Review: The Dead Don't Die

I must confess, I've never been much of a Jim Jarmusch fan... which made me a bit of a pariah during my film school days. It's nothing personal, but my tastes swing away from artsy and more toward Joe Six Pack when it comes to movies and filmmaking.

However, when Jarmusch decided to make a zombie comedy starring Bill Murray and Kylo Ren, I was sold. And thankfully the Kamloops Film Society and our horror-podcast brother and sister Drunk In A Graveyard brought The Dead Don't Die to our hometown this weekend. Suffice to say, I went and watched.

Glad I did too, as The Dead Don't Die is just the kind of gonzo fun I was looking for. In fact, I may have found my movie of the year!

The flick is a riff on moviemaking and society and the zombie genre. Jarmusch has as much to say about people and the world we've created as he does film. And he breaks the fourth wall time and time again, which made me laugh Homer Simpson like on more than one occasion.

His cast is spot in. Bill Murray is wonderfully Bill Murray. Ditto Jarmusch mainstay Tom Waits. Adam Driver displays some comedic chops as Murray's deputy and Tilda Swinton delivers a performance that must be seen to be believed. With a Samurai sword. 'Nuff said.

Oh, and Iggy Pop plays a zombie. And the same song is used over and over and over... That is all.

Bottom line if you're on the fence about this one; it's damn funny! It's like Jarmusch took my comedic sensibilities from my brain -- and it's pretty weird in there, folks -- and put them on screen. I raise a glass to him, and to The Dead Don't Die. It's a Good and, unless something amazeballs happen between now and Dec. 31, it's my fave flick of the year.

You can catch The Dead Don't Die at the Paramount Theatre in Kamloops tonight at 6:45. Click here for tickets.

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