The Living Dead Don't Die

Who knew?  Indie genre auteur Jim Jarmusch’s eagerly awaited 10th film is a quirky zom-com and homage to George A. Romero’s ‘Night of the Living Dead.’ If you’ve seen any of Jarmusch’s previous movies, you are no doubt familiar with his unique and eccentric style of storytelling and vision.  For the uninitiated, I would suggest ‘Dead Man’ starring Johnny Depp or ‘Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai’ starring Forrest Whitaker as a point of entry to his body of work, but now that I think of it his latest feature ‘The Dead Don’t Die’ would serve equally well in that regard.

 

'The Dead Don't Die' is yet another movie on the well-tread “zombie apocalypse’ we’ve all been preparing for, but seen through the eyes and experiences of a handful of denizens in a charming and sleepy little town called Centerville.  This cast of interesting characters includes the town sheriff (‘Zombieland’ vet Bill Murray), his two deputies (Adam Driver and Chloë Sevigny), a hermit named Bob (singer Tom Waits), a crusty old farmer (Steve Buscemi) and a weird zen master/undertaker (Tilda Swinton) among others, whether they’re local yokels like Danny Glover or city slickers passing through like Selena Gomez who (warning, spoiler a-head!) sadly gets her cute little head chopped off in this movie, albeit post-mortem.

 

TDDD is vintage Jim Jarmusch through and through, filled with a cast of colorful characters, deadpan humor and sardonic wit.  While the pacing may be as somnolent as Romero’s classic shambling zombies (runners are for pussies), the movie manages to hold our attention largely thanks to the characters, their seemingly unintentional funny interactions and even unexpected WTF???!!! moments such as the twist involving Swinton’s undertaker (no spoiler here, so go see it already) near the end of the movie.  And honestly I have never seen anyone in a zombie flick handle his hopeless predicament with such equanimity and resignation as "Kill the Head" Adam Driver’s even-keeled sheriff''s deputy who, in a wink-wink fourth-wall breaking moment, divulged to his boss (Murray, that is) how he knew all along “it would end badly” for them all.

Grade: A