The Dead Don't Die

As long as Jim Jarmusch is pouring all sorts of pop culture references to classic horror (and other) movies and filmmakers into his work, he is knowingly winking at modern trends (like the WUPS delivery company), or almost breaks down the fourth wall between the viewer and what is going on in the movie, it is frankly hilarious. However, if the audience asked Jim for some interestingly written and compelling characters or a plot that makes at least a little sense, they would be disappointed. Not to mention that J.J. recapitulates the "Romero" critique of consumerist society too literally - over and over again. The Dead Don't Die is definitely an entertaining movie you can have a good time with at the movie theater, but there is no miracle here this time, and I had such high hopes with Jarmusch. (07/07/2019)

The Dead Don't Die is my second encounter with Jim Jarmusch after Coffee and Cigarettes, and I have to say that I didn't find the director to my liking in this case either. From the start, the atmosphere of a small, sleepy town in the middle of nowhere is built up quite decently, and to the sounds of the country hit “The Dead Don't Die”, we are introduced to the various inhabitants, with everything slowly but surely leading up to the terrifying invasion of the undead. I thought the film would be laced with floor-to-ceiling black humour, but I found most of the jokes and morbid innuendo dull – the scene that amused me the most was the first zombie attack and the Chardonnay-loving woman beyond the grave. Even the slight allusion to Adam Driver's involvement in Star Wars and the fact that he was driving a Smart Car didn't help matters much. Of all the characters, I was most taken with the mysterious Tilda Swinton, though the ending of her line was very bizarre. I'm sorry, but the (obviously present) charm of Jarmusch's latest effort missed me by a large margin. (07/09/2019)

The talented Jim Jarmusch serves up a zombie comedy with a perfect cast, it feels like all the money was spent on the actors, but not much left for the film itself. It has rather ugly visuals, a very slow pace (slower than zombies), almost no gore, minimal tension and atmosphere, and the only thing that sort of works are the jokes, but even those don't wake you up from your micro-sleep. The director knew that a lot of people would be bored, so he snuck in at least a few movie references to keep the audience entertained. Didn’t like it. 40% (09/05/2019)

This is an experimental, intellectually-ironic zombie film from a director who despises standard commercial zombie films, and that’s exactly the way it looks. Deliberately throwing away the rules of the zombie genre and overturning conventions and stereotypes sounds petulant rather than innovative, and the result is a purely anti-entertaining and random-acting film with a deliberately sloppy screenplay full of repetitions and unused characters that only accomplishes exhausted and shallow social satire and a few meta-jokes. What’s more, the film’s pace is slower than the shuffling gait of the wheezing undead, focusing on viewers who will never watch it in most cases because of its chosen theme. (10/05/2020)

That Jarmusch has taken the reins of zombie horror isn't really all that surprising. It's not the first time he's decided to paraphrase a pure genre film, see Dead Man, Only Lovers Left Alive, or Limits of Control. The problem is that the aforementioned films still managed to exist on their own, allowing their characters to coexist in the distinctive Dada universe where the stories in question took place. The Dead Don't Die is pure and simply a parody of the contemporary mainstream, its characters, practices, exuberant self-reflection, pop culture references, futile attempts at socio-cultural and ecological relevance, and repetition of centuries-old schemas. While the simple method of portraying all these aspects, albeit in a completely unspectacular manner and with actors who alternate dry declamations with unbearable overacting, achieves the desired results in places, it also fails to carry the whole film. The problem is that, unlike Jarmusch's previous films, DDD doesn't contain that distinctive universe where its story takes place and where its events would make some kind of sense. In this way, The Dead Don't Die is really just a pouting poke at the commercial cinematic present, but one that it helps co-create instead of mounting active resistance against it from the barricades of auteur independent film. For as the saying goes: if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. PS: anyway, clearly the best joke of the film is that the naked zombie character is played by the same actress who played the famous naked zombie in the original Night of the Living Dead from 1968. Too bad you can only pick up on that if you read the trivia. (10/04/2019)