.
Rhys 9:39
It’s very reminiscent of that where they never actually tell you what happened in the road. It’s just an apocalypse has happened and you’re on your own now. And this is very similar. The only difference is they tell you what the thing was, it was the zombies that seems to have wiped everything out. Right? One of the other interesting side tracks that I got down when I was watching this, and I made I made some I made I wrote this part down. Yeah, was the definition of battery? I, I’m glad you brought that up. Because a battery can be a device that holds an electrical charge through chemical means for future discharge to power things, which Mickey is constantly interacting with, because he has a Walkman in this movie, right? And he’s, it’s an old CD running Walkman. And the batteries died on those. And so he’s constantly having to replace those.
Stephen 10:42
And in the very opening sequence, I mean, one of the first things is him, listen to it, and he takes the battery out, he throws it.
Rhys 10:49
Yep. And then he gets into a Ziploc bag and pulls out new ones and throws them in. Yeah. It’s also like, an exclusive series, like having a battery of tests run. And I don’t know that I can make a tie to the show for that one. But the next one is a physical attack, like assault and battery. And there’s plenty of that Ben likes to walk around with a baseball bat, right? Oh, and then the last one, which I had never actually heard of, until I saw this is a baseball term. And when you have a pitcher and the catcher, as a unit that they are referred to as a battery. There you go. Yeah,
Stephen 11:31
because they’re ex baseball players. And they’re not a major league. They’re minor league. Yeah, minor
Rhys 11:35
league players. And that was one of the things I missed the first time around when I saw it. Mickey, at some point in time, was talking to somebody on a radio and he’s talking about Ben. And she refers to him as his friend. And he’s like, well, he’s not really my friend. We work together. He was a starting catcher. And I was in the bullpen. So you know, sometimes they’d work together, sometimes they wouldn’t. But yeah, at one point in time, Ben calls to Mickey and says, you know, we’re the battery. And I was like, Wait a second, what does that mean? And so first, I asked my wife, who was a very successful softball player, and she hadn’t heard of it. When I looked it up online, indeed, his baseball term,
Stephen 12:21
I see I looked it up didn’t expand enough, I guess, to read the later definitions, because Ben talks a bit about a battery. But he he will get to this, he doesn’t really go into baseball terms. So I was interpreted as battery has two ends positive, negative, and that’s what these two are they need each other to survive. Without that they don’t work that yeah. So it’s multiple meanings that are going on?
Rhys 12:45
Absolutely. It was a well chosen name. Yeah. For what they were what they were depicting.
Stephen 12:50
Yeah. So let’s, let’s get into it, talking about the plot and all the things we see in it.
Rhys 12:56
Yeah, I mean, if, if you wanted this Seuss plot, yes. If you wanted to sum up the plot, in the long run, you have two guys starting at point A, they get to point B, a guy dies and another guy carries on and that’s pretty much the plot in a tiny little nutshell. But there’s so much that happens, right? between point A and point B.
Stephen 13:18
If you’re a slow burn type of movie person, this is definitely a slow burn and go absolutely very much like an artistic art piece. You know, like something you’d see a college student do for a class you know, it’s pushing the boundaries or whatever, it’s very artsy in many ways.
Rhys 13:36
Gardner in his interview said that this is a movie about waiting.
Stephen 13:41
I can see that definitely Yeah.
Rhys 13:44
One of the things that you’ll note throughout this movie as you’re watching it is there are a lot of scenes that feel long. Yeah, I purposely shot them a long time and purposely left them in the Edit for a long period of time. Because of that overall theme of you are waiting,
Stephen 14:00
and that I was gonna say that too, that the mood the whole thing conveys is this is the end of the world there’s nothing normal like you had before the zombies aren’t really the problem because every time zombie comes up they walk up the hill over the head and they move on it’s it’s like blink your eyes you miss the zombies. Yeah, it’s it’s all about the how the world has changed. You know, there’s nothing there. There’s no life like we’re used to what is the day we’re sitting in our chairs watching the trees blow that’s a day.
Rhys 14:30
Ben says that at one point in time it turns to making it says they’re not no one’s gonna flip the switch back on Mickey. Right? This is it? Yeah, it’s it’s one of those kind of movies where you have people doing everyday things in an everyday situations,
Stephen 14:50
right. Yeah, and their everyday thing is playing baseball usually.
Rhys 14:55
Yes. Yeah. The movie does. Start with Mickey listening to his headphones now I went back and watched it like a third or fourth time, because I was curious to see if they did this or not. When Mickey has his headphones on, you can hear music. When he takes his headphones off, the music stops right? Now, that’s not a theme that he carries throughout the entire movie. I might have been really intrigued if that was the case. But still, he uses it a couple times to good effect. Yes, I enjoy.
Stephen 15:27
And that comes up because then yells at Mickey, you know, you’re gonna get killed with those things on you can’t hear anything. And I think that’s part of what he’s conveying. Is that, okay, I can only see a little slice, and I can’t hear anything but music, what’s going on? Yep. It’s an unnatural feeling for a movie.
Rhys 15:46
The first the first scene, like reinforces that because make he’s got his headphones on. He’s listening to a song, the batteries die, he changes the batteries out, puts new ones in, puts the headphones back on and walks over to the door of this house he’s standing outside of and when I first got the movie, I had no idea what it was about. I mean, it was just recommended to me. So all of a sudden, Ben comes running out and says run. And there’s a gunshot, and they take off. And that’s how the movie basically starts. Right? Then they go into the opening credits, which is when he breaks the rule of only having music with the headphones on because there’s music playing over the opening credits, which is good. Yes, which is good. It’s it’s handy that way. And they have little slice of life scenes while the music’s playing so there’s a shot of them. And all of these are just basically hints because they haven’t really gone into depth with the characters that storyline all that much. There’s a scene where they’re standing near the seaside. And Ben is hitting rocks, just like I think Mickey is tossing in the rocks. And Ben has his bat and he’s knocking him out into the ocean. There’s a scene where they go down into the basement and there’s a zombie tied up to a post in the basement. And Ben hands Mickey, the gun ends like plugs his ears and Mickey ends up giving him the gun back and shaking his head no. So both of those were like hints about things that are coming on later in the movie. And I think it’s a very effective way to get across what’s happening in a very small amount of time in the amount of time it took to play the credits. Yeah. Yep.
Stephen 17:41
And also shows we’re doing friendship for our theme. That’s the two of them. And again, the battery thing too. They need each other to help survive. And then it comes up more and more. The difference between how Ben treats everything and how Mickey’s treating everything. And those two scenes at the beginning in the basement. Really show the two of them.
