Dead Lover

A lonely gravedigger goes to the morbid extreme to resurrect her lover in this warped, malodorous rom-com. The gravedigger is good at her job, but has one major problem: she constantly smells of corpses and dirt, and it’s affecting her dating life in a big way. The cure for her loneliness appears to come at last in the form of a new man who doesn’t mind her smell, her teeth or her ghostly complexion. But when he dies attempting to find a cure for his low sperm count, she must dig deeper than ever before to revive him – and their love. Audiences at Sundance, Rotterdam and SXSW were left stunned by this unconventional horror-comedy written and directed by Grace Glowicki (Tito, MIFF 2019), who also stars in the central role. Prioritising practical effects and handmade sets, and with inspirations plucked from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Monty Python, Kenneth Anger and Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre, Dead Lover is filled with wonderfully wacky DIY flourishes and a uniquely grotesque style all its own. Adventurous audiences with a taste for rotting flesh and abstract gender norms shouldn’t let this potential suiter slip between their bloodied fingers. “There are squished-up lizards and drag-like swashbucklers, canoodling nuns, and snail-like trails from intimate secretions. It’s a boiling brew of blood, lust, lasciviousness, revenge, and ridiculousness.” – Collider