The Dead Don’t Die(2019)

Sturgell Simpson, who sings the movie’s theme song, has a cameo as the guitar carrying zombie.

POOPER:
Everyone in Centerville are either killed by zombies or eventually turns into one except for the following: Zelda (Tilda Swinton) escapes the zombie apocalypse by summoning a UFO, which beams her on board and flys away. Stella, Olivia, and Geronimo escape the juvenile detention center, but their fate is unknown. Cliff (Bill Murray) and Ronnie (Adam Driver) are trapped in the cemetery with the zombies, and, because the script calls for them to do so, they decide to go out fighting. They are able to kill several zombies, but ultimately they are overwhelmed. Hermit Bob (Tom Waits), who did steal Farmer Frank’s chicken, is still in the forest watching everything happen, and he remarks that everyone was already soulless due to their constant need of things, and then says that the world is a “fucked up place”.

LONG VERSION:
In the small town of Centerville, Pennsylvania, Police Chief Cliff Robertson (Bill Murray) and Officer Ronnie Peterson (Adam Driver) are in the forest talking to Hermit Bob (Tom Waits), who lives there. He is accused of stealing a chicken from Farmer Frank Miller (Steve Buscemi), but Cliff, who’s known Bob since they were kids, doesn’t think he did it. After they leave Hermit Bob, they are driving back to town when Cliff realizes that it’s still light out, despite it being after 8pm. Ronnie notices that his watch and cellphone are no longer working, and he believes that “this isn’t going to end well”, which is something he says throughout the movie. They then turn on the radio, and the song “The Dead Don’t Die” by Sturgell Simpson is playing, a song that Ronnie really likes. When Cliff asks why, Ronnie says that it’s the movie’s theme song. This is the first of several fourth-wall breaks that occur in the movie.

The viewer is now taken throughout the town to meet several residents. Fern runs the local diner, and Lily, who cleans the place, also cleans the funeral home run by Zelda Winston (Tilda Swinton). Zelda is new to Centerville, and she has an affinity for samurai swords. Hank (Danny Glover) runs the hardware store, Farmer Frank is the resident white-supremist, Bobby runs the local gas station/toy store/comic book store, Danny runs the hotel, and Mindy (Chloe Sevigny) is the town’s other police officer. She is not alone at the police station, as Mallory the town drunk (Carol Kane) has recently died and is laying in one of the cells. The town also has a juvenile detention center, and three of the inmates are friends Stella, Olivia, and Geronimo. They are watching the news on TV, where news anchor Posie Juarez (Rosie Perez) is talking about how polar fracking has caused the Earth to spin off of it’s axis, leading to strange phenomena happening. Fern and Lily, as well as Hank and Frank, are listening to the same report on the radio at the diner. They are also wondering if that’s why it’s still light out at this late hour. Meanwhile at the town cemetery, two corpses (Iggy Pop, Sara Driver) have emerged from their graves and are shuffling to town. They arrive at the diner as it’s closing, and they attack and kill Fern and Lily. They stop their attack when they see full coffee pots. They drink some coffee and leave.

The next morning, Cliff is investigating the attack at the diner. Ronnie and Mindy soon join Cliff, and Ronnie thinks the deaths are a result of zombies, something Cliff and Mindy find hard to believe. Later, the trio learn that the animals in the area, whether it be pets, farm animals, or wild animals, are either disappearing or fleeing the area and going into the forest. At this time, hipsters Zoe (Selena Gomez), Jack, and Zack arrive in town. After stopping for gas at Bobby’s store, they go to the hotel and check in. Cliff and Ronnie, who are there to investigate Danny’s missing cat, warn the three to stay in their room and lock the door at night, but they ignore them. Cliff then takes Ronnie to the cemetery to disprove Ronnie’s zombie theory, but when they find two open graves, Cliff begins to think that Ronnie may be right. Hermit Bob, who is watching them from the forest through his binoculars and eating the chicken he admits the stole from Farmer Frank, comes to the same conclusion. After they leave, all of the corpses emerge from their graves, and the zombie apocalypse has begun.

Cliff and Ronnie return to the police station, and they tell Mindy that it is zombies. Ronnie then tells both of them that the only way to kill a zombie is to kill it’s head or decapitate it. Just then, Mallory reanimates, asking for Chardonnay. They kill her, and try to come up with a plan, but they are struggling. Zelda, having just killed two of her “customers” at the funeral home with her katana sword, then arrives and tells them they should go through town to see how bad it is, and she’ll stay at the station to monitor the radio and computer. The trio load up on weapons and head out, while Zelda goes to the computer and begins to start typing in a foreign language. In town, the zombies are attacking, and the residents are getting killed off, then reanimating and becoming zombies themselves. Scott is able to escape his store and heads to Hank’s hardware store, and they decide to barricade themselves inside it. They seal up the front door, but forget about the back door, and they are both killed by the zombie horde. Danny is also killed, and he in turn killed the hipsters. When the cops see the dead hipsters, Ronnie cuts their heads off to prevent them from reanimating, which horrifies Mindy. Farmer Frank is killed on his farm, and it’s witnessed by Hermit Bob, who says he got what was coming to him, then runs further into the forest so as to not been seen by the zombies. At the juvenile detention center, Stella, Olivia, and Geronimo are able to get past the zombies and the undead guards and successfully escape the building. They are last seen running through the streets looking for a safe place, then are never shown again, so their fate is unknown.

As they are driving through town, the trio of cops notice that the zombies are migrating towards the things they loved when they were alive, such as the zombie children at the toy/comic book store and others looking at cellphones. This would explain why the town drunk wanted Chardonnay. They get to the cemetery, but their patrol car gets stuck. A horde of zombies surround the car, and Mindy recognizes one of them as her grandmother. With the stress of the situation becoming too much for her to handle, Mindy snaps and gets out the car to join her grandmother. She is immediately attacked and killed by the horde. At this time, Zelda arrives at the cemetery, having driven Ronnie’s personal Smart car to get there. As she walks to the center of the cemetery, the horde leave the car and form a circle around her. Just then, a UFO drops from the sky, and she’s grateful they got her message. After she is beamed on board and it flies away, Cliff tells Ronnie that he always felt she was different. After Ronnie says yet again that this isn’t going to end well, Cliff asks him why he keeps saying that. Ronnie answers it’s because he read the script that Jim (writer/director Jim Jarmusch) gave him, but the UFO wasn’t in his version. Cliff says that he only got the pages with his scenes. Ronnie then says the last scene calls for them to go out fighting, so Cliff and Ronnie exit the patrol car and start attacking the zombies. They are able to kill many of them, including the undead versions of the residents we saw earlier, but ultimately they are overwhelmed and are presumably killed. The movie ends with Hermit Bob, still hiding in the forest, watching the carnage in the cemetery, commenting that everyone is already a soulless zombie, because all everyone cares about now are their need for things instead of caring for others, and that the world is a “fucked up place”.