The Dead Don’t Die Quick View The Dead Perhaps Dies in the Second Half Grade: C-

Source: IMDB

The Dead Don’t Die takes place in a little town called Centerville. The earth is encountering problems with it’s axis, as it causes the dead to rise up from the grave, and terrorize the small town of Centerville. I’ve been looking forward to this film for quite some time. Even though zombie movies aren’t my thing except a rare few... This film honestly looked funny to me, so why not?! There is some things I did like about this film and some things I did not. Let’s start with the positives. The main leads Adam Driver and Bill Murray were both really good, they were both meant to play these cop roles. They both compliment the films dry humor style, as I found myself laughing quite a bit during their performances in the first half. I also enjoyed a couple supporting performances, done by Chloe Sevingy playing a cop and Tilda Swinton playing a samurai mortician... No I’m not exaggerating, that is her characters description, I truly enjoyed her and this character. I did enjoy the make up and costume design for the zombies, they looked pretty good, very convincing. The Cinematography was good as well, I do enjoy the location this film takes place in, lovely little town. I do like the simple effects, regarding the purple moon and when Selena Gomez’s character thanked the man whom was running the gas station, a small spark of small stars came up... It was neat. I liked the first half of this film, the comedy material was hitting the right notes. Especially towards the one scene, involving a farmer wearing a “Keep America White Again” hat as it follows another hilarious coffee line... It was funny. The way the story sets itself up looked promising, funny yet it looked like it was building up to something great. The compliments end here: I’m actually disappointed by the end result. I didn’t care for the Score, yes The Dead Don’t Die track is cool, but I wasn’t feeling the composed music at all, it actually bored me. The second half of the film is where it loses me, which is a shame because like I said the first half is good. Where the story ends up in the second half becomes under whelming, the first half that was building up to this was extremely weak. The film became less funny, the story didn’t really know where it was going as it became another generic zombie film in which I can’t stand. I felt Zoe (Selena Gomez) and her friends didn’t really serve a purpose in this film, in fact the film later on doesn’t care about them so... Why even bother having them here?! I thought the self awareness scene in the beginning, as Chief Cliff (Bill Murray) noticed the song we heard earlier was replayed again was funny. But here’s the thing: They replay this gag again in the finale as it doesn’t work at all. I mean in this part of the story, is where suspense and tension is suppose to be happening, as we have no idea how these characters are going to get out of this situation. The fact that Jim Jarmusch reuses this gag during this moment... I don’t know what he was thinking here. It wasn’t funny, it was unnecessary because now we know how it ends, so I could’ve just save some time by just shutting off the movie because as you gave away the final conclusion to your story... What the heck was that?! The film had potential to easily be good, unfortunately that second half really killed their momentum. Overall, The Dead Don’t Die was mediocre at best. I feel it’s worth giving a try, like I said some things about it I did enjoy, just wish that last half was on par with the first. -Mitch Smietana