Halle and Alison debate their solo survival skills to ruin The Night Eats The World.

 

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

[AD BREAK]

 

[theme music]: If scary movies give you dread, keep you up late night in bed. Here’s a podcast that will help ease your mind. We’ll explain the plot real nicely. Then we’ll talk about what’s frightening so you never have to have a spooky time. It’s Ruined.

 

Halle Kiefer: Hey, everybody. Welcome to Ruined. I’m Halle. 

 

Alison Leiby: And I’m Alison. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And this is a podcast. Where we ruin a horror movie just for you. 

 

Alison Leiby: Just for all of you. Halle, I got to ask. How are you? 

 

Halle Kiefer: I’m okay. I went to lesbian speed dating last night. 

 

Alison Leiby: How was that? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Harrowing. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Glad to go. A lot of young people. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And I just kept bringing up Israel and. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You know, I just a big swing and a miss I think, for me. But glad I went.

 

Alison Leiby: Was it a lot like, was it your first time doing that? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. I had never—

 

Alison Leiby: I mean—

 

Halle Kiefer: I’ve done speed dating I’ve done speed dating, straight speed dating. And boy, is it easy because I just didn’t care. You know what I mean? Like. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I was there to acquire a man as. As was my role. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: As a woman. And yeah, I. This was, of course, different, but good. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And I do think, like, there are events in. In L.A. that are for little babies. And so I feel like this is one where it’s like the I’m talking to a woman who is 22. And I have. No, no, thank you. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, I just it’s just not.

 

Halle Kiefer: Right. But there are other events. That are specifically 30 and over, so I’m just going to gravitate toward that—

 

Alison Leiby: How much time did you have with each person to talk to them?

 

Halle Kiefer: God. It wasn’t very long. It was like 90 seconds or something. 

 

Alison Leiby: Woah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Maybe it was longer, maybe it was three minutes. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Everyone was perfectly nice. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. Of course.

 

Halle Kiefer: A friend of mine asked someone, one they had, like, prompts? Like if you wanted to. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh that’s nice. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Read them. And one, I went with my friend and she was talking to a woman. And one of the prompts was, if this should have not been a prompt at lesbians meeting, first of all. And it was if you could murder someone, who would you murder? 

 

Alison Leiby: What? 

 

Halle Kiefer: And the woman said, without skipping a beat, my this is a who would you murder and how would you murder them? This woman says, my father and stabbing. And so my friend’s like—

 

Alison Leiby: Wow. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Ding the buzzer, and then you go to the next person. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oy. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And I just want to say, I know obviously the the conflict is happening, continues to happen. And so it’s like, again, we can’t not address it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. And we’re in the past commenting we don’t know what’s happening when you’re listening to this. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I mean, we can probably assume, unfortunately. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. Unfortunately. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So I just want to say, I saw this video. You could Google it. And I think that it sort of to me was the only thing I’ve seen that actually may be somewhat helpful. And it was Ta-Nehisi Coates talking about Palestine. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes, I saw that.

 

Halle Kiefer: Speaking event. I would say Google it. I’m going to post part of the clip. I’ll just put it on Instagram or something. I feel like, you know, I just feel like there’s no way out of this. And I feel like the only way out of this is to like all of us to really come to terms with, like, everything. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You know, and I say it as a particularly as an American and understanding. The history of America and understanding the history of America on the globe. And I think hearing him talk about his visit when he went to Palestine was like. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You know, incredibly enlightening. And obviously, again, I want to be clear. Like, you know, we support like no civilians should be killed during this. 

 

Alison Leiby: Absolutely, not. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Like every hostage should be returned. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And I you know, it’s like there I mean, you know, we already like politicians are calling for a cease fire. Like there has to be a cease fire. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Hopefully by the time we listen to this, there will be. But.

 

Alison Leiby: I know that’s my hope. But, you know, we understand how these things tend to unfold in our current geopolitical nightmare that we’re living in. And yeah, it’s so harrowing and it’s so sad and and I hate what the Internet has done to the way people are talking about this. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. It’s not good. 

 

Alison Leiby: Try and if you are reading something, consider the source as much as you can and see if there is, you know, any ulterior motives behind it or if you feel like it’s trustworthy journalism or anything like that because there’s just so much scary, fake and and inaccurate as breaking news often is information that gets spread around and, you know. Be careful on the Internet all the time for all things, not just for this. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Absolutely. 

 

Alison Leiby: Consider that all the time, because it is no longer like a reasonable place to get critical information. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I know it’s so hard. 

 

Alison Leiby: And it really was for a minute it felt. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, girl, I don’t know if you’ve heard this is like a fake the fake A.I. Biden voice. It sounds just like him it’s like, well—

 

Alison Leiby: The voices are crazy because like I [both speaking] you’re like on TikTok, like the music sounds like you can really do like, I was like, wait, did the Taylor Swift cover this? And it’s like, no, like there’s just A.I. of her voice that like, well you know, and everyone’s which is why I also hope that by the time you’re listening to this in the future that perhaps SAG-AFTRA has gotten a deal with the studios. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh yeah, that would be nice. Ooh.

 

Alison Leiby: But they feel real far apart on A.I. still so fuck the AMPTP and we cannot let them the studios own people’s identities. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You see that someone posted a clip and it was like it was on Disney show and there’s just A.I. people in the audience. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And they look like horrible robots. 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s like it’s really. It’s really upsetting. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh, Lord. Yeah. It’s not even good A.I. That’s the problem. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. I know I know so well. 

 

Halle Kiefer: All right. Well, on that note, we are continuing our month of they ate films, both films that concern cannibalism being eaten. And of course, when people eat, they ate. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes, they ate. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Sorry, I just burped. 

 

Alison Leiby: That’s okay. You ate. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I literally just ate. 

 

Alison Leiby: You just ate. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And I will say I did eat some very questionable fish. I’m going to be honest. 

 

Alison Leiby: What style? 

 

Halle Kiefer: It was like Mediterranean. There’s a place near me, and they’re usually great. And it smelled a little bad. But I ate it anyways because I was so hungry. And now it’s not sitting right. I’m sure it’ll be fine. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah it’ll be fine. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And also if it’s not. I’ll still go back. I will go to places in New York. I’d go to a B I’d go to a C, I don’t give a fuck. 

 

Alison Leiby: I don’t even look I don’t even look at what the grade is. 

 

Halle Kiefer: None of my business. 

 

Alison Leiby: If this is somewhere I wanna eat, I’m gonna eat here.

 

Halle Kiefer: If this. 

 

Alison Leiby: Is somewhere I want to eat, I’m going to eat here. [laughs] 

 

Halle Kiefer: As long as a rat doesn’t bring it out, I don’t give a fuck.

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But the movie we are doing is both about eating as it is a zombie film and is about somebody who absolutely ate and that would be the protagonist of the movie because this is kind of a single hander, there are some other people in this film, but there it is mostly just one gentleman. The main character is played by an actor, Anders Danielsen Lie. 

 

Alison Leiby: Mm hmm. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And it’s interesting because this person is not French. This is a French film. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay.

 

Halle Kiefer: And I feel like in America, if this was American film, it would just be like, you know, like Sam Smith or like Sam Jones. But because the actor is Norwegian, than his character is also Norwegian, which is funny to me. 

 

Alison Leiby: That is fun. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It is directed by Dominique Rocher and is written by Jérémie Guez, Guillaume Lemans, and Dominique Rocher. And is based on the novel of the same name by Pit Agarmen. 

 

Alison Leiby: Hmm. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And I would say our main actor here, Anders Danielsen Lie. When you’re the only person in the horror movie you have to eat and this gentleman eats. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes.

 

Halle Kiefer: He absolutely crushes it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Good. 

