Why aren’t zombies better dressed? Somebody is really going to have to explain that one to me. I mean, if zombies are comprised generally among the pool of existing live humans, yeah, I get that, you died wearing whatever you died in when the zombies got ya. But if zombies are rising from the grave, like in today’s film, well, do you know anybody who went to the grave poorly dressed? Decomposition notwithstanding, a pool of newly unearthed zombies should be dressed as if ready for a cotillion.
The small town of Centerville exists straight out of Stephen King novel. Isolated. Population 738. A police force of exactly three people with a chief as old as Bill Murray (cuz it is Bill Murray). This is the kind of place where Hermit Bob (Tom Waits) takes a shot at two officers and they leave him be without taking action. Hey, he don’t mean anything by it. Sure.
And this is the kind of film where Sturgill Simpson’s “The Dead Don’t Die” comes on the radio and a questioning Bill Murray gets a response to “Why does this sound so familiar?” with “It’s the theme song.” Why yes, it is; it just played over the opening credits. Deputy Adam Driver has zero respect for the fourth wall here.
In a failed attempt to shame Americans of their climate change indulgences, the plot revolves around the reversal of the Earth’s rotation due to polar fracking, whatever that is. The rotation issues cause the planet’s day/night cycle to go askew and the dead to rise from their graves. The bad news is the dead are hungry. Very hungry. The good news is these dead gravitate towards things they used to do in life, which include dead tennis players, dead knitters, and dead coffee achievers. (I’m alarmed at how much the zombie version of me sitting at a theater for hours on end resembles the -as far as I know- not yet zombie version of me.)
This is an odd film to recommend. It certainly has one of the best titles of 2019. And it’s funny, but nowhere near a riot. All of the laughs are subdued and intellectual, like Driver showing up to a crime scene in his convertible smart car. And on its face, it is a horror; while there’s a distinct shortage of Selena Gomez, there is no shortage of blood or intestines. There’s also a fair amount of actors who appear to be waiting for their next line.
A lot of The Dead Don’t Die plays like director Jim Jarmusch wanted to make a Wes Anderson film without ever having seen one. The casting of deliberately underplayed Murray and Scottish ninja Tilda Swinton seem to emphasize this point like a samurai sword to the spine. “What you wanna do here, audience, is imbed your tongue so thoroughly in your cheek that ‘palette’ no longer has meaning.” I don’t think The Dead Don’t Die has anything on recent zomberrific films like World War Z or Zombieland, but it has charm and will keep a certain highbrow type of audience amused. I’d say overall, if you’re inclined to see TDDD, see it and enjoy it. But don’t get roped into it by an enthusiast; I can easily see Dead Don’t Die as the kind where you’ll feel like the person next to you is watching a different film.
♪Here they slum
Draggin’ down the street
They get the funniest screams from
Every form of meat
Hey, hey, they’re the Munchies
And people fleein’ all over town
They’re too busy gnawing
To get back under the ground♫
Rated R, 104 Minutes
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Writer: Jim Jarmusch
Genre: Tongue crammed so far in cheek you’re tasting freckles.
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The kind of person who considers Zombieland the greatest film ever made
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People who wince at the sight of … dark humor
♪ Parody Inspired by “The Monkees”
