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| The Dead Don't Die movie poster. Look at all those names! |
Hello, everyone, and welcome to 2019's Happy Horrorween celebration. Now, I know every year I promise that I'll bring you a whole month's worth of reviews, and only one year was I ever able to do that (and just barely, at that!), so I'm not going to promise it at all this time. Instead, I'm going to do as many posts as I can, with my offline work schedule, and see if I can't start posting up more than I have been. Considering my last post was a year ago, about that year's Happy Horrorween, and then I didn't follow through, I think I'll be able to post a little bit more.
So, on to The Dead Don't Die! I started seeing the ads for this one earlier in the year and was looking forward to seeing it. When the time came for its release, we checked online to find out when it would be showing at our favorite theater... and it wasn't. Neither was it at the second choice, or third. Turned out, it was playing at a small independent theater nearby, so we never got a chance to go over and see it. Fortunately, the movie just came out on DVD a couple weeks ago, so I got my hands on it and am happy to bring a review to you!
The movie starts off with some shots of a cemetery that I thought for sure was the same one that was in the original Night of the Living Dead (it looked VERY similar). After the opening song (called "The Dead Don't Die", oddly enough), we meet our two main stars, Chief Cliff Robertson and Officer Ronnie Peterson, as they try to track down Hermit Bob in the woods. It seems that Bob was accused of stealing one of local farmer Frank's chickens. After encountering him, the two drive back into town and talk about how off the daylight seems to be, with it approaching 8 or 9 at night and the sun still shining. Once the sun finally goes down, however, two figures approach the local diner from the cemetery and wreak havoc there. It seems the town of Centerville has a little zombie problem.
I really enjoyed this movie. At it's base, it's a pretty by-the-book zombie apocalypse, with an ever-dwindling cast of human characters, and some pretty good zombie make-up. There are a few surprises along the way that I really enjoyed, plus a few fourth wall breaks that I laughed at. The film is a horror comedy, so there are a ton of jokes, wordplay, references, all pretty cleverly done.
The cast was pretty well picked, with many well-known actors playing both big and small parts. Bill Murray plays overwrought Chief Cliff here, who you know from Saturday Night Live, Ghostbusters and a ton of other movies. Adam Driver plays Officer Ronnie. Mr. Driver, of course, played Kylo Ren in the recent Star Wars trilogy amongst a lot of other things. Tilda Swinton plays Zelda Winston, the new owner of the town's funeral parlor. She played the Ancient One in Doctor Strange (to a bit of controversy), as well as several roles in the recent Suspiria remake. Other cast members include Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, Iggy Pop, RZA, Carol Kane, Selena Gomez, Tom Waits and many, many more.
All in all, I got a laugh out of this one and give it a 4 out of 5. I hope this is a great kick-off to Happy Horrorween, and will get back to you with another review soon. Until then, take care of yourselves, and this is Red Hawk signing out!
