Review: The Dead Don’t Die

The normally sleepy small town of Centreville is overrun by a zombie outbreak, with the laidback sheriff (Bill Murray) and his deputies (Adam Driver and Chloe Sevigny) having to fend off the horde, with a few other assorted townsfolk still alive. Danny Glover and Steve Buscemi play locals, Caleb Landry Jones is a dorky store owner and comic book geek, Tilda Swinton is the local mortician, whilst Selena Gomez plays an out-of-towner. Rosie Perez, Iggy Pop, Carol Kane, and Tom Waits have cameos, the latter a recurring one as a dishevelled hobo.

 

Writer-director Jim Jarmusch (“Mystery Train”, “Dead Man”, “Only Lovers Left Alive”) goes mainstream with this 2019 zombie-comedy film. It’s not quite up to the level of a full recommendation from me, but I’ve got to admit it gets closer than I expected going in given the filmmaker and subject matter didn’t thrill me before watching it. In fact, up until it collapses at the climax with half-baked meta-movie bullshit, this is actually likeable and fun. It does take a bit too long to get going for a film with little plot, though. I think the film could’ve easily lost the juvenile delinquent characters, who aren’t really worth a damn here.

 

Early on I found it amusing that everyone’s in laidback mode here except Steve Buscemi, who is his usual irritable self but with a ‘Make America Great Again’ bent. I also found it funny to find Iggy Pop as a zombie wearing a lot of makeup when – with all due respect to the enduring punk rocker – he doesn’t really need makeup to look like a re-animated corpse. There’s quite a few funny bits here, whether it’s Adam Driver’s extremely tiny red car (a great sight gag), or Bill Murray’s deadpan reaction to a zombie feast post-mortem. Tilda Swinton pretty much playing a Scottish Beatrix Kiddo is an oddball amusement, too. She’s the local mortician (albeit a samurai sword-wielding mortician), and has a very funny bit where a couple of her corpses re-animate whilst she’s getting them ready for a funeral.

 

The laidback, small-talking small-town vibe here won’t be for everyone, but for a while I was finding it all oddly charming. I loved how these people are so laidback that even a zombie outbreak doesn’t seem to shake them up so much. So far as the zombie stuff goes, it’s actually quite violent at times. However, it’s really the sound FX that repulse/delight you rather than any on-screen viscera. This is one’s got some really nasty, crunchy, flesh-eating going on here and there. I guess your fondness for the film will largely depend on whether you find the sound of a disembodied head hitting the floor inherently funny. Don’t judge me, but boy did I laugh at that. What a shame it disappears up its own arse at the climax, ‘coz I was really enjoying this a whole heck of a lot more than I probably should’ve given the mixture of tired genres, wasted cast members (Buscemi, Glover, and Waits), and slow pace.

 

The laidback small-town quirky comedy thing and the zombie comedy subgenre on their own are total clichés by now. Combining the two subgenres doesn’t create something original, but almost works. Shame it collapses in a heap at the conclusion, ‘coz I might’ve given this one a soft recommendation at the very least. Instead it’s a frustrating near-miss.

 

Rating: C+