Rhys 18:02
Yeah, and the rest. Probably a third of the rest of the movie is our scenes of them doing stuff like that they’ll they come across a house on a lake and they have a whole bunch of canoes on the side. And so they you know, go in and check out the house. They come to a summer camp and I found I thought this was amazing. And you’ll get this Steve and I both been to camps, plenty and plenty of camps. When they walk into the dining hall. There’s music playing. And underneath the music very softly are the sounds of kids in a dining hall. Yeah, it’s super subtle. But if you’ve ever walked into a dining hall when there’s no one else around, you can still feel all the life the activity the kids running to and fro carrion bug juice, dropping their trays and counselor singing songs you can you can actually feel that in the room.
Stephen 19:00
Yeah, absolutely. And, and that dining hall looked like every camp dining hall I visited. Last name.
Rhys 19:09
Yeah. Um, apparently the players were in Pittsfield. Um, I didn’t look that up. I’m assuming it’s in Connecticut. When this happened, and they were trapped in a house, it gets mentioned a couple times. Because Mickey just wants life to go back to what it was. That’s his thing. He won’t say the word zombie. He won’t kill a zombie. He is having a miserable time following Ben around. Not that it’s Ben’s fault. This is just what Mickey
Stephen 19:47
right? Again, the differences in their characters,
Rhys 19:51
right. Ben, on the other hand, seems to be having a good time. And Ben is a survivalists and I don’t mean a survivalist Like the kind of guy who has four crates of ammunition and 16 rifles in his house. I mean, Ben is just the kind of guy is gonna do whatever it takes to survive, and I really get the feeling. He doesn’t like people just in general.
Stephen 20:14
Yeah, he’s very laid back. This is just how life is and hey, I’m good with it.
Rhys 20:19
Yeah. So yeah, he’s walking around he, at one point in time, there’s a zombie out there. They’re running away from it and Mickey hops in the car. terrified to the zombie and he’s yelling at Ben and Ben’s yelling at him and Ben’s like, come on out and kill it. Because Ben keeps trying to get Mickey to kill a zombie through vast amounts of this movie. And Mickey won’t do it. And Ben’s like this one killed your sister. And this one, eight, your dad get mad, and Mickey just won’t do it. So then Ben proceeds to kill the zombie. And then Mickey’s like, he didn’t have to kill it, because they’re slow zombies. He could have walked away from it. But Ben assures him that yes, yes, I did have to kill it.
Stephen 21:06
And I think because you could interpret that as Ben being kind of a dick, that he’s pushing Mickey or whatever. But I don’t think he is. I think he’s trying to get Mickey to accept the reality. Because if he can’t accept that reality, that this is what the world is that’s going to kill them. He listens to his music to escape. You know, Ben Ben’s, like, you just got to accept that do this, and your life will be better.
Rhys 21:31
Yeah, there’s a, there’s lots of scenes where Mickey is trying to get back to what he wants, what he wanted your life to have been. And Ben is constantly shutting him down with reality. There’s one point in time where they’re in a house. And Mickey’s like, we could just stay here and Ben’s like, no, because the last time we were here in a house, remember, Pittsfield, we got trapped in there. We had the dog food, we had to heat the dog. I was the one who had to kill the dog, right? So Ben sees himself as doing the heavy lifting in this pairing. And I think Mickey, for a lot of the movie sees Ben is kind of a bully, trying to push bet, push Mickey, into being more like him, right?
Stephen 22:23
But I think Mickey also realizes I probably wouldn’t survive without Ben, I really need him again, that battery, the two opposites that need each other?
Rhys 22:31
Yep, absolutely. And I don’t know that. There’s a long period of movie where I don’t know that I would consider them necessarily friends as companions. Yes, sure. At one point in time, something happens. So they become friends. We’ll get to it in a second. But up until that point in time, it really seems like they’re just they’re traveling companions. They’re hanging out together. But so they do stop at one house. Something of note for me, Mickey is in the bedroom of a girl who lived in the house. He’s looking at her picture. He takes a pair of her underwear. He smells her. Yeah, I’m, again trying to get back to cuz he’s a he’s a thin handsome guy. You know what I mean? I’m sure especially minor league ball player moving from town to town. Women were probably never an issue for him. And so that’s something that might be familiar to him.
Stephen 23:32
Now that I’m which I’m hoping you picked up, that was his girlfriend that he wanted to fight. That’s what they talked about. And I liked that because even for all his, you know, the world just how it is. Um, Ben was helping him. Yeah, okay. You want to go find your girlfriend, you’ll go to her house. And they did and he was helping him he was against it. You knew he was against it, but he did it. You know, because that’s what make you one I thought that was kind of telling of their relationship to and I liked the fact that they didn’t film it hit you over the head. Alright, we’ll find now we’re at your girlfriend’s house, go in there and see if she’s there. They didn’t even really explain it. And it was like, oh, click. Well, that’s what that is. Because you have to really pay attention again, don’t blink, because you’ll miss
Rhys 24:21
like, I’m sorry about your girlfriend. Yeah, you know, like, so they let you know, but like Steve said, they’re not they’re not smacking you in the face with it. But while Mickey is doing that, ever practical. Ben is in the garage looking through tools and things like that. And he finds a pair of two way radios and he sticks them in the bag for later. Now there’s, like I said, a long lot of this movie. And like he said, it was shot haphazard, just kind of whatever they thought of to do. A lot of this movie has the scenes are just the two of them hanging out in everyday life. So for instance, there’s a scene where they find toothbrushes. And they come out and they brush their teeth. And this was the scene they were referring to when he said it’s a movie about waiting, because it’s a long shot of the two of them brushing their teeth from start to finish the whole completion. And Gardner was saying the whole point was to reinforce the fact that oral hygiene No, that’s not what he said. hygiene is important, although it is
Stephen 25:31
it is especially in an apocalypse that and changing your socks.
Rhys 25:35
Yes, yes. Now he was saying, to reinforce the fact that everyday things can become a luxury, when you’re in a situation where normal is no longer normal. So I don’t know where that happened to the movie, I guess my point
Stephen 25:51
at his girlfriend’s house, because it was, because because I got a question on that. Go ahead.
Rhys 25:56
I was just gonna say, I, I don’t necessarily want to apologize for it. But we won’t necessarily be talking about the scenes as they happen in the movie. Because so many of them are just genre scenes. It’s just life. Yeah.
