Zombie movies. Parody horror movies. Bill Murray. Adam Driver. These are all enticing reasons to watch “The Dead Don’t Die,” but this film goes straight to the grave for me — and not in a good way.
“The Dead Don’t Die” had potential for me when I walked into the theater. The atmosphere of the film was very intriguing, yet it quickly became a bore. Zombie movies aren’t always my cup of tea, but the closest film I can compare this to, “Zombieland,” happened to be a film I really enjoyed.
Lindsay Trombly | Argonaut
I remember being on the edge of my seat and enjoying every bit of the film. When I watched “The Dead Don’t Die,” this didn’t happen. My expectations were too high.
As you have seen from previous reviews of mine, I’m a huge horror fanatic and I’ve rarely found any paranormal film to be boring. This one, however, was.
This film is about Centerville, a small town where nothing is as it seems. Animals are acting strange and dangerous, and all of a sudden, the dead aren’t quite dead anymore.
So, is this film another basic zombie apocalypse film? Yes. But it is one unlike any I’ve seen before.
I associate zombie movies with gore so I prepared for some gruesome violence, but was disappointed to see this finally pan out toward the end of the plot. The movie started off slow and had far too much of a set-up. This film needed a faster pace and I wish it would have been more action packed.
Can’t the cops chop of the heads of zombies sooner? Or would that have ruined it?
The pacing was too slow and even the humor was hit or miss. I laughed maybe twice through the entire (almost) two-hour movie. The few times I laughed happened to be when Adam Driver kept saying, “This is going to end badly.”
I didn’t quite get the joke until the ending, when he’s talking to Bill Murray’s character and they discuss the film’s script and how one character knew the ending whereas the other didn’t. It was completely random and yet I found it hilarious just because scriptwriting is a huge part of the film-making process. At the same time though, it spoiled the ending, leaving me feeling like I wasted my time.
There were other elements which were just utterly strange. I attempted to be hopeful as the film went on, but when a UFO appeared completely at random, I was thrown off and not pleased at all.
Every element of the film was pretty strange and unusual, except the movie did make an outstanding connection to real life. The zombies were drawn to objects that we as humans couldn’t live without on a daily basis, such as coffee, Bluetooth and even Wi-Fi. I found this concept interesting to see in a film like this, to show the importance these objects have on our lives and how we could never give them up. Regardless, this idea could have been expanded on a bit more.
The stars in this film put on marvelous performances, making the acting the best part of the film. If you like dry comedy, you’ll laugh every second. The only star I was excited for, Selena Gomez, didn’t play much of a major role — but at least she was in the film.
“The Dead Don’t Die” was created for a smaller audience who have a specific type of movie taste. I, for one, wasn’t very into it. But who knows — you may have had an encounter with the undead or consider zombies real, and will believe this film to be breathtakingly awesome.
Lindsay Trombly can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @lindsay_trombly