Director: Grace Glowicki
Writers: Grace Glowicki, Ben Petrie
Stars: Leah Doz, Grace Glowicki, Lowen Morrow
Synopsis: A lonely gravedigger who stinks of corpses finally meets her dream man, but their whirlwind affair is cut short when he tragically drowns at sea. Grief-stricken, she goes to morbid lengths to resurrect him through madcap experiments.
To be completely honest, when I saw the trailer for Dead Lover, I stopped about 10 seconds in. I was sold instantly. What I saw in those short seconds was a taste of what to expect: what looked like a banshee of a grave digger creating an elixir. A vividly colored, singular experience born from the mind of writer and director Grace Glowicki. Death, reanimation, and lustful passion make Dead Lover a film Mary Shelley would be proud of.
Not only would Mary Shelley be proud of the film’s subject matter and execution, but a quote of hers flashes on screen as Dead Lover opens. It’s a mysterious introduction into the film that ushers in the film’s lead character, played by Glowicki herself, who is simply referred to as the Gravedigger. Her reputation revolves around her occupation, and it takes over her entire life. Those around her avoid her due to the stench that radiates off of her. Her skin is pale, ghost-white, with hair to match, and her clothes are riddled with dirt and death. But inside is a woman who longs for romance.
Daily tasks are exactly what you’d imagine: digging graves for funerals, while the only people who come near her are cold corpses. During one of these funerals, she becomes an unlikely hero for a grieving brother (Ben Petrie). His life was nearly the next on the chopping block for a freshly dug grave, and the pair fall in love. Despite her putrid smell, he is head over heels, speaking about how her beauty is unlike anything in the world. Their love is deep, and both make proclamations to one another to always be bound together. But it doesn’t last long, and the gravedigger is back to being lonely, now grieving.
Dead Lover takes inspiration from Shelley’s work most when the newly single (again) gravedigger recounts a recipe for a potion that has the chance of bringing her lost loved one back. Using the only proof he existed—his severed finger—she successfully brings him back. But much like Frankenstein, it doesn’t completely go the way it’s intended. Glowicki shows a real love for the mother of horror and showcases the gravedigger’s intelligence throughout the trial and error of reanimating life. It’s an equally hilarious and explorative experience to watch.
Glowicki focuses a lot on the transformation from the severed finger to the partner her character ends up with. There’s a conflict with a widower (Lowen Morrow) who makes a connection with the gravedigger that devastates the newly single man. Both of their former lovers are related to one another: the grieving brother and his dead sister (Leah Doz). It’s a story threaded craftfully, but Glowicki’s script becomes repetitive at a certain point. It’s still eccentrically entertaining, but the creatures created by the gravedigger could use some spotlight as well.
Dead Lover is the epitome of small-scale cinema; its stark black background allows the film to feel never-ending. The set is minimal: a graveyard with only a handful of graves, a bedroom with only a bed and a window. It perfectly captures the loneliness the gravedigger goes through, and the dusty, dingy atmosphere helps audiences make their own assumptions about how smelly she truly is. Visually, the film has a stage-play feel, with items like shovels and brooms having a prop-esque look to them. It adds to the hilarity of it all.
Much like the minimal scale of the film’s production, there are only a few actors involved in bringing this story to life—four, to be exact—who all play multiple characters in Dead Lover. From lesbian nuns sneaking out to have sinful fun to a group of gossiping old women who talk about the rumors of their local gravedigger, their work is a true labor of love, with Glowicki wearing more hats than I can count.
Love is the driving factor for the gravedigger at the beginning of the film, and while love still drives her, she’s overcome with lust for her partner. There’s a sensuality that he awakens in her that she doesn’t want to lose, even when her lover doesn’t resemble who he once was. Glowicki shows the gravedigger as someone who makes rash choices; she isn’t concerned about what her partner wants, reanimating him without a second thought. It’s an idea that isn’t touched on, which is a shame because it feels worth exploring.
A film like this is best watched without trying to figure out where it’s going before it happens. It doesn’t follow Shelley’s work beyond reanimation and parts of the process, so when it swerves from the obvious directions, Dead Lover keeps the audience on their toes. There’s a real sense of love for the medium, from the actors to the set decorator, all knowing exactly what is needed to make a film like this come to life in the way they intend. Even when some choices don’t work, it’s one of the best creature features of the year.Glowicki and her small cast and crew make Dead Lover a horror comedy that is rare to come across. Their hard work is seen in each scene, and their dedication to the craft proves that budgets and scale don’t make films worth watching; it’s the passion behind them.