Stephen 26:11
It really the opening scene. And then there’s a lot of getting there. And then the girlfriend’s house. And then there’s the where the story actually kind of start. Yeah. But that the thing to also to notice, again, showing them, Mickey is the one that brought the toothbrushes out and gave one to Ben and Ben took it and brushes teeth, if it was the other way. And Mickey had stayed outside like he did earlier. I’m not even sure Ben would have grabbed the toothbrushes and brought them out, you know, so again, shows the differences in their personalities, and also shows where Mickey’s thoughts and priorities are trying to lie.
Rhys 26:51
It’s really funny to me, too, because I thought the same thing. That’s not something Ben would have necessarily done. But maybe he brought it to him. So he did it. But how thoroughly he brushed his teeth. You know what I mean? Like, my kids grown up, you tell them to brush their teeth, you know, they splash some water in the toothbrush, and they’re done. But like when Ben does it, he does the tongue he does everything. I mean, it’s a long process. It’s like, Okay, well, if something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.
Stephen 27:18
And isn’t very subtle, you know, we’ll clean our mouth out so that if we do become zombies, and we bite somebody, we’ve got to clean her mouth. That was perfect to her breath
Rhys 27:28
won’t be so offensive, right? Or they also find a car. And this becomes a turning point for them. Because up until now they’ve been walking. And the car they find looks like a Volvo station wagon. Yeah. They’re very good in this about product placement. ie, they don’t show you any brands, right? So I’m not that great with cars where I can look at it and be like, Oh, well, that’s a model blah, blah, blah. But it looks to me like they’re excited because it starts. So it’s got a charged battery. It’s got gasoline. And then Ben very excitedly, shows Mickey that the seats fold down. You have this giant space in the back to make what he called a bachelor pad. So he tells Mickey to go get a bunch of his girlfriend’s blankets. And they lay the back out like a great big bed and they now have a vehicle to travel around in so much better than walking that whole distance.
Stephen 28:33
Right? But again, there’s no destination in mind. Right? Just moving on.
Rhys 28:39
Absolutely. They’re just they keep moving. And then they have this conversation when Mickey saying it. Can we just stay in this house? And Ben’s like, the thing about sharks Mickey. They’ve been around for 400 million years. And you know why? It’s because they constantly keep moving. If they stop moving, they’ll die. And that’s what we are. We’re sharks. Now. We can’t stop moving. Of course, Mickey takes umbrage with that. And it’s like, it’s not like that at all. And then it’s like, Yes, it is. And that’s that’s how your conversations go.
Stephen 29:16
Right? Yeah.
Rhys 29:20
So they get in the car and they start driving. They’re driving along and they get to a spot. And I’m not exactly sure why. The event is. Yeah, Ben is out of the car. And Mickey is out of the car. And Mickey is standing in the forefront of the scene with his headphones on. And he’s playing with the two way radio, listen to music, some of the amazing soundtrack. And Ben is in the background. And Ben says, Hey, Mickey, and Mickey doesn’t turn because he’s got his headphones on. And so Ben starts pretending he’s a zombie. And limps up to Mickey and grabs him and says Here’s Mickey and Mickey like what the hell and that’s when Ben again points out those things are going to get you killed those headphones. And then Mickey handsome a radio and says, Let’s try this out. So Ben walks off a little ways, and they start talking on the radio back and forth. And it Mickey’s like, how far do you think the range is on these and Ben’s like, five to 10 miles. Nikki’s like okay, you can come back in and this is just quintessential guys, to me, in my mind. Ben’s like, No, I’m gonna go take a shit. And then he farts into the radio, which they both find hilarious. As you know, I guess you should. It’s pretty funny. I’m laughing about it. Now.
Stephen 30:43
There hasn’t been a late night comedies on so you guys ready to go.
Rhys 30:47
But now the entire movie. On that note, the entire movie completely changes? Yes. Because they pick up someone else’s broadcast on the radio. And it’s a woman named Amy. And she is talking to Frank at the orchard. And apparently she is out scavenging things. And Frank is telling her Hey, it’s like Tommy’s birthday or whatever. And they promised that he’d get to watch tremors. So while you’re out and about if you can find a copy of tremors. Would you pick that up?
Stephen 31:22
We’re in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. Let’s watch a horror movie a comedy horror. But you know,
Rhys 31:27
yeah, yeah. Kevin Bacon. Yeah,
Stephen 31:30
they’ve mentioned that, that product placement,
Rhys 31:33
if you’re playing seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon, and his name is mentioned in the movie, does that count?
Stephen 31:39
I would bet. You know, though, knowing Kevin Bacon, he probably could have made an appearance in this movie, you know? Yeah.
Rhys 31:47
Um, well, all of a sudden make he’s excited. Because there’s other people besides Ben. And they’re talking about birthday parties, and they’re talking about watching a movie, and there’s this attractive sounding girl on the radio, and it’s a normal life. Yes. And so he reaches out to them on the radio. He’s like, Hey, hey, I’m here. My name is Mickey. My buddy, Ben, we’re baseball players. We want to join up with you. And he is told in no uncertain terms by Frank, that they are not welcome. Frank uses the term they have no vacancy. Which only becomes an issue. Like in the next scene, because he used the word vacancy make, he’s convinced they’re in a hotel. Which, we don’t know where they are. But there’s no, no scene that like defines that they’re in a hotel or not. So this is this is what you were saying earlier, Steve, where Ben comes back and make He’s like, we got to find them and Ben’s like, we’re not invited. And make He’s like, No, no, we got to find him and Ben’s like, well, you got to find him, you got to find him. And it’s just like, okay, so much so that when Mickey stops at a roadside motel to search for them, that’s when Ben’s like, I don’t think he meant the word vacancy like this,
Stephen 33:16
right? Again, Nikki wants to find these people. But Ben, you go ahead and open the door in case there’s a zombie in there.
Rhys 33:24
That’s right. And there were there were two zombies. And that’s the scene where Ben is yelling at Mickey to come out of the car and kill them. And maybe he won’t. So Ben does. And then Mickey said you didn’t have to kill them. And Ben said, Yes, I did.
Stephen 33:40
Which could be the, you know, philosophical discussion. Are you releasing them? are you saving them helping them? Or what if there would be a cure now you kill them? You can’t revive them? You know, there could be a great debate on that I can see those two debating that, which they hinted at quite often.
Rhys 33:58
Oh, sure. Um, am I legend? To take a slight sidestep, you watch my legend, and Will Smith kills a lot of those things in that show. But then Will Smith figures out a cure? And so you know, if he hadn’t died at the end, spoiler alert.
