Review: ‘Dead Lover’ is alive with ‘80s-style zany horror insanity
2026 / Dir. Grace Glowicki
Rating: 4/5
Watch if you like: A grotesquely hilarious mix of Re-Animator, Monty Python, and experimental theater. All manner of bodily fluids just all over the place, everywhere, fluids all around.
“I want to lick your stink, I want to taste your foulness,” the titular, soon-to-be Dead Lover (Ben Petrie, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, The Heirloom) says to the Gravedigger (Glowicki), who thinks she’s finally found the love of her life after years of alienating everyone around her with her inescapably putrid death smell. After he drowns and only his finger is found, what’s a graveyard girl to do? Attach it to the corpse of his also recently deceased sister, of course!
The second feature film by Canadian director, writer, and actress Grace Glowicki (Tito, Strawberry Mansion, Honey Bunch), Dead Lover brought me back to that feeling of being a kid looking at the horror section at Blockbuster, full of movies with outrageous covers that I wasn’t allowed to check out. While many of those turned out to be pretty lame once I was finally allowed to see whatever I wanted, Dead Lover creates a pure vision of ‘80s-style zany horror insanity that does everything a “midnight movie” should do and more.
Using its low budget as a strength, the film features minimalist sets and is filmed in a “black box” studio where characters either appear in front of a menacing black void or are awash in hypersaturated color (typically deathly blues or a pukey yellow-green), captured on grainy 16 mm film. Characters (just four actors play several roles apiece) have terrible wigs, theatrical corpse-like makeup, and even worse accents. Special effects are wonderfully lo-fi, like a 2-D lightning drawing across the sky. By heightening the “cheapness” and artificiality of it all, Glowicki and her team create a distinct, psychedelically strange visual style that’s incredibly effective at sucking you into a world of offbeat weirdos.
Speaking of which, Glowicki’s Gravedigger is a protagonist for the ages. Born in the graveyard and now all alone in the graveyard, she speaks in a ridiculous Cockney accent, looks half-dead herself, and is incredibly capable despite her desperation to be loved. There’s a clear influence of Monty Python and British humor in general, often evident in the physical comedy of Gravedigger’s movements, such as her conversations with herself, but she’s also quite endearing. There’s an undercurrent of sadness to the Gravedigger buried beneath all the blood and fluids—an honest and bracing look at how self-worth, desire, and love can be toxically intertwined.
Though Dead Lover eventually reaches some familiar Frankenstein-type beats (although the spirit here is closer to Re-Animator or Frankenhooker), the movie still manages to be quite surprising thanks to its realized aesthetic and distinct world. For instance, a first attempt to raise her lover from the dead involves some plant alchemy to try to grow her lover’s severed ring finger a new body, only to grow an absurdly long reanimated digit. I don’t want to spoil all the many delightfully goopy gags in Dead Lover, but there are so many moments of charming absurdity that make this type of story still feel fresh and exciting.
Yes, Dead Lover isn’t going to be the type of movie you watch with your Grandma—unless she’s cool as hell—but for fans of body horror and gross-out comedy (think Sarah Sherman’s Sarah Squirm standup sets), you’re going to want to seek this one out. Grace Glowicki has made a uniquely special film and a sure cult classic in the making.