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[tab title="Movie Review"]

The Dead Don't Die

Kill the head!  Kill the head!

Jim Jarmusch, the writer/director of Night on Earth, Dead Man, Ghost Dog, Broken Flowers, Only Lovers Left Alive, and Coffee and Cigarettes, has made a zombie movie.  That sentence alone, if you are a fan of independent films just this side of quirk, should get your heart racing.  No? 

Well, how about this: Jim Jarmusch, the writer/director of Night on Earth, Dead Man, Ghost Dog, Broken Flowers, Only Lovers Left Alive, and Coffee and Cigarettes, has made a zombie movie and Sturgill Simpson, country music extraordinaire, sings the theme song.  Still no?  Well, shit. 

"The Dead Don’t Die is howlingly funny as it approaches the whole zombie apocalypse with a dry wit and a wink in its eye"


Let’s try this one last time: Jim Jarmusch, the writer/director of Night on Earth, Dead Man, Ghost Dog, Broken Flowers, Only Lovers Left Alive, and Coffee and Cigarettes, has made a zombie movie and it stars Adam Driver, Bill Murray, Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Iggy Pop, Larry Fessenden, Austin Butler, RZA, Tilda Swinton, Tom Waits, Danny Glover, Caleb Landry Jones, Rosie Perez, Carol Kane, and Selena GomezDead Don’t Die, Jarmusch’s first horror film is, much like his other films, a hoot and a half as his style of writing and filmmaking mixed with standard zombie tropes makes for one hell of a post-apocalyptic ride as the earth gets its rotation altered thanks to some polar fracking. {googleads}

Look, the fact that Jarmusch has tackled horror is a pretty damn big deal.  Yeah, yeah, so he doesn’t really commit to the genre’s specifics thanks to his amazingly on-point script that accepts the end of the world is inevitable, but damn if this zom-com won’t leave you in stitches.  Embracing the meta around it (thanks to its wonderful title song), The Dead Don’t Die is howlingly funny as it approaches the whole zombie apocalypse with a dry wit and a wink in its eye.  I mean, Iggy Pop as a zombie repeating “coffee” over and over again is quite righteous.  The same thing happens with Carol Kane who can’t get enough “chardonnay” as one of the undead. 

Of course, this is Jarmusch territory through and through and he leaves it in Tom Waits’ hands, as the local town crazy, to bring it all down to earth for us.  Our materialism has turned our brains to mush.  We are, in a sense, zombies when it comes to thinking of our wants and its turning us against each other.  Jarmusch has fun with the whole horror medium, though, and doesn’t let the theme dominate the goofiness of his handling of the epidemic. The Dead Don't Die

There are far too many moments in The Dead Don’t Die that absolutely slay for this film to NOT be appreciated by Horror Hounds and Gore-Gore Girls.  Whether it is Murray yelling at Driver to shut up about the end of the world or Danny Glover trying to get Steve Buscemi to calm the fuck down (his character wears a red ballcap that reads ‘Make America White Again’) about chickens going missing in his yard or Swinton taking a samurai sword to the heads of the zombies, The Dead Don’t Die has a lot of fun on its way to the over-the-top finale.

The Dead Don’t Die is now out on Blu-ray thanks to Universal Studios.  You may not find yourself a fan, but that cast?  Wow.  Now Murray has been in two of the greatest zombie films of all time.  Dig in and pull the bodies out, this is the greatest cast ever dissembled!

4/5 beers

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[tab title="Blu-ray Review"]

The Dead Don't Die

Blu-ray

Blu-ray Details:

Home Video Distributor: Universal Studios
Available on Blu-ray
- September 10, 2019
Screen Formats: 1.85:1
Subtitles
: English SDH, French, Spanish
Audio:
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1; French: DTS 5.1; Spanish: DTS 5.1
Discs: Blu-ray Disc; single disc
Region Encoding: Locked to Region A

Shot digitally, the end of the world looks and sounds amazing thanks to this release from Sony.  Black levels – and there are a lot of night enviros – are consistently thick, rich, and inky.  There is a depth to the interior shots that give the small town which births the zombie apocalypse punched-up details.  Even wrinkles in clothes are visible thanks to the digital image.  And, when the zombies go to town on their targets, the gore looks fantastic. 

Audio

The sound is presented in a strong DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track in which sound effects are strong and the dialogue is kept front and center.

Supplements:

Commentary:

  • No

Special Features:

Not a lot of in-depth looks at the movie are included, but we do get some fun bits with Bill Murray and zombie choruses. 

  • Bill Murray: Zombie Hunting Action Star
  • Stick Together
  • Behind the Scenes of The Dead Don't Die

Blu-ray Rating:

  Movie 4/5 stars
  Video  4/5 stars
  Audio 4/5 stars
  Extras 4/5 stars

Overall Blu-ray Experience

3.5/5 stars

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[tab title="Film Details"]

The Dead Don't Die

MPAA Rating: R for zombie violence/gore, and for language.
Runtime:
104 mins
Director
: Jim Jarmusch
Writer:
Jim Jarmusch
Cast:
Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tom Waits
Genre
: Horror | Comedy
Tagline:
The Road To Survival Could Be A Dead End.
Memorable Movie Quote: "Those are some pretty good cuts. You played some minor league ball didn't you?"
Theatrical Distributor:
Focus Features
Official Site: https://www.focusfeatures.com/the-dead-dont-die
Release Date:
June 14, 2019
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
September 10, 2019
Synopsis: The peaceful town of Centerville finds itself battling a zombie horde as the dead start rising from their graves.

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[tab title="Art"]

The Dead Don't Die

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