A proper mix of comedy and horror, the 72nd Cannes Film Festival opener The Dead Don’t Die is a farce about our life, as much as it is about zombies and cinema.
Something is wrong about Centerville. Peeved pets have run into the forest, evenings are as bright as days, while at night the moon shines with eerie purple light. Scientists are confused, TV lies, as usually, and the same song—the country ballad «The Dead Don’t Die”—is on a loop on the radio: a natural zombie apocalypse is bearing down on a small American town. However, its citizens even seem to be happy about it, starting a real struggle to save their flesh, desperately and cruelly fighting against those who had just recently been their good neighbors, and sharing with each other life hacks on the effective destruction of the rising dead in the process. Winner of several Palme d’Or Awards at the Cannes Festival, Jim Jarmush brings together an A-list cast in the new picture, with his favorite actors—Bill Murray (a bored sheriff), Tilda Swinton (owner of the local funeral home and a catana fetishist), Steve Buscemi (a chauvinist farmer), and Iggy Pop (a half-decomposed zombie)—all feature in The Dead Don’t Die. Also starring in this extravaganza are Adam Driver, Chloë Sevigny, Danny Glover, and Caleb Landry Jones.
The Dead Don’t Die
Director Jim Jarmush
USA, Sweden, 2019. 103 min. 18+
