Early on in Dead Lover, its lonely gravedigger protagonist looks to the sky, confiding in the moon like an old friend, and declares without irony or hesitation just how badly she wants to be loved. It’s a moment that could easily play as a joke in a film this strange, this heightened, and this unapologetically grotesque. But in the hands of writer / director / star Grace Glowicki (Tito, Honey Bunch), it lands with surprisingly moving sincerity. That balance between the absurd and the achingly genuine is what defines Dead Lover, a deliriously offbeat gothic romance that is as committed to its emotional core as it is to its own wonderfully unhinged sense of humor.
Check out our interview with Grace Glowicki about the making of 'Dead Lover'
As an artist, Glowicki has always operated on a wavelength that feels distinctly her own, both in front of and behind the camera, and Dead Lover is the purest distillation of that voice yet. Styled like a black box theater production brought to life on richly textured film stock, the movie embraces a stripped-down, performance-first aesthetic that feels both intentionally artificial and deeply immersive. Sets are minimal, lighting is expressive, and the focus remains squarely on the bodies, voices, and rhythms of its performers (Leah Doz, Ben Petrie, and Lowen Morrow round out the cast). It’s a bold approach that can ask a lot of its audience (depending on who may be watching) but Glowicki meets that challenge head-on to exceptionally entertaining results.
At the center of it all is Glowicki herself as the Gravedigger, a perpetually filthy, stinky, deeply lonely woman who spends her days burying the dead and her nights dreaming of companionship. She hosts a particularly pungent odor (this is emphasized early and often) and the world around her recoils accordingly. But Gravedigger is never really presented as a punchline, or even a tragedy, really. Instead, she’s funny and earnest to a fault, delivering heartfelt eulogies to the forgotten bodies she buries and clinging to the hope that someone, somewhere, might see her for who she is. When that someone finally arrives in the form of the Lover (Petrie), a man who not only accepts her but is voraciously drawn to her scent, the film blossoms into something unexpectedly, earnestly romantic.
And yes, it’s also incredibly, gleefully gross. Dead Lover revels in the textures of decay, dirt, sweat, and bodily functions with a kind of fearless commitment that feels both genuinely nasty and strangely refreshing in the genre space. There’s been plenty of attempts to gross out audiences throughout the decades, but you’d be hard-pressed to find one quite like this. There's more than one moment in this film that made me gag, much to my delight, of course. Besides the physical gags (pun intended), a lot of the dialogue between the Gravedigger and her Lover is outrageously horny and deeply bizarre; yet it’s grounded in a sincerity that makes their nasty lil' connection real.
That emotional grounding is what allows Glowicki to push everything else to extremes. As the story progresses and tragedy inevitably strikes, the film spirals into increasingly absurd territory, twisting into a mad scientist narrative that sees Gravedigger attempting to resurrect her lost love by any means necessary. What follows is a series of escalating extremities and set pieces, including one particularly inspired bit involving a severed finger that grows to delirious lengths. It’s ridiculous, it’s excessive, and it’s consistently hilarious.
Yet even at its most unhinged, Dead Lover never loses sight of what it’s actually about: the desperate, all-consuming desire to be seen and loved. Glowicki has spoken about building her work from an emotional truth outward, and that philosophy is evident in every frame. The comedy works because it’s tethered to something real. The horror lands because it emerges from genuine grief. Even the film’s more theatrical flourishes - like the poetic, often rhyming dialogue, the exaggerated performances, or the surreal interludes - serve to heighten, rather than undercut, the story’s emotional resonance.
Visually, the decision to shoot on film proves to be a crucial one. Cinematographer Rhayne Vermette (Ste. Anne, Levers) brings a richness to the image that elevates the deliberately minimal production design, using color within the shadows to create a world that feels both stark and lush. It’s a striking contrast: a film that looks genuinely beautiful while depicting things that, at least by society's standards, are anything but.
By the time Dead Lover reaches its morbid and oddly tender final moments, it becomes clear that Glowicki isn’t merely interested in provoking her audience in one way or another. She’s inviting them to find beauty in places they might instinctively reject, to laugh along with the gore, and to recognize the deeply human longing at the center of it all. It’s a weird, wild, and wholly singular piece of work, one that won’t be for everyone, but for those willing to meet (and smell) it on its own terms, it’s unforgettable.
'Dead Lover' wafts into theaters March 20th with select engagements in glorious Stink-O-Vision.
