10 Genius Blockbuster Movie Subversions
2. The Dead Don't Die
What You Thought
When trailers dropped for Jim Jarmusch's excursion into the undead, the response was that of intrigue. Early glimpses saw Bill Murray and Adam Driver riffing excellently off of each other with the sort of dry wit that has littered their previously praised work. Add into the mix a few laughs at the expense of celebrity zombies in the ilk of Iggy Pop, a Scottish samurai sword wielding Tilda Swinton accompanied by the millennial draw of Selena Gomez and how could this not be a surprise smash?
Zombieland, with its zany and warm charm, had proved that American zombie-comedies could draw an audience and The Dead Don't Die looked to have reigned in a similar crowd only to be met by something else entirely.
What It Actually Was
The Dead Don't Die excels in giving you Regular Joes, set against the back drop of a dreary Centreville. It takes its time in dripping the incoming threat of zombification, that is being caused by polar fracking altering the Earth's rotation and the majority of the gags come from either the zombies mumbling for what they long for now they are dead (WiFi, Coffee and Chardonnay among them) or the two officers, Murray and Driver, fumbling towards their inevitable doom.
It wasn't the zombie film that we wanted, yet it was the one that we needed at the time.