From Cannes press office: On Tuesday, 5.14, Jim Jarmusch‘s The Dead Don’t Die will be screened at the opening of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival (5.14 to 5.25), and in competition — a world premiere. HE passed along a rumor about Jarmsuch’s film going to Cannes ten days ago.
It certainly matters to me if Iggy Pop is playing a zombie, but will it matter to average low-rent horror fans (i.e., the less-than-discerning types who loved It)? You have to ask this stuff.
Tell me how this official synopsis differs from George Romero‘s Night of the Living Dead (’68), except for the name of the town: “In the sleepy small town of Centerville, something is not quite right. The moon hangs large and low in the sky, the hours of daylight are becoming unpredictable and animals are beginning to exhibit unusual behaviors. No one quite knows why. News reports are scary and scientists are concerned. But no one foresees the strangest and most dangerous repercussion that will soon plague Centerville: The Dead Don’t Die — they rise from their graves and savagely attack and feast on the living — and the citizens of the town must battle for their survival.”
When Romero made his groundbreaking indie zombie film in 1968, there was an actual metaphor in play. An idea about debased or corroded human behavior somehow causing a rupture in the natural life-death cycle. Now the zombie thing is just another brand — a horror concept that became a movie and TV genre. Jarmusch being Jarmusch, I’m presuming that some kind of attempt has been made to refresh the metaphor.
Posted on 4.1.19: The Dead Don’t Die (Focus Features, 6.14) will obviously be fun, but it’s a departure and a half for Jim Jarmusch, the Godfather of east-coast, cool-cat, laid-back hipster autuerism. All I can figure is that Jarmusch decided that in the wake of Only Lovers Left Alive (which I loved) and Paterson (admired) that he wanted to make an actual hit movie for a change. The cast is top-to-bottom Jarmusch types — Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, Caleb Landry Jones, Rosie Perez, Iggy Pop, Sara Driver, RZA, Carol Kane, Tom Waits. Allegedly locked for next month’s Cannes Film Festival.