 

Halle Kiefer: We always like to have Alison watch the trailer. Alison, would you like to let us know how you felt about the trailer for The Night— I’m sorry. It’s—

 

Alison Leiby: The Night Eats the World.

 

Halle Kiefer: The Night Eats the World.

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. It’s hard because, like, present tense sounds wrong for a movie title. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. 

 

Alison Leiby: Like it should be in the past because it’s something that we get to watch and therefore technically has already happened. So like it should be The Night Ate the World. But—

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. Yeah there’s something about it but again it’s a translation from the French. So. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And the reason I said that is because technically yes, if you directly translated, it is The Night That Eats the World . But that’s not how English works. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So when I watch it on Prime, the title is The Night That Eats the World. So. But that is not the title. 

 

Alison Leiby: Is it in English or is it in French and subtitles are dubbed or how—

 

Halle Kiefer: It is in English. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh great. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Because I assumed it was going to be dubbed. But no it’s set in France. It’s set in Paris, but it is in English. 

 

Alison Leiby: They know their audience. And that we can’t read. 

 

Halle Kiefer: No, no. 

 

Alison Leiby: Nor do we want to. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: I don’t I will say like a zombie movie where the zombies just still look like just from a distance. Humans with a little bit of blood is scarier than, like, monster zombies to me. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes, and you’re gonna love this because not only are they do they look like people who are just bloody? 

 

Alison Leiby: I don’t love that. [laughs]

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison. They’re dead silent. They don’t make any groans. All you hear is something’s coming up behind you. Because they’re fast. They run like people. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes, okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You just hear quick running feet as if they’re wearing Cariuma’s. Go and buy Cariuma’s if you’re going to turn into a zombie. 

 

Alison Leiby: Get the Lovett or Leave It shoe. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s so upsetting because then it’s harder for the main character. Like if you’re groaning and lumbering. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, you can kind of sense. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison—

 

Alison Leiby: I don’t like that they’re silent, though. There was a moment in the trailer where, like, I think it’s because we’re up close with a zombie and like, they’re opening their mouths and it’s very crunchy. Like a wet crunch.

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. Absolutely. It’s gnashing. It’s snapping a lot of snapping noises. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. Yeah.

 

Halle Kiefer: And they are. 

 

Alison Leiby: Don’t care for it. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Their eyes become milky white their. And then, of course, they start to decay over time and bodily fall apart. But right up top, they’re just mad as hell, extremely fast and basically dead quiet, which I thought was a great— 

 

Alison Leiby: That is. Yeah, yeah. That is way scarier and just like easier I bet. [laughs]

 

Halle Kiefer: Exactly. And a lot of these decisions were like, okay, you had a building to shoot this in. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: There’s some shots at the outside and then you have a bunch of actors like in the alley or whatever. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So it makes a meal out of what I imagine was a smaller production budget. But it’s really well done, especially for a zombie movie, you know what I mean? 

 

Alison Leiby: Mm hmm. Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But I. And then of course, we like to take a baseline scary. Alison. How do you feel how scary I kind of know what the answer is like, how scary would you find the concept of being the potentially the last person alive. 

 

Alison Leiby: Nope. 

 

Halle Kiefer: After the zombie apocalypse? 

 

Alison Leiby: I refuse. I want It won’t be me, I’ll tell you that. It’s not going to be me. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It might be you about for about 45 minutes before you figure out what to do about it. You know what I mean. I was like, you’re not going a week—

 

Alison Leiby: The second I realize. The second I realized no one else is around, I’m out. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 100%. 

 

Alison Leiby: But I guess it’s a little bit like. Do you become a zombie? So you have some friends, or do you just kill yourself so that you’re dead? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, I’m definitely going with the latter because I don’t want to deal with being bitten by a zombie or torn apart while alive.

 

Alison Leiby: That’s what I’m saying, I wouldn’t want to suffer through that. So I would just find a way to end my own life so I wouldn’t have to be alone with the zombie. Like. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. 

 

Alison Leiby: That’s not I don’t want that. But again, in any apocalyptic moment or like any kind of large like if the world is ending, like I’m not going to survive with the people that are like, we’re going to make it, like, I’m not gonna. It’s okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, absolutely. And we’re we’re both on the same page when it comes to that. And then, of course, would you like to guess the twist in The Night Eats the World?

 

[voice over]: Guess the twist? 

 

Alison Leiby: I’m going to guess that someone has been pretending to be a zombie, but they are actually alive. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh, I love it. Okay, great. That’s perfect. That’s a perfect. Guess. Okay. We see our protagonist, Sam. He’s arriving at a popping apartment party. People are spilling into the hallway, it’s standing room only, honey, and he’s hating it. He clearly is. Has social anxiety. He is a lone wolf, Dottie. He is. He’s not having any of it. It’s a gigantic apartment, like unbelievable, high loft ceilings. 

 

Alison Leiby: We love it. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Huge, I was filled with jealousy. He’s greeted by the hostess of the party who is his ex-girlfriend, Fanny. And he’s like, You didn’t say you were celebrating something. It’s like, Oh, no, she’s just some of Mathieu’s friends. So basically, she clearly has moved into her new boyfriend’s place. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. Ugh.

 

Halle Kiefer: And Sam, I know sandwiches here to pick up some tapes. So he’s a musician. He has some tapes that are really important that she inadvertently took with her when she moved out. 

 

Alison Leiby: Mm hmm. 

 

Halle Kiefer: He’s like, let me just get the tapes and I’ll go like, you know, have a drink, meet some people. And then I think what is sort of like the final line of like, How about you try for once? 

 

Alison Leiby: Mm hmm. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s like he’s. He hates it. He’s not going to do it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Her new man, Mathieu, comes over and pulls her away. Of course she. Fanny, grab the tapes. She said, just stay here. We see Sam, have a drink. And, like, every interaction is, like, awkward. And he hates it. And he clearly is just not a particularly social person. And then when he sees Fanny again, he grabs her by the arm and says, Please, just let me get the tapes this is killing me. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, I don’t want to stick around. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. And the thing is like, he has social anxiety. But unfortunately, there are a lot of other worse kinds of anxieties that he’s going to be dealing with during the movie. And Mathieu sees him grab Fanny’s arm and is like, gets up in his face. Like, What are you doing? And Sam says, I’m just going to go. Just let me know when you find them, Right? And Fanny stops him and says, No, they’re in the office at the end of the hallway in a moving box somewhere. It’s quiet there. Shut the door. Just get your stuff and I’ll come. We can chat for a few minutes and you can leave. You know, like, just get them, don’t worry about it. So he walks in the hallway, and this is like raucous party. A drunk guy with a camera, like a Polaroid falls against him and smashes Sam across the bridge of the nose. So he’s kind of dazed he’s holding his nose. He looks over to the bathroom. There’s a woman just vomiting into the toilet with a door open. 

 

Alison Leiby: Great. Terrific. You love to see it.

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. It sounds like there’s a couple just fucking somewhere. It’s chaos. But when he gets to the office, he closes the door, he gets silence, and he starts to go through the boxes and finds his tapes. And these are like his personal tapes from childhood, throughout adulthood, like his own music his own sort of like diary, sort of. Unfortunately, his nose from where he was hit starts gushing blood and he sits down. He puts his head back and his eyes well with tears. Clearly he’s like going through it like. 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean. 

 

Halle Kiefer: After the breakup and everything. 

 

Alison Leiby: That’s a lot. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. Alison he closes his eyes and he falls asleep on this very cozy looking armchair. And outside the closed door, we hear muffled screaming. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And what sounds like dozens of people running. And he doesn’t wake up. And it’s like I wake up when someone turns on the light next door. Like the idea that you will wake up but good for him. He’s tired. 

