So, you’ve come back for more…..congratulations! You’ve won nothing but my undying respect!

As I mentioned in my #1 post, I am making a list of some favorite “spooky, scary or just plain weird” movies just in time for Halloween. By the way, the numbering sequence has nothing to do with it’s level of ‘favoritism’. I am listing them totally at random… because why not?

As you may have noticed already, the movie art in the top image gives away the next movie on my list.

The Dead Don’t Die: ( 2019): Written and Directed by Jim Jarmusch

            In the premise of this movie, which starts out with a very familiar and typical zombie-horror-movie feel, but soon veers off onto it’s own little odd track, thankfully, we see the peaceful small town of Centerville battling a zombie horde as the dead start to rise from their graves.

            With a powerhouse cast that includes Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, Rosie Perez, Chloe Sevigny and Tilda Swinton, even one who has long been bored by zombie movies and TV shows and their sameness (in this case, I am referring to myself), will find their interest piqued when reading the list of talented actors in this film, which was written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, who also has some acting credits to his name.

Like M. Night Shyamalan, as I previously mentioned, and Wes Anderson, another director I admire very much, Jarmusch seems to have certain actors that he likes to work with on consecutive projects and whom, presumably, like to work with him.  Murray has worked with Jarmusch on several films, so has Driver, who was the lead in Paterson, Jarmusch’s 2016 film about a bus driver named Paterson, who lives in Paterson, NJ and writes poetry. The iconoclastic Tilda Swinton, who plays a rather bizarre, katana-wielding mortician in The Dead Don’t Die , starred alongside Tom Hiddleston in Jarmusch’s 2013 film, Only Lovers Left Alive, which featured vampires, though it’s not really your typical vampire flick, much like The Dead Don’t Die isn’t exactly your typical zombie movie.

Is it perhaps then a ‘signature’ of Jarmusch to take something familiar, something ordinary, and find a new way to spin a story in a more offbeat way? Or was he merely making this film to amuse himself, a satirical look at archetypical zombie movies with a metaphorical commentary on modern society thrown in for good measure?  The characters are definitely offbeat—even quirky or downright weird (Tilda Swinton’s character, Zelda, comes to mind) and the plot lines and arcs don’t go where you thought they were going. Though I don’t want to give away too much on spoilers, in the scene in the cemetery where Zelda Winston (Swinton) arrives as the town is about to be completely decimated by the zombies, all signs point to her arrival being some kind of saving grace for the town. It is not. I was left open-mouthed and then amused ( privately asking ‘WTF?’)  by what actually happened, and I had to chuckle at myself for being tricked into thinking something else. I still think of that scene and have a bemused laugh about it. I believe the people of Centerville had very much the same reaction as I did.

Another thing that set the plot of the story on an unforeseen path was the introduction of characters that appeared to signify they would play a larger role in the movie, that they would be part of the “main” character group, and as I watched, expected to see where they fit into the story, what place they would occupy in the zombie battle, only to see them unexpectedly killed a scene or two later, their part of the story at an end before it hardly began. It was quite surprising and unconventional, but then, much about this movie was exactly that.

I think in general this movie would be another one that either you understood it for what it was meant to be, and loved it, or thought it was going to be something else entirely and felt cheated somehow and hated it. I personally got a kick out of it and loved it. If you have ever watched any of Jim Jarmusch’s other films, this one, in all other respects, is not much different—whimsical, ironic, dialogue-heavy, slow paced, strange, absurd and funny all at once. Fans of the dark comedy/horror genre will find it to their taste, and it has just enough zombie-killing-beheading and gore that I feel it warrants a place on my Spooky October Movie List.

As for how the film ends ( spoiler alert!), well, the title, The Dead Don’t Die, practically gives it away.