The Dead Don’t Die (2019) Focus/Comedy-Horror RT: 103 minutes Rated R (zombie violence and gore, language) Director: Jim Jarmusch Screenplay: Jim Jarmusch Music: SQURL Cinematography: Frederick Elmes Release date: June 14, 2019 (US) Cast: Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Chloe Sevigny, Tilda Swinton, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, Tom Waits, Caleb Landry Jones, Larry Fessenden, Selena Gomez, Austin Butler, Luka Sabbat, Iggy Pop, Sara Driver, Carol Kane, Rosie Perez, RZA, Eszter Balint, Rosal Colon, Maya Delmont, Taliyah Whitaker, Jahi Winston, Kevin McCormick, Sid O’Connell, Jodie Markell, Sturgill Simpson, Charlotte Kemp Muhl. Box Office: $6.5M (US)/$15.3M (World)
Rating: ****
You’ll never see anybody deal with a zombie apocalypse as well as the folks in The Dead Don’t Die, a comedy-horror piece bearing the signature offbeat style of writer-director Jim Jarmusch. In true Jarmusch fashion, they don’t run through the streets screaming and fleeing in panic. Rather, they adopt an “it is what it is” attitude and accept their imminent demise at the hands of the undead with a figurative shrug. Of course, that doesn’t mean they won’t go down without a fight. That’s mainly what makes The Dead Don’t Die so damn hilarious.
Anybody familiar with Jarmusch’s work knows that he doesn’t make genre pictures; he makes movies that subvert genres. He takes the familiar- e.g. westerns (Dead Man), samurai flicks (Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai) and vampire movies (Only Lovers Left Alive)- and makes them unfamiliar via his offbeat sensibility. With The Dead Don’t Die, he turns his attention to zombie movies like Night of the Living Dead and any featuring traditional slow-moving zombies. I’m sorry not sorry, but I will NEVER accept zombies that run.
In this particular case, the zombie apocalypse is brought on by global fracking which has knocked the planet off its axis. The world is starting to go loony tunes. In the small town of Centerville, a “real nice place” according to the sign, it’s daylight until well after 8pm one night, dark by 5pm the next. Cell phones, watches and other electronic devices have stopped working. Pets and livestock are hiding from their owners. Oh yeah, the dead are rising from their graves to feast on the flesh of the living. Don’t you hate it when that happens?
At the center of it are the three members of the Centerville PD, Chief Cliff Robertson (Murray, Zombieland) and Officers Ronnie Peterson (Driver, Star Wars: The Force Awakens) and Mindy Morrison (Sevigny, American Psycho). How’s this for complacency? In the opening scene, Cliff and Ronnie confront an eccentric local named Hermit Bob (Waits, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs) about some stolen chickens only to be shot at. Instead of arresting him, they simply issue a warning about shooting at cops, get in their car and leave. While driving around town on patrol, they talk about the bizarre goings-on and debate whether or not to stop at the local diner for coffee and doughnuts. Back at the station, there’s discussion about when somebody will come to pick up the body of a local drunk (Kane, Scrooged) that’s been lying in a cell for a day or two. The two officers go home for the night. Cliff holds down the fort at the station.
The next day, the cops are called to the diner where a waitress (Balint, Stranger Than Paradise) and cleaning lady (Colon, Orange Is the New Black) have been torn apart. They speculate that it was the work of wild animals. Ronnie seems to think it’s the work of zombies. Lo and behold, he’s right. Moreover, he’s convinced it will end badly, a prediction he makes more than once. Meanwhile, the other townsfolk prepare for the undead onslaught. Farmer Miller (Buscemi, Ghost World), a racist sort wearing a red baseball cap bearing an incendiary slogan (hmmm), fights them from his home. Hardware store owner Hank (Glover, Lethal Weapon) prepares for battle with a variety of sharp implements ideal for cutting off heads. He barricades himself in his store with gas station/convenience store owner Bobby (Jones, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), a strange guy who sells horror memorabilia in addition to candy, soft drinks and junky toys. Three out-of-town hipsters- Zoe (Gomez, Hotel Transylvania 1-3), Jack (Butler, The Carrie Diaries) and Zack (Sabbat, Grown-ish)- hole up in the local motel run by Danny (Fessenden, We Are Still Here). Three inmates at the local youth detention center including The Upside’s Jahi Winston observe and comment on the action. Then there’s the town’s odd new undertaker Zelda (Swinton, Only Lovers Left Alive), a pale-skinned Scottish lass who worships Buddha and wields a mean samurai sword.
I have a short list of favorite zombie comedies. They are George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (it’s a satire), The Return of the Living Dead and Shaun of the Dead. Congratulations Mr. Jarmusch, your movie made my list. The Dead Don’t Die is great fun, but it comes with a caveat. In order to fully appreciate it, you have to be a fan of Jarmusch’s work. That’s where it might run into a problem as Jarmusch doesn’t make movies for mass consumption. Not everybody gets his dry, deadpan sense of humor. Those who do will enjoy The Dead Don’t Die. Not only is it riotously funny, it also respects the zombie genre even as it turns it on its head. Call it a slap in the face to The Walking Dead, World War Z and other running zombie movies if you will; Jarmusch gets that true horror fans want their zombies to shuffle and groan. BUT they don’t just make groaning sounds, they groan words like “coffee” and “Chardonnay”, the idea being they’re drawn to the thing or activity that defined them in life. There’s a great scene of Bobby’s store being overrun by zombie children muttering the names of their candy of choice- e.g. “Skittles.” It stuff like this that sets The Dead Don’t Die above and apart from the wannabes. I’m looking at you, Warm Bodies.
The ensemble cast does a phenomenal job. Murray is right at home in the Jarmusch universe. By playing it straight, he makes The Dead Don’t Die all the funnier. The characters, for the most part, are a half a step removed from The Twilight Zone, all but Zelda who’s several steps into the TZ. I can’t say too much about Swinton’s character without giving away a nifty (and bizarre) surprise so let’s just say she’s wonderfully weird and leave it at that.
I was hoping that The Dead Don’t Die would be gorier than it is. After all, two of Romero’s Dead pictures (Dawn and Day) were released without official MPAA ratings due to excessive gore. There’s plenty of yucky stuff, but the violence is mainly of the human-on-zombie variety. When beheaded, they emit of puff of black smoke rather than splashy red stuff. Dust to dust, I guess. It doesn’t really matter, I suppose. In the end, The Dead Don’t Die is a clever, funny, strange take on a genre that’s lost its bite with goofy shows like iZombie. In the idiosyncratic hands of Jarmusch, it feels like it’s been reanimated.