Stephen 34:17
belated spoiler alert, yeah,
Rhys 34:19
if he hadn’t died at the end, he would have to ethically sit there being a doctor and say, I basically just killed victims of a disease as opposed to, you know, carrying them and I can see that being like a serious ethical dilemma
Stephen 34:36
that you had way if you didn’t know. Yeah, absolutely.
Rhys 34:41
These two are not going to fashion a cure for anything. So they do on occasion, stop and play catch. And at first that seemed odd to me, but then I started thinking about it and my college roommate used to be a baseball player. When I was in college, and while he didn’t play in college, he still liked to go out and play catch with other baseball players. And he was at first I thought I took it as an insult, like he didn’t want to play catch with me. But then I saw how they would throw. And like they get movement on the ball. And I can see why didn’t want to play catch with me, I would just be either chasing the ball or getting hit with it over time. These guys constantly just move their hand from side to side. That’s when you that happened earlier in the movie. And you learn that Mickey and Ben are both baseball players. And you learned that Mickey was never really good with any other pitch, but one. He’s not a good curveball, throw, he’s got a bad slider. But apparently, I’m guess I’m guessing that was a fastball that he threw in there.
Stephen 35:53
And that’s interesting, too. It’s the end of the world. There are no baseball games, but they were working on improving his pitching. Yeah. And I you know, and Ben was actively helping with that. So in a way I took that as he’s trying to appease Mickey and make them feel a little better, along with doing something he enjoyed, too.
Rhys 36:10
Yeah, it was really funny because he’s like, let’s have a catch. And make he’s like why and Ben’s like, we can work on that curveball years. And, you know, it’s like Steve saying, no one’s gonna be playing baseball anytime soon. Why would you need to improve your curveball, but it it, it’s been playing into Mickey’s need to have life go back to normal. longer journeys, they come to a place after they have their car. And for some reason, well, this was after the summer camp site. And it might have even been a campsite. Because they had a mural painted on the wall. Which, you know, isn’t the thing you’ll find in most homes. But maybe he puts his foot down, and he’s like, we’re gonna stay here, we’re gonna spend the night in a house under a roof. And we all know that Ben does not support this decision. But as Steve rightfully points out, he’s willing to do it for Mickey. But not without punishing him a little bit. Right? So they’ll try
Stephen 37:16
to prove to them you’re wrong. And I’m gonna keep pounding on this point until you see how I’m right.
Rhys 37:21
Yep. So he takes Mickey’s headphones. Maybe Mickey moves into the broom, he unpacks his stuff, which I realize, you know, I’m not in I’m not in their situation. But if it was me, I would not unpack my stuff. So you’re ready to go if you have to. Yeah. But Ben’s unpacking his stuff on the bed and goes to reach for his headphones, can’t find them, walks out in the backyard. And Ben’s got him on and he’s putting together a bow and arrow and make He’s like, What the hell are you doing? And he’s like, I’m just listening to music. And he informs Mickey, that he’ll get them back when they decide to leave, because he wants to make sure Mickey is alert enough to hear a squirrel taking out crap in the woods.
Stephen 38:06
Which I can’t do anyway. With or without headphones.
Rhys 38:09
Yeah, yeah. It’s kind of That’s right. Yeah, they don’t they don’t make that much noise when they’re crapping
Stephen 38:18
out that I know of now.
Rhys 38:21
So they become very separate. This is probably the point in the movie where they’re the most distant from each other.
Stephen 38:27
Yeah, it’s definitely the choice turning point. And the stressful point.
Rhys 38:32
Mickey decides he’s going to hang out in his room and that’s all he does. And Ben is in this other room is like, hey, there’s this mural painted on here with this girl and she’s petting You know, there’s like gazelles and animals painted in the mural. And he likens it to something you’d find in the Watchtower. He doesn’t call it the Watchtower is like, you know that magazines of the Jehovah’s Witnesses hand out. Makey Makey was not biting. He’s not coming to see it. So Mickey instead uses the two way radio to call Annie back. And he, she doesn’t want to have anything to do with him. Because she knows the situation she’s in is not a good one. And she doesn’t want anyone else involved. She’s sympathetic,
Stephen 39:19
but she doesn’t want to jeopardize her own place in the community or doesn’t want to do something that would endanger the community. But she’s torn. She’s definitely of two minds on it.
Rhys 39:29
Yeah, absolutely. So Mickey is talking to her. And he basically she won’t respond. He basically gets her to talk. So by acting like a two year old, he’s like any, any, any there any, I don’t think I can keep doing this. Any. And eventually she’s like, you’ve got to let this go.
Stephen 39:52
Just like Ben said, right?
Rhys 39:55
They continue to talk and she’s like, Well, what about your friend and he’s like, he’s not really my friend. And that’s where we Find out that, you know, they’re just minor league baseball players on the same team. They hung out in completely different crowds. They just happened to end up together. And she says that, you know, if they heard that she was talking by day she means the orchard. They heard that she was talking to him, they’d put her over the fence, which I assume just means kick her out,
Stephen 40:22
which definitely sounds very surely Jackson ish. There.
Rhys 40:26
Yeah, Yeah, it does. Um, the end of their conversation is basically basically set her telling him, you know, to just forget about it. Now he can’t because earlier in the conversation earlier in the movie, Ben points out that Mickey has fallen in love with this voice of a woman on the radio. And he’s like, you see her as this survivalist Pixie, you’re walking around, whereas I know Frank’s not going to take his darlin little niece and send her out. I think she’s a 46 year old softball coach. With with a mullet, a bull take with calves the size of canned hams. Now that’s not a direct quote. It’s really, really close. Close. Yeah, yeah. And it’s a good example of how the two of them see the world differently.
Stephen 41:22
Yeah, yeah. And this scene is the lowest point for Mickey, it shows his worst side, because when he’s talking, he’s essentially saying, Look, let me come with you. I don’t care about then your your sound much better. I want to move to something better. And it’s as low as skeezy as point you know, at this point, you can almost hate them. And the following scene is really Ben’s lowest point,
Rhys 41:46
right? Ben proceeds to just get drunk. He’s got the headphones on.
Stephen 41:52
That’s not the lowest point actually. No,
Rhys 41:55
no, but it leads to it. He’s blasting music. He’s dancing around. He’s just trashed. And the scene ends and opens the next day with Mickey asleep in his room. And Ben walks into his room. And at first I thought he’s gonna wake him, you know, something really rude or something like that. But instead, he puts a baseball bat next to Mickey in his bed without waking him, and then leaves. And I’m like, well, that’s kind of odd.
