The Dead Dont Die ( movie review)
By Winterishere
@thedevilinme (5216)
Northampton, England
December 28, 2020 2:18pm CST
Star – Bill Murray
My Rating ***
Genre –Horror/Comedy
Run Time – Minutes.
Certificate – 18
Country – U.S.A
Awards – 7 Wins & 7 Nominations
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You can’t really go wrong with zombie movies. Even if they are rubbish they kind of work in a silly way and so just let it happen. You have lots to chose from. The classic George A Romero era, the B-Movie schlock gore tongue-in-cheek stuff, the more edgy ‘28 Days Later’ style or the cleverly funny and more original stuff like Zombieland. The zombies, of course, vary too, the fast demented ones, the clever ones that are learning or the slow and hopeless ones, the later usually the stock of the comic zombie film. The Dead Don’t Die (2019) is very much in the slow, hands out, bump into each other genre giving you, of course, more options for the humans to comically obliterate them. With the eccentric and multi talented Jim Jarmusch (Ghost Dog: The Way of The Samurai) directing here you get an extra surreal twist on top of the cake.
===Cast===
• Bill Murray as Chief Cliff Robertson
• Adam Driver as Officer Ronnie Peterson
• Tilda Swinton as Zelda Winston
• Chloë Sevigny as Officer Mindy Morrison
• Steve Buscemi as Farmer Frank Miller
• Danny Glover as Hank Thompson
• Caleb Landry Jones as Bobby Wiggins
• Selena Gomez as Zoe
• Austin Butler as Jack
• Luka Sabbat as Zach
• Rosie Perez as Posie Juarez
• Eszter Balint as Fern
• Iggy Pop as Male Coffee Zombie
===Plot====
Sherriff Cliff Robertson (Bill Murray) and Officer Ronnie Peterson (Adam Driver) patrol rural Centerville County in their own phlegmatic way. Today they are responding to a report from farmer Frank Miller (Steve Buscemi) regarding a missing chicken and trying to clam Hermit Bob (Tom Waits), unsettled by recent strange goings in the woods.
As the day ends Cliff notices there is still daylight after 8 pm, very strange. Ronnie's watch and cell phone have also stopped working. Hardware store owner Hank Thompson (Danny Glover) is also troubled by the late night, "The Dead Don't Die" playing on the police radio a clue of things to come. With animals missing and others behaving weird it will soon be show time.
The first two zombies appear when night falls at the local diner, not pretty. Next morning Ronnie believes zombies killed the employees.
Young kids Zoe (Selena Gomez), Jack, and Zach stop for gas and feel the need to buy Sturgill Simpson's "The Dead Don't Die" CD from the geeky gas station attendant Bobby (Caleb Landry Jones).The young travelers then check into the Moonlight Motel.
At the Centerville Juvenile Detention Center, Geronimo (Jahi Winston) tells fellow inmates Olivia (Taliya Whitaker) and Stella (Vaya DelMont) that recent polar fracking may alter the Earth's rotation and bad things are coming. She was right as zombies storm the facility.
The zombie invasion is confirmed to most when Cliff and Ronnie find open graves at the cemetery. Cliff emphatically rejects that zombies are on the loose. But Ronnie feels the need to teach Cliff how to kill zombies, and Bobby and Hank prepare weapons.
===Results===
The film got some surprisingly average reviews and did just $15 million at the box office, two things that generally put people off from watching moves in the horror genre. But with Bill – as dry as the Gobi Desert – Murray cast in the lead, that casting seemed ideal in a zombie comedy, perhaps his employment by JJ bought about by his turn in Zombieland, a film I absolutely loved.
Its slow and gormless zombies here although we don’t know why they came about (like the Coronavirus) and so we are not too concerned how to get rid of them in the film. Its chop the head off to kill them stuff but very much the emphasis on dry quirky comedy over gruesome ways to kill the sitting ducks.
The comedy on offer is an acquired taste and occasionally surreal and that’s what makes this worth the watch as it’s an original film in a rather cheesy Hollywood horror genre these days. Its ensemble cast is pretty impressive, and unexpected, the androgynous Tilda Swinton as a Scottish Samurai Sword swinging mortician truly odd.
This is Murray’s fourth film with Jarmusch so they got what the director wanted from him. Adam Driver, of course, is in everything these days. The cast gives it another dimension and a film for horror fans who like things a little quirky and one not to miss.
===RATINGS===
Imdb.com 5.5/10.0 (votes)
Rottentomatos.com –54% critic’s approval
Metacritic.com – critic’s approval
===Trailer===
https://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi870563097?playlistId=tt8695030&ref_=tt_ov_vi
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