 

Alison Leiby: My cat coughs in the other room and I’m like, I’m up. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, well, that’s because he’s smoking. He’s just up smoking all night. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. And I’m like, Hey, can you put it out? 

 

Halle Kiefer: God menthols? Come on. Think of your little health. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. Rizz is so fancy. He wears a tuxedo. It’s a cigar. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh, okay good. In the morning, the sun is out and Sam wakes up in his chair again. I wake up at dawn. Like as soon as I see my eye perceives light outside the window. I get up. I get up at 5 in the morning, so watching this I’m like, oh, what a treat. 

 

Alison Leiby: Crazy. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So he grabs his box of tapes and Alison he opens the door. He walks down the hallway to like, the living room area. The place is completely fucking destroyed and there is blood spattered and sprayed across the walls. 

 

Alison Leiby: That is a horrific thing to wake up to. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It sure is. And Sam drops his box and grabs the first thing he can, which is like a heavy glass ashtray, and he makes his way to the front door which is standing open, and he sees what looks appears to be Fanny, just sitting on the steps down. So you know this they’re on like on the second or third floor, I guess third floor. And he calls to her like Fanny. Alison. She leaps up. And that’s the first time we realize that the zombies are fast. She leaps up at a regular human speed and lunges for the door. And as she turns towards him, we see the left side of her face has been torn off. 

 

Alison Leiby: [gasps] No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And she’s a zombie, so one of her eyes is milky white. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: She has transformed. And then we also see a bunch of the partygoers are on the stairwell and start running up as well. He’s able to shut the door and lock it, but he hears it sounds like there are dozens of other bodies just slamming against the door, like running up and trying to get inside. 

 

Alison Leiby: Can they see him? 

 

Halle Kiefer: The idea is, yes. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I think that these zombies specifically seem to hunt by sight alone. So they don’t it’s not about smelling someone. It’s not about hearing them. If they see me, I guess they can hear you. So. So it’s. It’s hearing and it’s seeing. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: The smelling doesn’t seem to be much of a factor, but you definitely see the zombies see him and react. 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s not like because I feel like or no I’m thinking of The Last of Us where the. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes, that’s a good point. 

 

Alison Leiby: They’re blind. So.

 

Halle Kiefer: Which would help? It does help to have one at least one sense taken out. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. And the smell isn’t enough to, like not be in play like you need it to be hearing or vision. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, but unfortunately, these guys both see and hear and that again puts him at a disadvantage but he’s able to shut the door and he looks outside. Alison, the road is filled with blood. There are cars just driven up, slammed into telephone poles, doors, open, purses on the ground. We see a bloody barefoot woman running across the street. And then as she gets close, you realize she’s a zombie. We hear a woman screaming and then in the apartment. So there’s like there’s a little narrow road in the apartment directly across the street. He sees this poor family get attacked by a zombie who appears to be their own teenage son, who has just turned and Sam’s yelling but there’s nothing you could do, you know. And also they see what’s going on. 

 

Alison Leiby: Stop being a zombie like.

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. So the dad runs down stairs and runs to get their car, which is parked in the street. He’s able to get them there and then he honks the horn. So his wife and daughter, who they’ve been able to escape as well, run out. Unfortunately, the honking draws all the zombies from Sam’s building into the street. 

 

Alison Leiby: Of course. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And the mom is able to shove the daughter in the back seat. And just as she’s about to jump in the passenger seat, the zombies grab her. And I’m sorry she has a moment. She could have shut the door. If you’re in a zombie apocalypse, your husband and your daughter in the car, you go, get the hell out of here. Go. And then you’re a zombie like that. She doesn’t. 

 

Alison Leiby: And also, if you’re the dad driving the car. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You just drive. 

 

Alison Leiby: You just drive away, drive over them. And like, if mom is still kind of like, dragging, but like, it doesn’t matter anymore. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Right that’s best case scenario.

 

Alison Leiby: After she’s been a zombie. Not like if she’s still—

 

Halle Kiefer: Exactly yeah. I think this is this movie I’m going to call it. A lot of people make a lot of, I think rookie mistakes which again I’ve never lived through a zombie apocalypse. I’m sure I would too. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Never leave the door open, never leave a window open, never leave a patio door open, never leave a garage door, open. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Or a cellar door. People tend in this movie to be leaving the door open. And it drove me insane every time. We know you can’t be doing this. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. And that’s a French thing or are these people just not thinking.

 

Halle Kiefer: You know the French they’re so friendly, they just have an open door policy. Unfortunately, it does not apply when the zombie apocalypse happens. So Sam starts to go through all the coats. Like he has a very strategic mind of like how to have what to do. So I appreciate that where it’s like, okay, I know what to do. I’m going to go through all the coats and try to find a phone, right? It doesn’t matter because everyone’s a zombie now, but he keeps finding people’s phones and he plays a voicemail from this woman’s Jane’s phone. And it’s a message from man saying that he’s stuck also in a building in Paris. And he wanted to say he loves her and he listens to her voicemails and a woman’s leaving a voicemail. And during the voicemail, the zombies bust in and kill her and he starts weeping. 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean, that’s awful. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And apparently that’s happened. Like basically this happened almost simultaneously everywhere. 

 

Alison Leiby: Everywhere. Okay. And he just happened to sleep through it. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. With the door closed. And I guess cause he was silent—

 

Alison Leiby: I guess just no one—

 

Halle Kiefer: They couldn’t find him. 

 

Alison Leiby: No one knew to open a door to find like, I guess like even like the zombies. Once they’ve been turned, like none of them were like, let’s raid the house. 

 

Halle Kiefer: That’s seems like the one thing they can’t do. They cannot open doors. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: They don’t understand where door is. It seems like. 

 

Alison Leiby: Interesting. That’s more of an alive person thing. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. And I think there’s something about that. Like a doorknob. It does. I feel like, you know, it could take a minute. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: He finds so he’s the front door. But there’s also a second door he finds in the back of the apartment, and it’s a door to the roof. And he walks around the perimeter of the building’s roof, and we see there’s just blood on the street, cars parked all over broken glass and no one else. He can’t see anyone else. So not knowing what to do, he starts to clean the floor of the apartment, which I appreciate, where it’s like, well, I got to do something. I guess this place is a mess. I’ll put it back together just to have something to focus on. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, something. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Suddenly he hears a gunshot in the apartment below him. He then makes another rookie mistake, and he puts his head to the floor and a bullet rips through the floor right in front of his face. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. But they can use a gun? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Well, we’re going to find out. 

 

Alison Leiby: Got it. Got it, got it, got it. I’m ahead. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And then Alison, he puts his face to the hole. The shotgun hole in the floor. Sammy. 

 

Alison Leiby: You don’t. 

 

Halle Kiefer: What are you doing bud? 

 

Alison Leiby: Do that. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It turns out. Alison. Luckily the zombies can’t use a gun. Though I will say that’s a movie I would we would definitely watch. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It is an elderly man who was just shot himself in the head with a shotgun and is, of course, dead. So Sam takes a have you ever seen that kind of like people make shelving units out of like what looks like industrial pipe and then put like, boards over it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s kind of like I don’t know what you call that. Well, this one is just a regular like steel looking pipe. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So he takes it off the  wall. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And he uses it to break through the floor so he can crawl into the apartment. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Before he does. At least he has the wherewithal to stick his head in and be like, Is anyone there? And no one replies. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay, good. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So we see the reason. I mean, the guy shot himself because it’s the zombie apocalypse. But then we see another person sitting there and there’s a sheet over their head and blood staining the sheet. And we see the figures hands. It’s an older woman’s hand. There’s a clear bite mark on it. So and we see her legs are tied to the chair and she’s still wearing her pumps. C-nt even in death. 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean, that is France. 

