At this point, we've had every kind of zombie movie imaginable: slow zombies, fast zombies, zombies that are truly dead, zombies that are actually living, zombie romance, sympathetic zombies, and definitely plenty of zombie comedies. I'm not sure we needed another zombie movie, let alone a comedy, but we got one, courtesy of writer/director Jim Jarmusch ("Down By Law").
The film follows a couple of small-town cops (Bill Murray and Adam Driver) on the day of a zombie apocalypse. Is it good? I'm reminded of a Beavis and Butthead scene where Beavis turns to Butthead during a music video and asks, “Is this good?” Butthead thinks for a second and replies, “Well, it's loud.” With “The Dead Don't Die,” Jarmusch assembles an amazing A-list cast that, in addition to Murray and Driver, includes Chloe Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Tilda Swinton, Tom Waits, Danny Glover, Iggy Pop, and more recognizable names than I care to list. So much talent, in service of such an inconsequential film. This is the second zombie comedy I am aware of Bill Murray being in, and this one is not nearly as entertaining as "Zombieland." The film has funny moments, but quite often what we get is cleverness masquerading as humor. Still, it's good the movie is at least somewhat funny, as the nihilistic plot fails to make us care about any of the characters or their fates.
I'm not even sure why Jim Jarmusch made the film. He admits in an interview that he doesn't like zombie movies. Maybe zombies are simply so popular that he felt compelled to make his contribution to a genre that just keeps coming back around. One thing we have learned from zombie stories is that you have to kill the head. If you kill the head, you kill the zombie. What Jim Jarmusch teaches us here is that, when it comes to the zombie genre itself, even if you remove the brains and the heart, it refuses to die.
2 stars out of 5
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