The Dead Don't Die: Neither Funny Nor Scary

Jim Jarmusch's 2019 post-apocalyptic comedy "The Dead Don't Die," starring some big name actors, among them Adam Driver and Bill Murray, feels like it's trying to land somewhere in-between Edgar Wright's hilarious "Shaun of the Dead," George A Romero's mysterious "Night of the Living Dead," and Frank Darabont's deeply character-centric "The Walking Dead." And on paper, a film like this could work anywhere from reasonably well to very effectively. The problem is that it doesn't. At all. I said that this movie was a post-apocalyptic comedy, so it doesn't help that "The Dead Don't Die" couldn't scare a six-year-old girl with overly sensitive hearing or generate a laugh to save it's life. It's a horror movie that doesn't land the horror, a comedy that can't make a joke, and a buddy cop drama where you're never given a reason to care about either of the buddy cops. I'm not sure what this movie's makers was thinking when they made it, and I'm not entirely sure they were either.

"The Dead Don't Die" is a 2019 spoof film parodying classic zombie films, most notably "Night of the Living Dead," and it is directed by a very capable Jim Jarmusch, so I was surprised when the movie turned out to be kind of awful. It very quickly became apparent to me as to why this was the case: despite having a relatively straight-forward and hard-to-mess-up story (that ends in a, uh, creatively unique manner), this film failed on the fundamental levels of the genres it's story was built on, so from the start, it was doomed. For starters, this movie is not funny. And it's kind of disappointing that this is the case, because it's obvious that the movie is trying so hard to be. I mean, zombie Iggy Pop walking around looking for human guts with some coffee on the side (yes, you read that right) sounds like a good comedy idea on paper, but the execution was iffy, and zombies walking around moaning for "coooooffeeeeeee" was one of the only OK jokes in the film. A lot of the humor in this movie is one-dimensional, relying on quippy, well-intentioned, and poorly-written one-liners delivered by good actors who still don't quite hit the mark. From the very first scene of the film, where Cliff and Ronnie, our two buddy cops, face off with Hermit Bob, a bearded and eccentric guy living alone in the forest, it is made obvious that the movie is trying it's very best to be funny. However, this first dead-pan and off-the-mark interaction fell flat on every level, and only set the tone for the rest of the movie, which is obviously trying to get some laughs without ever quite knowing how to. I'm no comedian, but I know when something's funny, and this wasn't. And as we know, an unfunny comedy is a cardinal sin.

On to cardinal sin #2. "The Dead Don't Die" is a horror movie that isn't scary. In a weird and twisted way, this film is pretty light-hearted for a zombie drama, and this feels like an intentional decision to try and avoid disrupting the intended comedic tone of the film, which we already established failed as well. However, this light-heartedness prevents the film from ever feeling truly frightening, despite some occasional gruesome imagery. Now, I know that it's possible to balance two polar opposite emotions in one film. Go watch Taika Waititi's fantastic "Jojo Rabbit" for a prime example of how to do this. But this film just isn't scary. I don't know if it's really trying to be, but if it's not funny, it should at least have tried to be scary. After all, it's a movie about zombies. And to be entirely fair to the film, this is me simply critiquing a secondary motive of the filmmakers, but my point still stands. In essence, this movie is trying to balance two conflicting feelings by leaning them on each other, but it doesn't know how, and so both end up crashing to the ground, leaving us with a half-hearted and underdone film with nothing to hold it up as a result.

As I watched the film, I couldn't help but feel that this movie would have worked a lot better if it had gone for a serious tone. I get that serious zombie films have been done to death (see what I did there?), but serious storytelling conventions would have fixed the issue of this film's flat and unappealing comedy delivered by flat and unappealing characters. Star power isn't enough to fix a movie, even if your star power consists of Bill Murray and Adam Driver wielding shotguns and machetes. I was never once given a reason to care about the characters, because they all existed to try and fail to do one thing: make me laugh. Maybe if the movie had let me know a little more about these characters, I would have been more inclined to laugh at their jokes, if only as someone trying to support a friend who's jokes are falling a little flat. However, despite lacking scares, laughs, and reasons to love the characters, I can't help but feel that "The Dead Don't Die" is bound to become a cult classic. I'm sure that, as time goes on, people will make up all sorts of inside jokes about this film, and eventually, we'll be getting video essays about this film's "hidden genius" or about how we all "missed the point." Looking through Google reviews, I can already see some of this sentiment rising to the surface, and you know what? I'm glad that some people enjoyed this film. However, I have to give my honest opinion on "The Dead Don't Die," and in summary, this film is an unfunny, not-scary, poorly-made, aimless, cliche-ridden, and soulless if well-intentioned film that I will not be rushing to rewatch any time soon.

The Dead Don't Die - 4/10

Proverbs 15:13