Dead Heads

The Dead Don't Die (2019) is Jim Jarmusch’s oddball followup to The Only Lovers Left Alive. That was a lush candlelit vampire movie, full of doomed romanticism, based on Renaissance paintings. This one is a dumb, goofy zombie movie, based on low-budget horror movies, like Night of the Living Dead.

It starts with Bill Murray and Adam Driver going into the woods to see if they can find out who has been stealing chickens from farmer Frank Miller (Steve Buscemi). (Wasn’t “asshole farmer thinks something is killing his liverstock, but the sheriff thinks he’s an asshole” how Dark Was the Night started too?)  Miller thinks it’s Hermit Bob (Tom Waits, who kind of narrates), but Murray thinks Miller is an asshole, and Hermit Bob never hurt anyone. They head back to the station (although Murray wants to stop for some coffee and maybe a donut at the diner). They share some chit-chat about strange it is that it’s still bright daylight at 8:00. Driver notices that his watch is stopped. It probably has something to do with polar fracking. They listen to Sturgill Simpson on the radio, singing “The Dead Don’t Die”, which Driver likes, because it’s the theme song. Murray hates it.

Back at the station, we meet deputy Chloe Sevigny, looking a lot like Marge Gunderson. At the diner, we meet Miller, a MAGA bigot is talking to Danny Glover, who owns a hardware store. We hear about the odd new undertaker, Tilda Swinton, then see her go through her samurai sword exercises.

We meet Bobby (Caleb Landry Jones), a nerd kid who has a gas station and comic book and collectibles store. RZA, the Wu-PS driver, delivers some packages. Later a cute girl (Selena Gomez) and two guys drive through on a road trip. And we’ve pretty much got the setup. The sun finally sets. In the cemetery, an arm pops out of the grave of one Sam Fuller - not the director, but zombie Ivy Pop. He and his girlfriend, Sara Driver (no relation to Adam), set off in search of brains - and coffee. And you can guess (some of) the rest.

So the quiet little town is overrun by zombies. They tear up the waitresses in the diner (Rosie Perez and Eszter Balint - from Stranger than Paradise) and everyone who sees them wonders if they were killed “by a wild animal - or a lot of wild animals”. Driver keeps saying this is going to end badly. Bobby knows that the way to “kill the dead is to kill the head”. But that doesn’t help him much. Only Swinton with her sword seems to be in good shape - and she’s got a ride out of town.

The references in this movie are myriad - the road-trip kids are driving Plymouth Fury from Night of the Living Dead - and Murray points it out. Bobby has a Svengooli poster, and greets kids with his tagline “Stay sick, kids”, and they respond with his alternate “Turn blue, Bobby”. Swinton (who, by the way, has a face that is it’s own special effect) tells Adam Driver that Star Wars is “good fiction”. It also has more than a bit of the Jarmusch special - aimless conversation punctuated by long silences. And instead of the lush gothic warmth of Lovers, we get the everyday ordinary small town, plus comments on consumer society.

In conclusion, I liked the theme song a lot - this Sturgill Simpson guy is a great country singer.