Darkly Dreaming Demographic.

I’m really biased because I love all Jim Jarmusch movies he sits in this perfect spot between David Lynch absurdity and almost gritty boring realism of I don’t wanna say Tarantino because I already said this about S. Craig Zahler. But I don’t know how to describe his movies, they’re weird but never so weird that they’re unbelievable or downright farcical… until now haha.

He sort of makes weird semi-pretentious movies about nothing but they’re all really watchable and have great dialogue that just keeps you hooked even when nothings happening. Like watch a movie like Down By Law and tell me Jim Jarmusch is a wizard or something, it’s literally just a movie about three people talking in three different sets, that’s it but it’s so watchable and good and I can’t even tell you why. I’m sure if I went back to my film studies class I could tell you why haha.

His movies always really stand out and he doesn’t really have one genre he basically does them all and none at the same time. I mean what would you call Ghost Dog? Is it a samurai movie? A gangster movie? An action movie? It’s all these things and none of them.

I liked the Dead don’t die for a lot of reasons, mainly because it felt like a classic zombie movie or a fifties b-movie. The town that it was shot in was sort of the star of the show for me really, it’s just a really picturesque slice of middle america you only really see in old movies.

The movie feels really real in it’s setting which plays off how ridiculous the movie is and how dead pan the jokes are delivered. Because there are a few jokes but none are really played for laughs, there’s a lot of fourth wall breaking and poking fun at other movies. Like it has this really on the nose political environmental message intended to make fun of how unsubtle the messages are in Romero movies. Basically I guess fracking causes zombies, it’s never delivered seriously, it’s just a gag and for a minute I thought there was a joke about Trump supporters but there’s never any teeth to it where you feel like it’s barbed. It just feels like a prodding, its funny and light and the Trump supporter is played by Steve Buscemi.

So there’s pretty much no other director on earth that could assemble a cast more eclectic and fantastic as this. Tilda Swinton plays basically a parody cross between the bride from Kill bill to an elf from lord of the rings. She’s a scottish samurai mortician, I mean I’m just imagining her getting the script and just saying ‘Yes’ instantly.

Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Selena Gomez of all people, Danny Glover, Tom Waits, Iggy Pop, RZA.

It’s just a great cast for a movie that was really good, like there’s a lot of effort that goes into this movie, it starts off like an old good zombie movie with a long build up of all these different groups of people as the zombies start to roam. It does a really good job of setting up the town it just sort of falters at the end in my opinion, it’s already like an hour forty which is a good length but I think it could’ve done with being the full two hours.

Some of the subplots didn’t really end in a satisfying way and I think a little more time would have fleshed out the ending a little more. I just think the ending came too soon because I was really enjoying the world it’s created and I could’ve stayed in it a little longer. It kinda makes me wish Jim Jarmusch would make his own Twin Peaks and just create this world we could get lost in.

Just checking rotten tomatoes and yes everyone hates it but I liked it and I get that Jim Jarmusch doesn’t really make movies to be good, he just makes movies period. He must’ve just been driving through this town once and liked how it looked and wanted to film a movie there and was just like “What kind of movie haven’t I done?”

I dunno how to feel about it honestly because it’s probably the only thing close to a good zombie movie we’ll ever get and he wasn’t even taking it seriously. He made it just to take the piss out of it as a concept and I love it because it’s literally the type of thing I would do and have done haha.

But it’s just such a well executed movie by incredibly talented people it’s almost sad that it feels wasted but I also think that’s kind of the point. He wanted to get these amazingly talented people together just to make some silly fun schlock and it’s great.

Even if you’re not a fan of Jim Jarmusch, you’ve never seen one of his movies before just watch this, you’ll have some fun at least watching Tilda Swinton decapitating the living dead in a little smart car before she goes back to her home planet, *spoilers* as if it matters haha. The movie has no story but it doesn’t really need one the characters and the town are just so likeable you just want to get lost in them. Well I did haha. I said I was biased, I love Jim Jarmusch movies and shitty zombie movies and this is both.

This review kinda sucks, can’t really get to the core of the issue. I just like this movie and I think it’s necessary, it like sits in this nice little gap between Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead and old school zombie movies like Zombi and Night of the living dead and totally sort of wrecks Planet Terror or grindhouse or whatever that crap was called.

I dunno, I get why people would hate it but just go see it for yourself, there’s nothing quite like it.  Say what you want about Jim Jarmusch movies, you will be entertained whether you like it or not.