Stephen 42:29
And they didn’t put like the ominous note of music right there, right, though,
Rhys 42:34
right? I like that. Yes. That’s why I like it when they play with the soundtrack for music. Because a lot of times music can give things away. And if you’re not using it, like everyone always does, you’re not tipping your hat to something that’s going to happen again, don’t blink in this movie, right? Ben leaves goes outside into the backyard, and we find that he has his zombie tied up to a tree with a gag in its mouth. And again, these are not these are not the World War Z zombies. These are not the iron legend zombies. These are the George Romero zombies. They’re slow. They’re shuffling.
Stephen 43:15
Now do you think all the friends that gave them the 600 bucks got to be zombies in the movie? Is that all my friends? I would hope so. But But how? You know, Hey, can you give me 600 bucks? I’ll let you be a zombie. And then I’ll beat you over the head with a bat. I mean, Jeremy gets the best out of this all around.
Rhys 43:34
Yeah. He said that $6,000 they spent it was not necessarily spent on talent or effects, but mostly covered food and lodging. Yeah. So he takes this zombie and strong arm sim into the house and then yells to Mickey Mickey wake up, pushes the zombie in and closes the door. Right? Now this is a rude way to wake him up. And I realize he’s trying to teach him a lesson but this is a serious dickhole way of doing it.
Stephen 44:07
Yeah, I mean, you know, he, Nicky might not have reacted well and been dead before anything.
Rhys 44:13
Yes. Fortunately, Mickey did. He wakes up start screaming and beats the zombie to death.
Stephen 44:19
So obviously his batting average was better than his pitching average.
Rhys 44:26
Well, that’s a funny thing, because Ben tells him Mickey, you’re on the board, meaning you’ve scored one now way to go. Mickey in the other hand, is walking around almost catatonic in his underwear covered in zombie blood. And then he knocks bend to the floor and proceeds to punch him in the face a couple times. Ben rightfully so complains, but doesn’t like retaliate. Yeah, he
Stephen 44:51
pretty much accepts it. Like again. That’s his nature. This is life. That’s you know, I understand why you did that.
Rhys 44:58
From this point on There’s there’s a friend building game of catch. After he gets Mickey to clean up, he calls it says You look like a serial killer or something like that because you walk around outside and his underwear covered in blood, get some cleaned up, they play a game a catch. And then What follows are like probably the most friend looking scenes. In the movie, they go to an orchard. And they’re just goofing around the orchard. Mickey’s actually pitching to Ben apples, and Ben’s hitting them with a baseball bat, exploding them off the end of the bat. Yeah, they’re playing Apple wars. We’ve played that before. pick the ones up off the ground and weapon that each other. Ben’s walking around with an apple stuffed in his mask, chewing on it as he walks around. And at that point in time, I think they’ve made the leap from just companions to friends.
Stephen 45:55
And it’s interesting, too, because the catalyst for that was Ben, forcing Mickey to do exactly what he said would make things better. And it really kind of proves in this point for this scenario in the world. Ben’s kind of right. You know, he’s got the head on his shoulders for this world. And it was a risk. But hey, look, now we’re better friends, you survived. So that stress is off of Mickey in a way. So it’s the longest he goes without wanting to be in a home in normal world and stuff in a way?
Rhys 46:28
Absolutely. Now, I’m the movie is about to go to the second movie. In my in my opinion, it almost feels like two movies. Right? And we’re about to get to the second one.
Stephen 46:39
Because from a story aspect, all we’ve had so far is build up. There’s not been I mean, in a normal movie, what we had in the first 4550 minutes was the first 10 minutes of most other movies.
Rhys 46:54
Yeah, yeah, that this would be the intro. They would be doing all of the whole 40 minutes of this movie so far. In the credits. Yes, thanks for going by. Yeah, telling you who’s in the movie. As opposed to, you know, these guys, they made a whole movie out of it, right? They’re driving along, and they stop because there’s a little hatchback parked crooked in the road. They get out at first cautiously and find there’s nobody in the car. And so Ben proceeds to get ready to siphon gas out of it. Make he’s got his headphones on and he’s kind of bopping around. And he leans over under the hood of the car. And he’s like, Whoa, Ben, this is hot. Meaning someone has just been driving it. So Ben starts looking around and saying hello, hello. And he turns around to find someone standing there with a knife to Mickey throat.
Stephen 47:48
Somebody that snuck up on Mickey while he had his headphones on.
Rhys 47:52
Yes, Jerry. He is a one car driver. Oh, sorry. No, he is one of only four cast members in this entire movie who speaks? Yes. Played by Niels Bohr. Not that I know anything else about him. But you know, that’s his name. Jerry. That’s
Stephen 48:11
a good name.
Rhys 48:14
So Jerry, it turns out, he was staying somewhere with some people who had told them that he they would shelter him. And as long as he worked through the winter, they would supply him with a vehicle to get back to his family in Arizona. And this is obviously I mean, they were playing in an orchard with Apple. So it’s late summer or early fall. So he’s obviously been there longer than they had said he would be. So he stole a car and ran, but it ran out of gas. So now he’s desperate and he wants Ben and Mickey’s keys. So he has a knife on Mickey Ben has a gun on him. And Jerry says, if you don’t throw me the keys, I’m going to kill him. And Ben says no, you’re not, which is an accurate statement. But still, if I’m Mickey. That seemed like a little bit of a ballsy thing for you to do. Exactly. He says you won’t have any leverage if you kill him. So you’re not going to. So then they start having a conversation and Jerry says he’s headed to Arizona and Ben’s like what to see your family. How are they going to feel about the things you had to do to get there? and Jerry’s? Jerry there? Ben is trying to make a human connection with Jerry and Jerry doesn’t want any part of it. At some point in time, Jerry says, You don’t know me. Because Ben, Ben has accused him of basic basically being willing to kill anyone in an effort for him to make a futile attempt to get all the way across the country to find his family. Who been assures him are already dead. There are times when Ben is brilliant, and there are times when he’s not. And this is one of this is one of his brilliant points. You have Jerry who’s under a lot of stress, he’s running from somebody. And he’s trying to get home and he has Mickey by the throat with a knife, and he wants the car. And Ben says, I don’t have the keys. And the guy’s about to He’s like, I’m gonna take his eye out. How’s that for leverage? And he’s like, No, no, I don’t have the keys because they’re in the ignition. So Jerry’s like, okay, and Ben’s like, I’ll set the gun down. You let make you go and then you can get in the car and just go, Well, first, Jerry’s like, well give me the gun and Ben’s like, No, I’d rather shoot you both and take everything for myself. Before I do that, right? So Jerry bites, yeah, he’s he’s the fish in the hooks there with the worm. And Jerry takes it. He lets make he go. He gets in the car and finds there’s no keys in the ignition. Ben, in there kind of douchebag move, pulls them out of his pocket and wiggles them at him. Right? Yeah, just just as a way of saying, Yeah, I got you. So Jerry curses at them hops out and starts running across the field. Now,
Stephen 51:16
right there. Jerry could have broke down in tears stayed in the car. They don’t kill me, you know, and whatever. And I think if he would have done that, Ben wouldn’t have done anything. I think he would have accepted that, you know, they kind of broke Jerry at that point. They’re like, Look, you know, this isn’t how it has to be. But yeah.
