The Dead Don’t Die (2019)
Jim Jarmusch has taken on horror before to success with his 2013 vampire flick, Only Lovers Left Alive. This one takes his usual lightheartedly droll approach to cinema, building on the quirky, bluesy, lackadaisical vibe he’s spent his entire career cultivating. Bringing people back to life becomes a meta aspect of this film, as Jarmusch resurrects at least one actor from each of his films he has made over the course of his nearly 40-year career as a director. This one has more of an outwardly conscious agenda than many of his films, but still is full of Jarmusch-isms, and it is rife with an homage to the genre, especially paying respect to George Romero’s original, Night of the Living Dead.
After the Earth’s rotation is disturbed due to environmental fallout resulting from “polar fracking”, strange natural phenomena begin occurring all over the globe, including, in one area at least, the dead coming back to life to feast on the living. Bill Murray stars in his second zombie comedy (after Zombieland) as Cliff Robertson, the chief of police for the small, Mayberry-esque town of Centerville (an homage to the town in Frank Zappa’s 1971 musical feature. 200 Motels). He, along with his partner in fighting very little crime, officer Ronnie Peterson (seemingly an in-joke that Adam Driver has been in two Jarmusch films playing characters named Paterson and Peterson) find themselves having to deal with the gruesome deaths they uncover, coming to the realization that things may not end well for themselves or their community if they don’t take decisive action.
Jarmusch’s film is knowingly dumb in its approach, as many zombie films, even classics, tend to be. Financing proved to be a difficult task, as there are a number of effects shots and high-concept ideas to take into account. Due to the difficulty in keeping the cast together, the shoot was a shortened one, with co-star Adam Driver only able to commit to about twenty days of availability to film. And it rained a good deal of the time during that shoot, in sweltering heat (Jarmusch ended up contracting walking pneumonia, in addition to breaking one of his toes, and pushing through 15-hour work days), further causing delays.
As with some of the better films in the subgenre, the story proves to be a metaphor if you look under the surface of the horror and gore, which is something George Romero himself had carried through with his series of zombie classics. Jarmusch understands this, but attempt to draw out the metaphor is perhaps too apparent, even ending with one of the characters essentially spelling out in words what the film is all about, despite proverbial neon signs pointing it out all along the way. Jarmusch thinks we’re on the road to another catastrophic event for the planet due to our lack of care for the environment in the pursuit of profits, and the people of the world walk around like zombies (the undead call out their preoccupations, muttering. almost incoherently, such things as, “coffee”, “free wifi”, or “Chardonnay”), preoccupied with a host of ceaseless distractions, materialism, and rampant consumerism, that keep us from doing anything about it. And what’s more is that death doesn’t care who you are or your political persuasions; we’re all in the same boat in a global catastrophe and should be working together. Yet, we’re too walled off by our own making to see the common threats and even blame each other for the reason we’re going to die in the end.
As far as the humor goes, much of it plays off of the leisurely, mostly deadpan reactions the goofy, likable characters have to the horror show going on around them, intentionally underplayed to a large extent by the actors to comic effect. On occasion, there will be an offhand reference to George Romero, whose own zombie movies seem to be where Jarmusch started and ended his research into zombie flicks. Somewhat jarring are the occasional metatextual references (Driver’s character is revealed to have a Star Wars-related keychain; the motel owner’s last name is Perkins; the 1968 Pontiac LeMans driven by the hipsters is identical to the one found in Night of the Living Dead) that will get tossed in by the suddenly self-aware characters, who occasionally seem to break character to discuss the movie itself, commenting on the theme song from Sturgill Simpson, or Adam Driver’s pre-knowledge that it will end badly (as the only actor who was given the entire script – by the way, the film actually doesn’t have a satisfactory ending, so he’s right about that after all). When the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA shows up as a delivery driver working for WU-PS, you get the sense that Jarmusch has taken a decidedly kitchen sink approach to his comedy with The Dead Don’t Die.
But that’s not nearly as absurd as the Tilda Swinton character, a Scottish Buddhist mortician named Zelda Winston, who is skilled with a katana. (In a moment of dialogue that gives away Jarmusch’s age, the name “Zelda” is only commented upon as sounding familiar, not due to the rampantly popular video game or an actress in Poltergeist or a character is Stephen King’s “Pet Sematary” (which is actually about the undead), but because it is the name of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife – strangely, the character within The Dead Don’t Die that makes that connection is in her 20’s or 30’s). If at first glance, she seems like she has stepped off of a different movie set and into this one, it only gets more so from there.
Those unfamiliar with Jarmusch as a filmmaker and are just looking for a good zombie flick may come away with some disappointment, as the filmmaker is not concerned with making a riveting horror film, or to ramp up the scares and suspense. He’s mostly interested in his characters and how they continue to interact when the world around them seems to be growing bleaker and more depressing. It’s not an unenjoyable experience, but definitely, a lesser effort in the Jarmusch filmography, partially because this is well-traveled material in its basic plotline, and partially because what’s distinctly Jarmusch also dips into his familiar bag of humor and kooky characters that inhabit his offbeat world. Jarmusch seems to be having fun tinkering with a new genre, but it’s also a kind of narrative there’s been no shortage of explorations into in recent years, leaving The Dead Don’t Die feeling like its lived beyond its need to exist.
Qwipster’s rating: C+
MPAA Rated: R for zombie violence/gore, and for language
Running Time: 104 min.
Cast: Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tom Waits, Tilda Swinton, Chloe Sevigny, Danny Glover, Steve Buscemi, Caleb Landry Jones, Selena Gomez, Larry Fessenden, Rosal Colon, Rosie Perez, RZA, Iggy Pop, Carol Kane
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Screenplay: Jim Jarmusch