{"id":831704,"date":"2026-03-17T12:08:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T12:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/831704\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T12:08:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T12:08:15","slug":"dead-lover-review-go-for-broke-grotesquerie-promises-fragrant-filth-in-full-stink-o-vision-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/831704\/","title":{"rendered":"Dead Lover review \u2013 go-for-broke grotesquerie promises fragrant filth in full Stink-O-Vision | Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

If memory serves, the last theatrical release to arrive with a scratch-and-sniff component was 2011\u2019s Spy Kids 4<\/a>, which invited its victims to huff the gastric emissions of a yapping robot dog voiced by Ricky Gervais. This microbudget Canadian horror curio offers more art than fart, although its Stink-O-Vision conceit is only one unusual element in what is an altogether bizarre proposition: a morbidly perverse chamber play with a pastiche penny-dreadful plot, pieced together by writer-director-star Grace Glowicki. Some whiff of that narrative persists among the perfumes awaiting your nostrils: scents include \u201clove\u201d, \u201copium\u201d and \u201cghost puke\u201d \u2013 plus \u201cmilkshake\u2019 by way of light relief. Delicate sensibilities are advised to stay at home.<\/p>\n

Dead Lover\u2019s heroine is odorous by trade, a lovelorn gravedigger of indeterminate age and origin. Glowicki\u2019s accent, roaming between Canada<\/a>, Canvey Island and Canberra, becomes part of the fun \u2013 she\u2019s driven to extremes after her verse-spouting poet sweetheart (co-writer Ben Petrie) perishes in a shipwreck. Part-Burke and Hare, part-Victor Frankenstein, she salvages what she can of the corpse. The script \u2013 part-Carry On, part-Ken Russell \u2013 grabs both: \u201cI do hope he loves how big my bush has got while he\u2019s been away,\u201d sighs our gal during some wistful botany. Even without the scratch-and-sniff, even before two lesbian nuns wander on, much of it would qualify as ripe indeed.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Unmistakably the work of the area of the industry that nurtured Guy Maddin<\/a> and the singing-rectum musical Zero Patience, lock on to its wavelength and rude chuckles await, otherwise the filthier fragrances flooding the stalls will probably prompt an awful headache. This one is going for gross and grotesque, and it beds right down when it gets there. Even so, Glowicki frames her go-for-broke performance within striking images, and she finds suggestive ways to cover budgetary holes, not least nicely squishy practical effects. It is perhaps too much the acquired taste (and smell) to appeal to everyone, but it\u2019s distinctive, never dull and \u2013 much like its most noxious niffs \u2013 difficult to shake.<\/p>\n

Dead Lover is in UK and Irish cinemas from 20 March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If memory serves, the last theatrical release to arrive with a scratch-and-sniff component was 2011\u2019s Spy Kids 4,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":831705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,3943,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-831704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116244441120041827","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}