The Dead Don’t Die (2019) Review

 

The Dead Don’t Die (2019)

The Dead Don’t Die is a zombie apocalypse meta-comedy that follows two cops in the small town of Centersville after the dead rise due to the Earth shifting off its’ axis.

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this movie all morning because I still can’t decide whether it was genius or lazy. It’s a zombie movie through and through, to the tune of Romero, there’s no denying that. But it’s hilariously self aware and meta, even going as far as to break the fourth wall and essentially announce that they are in a movie, playing characters. It’s biggest flaw is focusing on too many characters, just for fun callbacks, or for narration purposes for Hermit Bob. It takes away from the characters we do care about and in some cases, just outright introduces characters just to kill them off shortly thereafter.

I do however love the cast, featuring Tom Waits, Chloë Sevigny, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, and Adam Driver, with Murray and Driver making the movie funny and for the most part, watchable. Their fourth wall breaking, lax attitude to the world ending was genuinely hilarious and made for an outright bonkers ending. Driver really flexed his comedic capabilities here though, showing just how entertaining he can be, even with a corny script that is all about his character having read the whole script, so he knows and says every plot beat as it’s going down.

Directed by Jim Jarmusch to the tune of The Dead Don’t Die by Sturgill Simpson, this is an extremely kooky and different entry into the zombie genre, using callbacks to famous zombie flicks, while also putting his own meta-political-commentary like spin on the whole thing, using the fact that they are actors who have read *most* of the script, in order to further the film along. It feels like a big budget movie, that was made to be a dumb and corny B movie, which it accomplished. It mocks the genre and as someone who strongly doesn’t like the genre, I found that quite funny and enjoyable.

With that being said, you’ll either find it painfully stupid, or a genius level comedy that doesn’t attempt to give a happy ending, because it’s the end of the world, c’mon.

6.6/10