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biggest problem (and it's a fixable one at that)
with Stephen Bradley's zombie horror/comedy
"Boy Eats Girl" is that it's too short.
As in, clocking in at 70 minutes of actual movie
short. As in, "Why is it only 70 minutes
long?" short. This film is too short, and
it's hard to fathom why, because there's a lot
here for horror fans to sink their teeth into. As
it stands, once the zombies start roaming the
streets, over 30 minutes of running time (i.e. the
set-up) has already passed, leaving just 40
minutes of zombie mayhem to enjoy. And when you're
selling a zombie movie, giving the audience a
meager 40 minutes of what they came for is taking
your life into your hands.
Hailing from
Ireland
, also home to last year's fantastic "Dead
Meat", there's little doubt that Bradley
and Derek Landy's "Boy Eats Girl" owes
its very existence to Edgar Wright's "Shaun
of the Dead". In that respect, the two
films have a lot in common, including their
pedigree as horror-comedies rather than straight
horror. This leaves plenty of room for a series of
gag-a-second writing, with the first 20 minutes or
so of "Boy Eats Girl" being crammed full
of jokes, sexual and otherwise, all delivered with
that airy, detached way the Europeans are so
famous for.
The horror element doesn't
begin until hopeless romantic Nathan (David Leon)
finds himself dangling from the wrong end of a
noose. The problem: a series of wacky
misunderstandings has led him to believe that the
girl of his dreams, gal pal Jessica (Samantha
Mumba) has no interest in him. Luckily for Nathan,
his mother works at the local church, where by
accident she had discovered a book of Haitian
voodoo, which she promptly uses to bring Nathan
back from the dead. Now a zombie famish for human
flesh, Nathan attempts to go on with life, but a
late-night brawl with rugby bully Samson (Mark
Huberman) turns the bully into a zombie. While
Nathan flees in horror, Samson quickly sires more
zombies, and soon the town is overrun by teenage
killers craving flesh. Yikes, and you thought you
had it rough in high school.
I usually enjoy my zombie
movies done with a serious face, but every once in
a while it's a good thing to sprinkle a little
comedy into the genre. "Boy Eats Girl"
does a fantastic job at this, and is funny from
beginning to end. The jokes work wonderfully, and
I dare say they actually come at a faster clip
than in the British "Shaun of the Dead".
While the top-billed stars get most of the
screentime, it's co-star Sara James, as slutty
Cheryl, that steals the show. Watching Cheryl
fleeing from zombies while decked out in
fashionable high heels and skirt is hilarious. The
comedy bits with Cheryl works because James sells
it with such commitment, and "Boy Eats
Girl" wouldn't be half the movie it is
without her.
Horror-wise, gorehounds will
choke on the blood and guts. The movie is, in a
word, bloody. Not that Bradley spends a lot of
time focusing on the gore the way most low-budget
horror filmmakers tend to make the mistake of
doing. Instead, Bradley flashes gore and moves
onto the next slaying. The film never really
wallows in its gore until toward the end, but even
that is done for comedic effect. "Boy Eats
Girl" is a generally well-directed film, and
one can only imagine what the filmmakers must have
snipped in the cutting room to knock the film's
running time down to its current 70 minutes.
Which leads me to wonder what
a longer film could have made "Boy Eats
Girl". It's a very good comedy and a
serviceable horror movie as is, but extra minutes,
and a more ambitious agenda (the zombie outbreak
seems to be contained to a small neighborhood
block and a group of kids) might have produced
something more substantial. Nothing apocalyptic is
necessarily, but wouldn't one of these zombies
have wandered out of their neighborhood and
infected other blocks by now? And while it's true
that zombie tropes are abused willy nilly, that's
to be expected. Nowadays everyone refuses to stick
to what works, i.e. zombies shuffle, not run. The
main culprits are, of course, Danny Boyle's "28
Days Later" and the recent "Dawn
of the Dead" remake.
Because "Boy Eats
Girl" is more comedy than horror, it's no
surprise that the sidekicks make more of an
impression. Besides Sara James, the other notables
are Laurence Kinlan and Tadgh Murphy as Nathan's
mates, two losers who don't quite understand that
they are, in fact, losers. The two sidekicks are
so good that they dominate the scenes they share
with star David Leon. You can't help but wish the
film had spent more time with the two lovable
losers instead of following lovelorn Nathan
around. The two leads are okay, but their
characters are just not very interesting. Even
when Mumba's Jessica brings the heavy machinery
out of the shed to kill zombies, you wonder what
kind of glorious effect the sequence could have
been generated had slutty Cheryl be the one behind
the controls.
Without belaboring the point
too much, "Boy Eats Girl" suffers from a
terribly short running time. It's understandable
why the filmmakers might have snipped the film to
within an inch of its life, with pacing and
commercial appeal being two very big reasons. For
those who dig the plight of zombie Nathan and his
buds Henry, Diggs, and slutty Cheryl, here's
hoping for a longer Director's Cut to appear in
the market sometime in the future. Some horror
movies are so bad you wish it would quickly end;
"Boy Eats Girl" has such potential that
you wish it wasn't in such a rush to leave. |
