Get ready to jump on the Adam Driver stan-wagon
YES
Release date: June 14, 2019
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Language: English
Who should watch this movie: Screenwriters. Pessimists.
When should you watch this movie: Halloween. When you’re overcome with a sense of impending doom.
The sell: At this stage, it’s hard to make an original zombie movie. It’s been done so many times, in so many ways, spanning several decades and myriad genres. Enter Jim Jarmusch. The Dead Don’t Die takes an entirely new look at the aged theme, simultaneously more ridiculous and more realistic than any to come before. Taking place over the span of a couple days, this film throws a motley crew of characters into a horrifying situation, and simply allows events to play out before an unflinching camera. What ought to be a sombre if not terrifying decent into despair, is transformed into a hysterical romp by bizarre people and deadpan dialogue. Everything and nothing makes sense. The meta-humor is charming, and unpretentious such that every scene is deeply satisfying and very very funny. While Bill Murray and Adam Driver anchor the narrative with anachronistic calm, the peripheral characters are individually fascinating and are key to the film’s essential chemistry. The cast is STACKED (including but not limited to Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, Selena Gomez, and Chloë Sevigny), but manages not to be distracting. The gore is, well, gorey. But it is balanced in such a way that even the most horror averse (like yours truly) can find it entertaining. This is a small movie that warrants far more attention than it has currently garnered (like seriously I think Jim has a marketing problem), so if you haven’t seen it yet, run, don’t walk.
Should You Watch This Movie? 