 

Halle Kiefer: That is France for you, baby, and that is what I think France is. And so it is like obviously this the older man killed his wife as she was turning and then, you know, killed himself. So Sam was like, oh, great. So I could take their supplies, do goes to the kitchen, takes all of their canned goods, dry goods, and he takes the old man shotgun and shotgun shells, which is good because he’s going to need them. So he decides now that he has the gun, he’s going to go from the go, just basically goes down through all the apartments and it looks like there’s only one apartment per floor because these are gigantic fucking apartments. 

 

Alison Leiby: Good for France. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Unbelievable. Alison. So he’s going down this like is a circular stairwell, big, beautiful wooden banisters. And he sees the apartment below this, the the older couple’s apartment. So that’s why I think that’s. Maybe that’s not the third floor. He sees he sees a door’s not open, he yells something. There’s an entire family of zombies. And he slams the door. Right? And he marks the door with an X, which I think is smart because then it’s like you never get tempted to be like, Wait, was this one? Did I go back? 

 

Alison Leiby: No. I would need to be constantly labeling things. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes and he does. 

 

Alison Leiby: In this scenario. Good.

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. He makes like, we’ll see. Like he makes a chart of days like he’s he has a journal keeping track of his dry goods. Like he’s very on top of it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, I’d be dead in, oh, six hours because that’s stuff I couldn’t like. I would eat all the food that I have for a month in a day. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. I would see dried beans and die, I think. [laughs] So he goes down to the lobby and he sees the front door standing open and there’s two zombies right outside, but they’re not facing the building and he’s able to push the door shut. And again, just hears as soon as they hear that the zombies attack the door. Dozens of bodies just slamming against the front door. 

 

Alison Leiby: Geez. 

 

Halle Kiefer: When he goes into the so first floor apartment. So it has bars on the front windows and the windows are open. There’s a zombie reaching through the bars, jaws snapping, but can’t get to him. 

 

Alison Leiby: Now, I don’t like that. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So there’s a funny sequence where he opens a can of tuna is just eating a can of tuna while the zombies are like flailing at him because they can’t get inside. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. But it’s like yeah. What are you going to do? You need to eat lunch.

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. Don’t know how to work doorknobs? Can’t eat this tuna. She goes back to Mathieu’s apartment and he lays out his haul. He’s got a bunch of food and a bunch of knives and other things that he’s taken from the other apartments. And he does a haul video of the mind, basically, and he sort of, like, lays it all out. And he also takes one of Mathieu’s jackets and shotgun. And apparently there’s also a rental office on the first floor and he finds the keys to all the apartments. Again, smart. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, that is. Wow. Again, I will not die from being like from hubris of thinking I can, like, do anything. I will die from stupidity in these scenarios. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. No, I’m just going to turn around. A zombie will be there, and I’m dead. Like, I’m like, I will do my absolute best and then I will fail. And I just know that. He enters another apartment, and this time he sort of leaves the door open a crack. And I was like, I don’t know if that’s the way to go, but I understand that he could run out really quick. 

 

Alison Leiby: Mm hmm. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And he goes through the kitchen and it looks like this family had, like, sort of a teen son or like a young son. And so he finds a paintball gun, he finds a finds headphones and an iPod. Alison, we see that he left the door open ajar. He puts on the headphones and sort of starts to rock out. 

 

Alison Leiby: Mm hmm. 

 

Halle Kiefer: During a zombie apocalypse where these zombies are silent. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Shouldn’t do that. 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s a bad idea. Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: We also see that there’s a drum kit in the teenage sons room, and we know that, Sam, is a musician, we imagine this will come into play later when he realizes there’s an elevator in the building. He goes to the elevator only to find out there’s an elderly man inside the elevator who is being held back by the metal door. So it’s one of those things where, like there’s like the elevator door and then a metal grip. 

 

Alison Leiby: Like a grate door. Yeah.

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. And he uses a belt to fasten and close. And again, the elderly zombies sort of like gumming the bars and reaching for him, but can’t do anything about it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Gumming the bars. That’s disgusting. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Finally he goes up to the apartment, he finishes cleaning it and he starts listening to his own tapes. He finds a tape player and it’s really cute because it’s him as a little boy singing as if he’s singing like a guitar riff. And then his mom comes in and yells at him in Norwegian and he smiles. He’s clearly really relaxed by the memory and he’s always a musical child. So sort of like we’re picking that up. But we cut to this cozy moment to the next day where we see basically a dozen zombies on the block. Like it’s like every block is a dozen zombies they’re kind of shuffling around. There’s an overturned baby stroller. There’s a car slammed into a public restroom and it’s Paris. So it’s like there are 20 on this block, 12 on this block. There’s 12 on every block, right? 

 

Alison Leiby: Right yes exactly. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Again, Alison, what does he do? He takes a kitchen scale and he weighs the beans and starts keeping track of the beans. 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean, again, smart. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. And he’s so basically, he’s trying to figure out how long can he live off this food? 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And he creates a grid on what looks like shit to me, but, like, it’s like brown paint on the window that he makes, like, great. Like a calendar. But I’m like, what is that supposed to be made of? I don’t know. 

 

Alison Leiby: Let’s not ask too many questions in case it’s a poop. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison, I hope it’s not. But again, we never know. 

 

Alison Leiby: We never know. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And when he. He goes downstairs to the room with the drum kit and he fucking rocks out. [drum music plays]

 

Alison Leiby: I mean, you got like, yes, there’s a lot of survival and planning and and and making sure everything is safe. But like I would imagine in the zombie apocalypse, there is also downtime. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Absolutely. 

 

Alison Leiby: Unfortunately, if you’ve like protected yourself in a space. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I think there’s a lot of downtime. And that’s what this movie is about, is how much downtime can you have alone? Because at this point I’m someone I would love about three weeks alone. I wouldn’t hate that. 

 

Alison Leiby: Nope not at all. 

 

Halle Kiefer: That’s delicious. But he’s rocking out. And of course, the sound of the drum kit provokes the zombies. But he can’t get they can’t get through the front door with it closed. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And we see him mark another day off on the window grid. Alison, he’s been there 22 days, but again, he’s starting to have fun with it. So he from like a propane camping set up he’s able to make because there’s no electricity. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: After a while. 

 

Alison Leiby: But also like why. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Girl. I don’t even know. [laughs] Like, I knew you were going to ask this. I don’t know. 

 

Alison Leiby: Like, I. It’s like, I guess if we find out, like, how does apocalypse happen? There might be an answer there. But just like people being zombies doesn’t necessarily though, I guess, like if it happened everywhere, that includes like the people who were working to provide electricity. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I do feel like that at some point in the process. A human has to make a conscious decision at some point. 

 

Alison Leiby: At some point? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Well, sort of like, oh, if we stop pumping if we stop the pumps in the subway, then the subway tunnels under the river would fill up in 24 hours. But I don’t. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But that imply a person is doing that. So I don’t know what we have to assume. At some point someone had to throw a switch and they weren’t there to do it because they were zombies. But he makes a bong and he finds some weed. He’s starting to shoot the zombies with a paintball gun, and they don’t even flinch like he shoots one guy in the face of the blue paintball. And then he crosses the man’s face off in a Polaroid. And we realize that he’s made a grid of the Polaroids from the party that that guy who fell into him. There’s like photos. And so he keeps seeing the party guests. 

