Interestingly, there are fewer movies than you'd think that meet this requirement: Christmas-themed horror flicks actually handily win that particular battle. But there are more than enough to get a month of reviews out of it, so that's what I'm going with this year. Hope you enjoy it.
On a side note, I entered a Stephen King-themed contest, involving writing a host of reviews of films based on his books and stories. If I win, I'll be tackling that towards the end of the month, but I won't know until around October 19th, so I'm just going to do this until I know for sure whether I've won, because I might not end up doing that, anyway.
But if I do, obviously, you can look for the latter half of the month to transform into being King-themed instead of continuing to be October/Halloween-themed. I'll keep you posted. Until then, here's one last review before I start the festivities in earnest!
To say the least, the films of writer/director Jim Jarmusch are an acquired taste. Kind of like a hipster version of David Lynch, they are often heavily stylized, slow-moving, and typically not exactly brimming with action. His most beloved films include Stranger Than Paradise, Down by Law, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (frequently cited as the one film that people like who don't typically like Jarmusch's work), Broken Flowers and Only Lovers Left Alive.
It was during the shooting of the vampire-themed Lovers, an atypical genre exercise for Jarmusch, that star Tilda Swinton suggested that he might want to consider tackling the zombie sub-genre next. After helming the critically-acclaimed Paterson, which was nominated for over 20 awards, including a nod at the Cannes Film Festival for the Palme d'Or, Jarmusch did just that, assembling arguably his most high-profile cast to date, which is saying something, if you're familiar with his prior casts. Or, as the poster puts it: "The Greatest Zombie Cast Ever Disassembled!"
In addition to Swinton, Jarmusch also-rans include: Bill Murray (Broken Flowers- naturally, his previous foray into the subgenre, Zombieland, is referenced), Adam Driver (who was the lead in Paterson- there are also multiple nods to Star Wars, for obvious reasons), RZA (who was in Coffee & Cigarettes with Murray- his day job IRL is amusingly referenced by his day job in this movie, where he plays a "WU-PS" driver- see what they did there?), Steve Buscemi (Mystery Train), singer Tom Waits (Down by Law), Rosie Perez (Night on Earth- she plays a reporter here by the name of "Posie Juarez," lol), Chloë Sevigny (Broken Flowers) and Eszter Balint (Stranger Than Paradise).
New recruits include: Danny Glover (the Lethal Weapon series), Carol Kane (Scrooged, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), Caleb Landry Jones (Twin Peaks: The Return, Friday Night Lights), former Disney stars Selena Gomez and Austin Butler (both from The Wizards of Waverly Place- Butler also had a recurring role on Hannah Montana and plays "Tex" Watson in Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Luka Sabbat (Grown-ish), Taliyah Whitaker (See You Yesterday, Roxanne Roxanne), Jahi Di'Allo Winston (Everything Sucks, Proud Mary), appealing newcomer Maya Delmont and legendary rocker Iggy Pop, who, of course, plays a zombie.
The plot is pretty standard zombie movie fare: a small town finds themselves experiencing progressively weird occurrences, including tech malfunction, oddly extended daylight hours, the mass disappearance of animals and the attack of two employees of a local diner by a wild animal- or is it an attack by "several wild animals"? Deputy Ronnie Peterson (Driver) has an idea, possibly not uninformed, that it might be zombies, but doesn't seem very phased by it, save his recurring insistence that "this is all gonna end badly."
Here, the cause is "polar fracking," which has caused the planet to tilt slightly off its axis or orbit or something like that, which is strenuously denied by Republican politicians, because of course it is. Obviously, this is a not-too-subtle reference to climate change deniers, as well as a plea by Jarmusch that we need to do more about environmental concerns, which is absolutely right. Tellingly, it's the youngest members of the cast- not including the kid zombies, of course- that recognize the threat for what it is, and also are the most proactive about getting the hell out of dodge.
