Some films merely wink at weirdness; Dead Lover—directed, co‑written, and performed with feral commitment by Grace Glowicki—sprints naked into the abyss, waving a shovel and screaming poetry. When it hits UK cinemas on 20 March, proudly unleashed in STINK‑O‑VISION, audiences will be treated to a cinematic experience that feels like the lovechild of Mel Brooks, Monty Python, and a Looney Tunes short that was banned for psychological reasons. Glowicki’s fingerprints are everywhere—on the script, on the performance style, on the very texture of the 16mm film—and the result is a delirious, anarchic art-house monster stitched together with passion, sweat, and whatever fumes were leaking from the gravedigger’s pockets.
Glowicki stars as the Gravedigger, a stench‑ridden romantic whose Cockney‑tinged yearning is so earnest it borders on mythic. Her odor has exiled her from the world of the living, but hope arrives in the form of Ben Petrie’s aristocratic poet—a man who not only tolerates her bouquet of rot but adores it. Their romance is sweet, strange, and short‑lived; he dies in a shipwreck, leaving behind only a finger and a ring. What follows is Glowicki’s psychedelic resurrection odyssey, a quest stitched together with botany, electricity, and sheer emotional derangement. Trying to describe the plot beyond that is like trying to summarize a fever dream while still sweating through it.
Shot entirely on 16mm with stark black backgrounds and minimal sets, the film feels like a theatrical hallucination—a stage play possessed by cinema’s ghost. The other three cast members—Petrie, Leah Doz, and Lowen Morrow—shapeshift through multiple roles with Monty Python‑esque elasticity, slipping between characters like they’re changing masks backstage at a midnight cabaret. U.S. Girls’ score thrums beneath the chaos, while the editing ricochets between colors, shadows, and cartoonish exaggeration. It’s a sensory assault, but one delivered with the giddy confidence of artists who know exactly how far they can push before the audience snaps.
Not every joke lands, and the film’s manic energy starts to wobble in the second half, but even its misfires feel like part of the charm—the glorious messiness of true creative freedom. Glowicki and her troupe aren’t afraid to get weird, to get gross, or to get psychosexually unhinged in ways that would make a studio executive break out in hives. It’s transgressive comedy with a beating heart, a celebration of freaks, oddballs, and anyone who’s ever felt like their love life might benefit from a little necromantic horticulture. Even when the narrative frays, the commitment never does.
By the end, Dead Lover feels less like a film and more like a communal ritual—the kind of thing best experienced at midnight with a rowdy crowd, half drunk, half stoned, all delighted. It’s destined for cult status, a future staple of party screenings and mutant‑family gatherings. While it may not be the most polished film of the year, its originality is undeniable, its passion infectious, and its willingness to push boundaries downright admirable. When it arrives in UK cinemas on 20 March, go in with an open mind, embrace the chaos, and let the madness wash over you. And honestly, edibles wouldn’t hurt.
MPAA Rating: Unrate.
Runtime: 95 mins
Director: Grace Glowicki
Writer: Grace Glowicki; Ben Petrie
Cast: Leah Doz; Grace Glowicki; Lowen Morrow
Genre: Comedy | Horror
Tagline: Love Can Conquer Death
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Distributor: Cartuna
Official Site:
Release Date: March 20, 2026
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
Synopsis: A lonely gravedigger who stinks of corpses finally meets her dream man, but their whirlwind affair is cut short when he tragically drowns at sea. Grief-stricken, she goes to morbid lengths to resurrect him through madcap experiments.
