At the end of a long, hot summer’s day, a horde of weary zombies are shuffling back to their bus when suddenly their mood is lifted by Bill Murray who buys them all a refreshing snack — not brains, but ice cream from a local shop.
This is not a scene from a new zombie movie, but from the making of one: Jim Jarmusch’s “The Dead Don’t Die.” The indie director’s new comedy will open the Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday and the Catskills’ village of Fleischmanns stars in the leading role of Centerville, which is overrun by the undead.
“There’s a lot of buzz about that here,” says Larry Reilly, Fleischmanns’ deputy mayor and “ad hoc film commissioner,” who hopes for a local screening. It will be released nationwide on June 14.
“The Dead Don’t Die” features Murray, Adam Driver, Chloe Sevigny, Tilda Swinton, Selena Gomez and Steve Buscemi. A Gomez sighting went viral last summer and drew tourists to Fleischmanns.
While Jarmusch has long spent time in the region, Laurent Rejto, director of the Hudson Valley Film Commission, says the area is enjoying a mini movie business boom that includes John Krasinski’s “A Quiet Place” and an HBO series, “I Know This Much is True.”
(Photo by Morgan Malecki)
Jarmusch used Tech City, a former IBM campus in Kingston, for a studio and filmed exterior scenes at the Elizaville Diner and interior shots in Ancram’s West Taghkanic Diner in Columbia County.
For Centerville, Rejto recommended Fleischmanns in Delaware County, which was the perfect spot, even though it was a schlep from the Kingston hotels that housed cast and crew.
“They wanted a place that was stuck in time, that was depressing looking,” Rejto says. “It may not be what Fleischmanns wants to hear but that was a leading factor. I said Fleischmanns already has zombies… which was not the most popular statement.”
Reilly did “chafe at those remarks” but was pleased to host the production; the village took in some money as did people whose homes or businesses were used and the stores that sold hardware and ice cream to the cast and crew.
Casting Directors Amy Hutchings and Heidi Eklund scoured the Hudson Valley looking for extras to play residents and zombies, “They wanted authentic everyday folks, not anyone too fancy.” Eklund explained.
“I was running an art gallery in Phonecia and these women descended upon me and said, ‘You would make a great zombie,'” says Amy King, a Nassau Community College professor who lives just outside of Phoenicia.
King, 47, initially thought it was a joke, but was glad she took a chance in front of the bright lights and has done it a few times since.
“I thought the makeup would be annoying but the people were delightful,” she says, adding that most days it took less than an hour.
“The film had such a fun energy it spoiled me for the work I’ve done since,” King says, adding that Jarmusch and the cast were friendly and appreciative. “I remember seeing Bill Murray talking to some of the Hasidic people who are in Fleischmanns.”
New Paltz-based actor Wayne Pyle, 52, is one of the zombies who was treated to ice cream by Bill Murray who plays a local cop. Pyle said he doesn’t usually do extra work but couldn’t resist being the undead in such a start-studded film.
While Fleischmanns was an ideal choice because it doesn’t attract hordes of summer visitors the way a town like Phoenicia does, Pyle says out-of-towners would occasionally drive through, slowing to stare in disbelief at zombies relaxing between takes.
“Sometimes I’d be by the side of the road, a zombie playing guitar.”