 

Alison Leiby: That’s so funny. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And he keeps trying to tag them with paintballs so he knows which one is from the party. Yeah. He finds a teddy bear in one of the apartments that plays music. And so he starts to, like, record music. So he’s using, like, kids toys and he turns into a song with the recorder, like he repeats it and he’s like, playing empty liquor bottles. And he builds like a basketball net. So he is like trying to entertain himself, right? He also put a piece of plywood over the shotgun hole on the floor and covered it with a rug. Smart. When he opens it, just to check, I guess he’s accosted with the smell and he almost vomits because again it’s three weeks later. And he goes down and he’s about to throw the old couple’s corpse onto the street off the balcony, but then realizes he can’t do that. So what he does is he puts them in sleeping bags and sort of arranges them on their bed and puts a framed photo of them next to it between them and sort of puts them like dried flowers he found on the body. It’s very nice. 

 

Alison Leiby: That’s very nice of him. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And then he seals off the room with duct tape so he could still come in and out of the apartment. It just wasn’t—

 

Alison Leiby: That will all be reserved for just that room. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Exactly. He leaves the door or the window open, obviously. So hopefully they’ll rot or mummify. 

 

Alison Leiby: Or decompose the way that humans and zombies do. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison if you are concerned about the electricity situation, well, unfortunately, we’ve got to the point where he goes to take a shower and he has had water in the pipe. 

 

Alison Leiby: No more water? 

 

Halle Kiefer: The pipes groan and the water stops running. Alison. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I got to ask you at that point, and I already know we wouldn’t even get here, but if you were still at this point, what would you do? 

 

[voice over]: What would you do? 

 

Alison Leiby: Well, that’s night night for me. I. I would never have made it this far. I would have. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: Not only would I have not wanted to, I never would have been able to. It wouldn’t have happened. But were I magically still alive? 22 days into being trapped alone during a zombie apocalypse, this is when I would say, see you later and kill myself. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. Yeah, that definitely would be certainly top of mind for me. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

[AD BREAK]

 

Halle Kiefer: That night. Alison. He sleeps in bed and he hears a thud. The zombies have gotten into the building. He hears them running up the stairs, but unfortunately  he’s trapped. And he’s high enough up that he can’t jump off the bedroom window. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And he hears them, the bedroom door is of course, closed and locked, and he hears them slam into the bedroom door. And the force of how many there are breaks it open? 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison. They descend on Sam and they tear him apart. Just kidding. He’s dreaming. 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s a dream. Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So, you know, to give himself a fresh start to sort of, like, try to survive. He shaves his beard. He runs laps through the building with his goddamn headphones on, which I know you—

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Trust the front door. I wouldn’t. 

 

Alison Leiby: I wouldn’t either. 

 

Halle Kiefer: No. 

 

Alison Leiby: Like, you need to. You need to know if you can hear them doing stuff. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. Especially if they are just going to be walking up behind you. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. Stay vigilant. 

 

Halle Kiefer: He also goes to visit the elderly man zombie, who is still trapped in the elevator and kind of snaps at him and reaches for him when he goes by. And Sam decides that his name is Alfred. So and when Sam says, oh, Alfred, I’m Sam. Nice to meet you. That’s the first line of dialogue. Like in the last 30 minutes. 

 

Alison Leiby: Woah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Because Sam doesn’t talk to himself. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right? I would be.

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. So. And he would. And so the only other person is this elderly zombie. So he just names him Alfred. And then, like, he’ll talk to him like he’s a neighbor, right? Because he’s so. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Humans just need companionship and his companion is a zombie. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Up on the roof again. Sam’s very smart, resourceful. He’s. It’s raining and he’s put out every container he has. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh smart. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And so he’s able to, like, bottle it with like there’s a bunch of plastic bottles that he took from, like, recycling. And fortunately, he has a lot of containers and a lot of bottles. So he’s actually, again, like able to store a lot of water. Again, this is really just a bit like Paris seems like, you’d have enough water. A lot of other places, like I mean, in L.A., I mean, sometimes you—

 

Alison Leiby: If it doesn’t rain. 

 

Halle Kiefer: If it doesn’t rain, you know, like then you’re fucked. New York, you’d be fine but yeah. So he lights a fire. It’s also getting cold. And he lights a fire and he heats up water from the bath in a bucket. And it’s a really the French buckets are really beautiful. 

 

Alison Leiby: Of course. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It isn’t like a crappy plastic bucket, and he lights a cigar and he goes to sit and talk to Alfred. He’s like, oh, you were a doctor, weren’t you, Alfred? You travel the world. Probably saw some nasty stuff. And whereas Alfred’s just staring at him and snapping and trying to eat him? And he says, Do you think there’s a cure? Or are we all goners? And of course, Alfred doesn’t reply because he’s a zombie. And he says to Alfred, the hardest part is not knowing what happened to them. Sam says, My mother is not the type to walk all over people to make it. So I think it probably ended pretty quickly for her. But at least she didn’t have a long death. It wasn’t an unfair death. She died with everyone else. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Like everyone else. Like you, Alfred. And he says death is the new norm. Now I’m the one that’s not normal. Alison. He’s paintballing again one day and he sees on the street a cat. He is so excited to have a pet.

 

Alison Leiby: I mean, I’d be thrilled. Even just day to day now when I see a cat on the street. 

 

Halle Kiefer: 100% and the cat seems fine. Like it doesn’t feel like zombified at all. The cat’s just walking around. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, how would you even know. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I know. That’s a good point. He runs down the stairs, he opens, he opens the front door. Luckily, like, there’s a couple zombies like, but not too close by. And he opens a can of tuna to try to lure the cat over. And the cat gets pretty close, but then gets startled and then darts underneath a car. Sam is so desperate, he uses his gun to prop open the door and then take the tuna and try to lure the cat. 

 

Alison Leiby: This is how I would die. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes absolutely. 

 

Alison Leiby: I’d be so focused on getting the cat involved that I would get killed by zombies. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Exactly. And he gets to the point where he’s hiding behind a car, looking underneath the car for the cat, and there’s a zombie 20ft away. Unfortunately, Alison, he rounds the car when he looks up. The zombie is basically on top of him. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So the Sam is able to leap headfirst into the broken passenger side window of a car is scrambling. And while the zombie is trying to get to him from the right side, fortunately he’s able to get out of the door and get back inside the building, slam the door as all the other zombies start to attack. 

 

Alison Leiby: How do you know no one went in the house while you weren’t looking? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Exactly. A great question. And also the zombie did grab him and did touch him. So it’s sort of like the zombie didn’t bite him. But you had contact with a zombie. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right? And you don’t know exactly. You don’t know how this goes around.

 

Halle Kiefer: This is a bacteria. We have no context. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: For how this passes or where it originated or what you should be doing. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And he runs back up to the patio and he sees the cat licking the blood off a zombie’s leg. Alison. He takes his gun and he shoots the cat, 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You don’t see it, but he’s so enraged, he shoots the cat. Yeah. And then he looks down and there’s. He’s left a trail of blood. And he, of course, panics. He runs and he cuts his pant leg off and it looks like he was just scratched by the zombie. But how do you know? And also maybe that’s what does it. 

 

Alison Leiby: What’s the right. Like you don’t. I don’t like this because you don’t know the rules. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Exactly. And there’s no one there to ask. But. He decides to do, which I think, again, this is a very Alison special moment. He sits in front of a mirror and he puts the shotgun under his chin and he waits and he basically is like, if I start to change, I am just going to pull the trigger. And he waits so long to see if he’s a zombie that he falls asleep because this motherfucker can fall asleep at the drop of a hat, apparently, and sleeps through anything. And in his sleep, he slips forward. It’s hours later, it’s nighttime. He slips forward and the gun goes off. Luckily he’s fine and it wakes him up and he looks and he’s not a zombie and he starts laughing maniacally in relief. 

