I don’t know where this movie came from, I don’t know what crazed lunatics gave these filmmakers money to make it, but I am SO GLAD to live in a world where something as absurd as Dead Lover can infect the world with its deranged comedy genius.
Directed by Grace Glowicki, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ben Petrie, this bizarro tale of love, loss, and re-animation follows a lovelorn gravedigger who smells of death but longs for romance. As is the case with so many tragic romances, her one true love dies unexpectedly right as their affair is blossoming, leaving her only one logical option: Bring him back from the dead so they can have wild, freaky sex again and again and again.
“Dead Lover is like a German Expressionist film with silly voices, color gels, and fart jokes.”
Glowicki herself stars as the putrid cemetery siren, Gravedigger, with co-writer Petrie joining her as the clumsy poet, Lover, enraptured by her singular scent (on top of at least a half-dozen other characters). The remaining cast of kooks is filled out by only a small handful of other performers and, honestly, you probably wouldn’t have noticed (I didn’t) if I hadn’t mentioned it.
There are no less than twenty speaking parts, and each personality is its own cartoonish creation. Glowicki’s Gravedigger especially is such a hyper-specific and unique performance that I couldn’t help but ask myself ‘Where do you even begin to find an actor for a role like this??‘ The answer, like so many hurdles in indie filmmaking, is to roll up your sleeves and do it yourself.
Dead Lover is like a German Expressionist film with silly voices, color gels, and fart jokes. It’s a movie that is unapologetically silly and dares you not to have a good time, like last year’s indie barnburner Hundreds of Beavers (but for goth girls). Even with all the silly insanity, the crass humor, and the ridiculous plot, you really feel for Gravedigger.
The whole world wants nothing to do with her, but you want to root for her so bad. Everyone else looks at like she’s been dipped in the bog of eternal stench, but she’s our bog lady and it’s the rest of the stupid world that can’t see how adorable and deserving she is of love. Even if her beloved is the finger of a corpse that she’s propagating like a house plant in hopes of growing Lover again.
Grace Glowicki’s Dead Lover recently screened at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, as part of their Midnight Madness program. The programmers at TIFF and I often disagree on what qualifies as “Midnight Madness” but Dead Lover is an absolute homerun on all fronts. It’s hilarious, it’s bizarre, it’s 100,000 watts of weird beamed directly into your skull from the mind of an artist that it completely unrestrained.
I would be shocked if this didn’t make John Waters’ annual Best Of The Year list, and assuming you’re also the kind of person who likes to watch adorably f*cked up movies, Dead Lover will be one of your favourites of the year too.
“It’s hilarious, it’s bizarre, it’s 100,000 watts of weird beamed directly into your skull…”“
Grace Glowicki’s Dead Lover had the honor of closing out the Midnight Madness program at TIFF 2025 and will surely be screening in your local cool cinema soon. Join us in the Nightmare on Film Street Discord to stay up to date on release news and let us know if you’re excited for a freaky Frankenstein-inspired dark macabre comedy! Social Media is A Cesspool. Discord is Where All The Cool Creeps Are.
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