The most distinctive part of the Bury Me Twice is the visual style that director Steven LaMorte employs. Much closer to Sin City rather than a traditional film noir, LaMorte uses green screen to give the movie a comic book feel. It’s an interesting look, one that occasionally yields almost brilliant results. People in photographs move and smile. Colored neon signs cut through the black and white. Blood flies as zombies get shot in the head. Alternately, filming entirely against a green screen does pose some challenges; at various points, the actors stand out against the backgrounds in a very noticeable way, making some of the shots look less than stellar. When LaMorte succeeds in capturing a great visual moment, it looks really good. On the flip side of that, the misses are also very noticeable. It’s a daring choice and for the most part, the great moments overshadow the less than stellar ones.

In 1950s Los Angeles, washed-up private detective Jack McGregor (Danny Hansen) takes on a missing person case involving a reporter’s sister. It seems like a typical case until people that were apparently dead start turning up alive, as zombies. Soon, Jack and his ragtag group of associates uncover that the missing girl may be tied to something much larger and sinister. It quickly becomes a race against time to not only solve the case but also to stop a zombie apocalypse from washing over Los Angeles. 

The idea of combining the noir genre with the zombie is one that immediately demands attention, if for no other reason than to see how well the experiment goes. Much like the visual style of the movie, there are hits and misses. Co-writers Flip Kobler and Cindy Marcus marry the two genres in a mostly satisfying way, spinning a story where the clues lead from one point to another in a compelling way. Without giving too much away, the conspiracy underlying the zombie outbreak and the people involved in it connect in interesting, surprising ways. It’s a solidly told story that hits all the markers of a detective story.

The biggest critique in the writing comes from the dialogue. When we think noir, we think of crackling dialogue peppered with great metaphors and witty one-liners. Bury Me Twice does have those, although some of the dialogue does fall flat in places. In one particular scene early in the movie, where Jack is going back and forth with the potential client, the dialogue plays very on the nose. In what could have been a much more compelling exchange, we are instead given an info dump. It happens a couple of times throughout, and some finessing of the dialogue in these scenes could have made for much more memorable exchanges. 

Bury Me Twice is a fun and entertaining marriage of two genres. While there are some misses in terms of dialogue and the visual presentation, the enjoyable moments far outweigh any negatives. The cast is up to the task, and delivers their lines with the energy and speed you come to expect in a detective story. LaMorte manages not only to hit most of the right notes on the detective side but also spins some great set pieces, which are always important to zombie movies. 

7 out of 10