Grace Glowicki’s deceptively accomplished genre mash-up Dead Lover is a movie so delightfully absurd, bizarre, and purposefully fetid (complementary) that it’s surprising that it wasn’t made in Winnipeg. A wild, provocative, and frequently hilarious bit of business, Dead Lover is a romantic, horror, period piece, comedy that has to build a garment of a thousand sleeves to wear all of its influences on. It’s campy, snappy, nasty, smelly (quite literally for some select screenings), and jaw dropping in vision. Glowicki, once again working alongside partner and co-star Ben Petrie, brings a lot of energy to Dead Lover, both in the lead and behind the camera. It’s the movie for horny weirdos to end all movies about horny weirdos. And we all need more movies about horny weirdos.
Glowicki stars as a lovelorn gravedigger with a stench, yellowing smile, and a longshoreman’s accent that keeps all potential friends and suitors at a great distance. Her only friend in the world is Mr. Moon, and she has a tendency to narrate her story in uncomfortably graphic detail for the audience. She is, to put it mildly, a lot, but this gravedigger also has a sweet disposition. She tries to make herself smell less rotten, but nothing ever seems to work. But lo and behold there is a man out there for her, a horny dandy (Petrie) who finds her funk charming. The only problem with them living forever in bliss is that he’s shooting blanks. He attempts to cross the ocean for an experimental treatment that could cure his ailment, but ends up dying at sea. All that remains is a finger. And with that digit, the gravedigger tries to resurrect her love, with, um, consequences.
Dead Lover is a wild ride of absolute nonsense, but it doesn’t do anything halfway. Glowicki directs with maximum energy, like an overeager theatre kid who has just discovered psychedelics. No detail is too big or too small, and everything is filmed on lovingly handcrafted sets with the most theatrical lighting possible. It’s like being invited to an experimental comedy being performed in somebody’s basement on Halloween, and everyone is encouraged to laugh both with and at what’s happening in the moment. The evocative 16mm cinematography from Rhayne Vermette (who also shot the VERY different, but gorgeous looking documentary Agatha’s Almanac, which is also in theatres this weekend) makes everything look like a lost artifact, which rhymes well with Glowicki’s senses for direction and performance. There’s no such thing as too over the top here, nor is there a depth too low to sink to.
In the best way, Dead Lover makes you feel like you’re going crazy from its melding of styles. Euro-trash, slashers, Hammer horror, German and Russian expressionism, Ed Wood, the latter works of Francis Ford Coppola, Guy Maddin, Jodorowski, Yahoo Serious, Stuart Gordon, Jim Henson, sea shanties, Shakespeare, Peter Jackson, Anna Biller, Agnes Varda, YouTube slop, Murnau, Tati, if you can name it and they changed filmmaking forever, you can find it in Dead Lover. This is a film that’s very silly throughout, but it also has an undeniable love for cinema in all its varied forms, creating connections between seemingly different filmmakers and styles with ease and gusto. Dead Lover is always “going for it,” and even if you never figure out what “it” actually is, the effect is intoxicating.
Dead Lover keeps coming up with surprises and never flags or drags for a second. Glowicki and her team fully commit to the bit, with many actors playing multiple roles to add to the chaotic onslaught. It’s as original as it is insane; an experience made for viewing alongside other people and shooting glance to see if they’ve just seen what they think they just saw. It’s a provocation, but also whimsical in its own grotesque way. It’s never afraid of being uncool or pushing too hard. It’s the film that put the freak flag factory out of business, aimed at an audience that loves the odder side of cinema. Even then, most viewers will be deliciously unprepared for what they’re getting into with Dead Lover.
(It also screens, at select showings, in Stink-o-Vision, where adventurous viewers are given a scratch and sniff card of diabolical scents to take a whiff of at key points, because of course a film like this would do that.)
Dead Lover screens at The Revue in Toronto on April 3, 4, 7, and 9, 2026, with filmmaker Q&As on the 3rd (moderated by Bruce LaBruce) and the 4th (moderated by Matt Johnson). It screens at the Fox Theatre in Toronto on April 10th (with filmmaker Q&A) and 11th. It screens from April 10-12 at Dave Barber Cinematheque in Winnipeg, at ByTowne Cinema in Ottawa on April 10 & 11, at Cinema Moderne in Montreal on April 10, 12, 15, & 21, and at VIFF Centre in Vancouver on April 17, 18, & 20.
Screenings with Stink-O-Vision (all other screenings are sans scents):
The Revue: April 3 at 6:45 pm, April 4 at 6:45pm
Fox Theatre: April 11 at 9:15pm
Dave Barber Cinematheque: April 11 at 7:00 pm & 9:30pm, April 23 at 7:00pm
Cinema Moderne: April 10 at 9:30pm, April 21 at 9:30pm
ByTowne Cinema: April 11 at 9:30pm
VIFF Centre: April 17 at 9:00pm
