{"id":18464,"date":"2019-06-13T13:20:09","date_gmt":"2019-06-13T20:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=18464"},"modified":"2019-06-13T13:20:09","modified_gmt":"2019-06-13T20:20:09","slug":"the-dead-dont-die-has-a-few-laughs-but-is-a-bit-musty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=18464","title":{"rendered":"‘T DIE Has a Few Laughs, But is a Bit Musty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Independent cinema icon Jim Jarmusch has provided viewers with\nplenty of stellar features over the years, including Down by Law<\/em>, Mystery\nTrain<\/em>, Dead Man<\/em> and Paterson<\/em> (among many others). The Dead\nDon’t Die<\/em> is the latest effort from the filmmaker, a comedy\/horror picture that\npits small-town residents against and outbreak of the undead. It does offer\nsome amusingly deadpan moments and observations and will provide the occasional\ndelight to fans of the filmmaker and the genre, although it hardly qualifies as\none of the best offerings you’ll see from either Jarmusch or the zombie genre. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The film introduces viewers to the city of Centerville\nand police officers Cliff Robertson (Bill Murray), Ronnie Peterson (Adam Driver)\nand Mindy Morrison (Chloe Sevigny). We travel with them as they deal with\nvarious local affairs, including complaints about Hermit Bob (Tom Waits).\nHowever, events take a much darker turn when the dead begin to return to life.\nAs zombies begins to take over the community, the characters are faced with\nsurviving the onslaught and dealing with the metaphorical implications of the\noutbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The good news is that the cast members are quite funny in\nturns and there are some hilarious deadpan moments. At various points,\ncharacters break the fourth wall and talk about the movie itself, sometimes\nreferring to clich\u00e9s on display in the film. The banter between Cliff, Ronnie\nand Mindy is often amusing, and a motel owner named Danny (Larry Fessenden)\nalso makes an impression. Additionally, the very odd, blade-wielding Scottish\ncoroner Zelda (Tilda Swinton) earns some chuckles from her eccentric behavior.\nThere are plenty of amusing cameos with lots of familiar faces that are also\nfun to see. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yet, much of the movie seems a bit too lackadaisical. The deadpan conversations work, but when the story ekes forward and there are so many bit parts and supporting characters, it’s hard to build much momentum and establish significant drama. The full zombie onslaught doesn’t even come to fruition until late in the movie and the pacing seems a bit off. At least the title manages to introduce a couple of interesting new elements to the undead genre. One of the more creative features about these particular zombies is the process by which they are dispatched. Since many of the corpses crawling from the grave have previously been embalmed, when chopped up or shot, they shoot out dust from their wounds. It’s a nifty and original little visual that hasn’t been seen before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The other enjoyable plus is the habit of the various zombies of murmuring something specific that they loved in life. Such spoken vices include, “Coffee,” as well as, “Candy,” not to mention, “Wifi,” and even, “Siri”. In fact, the monsters sometimes even read sales pitches right off of signs; the response of motel proprietor Danny to an undead utterance of “Free Cable” is hilarious. Clearly, it’s this zombie flick’s attempt to riff on materialism in the modern world. While amusing, the resolution and final speech on the matter is clunky and far from earth-shattering, given that these issues comprised most of what George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead<\/em>, Dawn of the Dead<\/em>, Day of the Dead<\/em> and other zombie movies are about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It’s not bad, but this reviewer would have expected the movie to try to push things in a new direction. Besides the dead being dusty and speaking more frequently, the film doesn’t seem like more than an improvised goof on the genre with a few fun references to older zombie flicks. Some of the character arcs don’t really go anywhere either, with a few offering a simple gag and then being dispatched, or even completely disappearing from the story (a couple of groups of youngsters completely vanish from the spotlight).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This critic did get a laugh or two out of the proceedings\nand was amused to some degree by the specific and peculiar humor on display.\nHowever, given the potential and talent involved, one expects a bit more. The\nDead Don’t Die<\/em> occasionally comes to life, but can’t overcome a certain\nmusty quality and isn’t ever as tense or biting as it should be. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Independent cinema icon Jim Jarmusch has provided viewers with plenty of stellar features over the years, including Down by Law, Mystery Train, Dead Man and Paterson (among many others). The Dead Don’t Die is the latest effort from the filmmaker, a comedy\/horror picture that pits small-town residents against and outbreak of the undead. It does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[197,724,2741,4280,4660,9319,10695,12085,17693,20432,20433,20434,20435,22881,23043,23504,24791,24803],"class_list":["post-18464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-197","tag-adam-driver","tag-bill-murray","tag-chloe-sevigny","tag-comedy","tag-horror","tag-jim-jarmusch","tag-larry-fessenden","tag-satire","tag-the-dead-dont-die","tag-the-dead-dont-die-film-review","tag-the-dead-dont-die-movie-review","tag-the-dead-dont-die-review","tag-tilda-swinton","tag-tom-waits","tag-undead","tag-zombie","tag-zombies"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}