Up until this very moment, pop culture has had only one ghoul expert, and that is Charlie Kelly, who knows a ghoul on sight. Now, however, Charlie Kelly is joined by Adam Driver in Jim Jarmusch’s new zombie movie, as he correctly identifies ghouls and, incidentally, creates a new sexuality. That sexuality is: Adam Driver laconically saying “ghouls” and dead-panning his way through a Jim Jarmusch zombie movie. It’s very specific, thank you for respecting my privacy as I go on this journey.
Jim Jarmusch previously made Only Lovers Left Alive, one of the best vampire movies of all time—like, second only to Nosferatu—and now he is turning his camera on zombies. His take on vampires is that immortality is inherently depressing, so he created a pair of moody, romantic, rock’n’roll vampires whose only reason to keep living is music and each other. Now, he’s tackling zombies in The Dead Don’t Die, and his take seems to be…comedy? He gets the zombie setting of small town/rural, with a troop of besieged local cops dealing with an undead outbreak. Classic zombie stuff. And it’s funny? I am dubious, not because Jim Jarmusch can’t be funny—he can be VERY funny—but it’s rarely so obvious. But this trailer is straight up funny.
And the cast is STACKED. The tag line for the movie is “the greatest zombie cast ever disassembled”, and they are not f-cking around. LOOK AT THIS LINEUP.
Bill Murray
Adam Driver
Tilda Swinton
Chloe Sevigny
Steve Buscemi
Carol Kane
Iggy Pop
RZA
Rosie Perez
Caleb Landry Jones
Selena Gomez
Tom Waits
And more!
THAT IS A CAST. It’s like the indie Avengers. Between the cast and Jim Jarmusch making a funny(???) zombie movie, I AM IN. It’s like he made this movie just for me. And then as if that isn’t enough, Jim Jarmusch asked himself, What would make Sarah happier more than anything on a dreary spring Monday when it feels like she will never be warm again? What gift can I give that will bring unexpected joy to her, and maybe ten other people in the world who have very specific tastes that respond less to physical norms of beauty and more to hyper-specific and completely random circumstances? And he arrived at the inevitable answer, the gift that will bring the most joy to me and maybe ten other people: Adam Driver saying “ghouls”.