 

Alison Leiby: Mm. I would be like, oh God, now I have to keep doing this. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I know. So he then focuses, which I know my plant gays out here know exactly what this is. He starts obsessively taking care of the plants. You know what I mean. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yep. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You know, he’s out here. He’s taking clippings. He’s sprouting. It gives him something to do. So it’s like he’s got a room full of plants going. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison, in the building, he hears footsteps. And then talking and he says, is anyone there? 

 

Alison Leiby: Talking? 

 

Halle Kiefer: But no one replies and he can’t tell if it is his building or the next building over because you could hear everything in these old buildings. 

 

Alison Leiby: Mm hmm yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And so he goes and he takes his binoculars. He looks at the building across the way with with the binoculars, and he sees what he thinks is a fleeting glance of a human hand, sort of pulling back from the curtain. So now he’s like, is somebody there that close to talk to? And he goes up to the roof and now he has a coat on. And we realize enough time has passed that the weather has turned. It’s starting to be winter, which means he’s freezing because the heat is also not working. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So he takes out some of the pots of water frozen and he makes a fire and he uses it to melt the ice he collected on the roof. And he uses sheets and blankets to make a tent to retain the heat. And I got to ask this Alison, would you rather become a zombie or be cold? I know. 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean. I guess a zombie. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I would too. Because at least you’re warm.

 

Alison Leiby: Because like I don’t have the survival skills to work through. Cold. 

 

Halle Kiefer: No. 

 

Alison Leiby: Without water or much food like. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. And fortunately, he’s he does have a fireplace at least. 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean, that’s good. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And we see. So he sort of made me like a blanket, a tent blanket, and he pulls off his clothes and he heats up enough water that he is able to make a bathtub out of the refrigerator because the refrigerator doesn’t work anymore. So he turns it on it’s side and fills it with hot water and kind of makes us have a little hot tub. And he gets in and he closes his eyes and he’s just enjoying the heat and he hears footsteps. In the building. 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s the last time. Like the worst scenario, maybe pooping would be the other. Tough time to hear that. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And also, Alison, he was pooping. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh, pooping in the bath. 

 

Halle Kiefer: He opens his eyes and again, it’s like, oh, is it a phantom noise? And I think he he and we both acknowledge that he is starting to lose it. He’s extremely lonely. 

 

Alison Leiby: Understandable. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. So any sound he’s so desperate for to be another person. Alison Sometime later he looks out the window one day and even the zombies are gone. And so I think that’s the moment he said he sort of starts to think. Should he leave? Should he try to go somewhere? If he did, would there be anyone there? Is there a solution? 

 

Alison Leiby: Would it be better? Like it could be? Because there’s you could you could end up a better place. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: But. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But where would that be? And how do you find it? And is it worth looking or should you just stay here alone? 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s not like anything will have like, Oh, this place has, like, water and electricity. Like, it’s like everywhere, I guess. Like there might be more stuff in certain places, there might be more food, whatever. But like. 

 

Halle Kiefer: When I think the argument this movie is making is that the only place that the only thing would make a place better is that there’s a person, another person there. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And that’s what we need as humans. And so we see him, he’s on the balcony. He’s, of course, getting drunk because what else is there to do? 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And there’s, you see frost on the grass, there’s just abandoned streets. And he goes to talk to Alfred, who’s only his only friend. And Alfred’s looking worse for wear, he’s sort of—

 

Alison Leiby: I would imagine. Are the. Are the zombies, like, decaying at all? Like, do we know if they die at any point? 

 

Halle Kiefer: It doesn’t seem like it. I think, unfortunately, they’re sort of like walking dead cells zombies were like even if they were just skeletons, they’d be coming for you. And if you hate it, you don’t see it. But if you were to, you would hate to see it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, that would be tough. All like [sound effect] xylophones running around. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh, yeah, exactly right. [laughter] Like a Betty Boop cartoon. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So he goes to talk to Alfred, and he says, You know, Alfred, you and I are the same. We’re alone. And he starts to kind of, like, argue, and he’s drunk, so he’s, like, arguing with a zombie. And he sort of. He lashes out, like, flips his arm when he sprays liquor in Alfred’s face accidentally. And he says, I’m sorry, but than Alfred starts to bang on the gate. Sam starts berating him. And it was like he just lost it completely. And he’s like. 

 

[clip of Anders Danielsen Lie]: One day I’m going to get sick of all this and get the hell out of here, and you’ll be left all alone like an asshole. And you’ll regret this moment. You’re going to think to yourself. Why did I let him go? 

 

Halle Kiefer: He’s just yelling at himself. Like everything he’s saying to Alfred is it’s like true of himself. 

 

Alison Leiby: Trans—

 

Halle Kiefer: Transference? 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: That’s when you fall in love with your therapist. 

 

Alison Leiby: Projection, projection. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. Is that why your falling in love with your therapist who’s a zombie? 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, I think so. [laughs]

 

Halle Kiefer: And then finally, he smashes the bottle of liquor against the gate, and he storms back upstairs, and he’s lost it completely. So he. Oh, he goes back down to the apartment with the teenage sons room with the drum set, and he just starts rocking out to draw the zombies. That’s how lonely he is. He wants the zombies to come back and he starts playing fast—

 

Alison Leiby: Cause at least it’s something. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Exactly. And it’s iconic, but it does work. And the zombies come running. Unfortunately, it’s dozens and dozens of them. 

 

Alison Leiby: That’s not going to solve your problem. 

 

Halle Kiefer: No. Unless your problem is being alive, in which case there are better ways to do this bud.

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, it solves one. It creates many more. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So he screams as he plays. He’s shrieking into the void. And you know sometimes you have to scream, scream into the void. And finally he stops playing and just screams. And the zombies can almost reach the second floor where he’s at. He’s screaming off the balcony. They’re climbing on a parked car and they are like feet away from being able to reach up and grab him. And I think that’s the thing is like he’s that’s how desperate it is. Like if he is seconds away from just letting them turn him into a zombie. And he goes goes back inside, he goes down to Alfred. He’s like, I’m sorry I talked to you like that. That was out of line. And so he’s back at it. He’s trying to regain his humanity. And he goes to listen to his tapes again and we hear in a different tape as a kid, he’s banging on empty glass bottles and he hears a man’s voice come in and we are to understand it’s his father and he starts to weep and he just sort of sweeps everything off the table. And that night, Alison, he lies in bed. And just like in his dream, he hears someone walking in the hallway and you hear someone enter the apartment. But this time, instead of waiting for the zombies to bust through the door, he panics and fires through the bedroom door and he hears someone drop with a thud and he runs to the door. And unfortunately, it’s a woman. And she is not a zombie. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh, no. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Now she has a huge bullet wound in her stomach. Alison. 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean. Bound to happen. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. But my question to you is, at this point in the film, who will survive? 

 

[voice over]: Who will survive?

 

Alison Leiby: I’m gonna guess no one. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Well, we’ll leave it at that. 

 

Alison Leiby: Like, I just don’t see—

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, and what kind of life.

 

Alison Leiby: —even if he continues to make things work? Like, there is a expiration date on this? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: Whole thing. But I guess it’s like, do you think he dies or do you think he becomes a zombie? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Well, that’s a question. What do you think, Alison? 

 

Alison Leiby: I think he’s going to become a zombie. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Great. Okay. 

 

[AD BREAK]

 

Halle Kiefer: So as he runs out to help the woman, she’s hyperventilating and he puts her he cuts her sweater open. And we see like I guess she has like, I guess I’ve seen this where it’s like, shotgun shells, but they’re full of buckshot, so it’s like a bunch of different little holes. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Halle Kiefer: And so he has a lay down and he pours liquor on her stomach and she course passes out because of how painful it is. And he gets the first aid kit. He starts pulling out all of the little buckshot. And actually, that’s probably the best bullet it could have been. If it was a regular bullet, she would immediately die.

