I knew nothing about The Dead Don't Die going into it. Well, I mean, zombies, but other than that. And then, as the titular theme song (good song) rolled over the opening credits, my jaw dropped at the cast. Huge cast, so many names! And then the director: Jim Jarmusch. And then I understood the huge cast. I've never actually seen a Jim Jarmusch movie (until now) and so I don't know if TDDD is exemplary of his style. But I'm guessing it is, with the deadpan absurdity, the repetition, the fourth wall breaks. Afterwards, I think that I had read something online about Jarmusch doing a zombie movie but I certainly hadn't made the connection.
Here's the cast: Bill Murray (small town chief of police), Adam Driver (cop), Chloe Sevigny (cop), Tilda Swinton (Scottish undertaker/ninja/SPOILER); Steve Buscemi (racist farmer); Danny Glover (hardware store owner); Tom Waits (hobo/narrator); Selena Gomez (Cleveland* hipster); Austin Butler (Cleveland hipster*); Iggy Pop (zombie); Carol Kane (zombie); Rosie Perez (news anchor); RZA (delivery driver).
Here's the plot: due to fracking at both poles (the U.S. Dept. of Energy says it's TOTALLY FINE), the earth has shifted off its axis, fucking everything up and causing zombies to rise up and wreck havor. On the plus side, they're the slow-moving types, easy to kill but overwhelming in numbers. On the negative side, ZOMBIES.
Is it a good zombie movie**? It's okay, a little slow but with decent zombie makeup, nice humor sprinkled with legitimate gore. Is is a good Jim Jarmusch movie? You tell me.
* No disrespect intended, as I was born in Cleveland but left shortly thereafter and never went back, but does Cleveland even have hipsters?
** Apparently a LOT of zombie movie fans hated this movie, but I do think JJ was attempting some sort of satire, which, as the OG George Romero would tell you, is always a good thing for zombie movies.
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