Stream now on Netflix, The dead don’t die (2019) is certainly the PRESTIGE zombie film of all time. It was directed by career indie author Jim Jarmusch – he of Ghost dog, Broken flowers, Knocked down by law and, most thematically appropriate in this particular context, the vampire film Only lovers are still alive – assembles a star-studded ensemble of its A-list actors for a riff on Romero that might have been great, but ultimately ends up being less than that. How much less is the question.

The essentials: Centerville, Pennsylvania, America. 738 inhabitants, more or less, it will soon be a lot. It’s the kind of place where a farmer can summon a stolen chicken and two-thirds of the town’s police officers join a prowler to investigate: Police Chief Cliff Robertson (Bill Murray) and Officer Ronnie Peterson (Adam Driver). They question the strange little man named Hermit Bob (Tom Waits) about the chicken, and he fires curse words and, I believe, a paintball at them. He’s not the type to steal chickens, says Cliff, and Cliff would know it. He has been the police chief of this city for decades. Plus, who cares about the chicken, because Farmer Miller (Steve Buscemi) is a racist, gun-hoarding idiot who wears a red hat that says “KEEP AMERICA WHITE AGAIN.”

Really, what else are they going to do in quiet, quiet Centerville? Investigate how polar fracking knocked the planet off its axis, causing all watches and cell phones to stop working and the sun to set much later than it should? That’s above her pay grade. Maybe they can figure out why the cows only have RUNNOFT and the local motel owner (Larry Fessenden) can’t find his cats. Or why Adam Driver keeps breaking the fourth wall. He and Cliff keep hearing a song called “The Dead Don’t Die” on the radio, sung by real-life star Sturgill Simpson. Why do they hear it over and over again? “Well, because it’s the theme song,” says Adam Driver, who also has one star Wars Keychain.

Be that as it may, one of the side effects of the fracking/Axis phenomenon is that government officials lie that it ever happened. Oh, and people emerging from graves and shuffling around with pale skin and slack jaws, eating living people and turning them into dead people and then into undead people who can be decapitated and turned back into dead people. A number of Centerville residents (they are NOT Centerville residents) are caught up in the fracas, including: the local Buddhist Samurai undertaker (Tilda Swinton), the local hardware store operator (Danny Glover), the local “Wu-PS” delivery man Driver (RZA), the local convenience/comic book store owner (Caleb Landry Jones), the local third cop (Chloe Sevigny), and others. Adam Driver doesn’t say he has a bad feeling in those exact words, but he repeats “This isn’t going to end well” like a mantra and says he knows this is all going to end badly because “Jim let him do the whole thing.” Read the script, while Bill Murray was only allowed to read his own scenes.

What films will it remind you of?: When the zombies here roam the streets with smartphones and moan “WI-FI… WI-FI,” you can’t help but remember it Dawn of the Dead Zombies mindlessly consuming things in a mall. So The dead don’t die is like the Romero classic crossed with a Deadpan Bill Murray outing Rushmore or Broken flowers.

Performance worth seeing: Murray delivers groundbreaking statements? Secure. Is he waiting and muttering things to himself? Yes. Buscemi embodies the ideological caricature of modern rednecks? OK. The driver knows he’s totally starring in a movie? I don’t know, maybe. Swinton as a madman again? Yes!

Memorable dialogue: “The only way to kill the dead is to kill the head.” – the comic book/general store nerd guy

Gender and skin: No.

Our opinion: In film-cricket parlance, there is a clear demarcation between flimsy and easy. Those without a clear artistic vision or technique? Weak. The ones that feel like fun and are still pretty amusing? Light. The dead don’t die is light – light like a fox. I translate the film’s blatantly self-referential furbelows as a jab in the ribs, telling us that it probably exists primarily as a hangout session for Jarmusch and his friends, rather than some satirical commentary on the state of the environment (“polar”) fracking “), the oddity of small-town existence, modern political rigamaroles or 21st century consumer technology.

There’s this new kind of thing where a movie was made in pre-COVID times and we watch it in the middle of COVID times and we might see a random analogy about a worldwide disease turning people into monsters. But as far as zombie analogies go, The dead don’t die Definitely has some, and they’re familiar and superficial, and knowing Jarmusch’s ability to delve deeper into thematic ambiguities, you assume he had something else in mind here. And that’s laughing, maybe throwing A-listers against type, writing the scariest dialogue possible, and yeah, wouldn’t it be funny, Iggy Pop as zombie impulses.

The film neither enriched me intellectually nor did I admire it for its groundbreaking aesthetics or narrative. No, it’s more of an exercise in tone, Jarmusch playing with the concept of a way beyond the blasé approach to the apocalypse, rather than the usual hysterical one, as a means of subverting the genre and illuminating its joys and clichés. It’s less of interest to hardcore horror fans and more to those of us feeling a growing zombie ennui following the re-explosion of the subgenre about a decade ago. So take it or leave it.

Our call: STREAM IT. I’ll take it for a viewing. I chuckled, raised an eyebrow, and maintained my deep appreciation for die-hard weirdos like Murray and Waits. As for a second viewing, I’ll probably leave it at that.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more about his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Where to stream The dead don’t die