The Dead Don't Die (2019)
The Road To Survival Could Be A Dead End
What’s October without zombies? Some would argue better off, but I’m fine with it. This is one of those trailers that popped up in the theaters and I went “this looks like something that has the potential to be enjoyably dumb or perhaps just dumb.” Yep, that’s all it takes sometimes. Opening credits tells me there’s more names in it than I thought I’d recognize too - wonder if the collection of older actors will be livened up by their roles or if the zombies will take home the gold. Honestly, it’s always amazing to me to see some of these people pop in movies - yeah, my grasp of time is about as bad as my memory, so they never really seem like they are that old to me until I see them and realize they were in movies when I was still young. Guess the title doesn’t lie after all, sometimes The Dead Don’t Die.
So the trailer did both a good job and a bad job selling this movie to me. It’s not wrong about the level of camp on display - that much is totally there. What isn’t quite as present in the trailer is the level of laid back tongue-in-cheek and fourth wall breaking. It makes for some interesting things to be on display, although this is both good and bad that I’ll get into as they come up in the different topics. For the most part, the plot isn’t anything mind blowing when it comes to zombie flicks. It sticks with some pretty classic cliches - such as the old kill the dead, kill the head and slow shambling cannibals. It plays it out very “human made eco-disaster” as the cause, but by the end it will literally spell it out with verbal words how it’s making plenty of commentary on all manner of things, like consumerism and the likes. Yeah, commentary on society has always been a bit of thing in most of the more widely accepted (or more liked) zombie movies tracing back to the original Romero flicks (which really feels about where the modern zombie sprung from), but plenty of times it lets those meanings be picked out by the viewer as opposed to flat out spilling out in audio. Hit or miss on that, given it might feel a bit preachy, but it’s not really too big of a negative impact honestly.
The actors are pretty varied here in their performances, but for the majority of it I have to admit that it almost seems like everyone is doing a modern Bill Murray impression - everyone seems relatively nonplussed about everything. It’s all very low energy with most of the main cast, which works for a few reasons but doesn’t work so much for keeping the audience energy levels high. This isn’t to say that there isn’t a few characters who do feel like they have some power factory trying to supply their performance, nor is it to say that all the performances are half-attempted and lazy - it’s more a simple statement of what’s on display. In all honestly, think of a “small quiet country town” and apply that mental image to an actual person, and that’s sort of what it feels like. It’s honestly one of the more bizarre movies I’ve watched lately when it comes to performances - it doesn’t feel bad or wrong, it just all feels so mellow and matter of fact “meh.”
The characters, as indubitably intended, all play out pretty straightforward. There isn’t any complex arcs here, or fathomless depth to characters. The closest to that is a sole character who seems foreign, but the best character description is “Scottish” that never quite feels right and gets elaborated on kind of by the end. Most characters that you think it might at some point elaborate on, the movie usually just brushes it off with an offhand comment and keeps going. It’s not like there isn’t a small cast here - every time you think you’ve gotten all the characters, it likes to add a few more in. Long term, none of this matters, as the ones you start with are pretty much the ones the main story tags along with most the time, despite hopping to show some other characters here and there. Heck, one batch of characters kind of just get left in the wind unless it has some after-credits footage that honestly I wasn’t going to sit around for (I watched opening credits, I’m not watching credits twice movies!) Of course, some of the characters even break character (maybe?) by acknowledging things like reading the script.
About half the names I recognize in the credits.
I don’t know if breaking the fourth wall really fits under characters or not, but it is there. I mean, beyond the characters having a conversation about reading the script at one point, there are an absolute plethora of spikes about the theme song and it’s constantly getting used. It somewhat ties in to the comedy shtick of the movie, as particularly the song part gets played up where it’s chuckle worthy at first, annoying next, and then relieving when someone finally has a reaction you’d like after the third or forth time of hearing it. Some of the other humor plays off of zombies being drawn to the things they used to know when not dead, which has them shambling around a bit like Pokemon repeating a single word of things they liked like “coffee” or “tools” or “wi-fi” - things that can obviously be tied to the commentary the movie so blatantly points out by the end. Of course, you also get humor from interactions between characters, whether awkward, crude, or otherwise silly. There’s some slight genre in-jokes in there as well, such as that catchy slogan of “to kill the dead, kill the head” but as always comedy is subjective - I chuckled a few times, but the movie wasn’t largely making me laugh like some kind of straight comedy movie - more the occasional chuckle like something like an episode of Archer.
Effects department is decently on point here. Although the actual violence is surprisingly tame for most of the movie, there are a few zombie-eat scenes in here that are (at least by zombie movies) incredibly tame. Most of the on-zombie violence even has blood replaced with a dusty sand effect (perhaps to reflect the fact that zombies buried for a while would be all dried up?) instead of some Tarantino style jet-powered blood sprays. The zombie prosthetics all look pretty good though, giving them a suitably ghoulish design without being too overbearing and overly elaborate. They get a bit of that stiff jittering step to them as well, with a nice level of dirt for the buried ones and the occasional bite or damage for others. There’s plenty of digital stuff on displayed here I’m sure, but it’s done fine with only one effect ever really standing out as theoretically off - but we can’t really talk about that one so you’ll know it when you see it. Other characters all have relatively normal outfits that look like they are appropriate, and most say something about the character to some extent.
Audio department is well balanced. The background music is pretty nice and full of synths, never really too overbearing. The theme song comes up so often it’s an actual joke in the movie. It’s honestly catchy in that country style mellow groove, but after the second time I was hoping it was gone, only to be disappointed when it came up again. Foley comes off sounding good and fine, and it’s a pretty solid audio package all the way around. As mentioned before, some of the actor deliveries can be a bit mellow - slightly emotionless at times - but it feels like it’s all purposeful. I’m sure it’s all tied into that pointed out commentary they had, but it’s going to be a mixed bag or reception I think. It’s not bad, but it doesn’t feel like it’s good acting regardless, and it comes through in the audio as well. Still, it’s at least all totally understandable.
Insert theme song replay number 7.
Mileage on this one will vary. It feels quite mellow, but it’s not a bad movie. Slow start up can lead to some less focused people wandering off I’m sure. For zombie fans, they won’t find a whole lot new, but can probably still appreciate what it has even if it doesn’t impress them. Some of the comedy can cause chuckles, and most the zombie violence is pretty well toned down, It’s an odd mix of things that creates an odd product that’s not really bad, perhaps not specifically great, but also somewhat odd.