Rhys 51:37
Ben, does at one point in time, say something to Jerry about? Don’t we have enough crap going on with not having to worry about each other? Yeah. Meaning humanity? Don’t we have enough going on? You know, with all these zombies to have to worry about fighting with each other? That’s a great point.
Stephen 51:54
Yeah. Which is actually the same point Walking Dead makes they just choose to go the other way. And that’s what it focuses
Rhys 52:00
on. Yeah. Well, Ben does what I probably would have done, I’ll be perfectly honest, I would have been pissed that he put me in that situation in the first place. Ben shoots Jerry as he runs away. Yeah. And the reason for Yep, leaves him for dead in the bed in the middle of the field. And I could, I could see myself
Stephen 52:21
doing the same. It’s definitely that. Yeah. Again, this is one of the great things about post apocalyptic and zombie movies in particular, what would you do? What would you react to survive and save your family and all that jazz? Jerry’s doing what he needs to do? regardless what Ben just said, you know, and this whole time, Mickey’s been saying, you don’t have to kill them. Yeah, I gotta kill them. Well, that extends to people too, because, you
Rhys 52:46
know, yeah, monsters are monsters. Yeah. They shamble a run.
Stephen 52:51
There we go, you know, we could have philosophy classes, and we need a good philosophy class in college, where you analyze horror movies, because did Ben really need to shoot them? Jerry didn’t have a gun or a knife anymore, or a car. You know? He was just a guy. Yeah, he wanted to get home. No different than them. Really?
Rhys 53:10
Yeah. Mickey does not seem happy that Ben did that. Because Mickey really is he’s the voice of civilization in this movie. He just wants to get back to civilization. He wants everything to go back to normal. He doesn’t want you to do gratuitously violent things. Yeah, he just, it’s not for him. And at this point, a car pulls up. And there’s a tense standoff, where Ben has a gun out pointing it at the car. And a woman gets out of the car and says, hey, are we friends? Which I think is a good way of saying that. Yeah. She’s like, Look, somebody stole this car from us. We’re just here for the car. If you can just if you can agree to just let us do our thing. We’ll just be on our way.
Stephen 54:01
We don’t want your car. We don’t want your stuff. We don’t want your gun. Not that just Hey, we’ll take the car. We’ll be gone. Yeah, and that’s, that’s something you don’t see in The Walking Dead a lot. It’s always always it seems like you meet somebody and everybody wants to kill each other.
Rhys 54:17
Yeah, I’m gonna take everything I want. Everything you have. If I don’t take everything, I’ll die. So she has somebody with her with a gun. She tells him to put the gun down and get the gas can because the cars out of gas. She starts to ask about Jerry and Ben lies and says the Jerry was bitten. And so Ben had to put him down. She then asks him what Jerry had said. And he said that he was trying to get home and that he was taking what was owed him. That’s when the girl points out that he was lying. And that he just stole the card. He’s a thief and Everything seems just fine. And she gets in the car. And she says something like, well keep on keeping on. And when she says that Mickey clicks, and he is, says Annie, because he recognizes the voice. As soon as he says Annie, Annie realizes that Mickey knows who she is. And she knows he won’t let this go. So in a heartbeat, she shoots Ben in the leg,
Stephen 55:31
which I thought was interesting, because she shot Ben, not Mickey. She has
Rhys 55:36
relationship with Mickey. Yeah. And between the two, Ben has a gun. True. So Ben falls to the ground. And she basically explains that, you know, she’s not going to kill him or anything, but she can’t have them following him. And if she sees them again, they’re dead. So in an effort to make sure that they don’t follow her, she takes the keys to the, to the station wagon and tosses it into the weeds. And she makes sure she’s like, she tells Mickey to watch so he can see where they went, and then tells him not to go get them until after they leave. So then she and her partner, who she calls egghead, that’s how he’s referred to. They get in the car and they leave. And then Mickey is looking for the keys, while Ben is well not stitching himself up, but he’s applying a tourniquet and trying to bandage his leg up. So it doesn’t bleed to death. They can’t find the keys. And it’s starting to get dark. And so Ben says, let’s just get the car, we’ll look for him in the morning.
Stephen 56:42
Which I immediately went. I don’t know if I’d want to be in a car without keys in this situation.
Rhys 56:49
Well, the funny thing is there’s because I started thinking about this, I started trying to assign blame, which you know, isn’t a healthy thing to do. But since I’m not in the situation, right? It’s fine. analyzing it. Yes. At one point in time, Mickey says to Ben, I thought you said there wouldn’t be any in the woods. Meaning zombies. And Ben points out there just won’t be as many of them the same as there won’t be any on the moon. Because Yeah, there won’t be any in the moon because there’s no people there war in the woods. There won’t be any in the woods. Then I started thinking he’s already run into some in the woods. So he was wrong on that count. There are some out here. And then I thought if you’re a zombie in the woods, pretty soon you run out of things to eat. And here you have a man who’s just been shot. lying dead
Stephen 57:41
in the shark with the blood in the water. Yep.
Rhys 57:45
And you have human blood in front of and probably splattered against the car from when Ben got shot. So there’s this kind of, again, gardener does that great thing where he like, makes his scenes just a hair too long. I mean, so it’s a little uncomfortable, but in a good way. There’s this scene where the screen is just black while they’re sleeping. And all sudden Mickey hears something and freaks out. wakes up Ben. And so Ben says turn on the headlights. And Mickey does and there are zombies approaching the car a lot first board? Yes. And so Mickey gets out of the car for some reason which if I think about it actually was the right thing to do. Yeah, but whatever he gets out of the car panics and gets back in and what follows is I assume several days of the two of them trapped in a car completely surrounded by zombies right?
