Movie Review: The Dead Don’t Die (2019)

Written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, The Dead Don’t Die is somewhat an anomaly. Before seeing this, we had never heard of Jim Jarmusch. Looking through his IMDB resume, you will find that he has some previous work, but nothing that you would see that would make you think “Ah. That’s how he got so many stars in one movie.” But yet there are plenty of them, and it baffled us. We watched this in a small local (mostly) independent theater. Bill Murray and Adam Driver are the lead roles, but there are so many other big names in this. Tom Waits, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, RZA, Rosie Perez, Iggy Pop, Tilda Swinton, and even Selena Gomez.

So being that there are that many big names, you would think that this would be a slam dunk of a film. It wasn’t a slam dunk, but it was entertaining and definitely worth watching. There were a lot of positives and a few things that could have just been better. The first positive was obviously the cast. We don’t know how Jarmusch managed to pull this cast out of his hat, but it was a fantastic lineup. The acting was phenomenal, and you couldn’t really ask for much more in an indie zombie film. The gore was pretty nice. The zombies were all shuffling, Romeroesque zombies with a taste for eating people, and there was a fair share of that present in this film. It also had some comedy mixed in there, and it wasn’t overwhelming. We thought this was going to be closer to Shaun of the Dead but it stayed in its own pocket.

There were a few takeaways here. And not to discredit the entire film, but there were just some jokes that could have been used less. The theme song (which is the title of the movie) is played several times throughout the film, and the artist Sturgill Simpson is referenced each time. This is a common thing to do in these indie films, but then something interesting happened. They break the fourth wall and mention that it’s the theme song. This seemed kind of out of place. The film does alright on its own, and this kind of breaks immersion. It works well in Deadpool because it is established in the beginning whereas this happens out of nowhere. They also have a couple of other jokes that they kind of repeat that are funny for a minute, but then get a bit tired. It was almost like the director was trying to do too many things at once with the story.

Overall, The Dead Don’t Die is a great tribute to classic zombie films, horror-comedy, and the just absurd nature of zombies in general. It wasn’t the best zombie film we have seen, but it’s one that should definitely be watched by any fan of zombies, horror, or any of the cast we mentioned. It’s just a fun film. We think that there was a lot of lost opportunity given the cast they had at their disposal, but also that they pulled off a pretty unique film. If you get a chance, definitely check this one out.