So… indie film maker Jim Jarmusch has never exactly made a mainstream movie… so I checked out his new flick The Dead Don’t Die which surprisingly showed up at the local theater. Jarmush has been quoted as saying he’s never made a mainstream movie that got tv commercials… which may be true but is only half true as far as this movie goes. It may have commercials, but, despite it’s cast, it ain’t mainstream. Which is all right by me… somebody has to make weirdo experimental pictures.
The Dead Don’t Die is a zombie comedy with an intersting cast. You got your Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Selena Gomez, Tilda Swinton, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, RZA, Carol Kane, Rosie Perez, Chloe Sevigny, Tom Waits, and Iggy Pop… sure, not all current actors but all name brand. Some of these actors are just extended cameos and I’m pretty sure all are doing the director a favor (most have starred in his earlier films like Paterson, The Only Lovers Left Alive, and Broken Flowers, for example).
The premise is yer garden variety zombie movie. Due to, I dunno, polar fracking, the earth has fallen off its axis and razzle-dazzle, oingo-boingo: Zombies crawl out of their grave. Our cast of vaguely disinterested heroes must, I dunno, kill the dead and have long conversations about it while more-or-less hiding in the police station or squad cars. I mean, it’s not like this is THAT big a deal, I guess. You know. Just ghouls.
This movie is not just an anti-horror movie…. I think it’s also an anti-comedy and even an anti-movie. It has a story and characters with motivations… but it’s all just kind of a lark. Like a bunch of celebrities got together and made a flick that no one – least of all the writer/director – took very seriously. Is it a horror flick? Nah… though some of the gore and zombie kills are interesting and unique. But it seems to seriously be trying to give us a Message about zombie consumerism (like Dawn of the Dead) but… also maybe they are just having one on us (the audience)? Is it funny? Well… yeah… if your brain is at a right angle while watching… because nobody is exactly making jokes yet somehow humor bubbles up from the absurdity. Is it a movie? I think it’s making fun of the concept of story and structure, at least as far as horror movies go.
Because, wow, things get really meta. I’m not sure if they break the fourth wall so much as, I dunno… the actors in the movie sometimes know they are actors in a movie. They don’t talk to the camera but, for example, they may have a scene where two cops are listening to a song “The Dead Don’t Die” on the radio and one notes that it’s the theme song. OK… or there are a lot of in-jokes about the cast. Adam Driver plays a character named Peterson… and he starred in Jam Jarmushe’s last movie Paterson. Or RZA – a member of the Wu-Tang Clan – plays a postal delivery guy for WU-PS. Tilda Swinton – who is know for being other-worldly weird – plays a Scottish Bhudist samurai funeral director. Is that funny? Only if you are abstractly aware of these actors in the real world.
I dunno… I actually enjoyed this whatever bit of weirdness. I can guarantee it’s not a mainstream flick but if you have a taste for the odd, the quirky, the disaffected… and if you enjoy an indie Hollywood goof, this might be a movie you want to hunt down.
Score: 82