DEAD LOVER (2025)

In select theaters from Lightbulb Film Distribution and Yellow Veil Pictures!
Directed by Grace Glowicki.
Written by Grace Glowicki, Ben Petrie.
Check out the trailer here!!

A lonely gravedigger (Grace Glowicki) fears dying alone and sets out to find herself a lover. She meets a young fancy man (Ben Petrie) at a funeral for his sister and the two forge a love for the ages. But the fancy man has some problems with his seed farm, if you know what I mean, so he is off to a fancier doctor in England to get his pipes fixed, as he wants to marry the gravedigger and give her the child she deserves. But when his boat sinks at sea, the gravedigger is delivered her lover’s finger (the only part the authorities could recover). Known to have quite a green thumb, the gravedigger sets out to re-grow a new lover from the severed finger. Looniness of the highest order commences.

Grace Glowicki and Ben Petrie, the partners who were last seen in the excellent horror film HONEY BUNCH, are back and this time, while it is horror, it is something entirely different. DEAD LOVER plays out much like a stage play with over-the-top acting that aims for the cheap seats, dramatic and cartoonish lighting, and sets that feel as if they were made in a high-school shop class. It’s this type of DIY style that only adds to the charm to this grotesque and somewhat sweet little movie about longing for love and losing it just when you think you might be happy. Don’t get me wrong, DEAD LOVER is not made without skill or effort by the entire cast. It just feels as if everyone had a blast making this offbeat spectacle of a film.

Glowicki steals the show here, as she sports a thick Cockney accent and a heavy layer of dirt on her as the Grave Digger. She has all the best lines and most of the action centers around her longing for love. Glowicki plays her as a confused outcast who doesn’t really know anything about the world other than what she has learned in the cemetery and during funerals. There’s an innocence about her, even when she is murdering people and digging graves that stands out. When the flamboyant fancy man (Ben Petrie) shows up, it seems like love at first sight…or smell, as the Grave Digger smells of the earth and corpses she buries—a stench that cannot be washed off. Petrie doesn’t particularly play the type of a hero or romantic interest, but for some reason, the Grave Digger likes him despite his feminine ways. It’s not exactly a match that feels made in heaven, but that only adds to the oddity to this film.

Bathed in dramatic lighting of all sorts of colors and animated when the film’s budget gets in the way, if you have the pleasure of checking out DEAD LOVER, the filmmakers have also provided Stink-O-Vision, a scratch and sniff card, for the audiences to experience the film’s various grotesque scents. This William Castle-esque addition makes the strange film even more unique.

And unique is going to be the word that best describes DEAD LOVER. It never takes itself too seriously, even when the drama is high. I laughed quite a bit at the quips of the naïve Grave Digger as well as the sewing circle of ladies who gossip about the desperate lass and represent what the world around the Grave Digger is thinking. You’re definitely not going to see or smell a movie like this one. Quirky to a fault, DEAD LOVER is a wonderful little experimental horror film, but those who take their horror seriously might be put off. But if you couldn’t get enough of the pairing of Glowicki and Petrie from HONEY BUNCH, DEAD LOVER continues to display their bizarre takes on love and horror.