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, she would have bled out long.

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. So fortunately and also it did pass through the door first, so it’s like not it’s bad but it’s not as bad as it could be. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And I’m like, Google. I would be Googling like, what is buckshot, you know? But it seems he puts her in the bed, he goes to the living room. He sees that she also has a bag, like she’s clearly been surviving the same way he has, and he probably just killed her. So he goes and he sleeps in the living room. In the morning, he hears a noise and he goes to the bedroom and he meets the woman and she’s awake and she’s she’s doing not great, but she’s alive. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And her name is Sarah. And he makes her food and she eats it. She’s gulping it down. She’s like, What is this? He says, Oh, it’s pigeon. And she’s like, you know, actually, that’s really good. She’s like—

 

Alison Leiby: People eat pigeon.

 

Halle Kiefer: Absolutely. That’s France. Yeah. And Sam starts to say, you know, I’ll be honest, until you came here, I thought. And she says, Oh, you thought you were the last human on earth. Sorry to disappoint you, man. And she says basically, like she has been not really spending more than one week in one place because there are so few people who are alive that these zombies always seem to find you like they like if there’s less of you, they’re more concentrated. 

 

Alison Leiby: Mm hmm. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Which is why what he did playing the drums was such a stupid idea. But then she also says, like, I found a couple of guys hiding like you. And the problem is that, like, if you’re alone, like, all these guys have gone insane, you know, like you have. 

 

Alison Leiby: Correct. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And, you know, she’s like, you know, you might have been safe until you made played those drums, which is how I knew you were here. But there are so few people here. Eventually there’ll be enough zombies here that will just. They’ll break down the door. You fucked up. And he’s like, No, it’s fine. They’re going to forget and wander away. That’s what they did last time, you know? And but he’s going to go check it out. He gets dressed and she tells him, I’m coming with you. Even though he tries to protest, it’s like you’re still hurt. She says, don’t worry about it. And they start to walk down the stairs and she screams and she sees Alfred and he goes, No, no. Alfred wouldn’t kill you. It’s like, you he absolutely will kill me.

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah you’re insane now.

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. He says, No, Alfred. You wouldn’t need Sarah, would you? And Alfred lunges against the gate. He’s like, see? He’s fine, you know? Back in the apartment, Sam plays her a concert with his found item, percussion instruments, which is what I imagine a date with this guy would be before the apocalypse. 

 

Alison Leiby: Before all this? Yeah. Nothing has changed. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And she puts her hand on his shoulder for a moment, and he starts singing and she starts harmonizing, and it’s like this very beautiful moment where they’re just singing and it’s like, Oh, that’s the whole point of being alive is like being with other people and—

 

Alison Leiby: Creating things and yeah, community and, and. 

 

Halle Kiefer: He’s just so thrilled that she’s there. So, you know, something bad is going to happen. 

 

Alison Leiby: Mm hmm. Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: He goes and sits with Alfred is like, What do you think of her, Alfred? Yeah, I agree. Like, as if she’s, like, a friend. He’s chatting with. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And we see basically he has marked off his calendar. It’s been months and months. He’s been there for a long time. He’s down to his last supplies, so he kind of has to leave the building anyways to start looking for more food soon. Right. And he ends up going out to the apartment with the X on the door, which had the zombie family, and he drills through the door to create a hole and then he shoots them through the door. And then as a result, he’s able to get all their supplies, which is the one apartment he couldn’t get to before. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And when he gets back, Sarah’s gone. He flips out. But of course, she’s not gone. She’s on the roof, kind of checking out. Like how? How? They’ll get to the next roof. 

 

Alison Leiby: Mm hmm. 

 

Halle Kiefer: She’s like, Okay, well, it’s really far, but we’re going to jump. He’s like. 

 

[clip of Anders Danielsen Lie]: I don’t get you. We’re safe here. Especially now that we don’t have to worry about food for a while. 

 

[clip of Golshifteh Farahani]: I don’t get you. 

 

Halle Kiefer: She says there has to be a place away from here. It’s worth trying to find. He says, No, I’m not going to risk my safety to go somewhere I don’t even know about. And she’s like, I’m just letting, you know, if you stay here, you might be safe. And if you are, you will go crazy and shoot yourself, because that is what happens to all of us when this happens. Like, don’t don’t lie to yourself. You can’t be alone. 

 

Alison Leiby: Does she have like a little more of a sense of like how the how this works. 

 

Halle Kiefer: No. And she even says they even acknowledge that they’re like, we don’t really know. We have no information. 

 

Alison Leiby: That’s so weird. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I like it, though. But it is—

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. No, I mean, it’s like. It’s like it’s scary. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes, it happens because it implies that it happens so quickly like that. 

 

Alison Leiby: Like, no one really—

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. Even in Night of the Living Dead, they have a TV, they have the radio and a lot of the other. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: A lot of the other movies have a warning period even if it’s just a couple of hours. And this is just everywhere. 

 

Alison Leiby: Everywhere. 

 

Halle Kiefer: They get kind into a kind of argument where she’s telling them like, there’s no point in staying. He’s saying I disagree. She goes downstairs and goes to the bedroom and slams the door and Sam comes up to the door and says, I’m really sorry. You were right. Please, I will go with you. Like, let’s just figure it out. Alison. When he opens the door, we see Sarah’s dead on the bed and she’s clearly been dead this entire time. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh no. 

 

Halle Kiefer: She died of her gunshot wound. She’s real, but of course she would, because you cannot survive a gunshot wound even buckshot.

 

Alison Leiby: Just with like a little bit of liquor poured on it. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Exactly. 

 

Alison Leiby: That’s not going to do it when when there’s actually no medical help. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Exactly. So all their conversations, all their plans, all of like the singing. It was all hallucinations. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh that’s so sad. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I know. It’s really well done. 

 

Alison Leiby: But then you also have to, like, get rid of this body. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So he puts a sheet over her body and he sort of. She has a necklace. He puts over the sheet on her torso. He lights candles all around her, and he starts packing his bag to leave. And he goes to her bag and he finds her camera like of all her digital camera. And we see that she has a toddler like a little bit older son and a husband who are presumably all zombies. And then it’s very well done where it’s like you see the family photos and then you see her. She’s taking photo weird photos of people acting weird far away. So there’s like a couple of photos of like probably the day or the evening it was happening. And then finally there’s a photo of him from far away, and he realizes she must have been taking photos and seen him taking a photo and come to the building to try to find him. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And then he shot her. Then something happens that I don’t really understand, which is that Sam pours out his tapes and sets them on fire on the ground in the apartment. And I don’t understand this, and I kind of don’t understand the rest of the sequence, but I think this is we’re slipping into more of a metaphor at this point because he burns all of his childhood tapes and he grabs the gun and his bag and he goes up to the roof. And he was able to find amongst one of the family’s sporting equipment’s a grappling hook and a rope for mountain climbing. He doesn’t know how to do that but at least he has it, right? 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. That’s not something you would find in everyone’s home. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Exactly. So tapes are on fire. Downstairs he goes and he opens Alfred’s gate. And Alfred, of course, tries to eat him. But Sam walks back up to Mathieu’s apartment, and Alfred is so old, he can’t. He could only move at old man speed. So he can’t chase Sam. So he’s not really a threat. But then Sam opens a door, and instead of attacking him, Alfred just walks into the apartment. So it’s almost like, okay, it’s sort of confirming what Sam thought, that Alfred wouldn’t hurt anybody. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And we see in the back of Alfred’s head that he, too, has a gunshot wound having died by suicide after the apocalypse had started. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay, but, like. When did he become a zombie? 

