By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Halloween may be in the mirror, but a bonkers horror comedy has been part of Netflix’s top ten for most of the month of December, and it might just be the strangest success story of the month. The Dead Don’t Die isn’t a straightforward zombie comedy like Shaun of the Dead and manages to go even further than the absurdist zombie film Fido with twists that are impossible to see coming. Granted, they’re impossible because the director, Jim Jarmusch, upends everything that’s expected from a typical zombie film and replaces it with the type of bitter, sardonic black comedy you don’t expect from such a star-studded celebrity cast.
A Small Town Zombie Infestation
Trying to describe the actual plot of The Dead Don’t Die is futile. It starts off normally enough, with two police officers investigating a report of missing animals, and then they start to notice strange things, like how a watch has suddenly stopped working. Background news reports hint at what’s happening before zombies start to rise from the ground and begin feasting on the living residents of Centerville.
From that simple beginning, The Dead Don’t Die quickly spirals wildly out of control, shattering the fourth wall for one brief, well-earned hysterical moment. The two Centerville officers, Cliff and Ronnie, are played, respectively, by Bill Murray and Adam Driver, in a film pairing I never knew I needed to see before this film, but now consider it one of the greatest cross-generation pairings of all time. No matter what’s going on around them, Murray and Driver maintain the same deadpan delivery from start to finish, like how Farmer Miller doesn’t deserve to be warned about the zombies or how Ronnie has an affinity for Mexicans.
Defies Every Zombie Movie Trope
The Dead Don’t Die is well aware of zombie movie tropes, and it expects the viewer to be aware of them, too, which makes the apparent list-checking of every single trope throughout the film and how it’s subverted all the more satisfying. Usually, you’d look for the most famous person in the cast and assume they’ll be perfectly fine, but the cast is stacked from top to bottom; in addition to Murray and Driver, you’ll also recognize Danny Glover, Austin Butler, Selena Gomez, Chloe Sevigny, Tilda Swinton, Steve Buscemi, Rosie Perez, and Carol Kane. For music fans, Iggy Pop, RZA, Sturgill Simpson, and Tom Waits round out the incredible cast.
Netflix’s top ten usually includes the latest original movie that’s getting pushed hard by the algorithm, a major new release or two, and usually a seasonal film. What it typically doesn’t feature, and especially not in the top five for over a week, is a film like The Dead Don’t Die that would be described by your average moviegoer as “weird.” The reason I mention a fourth wall break is because that’s not even the weirdest thing that happens during the film, and after watching it again, I’m even more impressed that it’s enjoying such a surge of popularity since it means that there’s hope that your average Netflix subscriber actually has good taste.
A Rare Original Movie
The Dead Don’t Die is an easy recommendation for anyone who’s seen more than one zombie movie or if you want to watch something that dares to be different, takes chances, and is the exact opposite of the movies seemingly designed by focus groups that have plagued theaters for the past decade. Bill Murray and Adam Driver’s zombie flick won’t make you scream in terror, but it will make you laugh, and a few of the kills might make you cringe, but it will surprise you.
The Dead Don’t Die is currently streaming on Netflix.