The Dead Don’t Die (2019)

The peaceful town of Centerville finds itself battling a zombie horde as the dead start rising from their graves.

Jess’ Review

Not expecting much in the way of quality from The Dead Don’t Die, I bullied Sam into watching it simply to indulge in the talents of its phenomenal cast list. Even with the likes of Bill Murray, Adam Driver and Tilda Swinton leading the zombie-flick, I had to watch this for one thing alone, my man Steve. (Sorry Sam.) I love Steve Buscemi and no matter how minuscule a role and no matter how terrible a film, I will endure it for him. I don’t have the word count to delve into the depths of my fascination with the guy, but he’s wonderful in all fifteen minutes of his screen time and that’s payoff enough for me.

Now, the rest of the film.

The Dead Don’t Die sees the zombie apocalypse arriving in small American town, Centerville, and soon follows a whole host of characters in their survival efforts. Murray and Driver helm the production as hapless cops, building a unusual, but not necessarily bad dynamic born from deadpan comedy. Murray is a legend and seems to bring humour to even the most mundane dialogue. Which is a feat in and of itself as the script becomes more painful as the film progresses. What initially began as blunt, and often quite meta lines taking little jabs at horror stereotypes, becomes obnoxious, arduous and quite frankly lazy. The foreshadowing is consistently being slapped in your face, and the rehashed jokes land awkwardly with every retelling. Despite some brief moments of respite, the filmmakers are essentially flogging a dead horse for half the film’s duration. And despite our cast’s valiant efforts to work with this sloppy material, it’s just not good.

However, as Sam will surely tell you, I was laughing my way through the film in spite of the zany plot. There’s lots of little in-jokes which tickled me, but most of the laughter was courtesy of the ridiculousness of the film itself. Muted reactions from certain characters, outlandish scenes that swoop in out of nowhere and deliberately clunky dialogue were just a few of the comedy gems lodged in this mess.

The plot is simple, borderline weak, and ends up feeling cluttered by the constant check-ins with other Centerville locals. The cast is brilliant, but with so many famous faces vying for screen time, the story ends up moving slowly and clunky to a sudden, rushed ending. It’s poor even if it is funny.

All in all, The Dead Don’t Die was a let-down. It was entertaining, bolstered by some acting greats as well as some decent gore effects for horror aficionados, but it lands awkwardly, sloppily. Too cluttered, too try-hard and too random, the film is just one big ol’ cooky mess of wasted talent.

5/10

(+1 for Steve)

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Sam’s Review

An homage to bad horror films and all the cliches that embody them. Rather than attempting a solid film, The Dead Don’t Die actively tries to be bad. Though, I’m not sure if that makes its sheer awfulness slightly more endearing or disdainful. The radio signal failing at the beginning is a perfect example of poking fun at the nonsensical tropes most horror/zombie films use. The blunt, obvious dialogue relishes the foolishness, underlining the absurd nature of these tropes. Of course, bad dialogue is another trope. And, this has bad dialogue in spades. When ingested properly, it’s easy to appreciate them for the clever meta lines they are. However, it also borders way too closely to plain bad.

The ‘polar fracking’ excuse is awful. Awful. And yet, brilliant. Highlighting the terribleness of government and corporations, and how they’ll deny scientific evidence for profit. Again, it sticks with the theme of revealing how silly these tropes are. Bizarre fake scientific explanations that make little sense are used to justify the world going crazy. It also highlights stunningly how people’s feelings and intuition are nonsense.

It’s incredibly meta. At first it’s done well, but slowly becomes on the nose, eventually becoming flawed. Reaching the stage where it’s as if Murray’s character, Cliff, knows he’s in the film. Which instantly stopped the suspension of disbelief. Though, honestly, the final 15 minutes feels as if Jarmusch gives up on the arc of the story, and instead decides to make this as crazy as possible. Jess laughed in delight as the film’s dying breath grew whackier, all the while Hermit Bob (Tom Waites) narrates in the background.

Bill Murray’s deadpan delivery is genius, that makes almost anything sound funny. I’m a fan of Adam Driver, I think he’s a spectacular actor, but his delivery passed deadpan and became monotonous. He’s still good, yet doesn’t quite nail it. It has a stellar cast. Danny Glover, Steve Buscemi, Tilda Swindon, RZA (WU-ps?!), Chloë Sevigny, Caleb Landry Jones (a phenomenal young actor, who has the makings of a star), and so many more. It’s incredible the amount of talent that’s packed into this film. But Murray, as always, is just fantastic. Even surrounded by sheer rubbish, he brings a smile to my face.

Realistically, it’s not a good film. Though that’s the point. It relishes being awful, as if mocking the other atrocious films in this genre. Bad dialogue, blunt delivery. I’m not sure about ghosts, but Murray certainly ain’t afraid of no zombies. In fact, he doesn’t seem to care much at all. Indifferently coasting. Yet, even in the twilight of his career, he’s pretty glorious.

5/10