Carlos Lerma’s Graveyard Romantic is a 7-minute comedy about what happens when love refuses to stay buried — literally. Penny (Amelia Mahrie) and her girlfriends are deep into a Christmas get-together and Secret Santa when the night is going exactly as planned. Gifts are being swapped, wine is being poured, and now it’s time for a break. Meanwhile, at the local graveyard, a hand punches through the dirt of a fresh grave. Sam (Samuel Schoonover) is back — rotting, zombified, and pointed straight for the party.
Suddenly, the lights cut out at the party. Sam drags himself through the front door and right into the middle of the festivities. Everyone knows who it is. Sam is there for Penny — not for her brain, for her heart.
“Sam is there for Penny — not for her brain, for her heart.”
Graveyard Romantic is a satirical look at falling in love, putting yourself out there, and the zombie apocalypse. Great effort was put in by Lerma and DP Ethan Alexander, as they didn’t just lock down the camera and produce an SNL sketch. I imagine we’ve got dozens of setups, shot compositions to accentuate every line, and perfect angles for a bit of movie magic.
From a story standpoint, we’ve all been in this situation where we profess our love to that one true love, only for it to end in a fate worse than death. In this case, it was literal death, and now our hero gets one more chance. Ah, that power of love. This is what happens when a filmmaker takes a silly premise seriously.
For screening information, visit the Graveyard Romantic official website.
"…Love refuses to stay buried — literally."
