DEAD LOVER

(director/writer: Grace Glowicki; screenwriter: Ben Petrie; cinematographer: Rhayne Vermette; editor: Lev Lewis; music: U.S. Girls; cast: Leah Doz (Ben’s sister), Grace Glowicki (Grace), Lowen Morrow (Grieving Widower), Ben Petrie (Ben); Runtime: 83; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Yona Strauss, Ben Petrie, Grace Glowicki; Featured Creatures; 2025-Canada)

“It’s an acquired taste that eluded me.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

It’s a weird campy riff on the Frankenstein story, that’s directed and stars the performance artist Grace Glowicki (“Tito”) and is co-written by her and co-star Ben Petrie.

It’s an acquired taste that eluded me.
 
The low-budget film is shot on 16mm Kodak film in a Toronto studio. It opens with a quote from Mary Shelley, the writer of Frankenstein.

A lonely, smelly gravedigger (Grace Glowicki), with a strong Cockney accent, lost her lover, the brother of an opera singer (Ben Petrie) she met at the funeral of his sister (Leah Doz), and he fell in love with her foul smell and they married. However their happy marriage was short-lived, as he died shortly afterwards in an accident on the sea. Fishermen recover only his ring finger, with his marriage ring still on. She thereby tries her magical/scientific experiments on the finger to see if she can bring him back to life, but can’t.

It’s a visually sound and inventive production that makes do with a cast of four. But this is one Frankenstein yarn I would keep buried.

It played at the Sundance Film Festival.

REVIEWED ON 3/17/2025  GRADE: C+
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