The Dead Don't Die

Jim Jarmusch’s visit to the Zombie movie genre is, as is to be expected from Jarmusch, not exactly typical of the genre. It’s a bit of a Jarmusch love-in, in fact, with a bunch of people he’s worked with before (most notably Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton and Steve Buscemi) as various small-town types facing a small-town zombie apocalypse in a reasonably lackadaisical manner. It could reasonably be argued that this is, perhaps, a little too lackadaisical with nobody really all that fussed about the end of existence as they know it, and, indeed, this isn’t particularly committed to any level of reality beyond enjoying itself in a somewhat perverse manner. Swinton probably gets the highlight by getting a character who stockpiles every eccentricity Jarmusch can think of – she’s a Scottish morgue attendant who’s also a dab hand with a katana – while Murray and Driver lightly kvetch as a pair of local police who are, perhaps, a little too aware of the unreality of the film they’re in. There is one decent idea that means that the splatter is kept down to a minimum – Jarmusch’s zombies just emit a bit of dust as their combatants go about the business of decapitating them – and the very idea of casting Iggy Popp as a zombie does seem like enough genius to not matter that not a lot is done with the idea beyond just having it happen.

This is more a gentle goof than something Jarmusch seems particularly invested in making (for something a bit more heartfelt, his previous film “Paterson” is probably more your speed), but it’s harmless doodling.