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Dead Lover

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Dead Lover
Film poster
Directed byGrace Glowicki
Written by
Produced by
  • Grace Glowicki
  • Ben Petrie
  • Yona Strauss
Starring
  • Grace Glowicki
  • Ben Petrie
  • Leah Doz
  • Lowen Morrow
CinematographyRhayne Vermette
Edited byLev Lewis
Music byU.S. Girls
Distributed by
Release date
  • January 24, 2025 (2025-01-24) (Sundance)
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish
Budget<$350,000

Dead Lover is a 2025 Canadian thriller film directed, co-written, produced by and starring Grace Glowicki, co-writer Ben Petrie, Leah Doz, and Lowen Morrow. Inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, it follows a woman's attempt to resurrect her deceased lover.

The film debuted at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival in the Midnight category on January 24, 2025.[1] Yellow Veil Pictures serves as its sales agency.[2]

Plot

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A gravedigger finds the love of her life, a poet named Swimmer, at the funeral of his sister. However, their love affair ends when he drowns at sea and only a severed finger is left of his body. She resurrects him using scientific experiments.

Production

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Grace Glowicki made her directorial debut with Tito in 2019. Dead Lover was co-written by Glowicki and Ben Petrie.[3] Glowicki, Petrie, and four friends drafted ideas for a film and then acted it out with friends from community theatre. After the script was completed the cast, which were not assigned characters at the time except for Glowicki, rehearsed it over the course of six weeks. The actors were given their characters three weeks before shooting.[4]

Dead Lover was shot on 16 mm film[5] using an Arri SR3 and Bolex[6] over 16 days at AstroLabs Studios in Toronto, for less than $350,000. All of the sets were two black box stages that were redecorated for each scene.[4] Glowicki wanted the film to be similar to "DIY, low-budget experimental theater."[7]

Glowicki initially wanted to edit the film herself. Lev Lewis was given the Dailies and made an assembly cut before being hired months later to make the final edit using Adobe Premiere Pro to edit the film.[5] Lewis knew Glowicki as she starred in a project he co-wrote years prior and was contacted by producer Yona Strauss. Test screenings were conducted with groups as low as 5 or as high as 40. Lewis found the massing of the mob near the end of the film to be the most difficult scene to edit.[8]

Glowicki has cited Frankenstein, Monty Python, Saturday Night Live, Mel Brooks, exploitation films, theater, and cartoons as inspirations to Dead Lover.[7] The cinematographer was Rhayne Vermette, who emulated the style of 1930s colour films using "dollar store lights".[4] Glowicki told Vermette to look at the films of Kenneth Anger for reference.[6]

The music was done by U.S. Girls.[9]

Release

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Dead Lover premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on 24 January 2025.[5] It has also been shown at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and Gothenburg Film Festival. After being shown at South by Southwest the North American distribution rights were acquired by Cartuna and Dweck Productions through the joint venture of Cartuna x Dweck, the first film it has acquired.[3]

Kurt Ravenwood, who conducted the advertising for Hundreds of Beavers, will provide marketing strategy for Dead Lover.[3]

Reception

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On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 80% of 10 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.2/10.

Josh Korngut at Dread Central gave the film four out of five stars and called it "an outrageously comedic and transgressive love story" that "blurs the lines between beauty and grotesqueness, life and death, crafting a visceral, punk-tinged quilt of grief, transformation, and the lengths we’ll go for love."[10]

Murtada Elfadl, writing for Variety, praised the ingenuity of the makeup, production design, sound, and lighting, but criticized the later half of the film as repetitive.[11] Vikram Murthi, writing for IndieWire, gave the film a C+, calling it "admirable" but concluding that its bit was "frustratingly static" and that its "prolonged, forced zaniness unfortunately taints everything it touches."[12]

Jacob Oller at The A.V. Club gave the film a C and called its bit "charming" but lamented that "as the thin resurrection-gone-wrong film wears on, Glowicki's mugging becomes more grating than funny, and its amusing novelty begins to rot after being unnaturally extended past its normal lifespan."[13]

References

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  1. ^ Blauvelt, Harrison; Richlin, Christian (2025-01-26). "'Dead Lover' Interview: Grace Glowicki and Team Share Their Embrace of 'Feelings and Stink'". IndieWire. Retrieved 2025-01-26.
  2. ^ Donnelly, Matt (2024-12-11). "Sundance Selection 'Dead Lover' Adds Yellow Veil Pictures as Sales Agent Ahead of Premiere (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 2025-01-26.
  3. ^ a b c Goodfellow 2025.
  4. ^ a b c Dunn 2025.
  5. ^ a b c Gallina 2025.
  6. ^ a b Cinematographer 2025.
  7. ^ a b Bloody 2025.
  8. ^ Editor 2025.
  9. ^ IFFR.
  10. ^ Korngut, Josh (2025-01-25). "'Dead Lover' is the Disruptive, Punk Kid Sibling to Recent Gothic Revivals like 'Nosferatu' [Sundance 2025 Review]". Dread Central. Retrieved 2025-01-26.
  11. ^ Elfadl 2025.
  12. ^ Murthi 2025.
  13. ^ "Bold takes on Frankenstein and Cinderella open Sundance, while Juliette Lewis body-swaps with a chair". AV Club. Retrieved 2025-01-26.

Works cited

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News

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Web

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