The Civil Dead Review: A Slacker Comedy That Offers Existential Food for Thought

The supernatural has long served as fertile ground for comedy on a budget. When the goal is just to get a laugh, the special effects don’t need to look nearly so convincing, because anything that comes across as cheap or hokey is easy enough to accept as part of the joke. Director and co-writer Clay Tatum’s mumblecore-ish slacker comedy The Civil Dead takes this knowledge to an amusing extreme, presenting an encounter with the paranormal that’s so nondescript that photographer Clay (Tatum) doesn’t even notice it at first.

Part of that has to do with the fact that Clay has a lot on his mind already. He’s suffering from a bad, self-inflicted haircut and is scrounging to pay his half of the rent, while photography has panned out far better for his live-in girlfriend (Whitney Weir). While taking pictures in the woods, Clay encounters Whit (Whitmer Thomas), an estranged friend from back home. He’s initially oblivious to Whit’s identity, let alone that he’s dead. Whit does ask whether Clay can see him, but that seems like a natural question given that he’s within view of the camera.

The ensuing buddy comedy marinates in awkwardness and unfolds in long and uncomfortable takes. The low-key style of The Civil Dead extends to Whit’s depiction as a ghost, which pointedly features no visual signifier of his ethereal qualities. He doesn’t float or glow, and he isn’t transparent. He’s just a normal-looking guy who insists that he’s a ghost, and he’d seem crazy if not for the fact that nobody but Clay acknowledges his existence.

The abject mundanity of Whit’s predicament is the film’s most inventive touch, such as the way he’s unable to walk through walls or lift objects or take off his own shoes. He’s just there, always. He’s unable to enter or exit a building unless someone leaves the door open. It’s a maddeningly placid sort of hell for anyone to suffer, befitting the comically mean turn the film takes as Clay grows irritated at Whit’s quite understandable clinginess. Where so many comedies end up at weepy, dramatic destinations, The Civil Dead is wholly and refreshingly uninterested in revealing some depressive undercurrent behind Clay’s behavior to tug the heartstrings.

It does, though, tend to understatement, and leaves much of Clay’s character unexplored. A few of the jokes are so low-key that they fail to land, as if the film itself is mumbling out its comedy in a similar fashion to how the characters talk. The Civil Dead concludes with a hilarious final image, though by the time it gets there it feels as though the film is running on empty.