The rest opt to stay and fight, led by Sheriff Cliff Robertson (Murray), Peterson and fellow officer Minerva Morrison (Sevigny), with an able assist from "weird" newcomer and local mortician Zelda Winston (Swinton), who wields a mean Katana, just like a certain dreadlocked zombie-fighting warrior we all know and love. Local shopkeeper Bobby Wiggins (Jones, perfectly cast) wises everybody to the rules, being an avid Romero fan: "kill the head." Things proceed accordingly, with lots of celebrity carnage along the way until few are left standing, as per usual with these movies.
As you might have guessed, if you're familiar with Jarmusch's previous work, all of this happens in his patented laconic, laid-back, completely deadpan style, which may rub some people the wrong way, to say the least- as in anyone expecting people to flip out and lost their shit. Aside from Sevigny- and even that is kind of out of nowhere and almost plays as a tweak on the typical "girl freaks out and puts herself in danger" trope- pretty much everyone keeps their cool all the way through the movie, even when they're about to be eaten.
This apathetic attitude may well result in apathetic viewers, who find themselves completely unaffected by the entire affair, which has long since been a criticism of Jarmusch's oeuvre, where the characters are often too cool to express any overt emotions on the whole. That's just his particular schtick, and if it doesn't work for you in the early stages of the movie, the film as a whole probably won't either, as he maintains the vibe throughout.
I suppose one could make a case for this being a satire of the zombie subgenre, and to a certain extent it is- there's way too many in-joke references for it not to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek (i.e. Gomez' character drives the same car as Barbara & Johnny in the opening of Night of the Living Dead, Pittsburgh is referenced, as is Romero, and Dawn of the Dead, via the zombies' return to things they loved as humans, albeit updated to include more modern things like "wi-fi," "Oxy" and cell phones).
But overall, it comes off like Jarmusch's heart isn't quite in it, which makes the film seem kind of half-assed, down to the meta asides, such as when after the title track, by country musician Sturgill Simpson (who also has a cameo as "Guitar Zombie," which is just what it sounds like), plays for the second time and Murray's character says it sounds familiar, and then Driver's character replies: "You have. It's the title track." "The title track to what?" "The movie." See what they did there?
Even the ending is done with a shrug, in spite of what could have been an interesting twist, as if the only goal was to fulfill Ronnie's repeated proclamation that this, in fact, was not going to end well. Mission accomplished, I guess, but maybe not in the way intended. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's perfectly watchable film, especially with that cast, but it's probably not going to win Jarmusch any new fans, in spite of it having the widest release and biggest gross of any of his prior films.
It's kind of hard to explain to new fans, but Jarmusch's films just have a certain vibe to them that you either are on board with right away or you aren't. Otherwise, much like the disgruntled hotel owner, you'll probably dismiss it as "hipster bullshit." Which it kind of is, really. But it's "hipster bullshit" that knows it's "hipster bullshit," so I suppose that's something. Whether or not that something is just plain shit, I'll leave up to the respective viewers, but for the record, opinions seem to be divided almost right down the middle, according to the sources I just checked, which seems about right.
I suppose I liked it for what it was, but I'd hardly call it one of Jarmusch's best efforts, that's for sure. My favorites are the ones I mentioned at the top of the article, though I enjoyed Mystery Train and Night on Earth quite a bit as well, thanks in no small part to their equally quirky casts and great soundtracks. In addition to Simpson's fun theme song, Jarmusch's band SQÜRL does the score honors here, as they did with his previous horror effort Only Lovers Left Alive, and it's worth a listen.
I'd say check it out if you love a quirky zombie flick, or if you're a big fan of any of the main cast, or of Jarmusch in general, but keep your expectations low and know that the tone set early on is the tone of the movie, period, and don't expect that to change once the zombies run rampant. If you can make your peace with that then you'll probably enjoy it for what it is- a moderately enjoyable zombie movie with a wry sense of humor, but nothing groundbreaking (so to speak) or game-changing.
But hey, if you ever wanted to see Iggy Pop as a zombie (not much of a difference, lol) or Selena Gomez have her head cut off, you've come to the right place! 😲
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