Grace Glowwicki’s Dead Lover introduces audiences to a smelly Gravedigger played by Glowwicki herself. Everyone scoffs at her except her Lover (Ben Petrie), who makes everything perfect. When he dies at sea, though, the Gravedigger goes to extreme lengths to reanimate her deceased Lover.

Dead Lover is a microbudget film, but it is also interactive in its approach with Stink-O-Vision. Audiences are given a scratch card with ten numbers; when those numbers appear on screen, you scratch the number and have a sniff. That fun, interactive approach sets the tone for Dead Lover as an unapologetic horror experience for the “freaks.” It feels like you shouldn’t be watching, shouldn’t be sniffing, but you can’t help it. 

The film knows who it is for, getting a lot out of its small budget. Even without the Stink-O-Vision Card, you can still imagine what these small yet busy sets smell and feel like. In the color department, the film uses reds, blues, and greens to create a surreal, exaggerated effect that works perfectly.

All the film’s silliness never felt out of place; it felt natural in this world. At times, it feels like Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” mixed with the Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). Dead Lovers is committed to making this mixture work. The film’s dialogue captures this silly mixture, such as “Supercharge the rose bush” and “This long shaft of satan.”  

The practical work, too, is phenomenal. When The Lover dies, all that is left is a single finger of his. When the Gravedigger attempts to re-grow the body from the finger, it instead becomes one massive finger. It’s incredible, weird, practical work like that you only get in a microbudget film like this.

Glowicki’s turn as the Gravedigger is in your face constantly, almost becoming intimidating (even before the homemade perfumes hit you). Still, she is desperate for somebody, a cure for loneliness — even if it leads to digging up a dead body. Petrie, as Lover, comes across as a pest whose only aim is to see how many one-night stands he can have, even if he does still really care for The Gravedigger.

Leah Doz and Lowen Morrow also do well in their roles as the Creature and the Widower. Together with Petrie, the trio also has roles as the gossip becomes a narration device for the film, filling the audience in on background information. I can see audiences becoming obsessed with these three characters because of how snobby and noisy they are. 

I can see Dead Lover becoming a cult classic, the type of film that you introduce to your non-horror friend, and it weirds them out. It’s bizarre and odd in all the best ways.

Review Courtesy of Matthew Allan

Feature Image Credit to Creature Inc via IMDb