IS THIS THING ON?

A Podcaster Broadcasts Through the Zombie Apocalypse

The charming horror film that premiered at Sundance is an endearing descendant of “Night of the Living Dead.”

Writer/director Meera Menon pays playful tribute to George A. Romero with Didn’t Die, an undead saga in which staying alive means sticking together, valuing community, and forging bonds both in person and via the media.

A black-and-white love letter that has style and personality to burn, the TV veteran’s feature debut, which premiered in the Midnight section of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, is a character drama dressed up in post-apocalyptic threads. Thanks to Menon’s assured stewardship and Kiran Deol’s charming lead performance, it proves an endearing descendant of the granddaddy of all zombie movies, Night of the Living Dead.

Vinita (Deol) chats her way through catastrophe, hosting a podcast called “Didn’t Die” that serves as the soundtrack to the end of the world. On the cusp of her 100th episode, Vinita decides to host a live taping at her hometown’s courthouse, and to spread the word, she has her younger brother Rish (Vishal Vijayakumar) post flyers around the derelict area.

Everything has gone to seed in America, with debris strewn about the streets, storefronts boarded up and decorated with graffiti, and supplies dwindling fast, as is illustrated by a prologue in which a couple—with their infant in tow—struggle to find gasoline for their car, wishing in the process that they’d been smart enough in the before-times to opt for an electric vehicle.

This twosome’s brief tale concludes with an attack by a growling zombie, at which point Didn’t Die focuses on Vinita and Rish, who share the sort of comfortable sibling chemistry that allows for constant good-natured teasing.

After showering the region with flyers, Rish is stunned to stumble upon a brain-chomping police officer—not because such creatures aren’t the norm, but because in this universe the resurrected dead are only animate (and dangerous) at night.

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Rish is freaked out about this paradigm-shifting turn of events. Yet his story is largely brushed off by Vinita and, also, by their older brother Hari (Samrat Chakrabarti), whom they’ve come to visit. Hari lives in the family’s childhood home with his wife Barbara (Katie McCuen), a Caucasian blonde with a fondness for bedazzling everything in sight, be it her trademark headband or the spear she keeps beside the front door. Hari isn’t worried about daywalkers; instead, he appears to be consumed with other thoughts, most notably during his frequent smoke breaks at his backyard boat dock.

Vinita’s wry sense of humor is the lifeblood of Didn’t Die, whose jokiness is as sharp as it is sometimes juvenile (in an early gag, she draws a penis on a dirty car window just to get a chuckle out of Rish). Menon’s film is often set to its protagonist’s podcast musings, at least when it’s not sonically overwhelmed by the nocturnal zombies’ moans, which spread across the land like a windswept howl.

The writer/director (whose credits include helming episodes of Westworld, Ms. Marvel, For All Mankind, and Outlander) strikes a nice balance between comedy and pathos, and she sets a chilling mood through a collection of tableaus of this gone-to-Hell civilization. From monochromatic glimpses of the sun shining through trees or setting behind the horizon (its glare as cold as it is blinding), to snapshots of cascading streams, leaf-strewn railroad tracks, and deer roaming on snow-covered lawns, Menon and cinematographer Paul Gleason (who co-wrote the screenplay) imbue their material with arresting ominousness.

At Vinita’s courthouse taping, guests share amusingly similar anecdotes about killing their loved ones. The event, however, is interrupted by the appearance of Vincent, Vinita’s unfaithful former flame. Vinita isn’t happy about this reunion with her ex and she’s especially displeased to see that he’s arrived with a baby boy in tow—the same kid, in fact, that was featured in the film’s intro passage.

With a scruffy beard, unkempt hair, a weathered flannel shirt, and a generally disheveled air, Vincent is convincing when he admits that he’s not cut out for parenthood. Neither is Vinita, at least initially, although she begrudgingly takes both Vincent and the tyke back to Hari’s house, where her brother grumbles about having company and Barbara fawns over the adorable new addition to their clan.

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Vincent is a lout who’s been subsisting on Spam in the attic of his police officer father’s home, but he has a good heart and it’s only a matter of time before Vinita begins warming to him—aided, in no small part, by his sweet interest in her podcast, which she’s shocked to learn he listens to religiously. The tension between solitude and togetherness is at the core of Didn’t Die, and it’s the latter that Menon and Gleason’s script champions as the key to survival.

During introspective and nostalgic moments, the film interjects home movie-esque flashbacks to the trio’s youth alongside their beloved mother and father, conveying the ties that shape and bind these characters. A big bombshell about the clan’s circumstances doesn’t quite land with its intended oomph. Still, Vinita and company are so likable that it’s difficult not to be moved by their camaraderie, their resilience, and their appreciation of the past and the foundation it provides them.

There’s also more than a bit of zombie killing in Didn’t Die; Menon doesn’t skimp on the grisliness, having her heroes fend off hordes of zombies with brutal efficiency, led by Vinita and her trusty blade. The director stages these chaotic sequences with a tip of the cap to Romero, energizing her macabre action with canted angles, quick edits, and close-ups of hungry mouths and outstretched hands. As is so frequently the case in such nightmares, not everyone is lucky enough to make it out alive. Even so, hope coexists with sorrow, and in a coda—drenched in surprisingly vibrant color—the film offers an optimistic vision of the benefits of personal, familial, and social connections.

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There’s no escaping the impression that Didn’t Die is a somewhat slight homage with a strong voice and gentle twist rather than a wholly original work of terror. Nonetheless, its compassion and creepiness make for a winning genre combination and suggest that both Menon and Deol are artists with a bright future.

Nick SchagerEntertainment Critic

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