Sundance ’25: ‘DIDN’T DIE’ Reimagines the Zombie Apocalypse as a Mumblecore Relationship Movie

There’s a certain irony to the fact that the zombie movie has been done to death. Enter writer-director Meera Menon, who reanimates the zombie apocalypse as a mumblecore dramedy to impressive effect. Menon’s ultra-low-budget debut feature film, Didn’t Die, is a snarky yet sincere vision of life after a mass extinction event, where the remainder of humankind has nothing better to do than host daily happy hours at home, sift through the detritus of civilization for its most useful scraps, and listen to a podcast about the end of the world in real time.

It’s not that the undead aren’t a threat here—most of society has already been wiped out by the “biters” by the time the film begins—it’s just that the survivors haven’t entirely lost their humanity. Menon’s drily funny and humanist film is told through the perspective of traveling podcast host Vinita (Kiran Deol). Vinita and her younger brother, Rish (Vishal Vijayakumar), have returned to their hometown to record the 100th episode of their kinda-popular post-apoc podcast, Didn’t Die, which wryly documents the plights of Vinita and her guests in the not-quite wasteland after humans and zombies started coexisting.

When flighty ex-lover Vincent (George Basil) shows up at her centennial taping holding a baby he “found,” Vinita and her hermetic family are forced to reconsider what makes life in the zompocalypse actually worth living. For her stay-at-home brother and his bedazzling-obsessed wife, Barbara (Katie McCuen) and Hari (Samrat Chakrabarti), that means reassessing their strict, self-imposed quarantine. For Rish, it may mean finally drumming up the courage to kill his first biter. For Vinita, it means stepping out from behind the mic and earnestly engaging in relationships, rather than just reporting on them from afar.

The vivid black-and-white cinematography and slow-moving zombies aren’t the only nods to George Romero; character names like Barbra and Harri are directly lifted from Romero’s seminal genre feature, Night of the Living Dead. But while Menon’s film remains deeply indebted to and in awe of Romero’s legacy, it also advances its own message about the importance of hope, community, and perseverance amidst calamity. While Didn’t Die leans heavily on well-worn tropes and owes much to the history of the zombie genre, its tactful execution and sincere focus on connection give it a surprisingly fresh and hopeful edge. Though the character development is mostly basic, the film as a whole feels impactful—a testament to its thoughtful balance of homage and originality.

So much of the zombie subgenre has been dedicated to the idea that with the death of civilization comes the death of humanity. In a contrast as stark as its rich black-and-white color palette, Didn’t Die dares to see the collapse of society as a call to come together and find the color in life again.