I thought this would be a really interesting movie, and while I enjoyed the meta-ness of it all, overall it didn’t excite me.

The Dead Don’t Die follows a small town that end up overrun with zombies and we see how each of the characters deal with it, although it all ends with a bad ending.

To be honest my favourite character from this whole film was Adam Driver’s character. Adam Driver is a really good actor and I feel he shines in roles like this where he’s got to be quite dry and quite sarcastic, there’s just something about him that really tickles me and in this role he was brilliant and I feel the highlight.

However the movie as a whole just didn’t excite me too much and I did wonder what the point of it was. For half of the movie we were just introduced to the many characters and while they do have many funny moments and subtle hints to other things, like Adam Driver having a Star Wars keyring on his keys, it did feel very slow to me and a bit monotonous. I just wondered when the zombies were going to turn up.

Once the zombies did turn up I feel it escalated the situation and did bring some more excitement to it. These were traditional zombies but I did find it quite funny how they were doing things and going after things that they had or did when they were still alive, like the old woman in the police station who was a known alcoholic and all her zombie did was say ‘Chardonnay’ over and over. I enjoyed this one aspect of the movie, even if it only appeared for half of it and was kind of used as a plot device to keep the story going.

As I said the ending of the film was a bad ending, and while it was interesting to watch I didn’t really understand the point of the film or why I should be invested in these characters that I haven’t gotten to know very well. Everyone was very surface level and while the directors and writers clearly understood the meta-ness of the situation, actually executing a good storyline to go along with those small jokes and quips was just not engaging enough for me to enjoy.

I probably wouldn’t recommend this movie just because I didn’t enjoy it. I do wonder if I gave it a second viewing maybe I would enjoy it more and notice more things that were hidden the first time around, but for now it’s not a movie that I am going to rush back to watch. However if you enjoy zombie movies maybe this is one to add to your list that you could miss if you don’t watch it.

What do you think of The Dead Don’t Die?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding