Grace Glowicki’s provocative Dead Lover grabs you by the collar and drags you into its weird little world. Quirky females are back in genre films, stronger now with the current picture, The Bride, and the recent Lisa Frankenstein. The majority of these are written and directed by women with strong and overdue female leads in a genre often dominated by the “boobage ‘of the “Final Girl’ or simply kill bait.
Dead Lover opens like a work from showman-gimmick master William Castle, in this case telling you to sniff scents at points in the film, and shot in grainy 16mm in a Toronto studio, the picture looks and feels handmade in the best way. It’s stagey and intentionally artificial, like an experimental theatre combined with elements of Dario Argento and Mario Bava.
Grace Glowicki plays a gravedigger so steeped in death she literally smells like it, which makes relationships a challenge. That is, until she meets an aristocrat (Ben Petrie) who’s not only okay with it, but he adores it. Their romance is fast, intense, and predictably doomed. He dies (or seems to), and all she’s left with is his severed finger. Naturally, she decides to bring him back to life.
What follows is a run of increasingly odd resurrection attempts that feel like a Frankenstein myth involving the now longer sentient digit as done by Hammer Studios, directed by Andy Warhol. It’s grotesque, ridiculous, and over the top without being intentional. It’s the way the film world is, so this is the norm. This isn’t just about bringing someone back; it’s about refusing to let go, no matter how messy or unnatural things get.
The film swings between crude, almost shocking humour and moments that are oddly beautiful. There’s a line about eating poop “like a banana” that lands like a slap, and then seconds later, you get something poetic and sincere. It’s ugly and tender at the same time, just like its main character.
“Naturally, she decides to bring him back to life.”
Visually, everything is bare bones. Sets are minimal, lighting is harsh, and nothing tries to look “real.” You can see the seams, and that’s the point. In a time where so much horror is obsessed with atmosphere that really isn’t there, like Skinamarink and the wave of imitators leaning into childhood nightmares and blowing trees, Dead Lover goes in the opposite direction.
The cast is small with four actors playing multiple roles, genders, and personalities, oddly like original Shakespeare was staged through its heightened, theatrical style, where performance and language carry more weight than realism.
The Gravedigger, played by Grace Glowicki, is weird, funny, and a little tragic. You believe what she’s doing is completely even, if it’s coupled with facial expressions and high vocalizing. Grave digger even says the famous Colin Clive line and the then-infamous edited ‘Being a God” exclamation from James Whale’s Frankenstein. Ben Petrie matches her energy with a performance that leans into the film’s playful side with lovely diction and expression in even the oddest dialogue, all delivered with conviction. Lowen Morrow shows up later with a brooding, almost parody-level intensity that fits perfectly. Leah Doz, as a sort of resurrected opera singing “Bride’ while sporting a close to Elsa Lanchester hair, is enchantingly tragic with giant digit and siren-like vocals during a fog-shrouded night moment. The vocalization echoes to me the Lanchester’s “ Scream heard round the world “ rejection of Karloff’s creature from Universal’s Bride of Frankenstein.
The soundtrack, featuring U.S. Girls, which is an experimental pop group, adds to the oddness that works, making the highs feel higher and the lows a little more unhinged.
Dead lover starts to drop off towards the end, living on going of this has bent my mind, but where does it go now? Dead Lover isn’t polished, and it isn’t for everyone. It’s crude, messy, and proudly weird. But that’s exactly why it works. In a horror landscape that’s starting to feel a little too safe even when it’s trying to be experimental, you really can say ‘It’s Alive’.
"…It’s crude, messy, and proudly weird. But that’s exactly why it works..."
