Tina Kakadelis
Picture this: You’re a lonely gravedigger who’s never had the chance to fall in love. Whether that be because of the isolating nature of the job, the ever-lingering scent of dead bodies, or just the general oddity that comes with the profession, it’s hard to feel like a happily ever after is in the future. Simply put, how far would you go to fall in love? After a buzzy run at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Grace Glowicki’s Dead Lover is heading to Texas for the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival to answer that question in its own bizarro way.
A woman known by nothing more than her profession, Gravedigger (Glowicki), lives in a small cottage on the cemetery grounds. The role of town gravedigger has been in her family for generations, so she’s merely the latest to pick up the shovel. Everyone in town is repulsed by Gravedigger because of her intensity, her over-exaggerated facial expressions, and, most of all, her scent. While overseeing the funeral of a famed opera singer, Gravedigger notices a beautiful man known only as Lover (Ben Petrie). Unlike everyone else in town, Lover is drawn to Gravedigger’s scent, obsessed with it, and the two share a whirlwind night together. Lover leaves in the morning to travel abroad, but he promises to love Gravedigger forever. A wrench is thrown into their plans when he drowns, forcing Gravedigger to find a way to bring her one true love back from the dead.
Dead Lover was shot in sixteen days in a black box theater and has a DIY spirit that is utterly brimming with sincerity. Glowicki and Petrie, along with the film’s only other two actors (Leah Doz and Lowen Morrow), play upwards of four different roles. Glowicki is the exception to the multiple-role statement, as Gravedigger is in the majority of the scenes. Dead Lover pulls references from expected places, like the works of Mel Brooks and Monty Python (it’s impossible to avoid theYoung Frankenstein comparisons), but it’s the more unexpected sources that really warm the heart.
Dead Lover is made for the movie lovers who grew up in the early days of YouTube. The ones who watched the StarKid musicals, quoted Charlie the Unicorn, and can still hum “Chocolate Rain.” Dead Lover wasn’t made for everyone, but for those who exist on its wavelength, the film scratches an itch that has been bothering them for years. There are lines in Dead Lover that echo long after the film ends, absurd pieces of dialogue you can imagine being yelled down a middle school hallway. While that might seem like a negative, it’s quite the contrary. The film operates with such an unabashed freedom and goofiness that can only exist when art is made with those you trust and love.
Underneath its odd, cartoonish exterior is something deeply earnest. All of us, gravediggers or not, are concerned with the possibility of never finding that special someone. That person who gets a whiff of our utterly repulsive scent and says, “Yes, please, more of that forever.” Dead Lover deals with that dread in its own dramatic voice, one that is weepy with loneliness, obsessed with just a taste of something more, and doomed by its own hand…or its own grotesquely long, reanimated finger. It’s refreshing when filmmakers remain committed to their vision, no matter how odd or singular it is. What makes Dead Lover great is that it isn’t concerned with having every single person in the audience fall under its spell. That’s unrealistic, and for every “crowd-pleasing” film out there, there’s a group of people who didn’t like it. You can break your back trying to appeal to every person, or you can choose to make something you wholeheartedly believe in.
That’s the magic of Dead Lover. Its passion is entirely unfiltered, a love letter to the creative process and all of its faults and eccentricities. Glowicki commands the screen with weird, bewitching, over-the-top confidence. It’s hard to dislike a movie that’s unapologetic in its joy at merely getting the chance to make art. Even if some of the jokes don’t land, or if it falters due to its small-scale limitations, Dead Lover is entrancing. It’s a labor of love on par with bringing someone back from the dead.
