Under normal circumstances, if I were to tell you about a movie that was part “Clerks”, part “Can’t Hardly Wait”, and part “Night of the Living Dead”, you’d probably have my crazy a*s finally locked up. Because such a hybrid would probably collapse under the sheer weight of its own inspired lunacy. “Die and Let Live” has done the impossible…it still stands.
By now you’re wondering what such an incredible hybrid is actually about. Not too tough–basically, two lifelong best friends, Benny and Smalls, are having a party at Smalls’ mom’s dog kennel / summer home. This is being done so Benny can more effectively woo the girl of his most recent dreams, on the rebound from her philandering a*****e boyfriend whom about ninety percent of the male audience is hoping fervently will be eaten by zombies within the first twenty minutes…and he is.
I know, I just made everybody’s day. For you see, zombies are on the loose from the local pharmaceutical supergiant corporation, because as we all know, those damn supergiant corporations are always testing things that will turn our dead against us.
This coincides nicely with Benny and Smalls’ party, who now have to not only try to cope with a party spiraling wildly out of control, but with a whole bunch of shambling person-eating predators out in the front lot.
Didn’t we all have these kinds of problems in high school? “Die and Let Live’s” strongest point is its sheer massive surplus of comedy. Sure, there’s blood galore, and people are getting chomped on by the undead at an average rate of one every eight minutes or so, but there’s surprisingly little time to recoil at the blood before we’re off on another comic blast.
I don’t want to give away all the jokes, but suffice it to say that I’m a reasonable man, so I knew that Smalls wasn’t actually having a Vietnam flashback in there. Though as it turns out…it wasn’t too far wrong.
There’s some old-school-Kevin-Smith-esque dialogue going on in here, along with plenty of teen comedy staples, and lots of bloodshed, but then the whole thing is just turned on its ear to produce an utterly original and utterly enjoyable combination.
Oh, and Lloyd Kaufman is still neck-deep in his enduring quest to appear in every single low-budget indie movie ever to be released on the face of the earth ever. He has an excellent bit part in this one as a local newscaster.
“Die and Let Live” is on track to be one of the funniest low-budget zombie teen romance comedies I’ve ever seen. Oh hell…at this point, I’m calling it THE funniest low-budget zombie teen romance comedy I’ve ever seen. I’m on record.