Stephen 58:42
Hold that thought for a second way back up the Horde. I like what you’re saying about the blood and smelling the blood stuff because I was thinking Hmm, did the group send those zombies did Annie send those zombies like you know didn’t face hand eye camera following us? But I realized the zombies came from the other direction so I don’t know if that was intentional on purpose or what but
Rhys 59:06
I only always put pictured Annie as a feeling pragmatist. She She was big into making sure she was okay and her situation was okay but she wasn’t cruel or mean about it. You know, the fact that she just let them live. She could have wiped both out right then.
Stephen 59:26
So could have egghead he wasn’t he’s the one with the gun to
Rhys 59:31
Yeah, he had a like a shotgun or a rifle or something bigger. Yeah. So they send up they end up spending some time in the car. And they, the period of time they spend in the car they focus on. I mean, the movie focuses on a few things like one the noise of the zombies constantly beating and moving the car back and forth because the zombies can’t get in.
Stephen 59:56
And to be to explain, this is like stationary camera from the back of the car. It doesn’t move. It doesn’t change anything. It’s just sitting there.
Rhys 1:00:07
It’s a one camera shot. Yeah. Yep. One point Mickey’s complaining about the sound and Ben says it’s just like rain on a tin roof. It’s not that bad. And then later, Ben’s complaining about the sound and make He’s like, Oh, it’s just like rain on a tin roof. Right? It just kind of put his put his nose back in it. They they have conversations about how long you can last without water. They’re straining the water off of their food into a separate bottle to keep and make he thinks that’s gross and Ben’s like, wait, so we have to start storing our piss. Right? a great point. Um, a few other topics come up. They’re playing. They’re throwing cards at a hat or at a glove. Because they’re just trapped in here. For days for days, they play if I was trapped in a car, I would have an air conditioner and a battery. And it’s so yeah, they’re, they’re playing all these things that you would typically do on a car ride. Without we were kids. Yeah. But the car is not moving. So it’s the worst car ride ever? Been there? Yes. Yeah. And then suggest they get drunk. Because he figures This is the end. So they start to drink at one point in time before they start to drink. Mickey says, What if we tried what we did in pittsville. And Ben blows it off and says that was in a two story house, this seems a bit tight. And we don’t know what they did in pittsville to escape that house. So we’re gonna take Ben at his word.
Stephen 1:01:51
And again, that’s one of the things I like about some of these movies that aren’t the big Hollywood budgets, because at that point, they would have either already or they would just flashback exactly what they did. So people can just eat popcorn and watch it. And they don’t do that. Right? I love
Rhys 1:02:06
it leaves it as a mystery. And then in the end, you find out what they did. I mean, it’s not a complete mystery through the whole movie, but it’s almost like they stored it up. So they end up getting drunk. They’re playing roshambo, or Rock, paper, scissors as we know it. Just having a good time. And then, so frequently happens when you’re sitting around with your friends getting drunk, someone comes up with a bad idea. And the bad idea is, Mickey, why don’t you run out there because I’ve got a bum leg since I’ve been shot, and find the keys, and then hop back in because the zombies are slow. Um, now Mickey doesn’t want to do that. legitimately. Yeah, I wouldn’t either know,
Stephen 1:02:58
what they’re getting desperate to. They have four days what’s left, you know? I could definitely see changing your mind.
Rhys 1:03:07
Yes. Well, when the booze is all gone, and they start to sober up. Mickey decides that’s what he’s going to do. And Ben says, if you don’t find the keys, just keep going. Now, this is the point. And I don’t want to say this is the point where the movie falls apart, because it’s not. But this is the point that reinforces the fact that if you had an idea while you’re drinking the night before, the next morning, you should stop and think about it for a minute before you execute it. Because they don’t make the opens the sunroof climbs out. And there’s a very long protracted scene of just Ben sitting in the back, waiting for them to shut waiting for Mickey to come back or not. Because he told them not to come back. He’s he wasn’t being mean saying I don’t want to see if you can’t find the keys. He’s saying, Don’t risk your life. Just go. So Mickey’s gone. And this is this is what I mean, if they’d thought about it. Ben’s got a gun. Ben’s got a bow and arrow. Mickey could have taken off. Ben could have popped up out of the out of the sunroof, and like assisted by picking off anything that was anywhere near him. Yeah, but they don’t do that. Because they haven’t really thought this plan through.
Stephen 1:04:26
Right. And I and I, Isn’t this what they mentioned with Pittsfield, is they basically made noise, got all the zombies in one spot, and went out the other way? Yep. And before they even mentioned that, I’m thinking about that, Michael, hold on. Why they take the blankets down on the back, Ben beats on the window, draws all the zombies to the back and Mickey could slip out the door, you know, as like, why don’t you do that? And then like you said, Ben tried to go through the sunroof and shoot a couple of them. Okay, Mickey’s running They’re gonna chase him. So now you can do that. yourself. I mean, there’s a million things they could have done,
Rhys 1:05:06
right? And I don’t I don’t fault the movie for that, because you’re still you’re in the clouded haze of being in a stuck situation, and you’re hung over from the night before.
Stephen 1:05:17
And Mickey hasn’t made the best choices throughout the whole movie. He’s probably so stressed at this point. He just doesn’t know what to do. It’s like, okay, I just got to do this.
Rhys 1:05:29
After this long, uncomfortable period of time where Ben’s just sitting in the back, Mickey comes back. He does not have the keys. But he does have a bite on his hand. He’s a little freaked. Yes, he’s freaking out. Ben pulls out his gun. He’s freaking out. And Ben, Ben ends up shooting Mike, Mickey,
Stephen 1:05:49
and not a long discussion. Like, what do I do what I do man goes.
Rhys 1:05:56
Ben then decides when it’s just him to go ahead and try what they had done at Pittsfield, right, which is to basically open a door, make a lot of noise in the zombies wall flow to that door, and then you slip out a different door. And part of me thought, you idiot, if you’d have thought about that earlier, you both would still be alive. Right? Before he tries this though. I take the baseball and disassemble it. And at first, I’m like, he’s gonna use the string to get away. It’s gonna, like help him with the doors and stuff. And maybe he did. But I think it’s also representative of the battery having come apart, that pitcher and catcher is no longer a pair. It’s just
Stephen 1:06:45
true. That’s a very good point. And they didn’t show it. But what if there was something he said or did that I thought he strung up like a web on the back. So once he drew them all to the front with the door open, he slipped out the back and they’re coming in and getting trapped in the car because I can’t follow them so fast through the web. That’s for some reason, something he said or did triggered that. Like all that’s what he did with the string because he said, they don’t really show it.
