The Dead Don't Die - An Effective Horror Comedy
When I first saw the trailer for The Dead Don’t Die, the new zombie comedy from writer/director Jim Jarmusch, my first two thoughts were, amazing cast, and I can’t believe he’s doing a genre movie! The director, known for his deadpanned indie comedies and dramas mostly, would not have been my choice to ever do a Summer release horror comedy, but he did one anyway, and it is as good as any of his other movies, and a lot better than most movies I’ve seen this year.
It’s set in the small town of Centerville, where two cops played by Bill Murray and Adam Driver have to contend, along with the rest of the town, with the impending zombie apocalypse, stemmed from the earth rotating off of its axis.
This film is unlike any other movie I’ve seen this year, and unlike any zombie movie I’ve seen ever. The cast is stellar, Adam Driver does a great job with the deadpanned humor, and he gets a bit meta at times, which adds a level of uniqueness to the movie.
The zombie makeup and effects are particularly fun as well, opting for more of a 60’s Romero vibe for the look, unlike the more gory Walking Dead approach we see in a lot of modern zombie movies.
Also, I love that the movie knows what it is and runs with it, it never shies away from saying the Z-word that some other movies choose to do. It knows what it is, and so do some of the people in the movie itself as well, and they just run with it.
A standout character that I must also bring up is the legendary Tilda Swinton, who plays the town’s weird new mortician who’s Scottish but walks around in samurai garb and carries a katana, which comes in handy when it’s time for some zombie killing.
A forewarning to those going, this is a comedy first and foremost, and an absurdist comedy at that so if you’re not a fan of that style of comedy then you should probably avoid this one, but if you’re like me and you love this stuff, this homage to Romero and Ed Wood as done by the talented Jim Jarmusch will delight you as much as it did me.
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