 

Halle Kiefer: I don’t know. And that’s a great question, because he would have had to been bitten while alive and then tried to kill himself and have it not work. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay yeah.

 

Halle Kiefer: That’s what I presume. 

 

Alison Leiby: All right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And then tried to get in the elevator. I don’t know. Finally, you know, he walks in and Sam closes the door. I think it’s sort of like, I don’t want to leave you in the elevator, but I’ll leave you in an apartment, I feel less bad about that. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, But also, there’s a fire that takes on fire in the apartment, but I guess the zombies don’t care. The fire’s—

 

Alison Leiby: Can a zombie burn, to a. Like, once they’re burned up—

 

Halle Kiefer: I think if they burned up, that would stop them. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, I think so. 

 

Halle Kiefer: The fire sets off the fire alarm, Alison, and the fire alarm causes the zombies outside to riot and start mobbing the front door. And as they do, Sam sort of, like, walks down the stairs to watch. I thought he was going to sacrifice himself. I thought that’s where were going with this. But instead they explode inside. And maybe he was planning to do that, but he sees them swarming over each other and he he’s too terrified—

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, I think it would be really hard. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: To go like that because your instinct would. You’d be fighting the natural instinct to run the fuck away from that entire deal. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. So I think even if he had planned to do that, he was going to burn it down. It’s not happening. And he has. He shoots one zombie in the head fights off another, and the only way to survive is to hide in the elevator, and their zombie hands could almost reach him, but not quite. Now he is the Alfred. Alison, but fortunately, he’s able to open the top of the elevator car and starts to climb up and is able to get out on the next floor. But of course, there’s a zombie already up there and he runs into the dead couple’s apartment and he manages to sort of fight the zombie and he throws a curtain over the zombie’s head. So the, the you know, like you put a blanket over a dog’s head. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And that’s what happens. 

 

Alison Leiby: I do it to Rizz sometimes. It’s very funny. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Very cute. But yeah, so the zombie is flummoxed by this. Like he’s just looking around. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t understand. There’s a blanket he just can’t see anymore. And so Sam tries to sneak past him. Unfortunately, he kicks a box and the zombie attacks him. So he’s forced to beat the zombie with a candlestick and then pin him under the couch. And we see Sam pile the furniture and climb back into Mathieu’s apartment through the hole. The shotgun hole. And the apartment is now full of smoke. And not only is Alfred in there, but a bunch of other zombies are, too. And that’s why I say I believe the zombies cannot be operated by smell. Because. Because there’s smoke. They can’t see him. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And so they don’t intuit that he is human. 

 

Alison Leiby: Mm hmm. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So he’s able to go to the roof, deck up to the roof and is able to grab the grappling hook. Alison. He leaves the goddamn door to the roof open. 

 

Alison Leiby: This is a problem. 

 

Halle Kiefer: The man is obsessed with leaving the door open. A zombie, of course, bursts on the scene, knocks over all of his little water containers that are still up there. And Sam throws the grappling hook and ties the rope around his waist and jumps. And luckily, the grappling hook catches on the next building. And when he jumps, he slams into the side of the building and gets knocked unconscious. But he is still alive. But I was like, he doesn’t have his backpack on. Like, if you left the door closed, you could have figured out if you could, like, throw the backpack or. Right. Hell, do something. 

 

Alison Leiby: Something. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You created a last minute problem for yourself that now you don’t have any time. 

 

Alison Leiby: That you could have. And especially after all of the like, good. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. 

 

Alison Leiby: Things he did to stay alive and kind of create like a system for himself to, like, then have this be like, come on, man. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And fortunately, he wakes up and he’s able to climb back up to the roof and a zombie watches him through the window and Sam’s able to get to the roof and he sort of looks out over Paris and it’s like it’s just a sea of roofs and a sea of nothing. And there’s just like, how will he ever find anyone? And in the distance, Alison, he hears a far off church bell ringing. Which I take as a signal that someone is alive and calling out. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And isn’t that what being a human is all about? The Night Eats the World. Alison. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh, wow. So we don’t know. 

 

Halle Kiefer: We don’t know but I think we’re suppose to think like we hear that bell. It’s like we haven’t heard that this time. So I’m like, okay, we’re supposed to take this. But I also think. 

 

Alison Leiby: Could be just zombies bumping into it. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Well, that’s another thing. Yeah, absolutely. [laughter] I think this is supposed to be like, you know, in the beginning he, you know, he’s broken up and he’s like, I want to be alone. And this is like. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I am fine being alone. But the true meaning of being alive is being with one another. 

 

Alison Leiby: Mm hmm. 

 

Halle Kiefer: What are some fatal mistakes of the many this motherfucker makes in, The Night Eats the World, Alison?

 

[voice over]: Fatal mistakes. 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean, obviously, we have the door being opened at the end there. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Couldn’t couldn’t stress enough how leaving the door open. It was a fatal mistake. 

 

Alison Leiby: I would also say like. Firing through the door at a knock. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I know. I understand. He panicked, but yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: I get it. But it’s like he’s been so cool and collected with all of the zombies, like, throughout so much of this. Like, couldn’t you at least see if that person could try and get in for, like. I don’t know. It feels like everything could have been so different if he hadn’t shot her. [laughs] 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. And I think that there is something like the first night you knew if the door was closed and you were making noise, they couldn’t find you. So even if it was a zombie, they don’t know you’re in there. And based on the logic, they wouldn’t unless you made noise. They wouldn’t know you’re there. So I think he just panicked. But again, yeah, rookie mistake. And then to play the drums to lure those zombies. I think we’re supposed to take all this is like he is starting to lose, you know his grip on things. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And then finally, where would you put The Night Eats the World on the spooky scale Alison? 

 

[voice over]: A spooky scale. 

 

Alison Leiby: I like this. I think a five for me for spookiness, I think like. The zombies being basically human looking is very and not like, you know, the Thriller video, but just like, you know, recently dead people. That’s pretty scary. And I do think the the being alone and the silence is a lot. But yeah, I think a five feels appropriate for me. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I agree. I agree that when you hear the first that when he first falls asleep and you hear the screaming through the door chilling, perfect horror movie moment, but then again, like it’s really a of a rumination, I thought I was going to be more of a hectic like one night of survival based on like the logline. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But this was, you know, a rumination on solitude and you know, how we need each other. And that seems extremely I really liked it. It’s very compelling, but it’s not spooky. Those things are just true. So yeah, I would give it a five as well, but ten and ten thought it was an excellent movie, really loved it. And again, if you’re someone who could tolerate zombies but not not sort of more heck, not more of a 28 days later zombie, maybe you could do this one. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Because. But I don’t know. There’s there’s still there sure was blood and gore. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You know use your best judgment, everybody. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And as always, thank you for listening. 

 

Alison Leiby: As we ask you to always. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. We really appreciate it. We love you guys. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. We love you guys. This has been a real fun month of. Chewing things up.

 

Halle Kiefer: They real they they ate Alison. 

 

Alison Leiby: It ate. I guess we just have to ask, if you wouldn’t mind. Keeping it spooky. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh, please keep it spooky. 

 

Alison Leiby: Please. If you could. Don’t forget to follow us at Ruined podcasts and Crooked Media for show updates. And if you’re as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Ruined is a Radio Point and Crooked Media production, we’re your writers and hosts Halle Kiefer and Alison Leiby. The show is executive produced by Alex Bach, Sabrina Fonfeder and Houston Snyder, and recorded and edited by Kat Iossa. From Crooked Media our executive producer is Kendra James with production and promotional support from Ari Schwartz, Kyle Seglin, Julia Beach, Caroline Dunphy, and Ewa Okulate.

 

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