Rhys 1:07:12
Yeah, they don’t. Before He Leaves, he takes his radio, and he tells Annie, I’m going to try and get out of here and if I don’t find but if I do. Mickey’s dead, and I’m gonna come and find you and kill you. Yeah, I don’t I don’t think he said he was gonna kill her. I think he said something like he was gonna kill somebody there that kill one of theirs. Yeah. And so the movie ends with Ben, basically kind of limping down the road that tells you how long they were in the car, long enough for his gun ruin his gunshot wound to heal, that he can actually hobble along without too much trouble. Right? The whole flock of zombies falling behind, but they’re slowly shuffling. Yeah. And that’s where they roll credits.
Stephen 1:07:59
And there you go with our theme. The battery is broken. But they were friends at the end. So he’s going to get his revenge because Yep, that’s how the world works. Now, as you know, Ben’s thinking, yeah, Nikki probably would not have done that. Maybe you would have ran and banked for anyone to help them. Yeah,
Rhys 1:08:17
Mickey would have taken off the other direction. That’s what I mean. Ben is a survivor in that. He was like made for the situation. Yeah. And not in not in the you know, I’m saving canned food by the five gallon. No, like, if you take him and you put him in a situation like this. He will do what it takes to survive, and he will thrive.
Stephen 1:08:38
Yeah. And But even here, he’s like, you know, it, this might kill me. But I’ve I’m revenge. I’m getting vengeance from my friend Mickey.
Rhys 1:08:46
Yeah. Yeah, so that is the battery now. That’s the plot. We’ve talked about the director, I think. But the only other thing on my mind was the soundtrack. Absolutely. Absolutely. The soundtrack. One of the things I love about low budget and micro budget, movies like this is for the soundtrack, they will get bands that you’ve never heard of before. I have movies on my list where I’m like, this movie sucked. But the closing credit song was awesome. And I’ve been introduced to so many bands. I actually had to put a limit on myself when I’d see a movie like this. I’m like, because the battery didn’t have a budget to have a soundtrack album. They had a list of the songs that were in there. So I’m like, I’m only going to buy one of these albums. And so I picked rock Plaza central as the album that I bought, and they’re the ones who did. She wrote it down. They’re the ones that did the song when Ben is drunk in dancing in the house.
Stephen 1:09:58
The one trombones Barre
Rhys 1:10:01
anthem for the already defeated. Yeah, the band is out of Ontario. Their front man, they’re like lead guy is guy named Chris Eaton, who is a novelist. He’s written four books. I have this album, The album is called, are we not horses? And I love it. And I listened to it a lot. But it wasn’t until this came up, that I actually researched it at all. And it turns out, it’s not just an album with a bunch of songs on it. It is a concept album.
Stephen 1:10:40
Oh, wow, you don’t get that a whole lot anymore. No, not
Rhys 1:10:42
in 2000 what eight or whenever this album came out. It is a concept album about six legged robotic horses in the future, coming to terms with like their own sentience. Wow, I have to say, as a guy who’s listened to this album, hundreds of times. I never got that. I also wasn’t listening for it. It’s got 12 tracks on it. It’s It’s, uh, I’d highly recommend it, especially if you’re into this whole new. I mean, it’s not new anymore. But this whole punk folk bluegrass thing that’s been going on lately. Yeah. Yeah.
Stephen 1:11:27
I the before we even talked, that was the thing that struck me was the music immediately at the beginning. And when Ben was getting drunk, I was like, What is this album because these songs are the last album I felt this like wow, these are cool was like the Crow was the soundtrack from the crow. Just there wasn’t a bad song on the sound though. And they were all different. They I didn’t know a single song. I didn’t know a single artist yet. Which, you know, we’ve been in music forever. And I’m like, I like that when that happens.
Rhys 1:12:04
And that’s like, why I think the micro budget movies. That’s why I look forward to the music in them so much. Because whoever they’re using is not someone you’re going to know. Yeah, they don’t have the money to hire anybody. You’d know.
Stephen 1:12:16
Yeah, most of the bands would be like, Fuck yeah, we’d love to be in a movie here. Take our song.
Rhys 1:12:20
Yeah. Yeah, no, this is Yeah, the soundtrack on this album is amazing. And like I said, that’s the only one I would allow myself to buy. I could have picked up any of the other musicians that were involved with this. It was just, it was awesome. I’m so Jeremy Gardner has three other movies out there, I think, Oh, yeah. He’s acted in a bunch, but he’s directed. He’s directed to others after midnight, and Tex Montana will survive, neither of which I’ve had the pleasure of saying. He was saying in that interview that he had plans to make another movie called the orchard as a sequel to the battery. But he also was all set and ready to admit that it would probably never ever get made. Which is kind of too bad. Yeah, I would have been interested to see. I can see Ben showing up the orchard and Ben and Annie ending up as like a team trying to take the orchard out. Because the way Andy talks about them, they’re horrible people anyways,
Stephen 1:13:28
yeah. Or even, you know, same timeframe, but from their perspective, so you get them talking on the radio at some point. And you get that meeting up with Ben and Mickey on the road. But in the meantime, there’s, you know, a whole nother story going on in the movie. That’s just pieces of what’s with all of them. I can see that as a really cool, you know, both of them, they go together because they
Rhys 1:13:53
know, yeah, it’s been pretty cool.
Stephen 1:13:56
But if nothing else, you know, I would tell people that like movie horror movies that are a little different. This is a good one to go see if the only thing you like is lost boys and walking dead. Yeah. Yeah. But for the people I know that would like it. Like it.
Rhys 1:14:19
Yeah, it’s slim on the action. But the storytelling is amazing. Yeah,
Stephen 1:14:23
I thought I’d get bored. Like you said long scenes. I’m like, but every scene I’m waiting for the next thing and then the music comes up. And, you know, so yeah, it kept my interest the whole way. I like to join it. Yeah, so. So our next one. Byzantium very different food. Yes, very different. Um, a lot new stuff to talk about with that one. So that’ll be our next exciting adventure.
Rhys 1:14:52
Awesome. Can’t wait. Yeah. All right, man.
Stephen 1:14:55
Then a good time. good movie.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:58
All right. hope y’all like it.
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