321: Zombies, with Maverick Haenze

We’re back and we’re hungry for brains. Sure, that whole that whole thing about zombies eating brains was made up by Dan O’Bannon in 1985, but that doesn’t make them any less tasty. And just because we’re chowing down on some grey matter doesn’t mean that we’re keen on any of that other new-fangled nonsense. Zombies shouldn’t run around or hold conversations, and they definitely shouldn’t be love interests. Shambling and moaning was good enough for those who came before us, and it’s good enough for us.

Main Topic: Zombies

Given how prevalent zombies are in horror media and how strongly the undead feature in Lovecraft’s earlier fiction, it’s surprising that it’s taken us 321 episodes to get around to discussing them. But, like the walking dead, we shamble slowly.

Our discussion takes in the origins of zombies in Voudon, the various ways they’ve been redefined in horror media, and some ways we might use them in games. And then we feast on the flesh of the living.

Once again, with such a big topic, we’ve almost certainly failed to mention some of your zombie favourites. Please do join in the discussion on Discord or Bluesky to help fill in the gaps. We may catch up with some of them in time before the next episode of Just One More Thing, the monthly companion podcast we put out for our Patreon backers.

Our Guest Host

We are delighted to welcome Maverick Haenze to The Good Friends of Jackson Elias! Mav is a prolific actual play performer and scenario author. You can find them as the Head of Mythos Horror on The Old Ways podcast, as a regular cast member on Ain’t Slayed Nobody’s Bleeker Trails, and in many guest spots on other podcasts, including How We Roll. Under the name Rina Haenze, they wrote the Mythos slasher romp Saturday the 14th, the historical LGBTQ+ scenario Friends of Dorothy, and many others on the Miskatonic Repository. They also edited the fairy tale-inspired collection Cthulhu Once Upon a Time, which is now available on DriveThruRPG.

Links

Things we mention in this episode include:

• Revenants
• Slavery in Haiti
• Voudou
• Vampires
• Jé-rouges
• Ghouls
• Epic of Gilgamesh
• Zombie astral
• The Serpent and the Rainbow by Wade Davis
• The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)
• Tetrodotoxin
• Datura
• Fugu
• “The Magic Island” by WB Seabrook

• American occupation of Haiti
• “The House in the Magnolias” by August Derleth & Mark Schorer
• “Pigeons From Hell” by Robert E Howard
• “The Outsider” by HP Lovecraft
• “Cold Air” by HP Lovecraft
• “Herbert West – Reanimator” by HP Lovecraft
• White Zombie (1932)
• Revolt of the Zombies (1936)
• I Walked With a Zombie (1943)
• Cat People (1942)
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• “The Zombie” from Kolchak: The Night Stalker
• The X-Files
• Plague of the Zombies (1966)
• Night of the Living Dead (1966)

• Carnival of Souls (1962)
• Night of the Living Dead (1990)
• Dawn of the Dead (1978)
• Day of the Dead (1985)
• Land of the Dead (2005)
• Diary of the Dead (2008)
• Survival of the Dead (2009)
• Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979)
• The Beyond (1981)
• Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things (1972)
• Black Christmas (1974)
• A Christmas Story (1983)
• Porky‘s (1981)
• The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue (1974)
• Shaun of the Dead (2004)

• 28 Days Later (2002)
• Re-Animator (1985)
• I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
• Santa Clarita Diet
• Warm Bodies (2013)
• In the Flesh
• World War Z (2013)
• World War Z by Max Brooks
• Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression by Studs Terkel
• Forgotten Voices series from the Imperial War Museum
• “The Meat Trade” on Ain’t Slayed Nobody
• Dawn of the Dead (2004)
• Resident Evil film series
• Resident Evil video game franchise
• The House of the Dead

• The Walking Dead TV programme
• The Last of Us TV programme
• The Last of Us video game
• “The Voice in the Night” by William Hope Hodgson
• Matango (1963)
• The Fungus by Harry Adam Knight
• The Girl With All the Gifts by MR Carey
• The Girl With All the Gifts (2016)
• Haunted (1995)
• The Boy on the Bridge by MR Carey
• Fear the Walking Dead
• The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon
• The Walking Dead: Dead City
• The Walking Dead comic
• Return of the Living Dead (1985)
• Return of the Living Dead 3

• Uncanny valley
• 28 Years Later (2025)
• Alien RPG
• MK-RPG
• Dead of Night
• The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks
• Cast a Deadly Spell (1991)
• “Walter’s Final Wish” from Fear’s Sharp Little Needles
• Primetime Adventures
• iZombie
• All Flesh Must Be Eaten
• The Walking Dead Universe RPG
• Cotard’s delusion

News

New Life on The Glass Cannon Network

Our good friends at Glass Cannon ran a couple of live Call of Cthulhu games at Gen Con 2025, both written by our own Scott Dorward. One of them, “New Life”, was recorded and is now on YouTube. This is a grotesque tale of a heist gone wrong, run by Troy Lavallee for an all-star cast. The in-character adverts are a particular highlight.

Push the Roll, With Ross Bryant

There is a new podcast coming soon from Ain’t Slayed Nobody, called Push the Roll. This is a series of completely improvised Call of Cthulhu sessions, with Ross Bryant as Keeper, and featuring a number of special guests from the worlds of comedy, improv, and gaming, and especially from Dropout TV.

Confirmed guests include Abu Salim, Ashly Burch, Becca Scott, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Paula Deming, Chris Grace, Colton Dunn, Ify Nwadiwe, Matt Young, Matthew Lillard, Mark Meer, Mary Lou, Noura Ibrahim, Rashawn Scott, Rekha Shankar, Rob Kerkovich, Vic Michaelis, and Zach Reino. You will also hear a number of Good Friends hosts, including Jared Logan, Josephine McAdam, Maverick Haenze, Seth Skorkowsky, as well as our own Scott Dorward.

The first episodes are due out on the 10th of September. Check out the podcast website for more details.

The Blasphemous Tome issue 14

Unfortunately, ill health and other life pressures are still getting in the way of completing issue 14 of The Blasphemous Tome. Rather than keeping on pushing it back, we’re going to release a bumper issue of the Tome this December with two full Call of Cthulhu scenarios. One is a new modern scenario from Matt, and the other is a loose sequel to Blackwater Creek by Scott.

We will be honouring our pledge to send out print copies to everyone who was backing us at the $5 level or higher end of June, so don’t worry if you’ve dropped yours since then.