Boy Eats Girl (2005)

A boy declares his love for his girlfriend, only to die the same night. He is brought back to life by his mother as a flesh-craving zombie, who sires more teen undead while trying to control his, er, appetite for his beloved.

Director:

Stephen Bradley

Writer:

Derek Landy

Stars:

Samantha Mumba, David Leon, Tadhg Murphy

7 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Samantha Mumba	...	Jessica
David Leon	...	Nathan
Tadhg Murphy	...	Diggs
Laurence Kinlan	...	Henry
Sara James	...	Cheryl
Mark Huberman	...	Samson
Sarah Burke	...	Charlotte
Paul Reid	...	Shane
Jane Valentine	...	Glenda
Conor Ryan	...	Kenneth
Deirdre O'Kane	...	Grace
Doreen Keogh	...	Mrs. Brumble
Bryan Murray	...	Mr. Frears
Denis Conway	...	Craig
Lalor Roddy	...	Fr. Cornelius

Storyline

Single mother Grace is working in an ancient church restoring it and finds a hidden crypt that contains a book of resurrection. Father Cornelius asks her to go home and forget her findings. Her son Nathan is a sensitive and shy teenager bullied by Samson at school. He has a crush on his friend Jessica, but he does not declare his love to her. His best friends Diggs and Henry schedule a date for Nathan with Jessica, however her father grounds her in her bedroom and when Nathan calls Jessica, her father tells him that she has gone on a date with a good looking guy in a car. Jessica sneaks out through the window, but Nathan and Jessica fail to meet up with each other. When Jessica takes a ride in Kenneth's car, Nathan mistakenly believes that she is dating the schoolmate. He goes home, drinks whiskey and puts a rope around his neck. When Grace comes home, she opens Nathan's bedroom door and accidentally hangs her son. She then resurrects Nathan, but soon finds that something went wrong ...

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Plot Keywords:

friendship | friendship between boys | undead | zombie | voodoo | 

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Taglines:

This zombie loves his girlfriend for her brains.

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Genres:

Comedy | Fantasy | Horror

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for horror violence/gore, language and some sexual content

Details

Country:

Ireland UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

23 September 2005 (Ireland)

Also Known As:

Scary Video 5

Filming Locations:

Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland

Box Office

Budget:

$5,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Element Films, Lunar Films, Odyssey Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

80 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Domhnall Gleeson's film debut.

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Goofs

Approximately half way through the film Jessica comes to Nathan's window after the disco dance held at the school to talk to him. After he chases her away he closes the window and curtain and lays back down on his bed revealing that the small dent/almost hole he put in the wall earlier via his super zombie strength to be absent from that morning.

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Quotes

Diggs: Do you have any special powers or anything?
Nathan: I'm stronger, I'm faster, and I don't feel pain.
Diggs: Can you fly?
Nathan: No, Diggs, I can't fucking fly!
Diggs: Pity.

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Connections

Featured in WatchMojo: Top 10 Zombie Comedy Movies (2018)

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Soundtracks

Wonderful Night
Performed by Fatboy Slim and Lateef Dumont

User Reviews

Not as bad as you'd think, not good either.

Part satire and part romantic-comedy, Boy Eats Girl should be looked upon as a homage to the classic 70s horror genre and not a poor effort at recreating the success of Shaun of the Dead. Hailing from Ireland, it takes plenty of liberties in its character's settings and mannerisms. Not wholly European as you'd expect but it works on most levels, just not so much on the humour however.

Nathan (David Leon) is the heartbroken teenager who accidentally kills himself after making the mistake of witnessing the love of his young teenage life, Jessica (Irish pop sensation, Samantha Mumba) in a compromising situation with his school's Lothario. Nathan's mother (Deirdre O'Kane) finds his lifeless body in his room and remembers the handy book of resurrection spells that she'd found just days earlier in the bowels of the church that she works at.

As easy as you can say beginner's luck, she manages to bring back her son and gets him ready for the next day of school. Nathan starts to feel the effects of his zombification when he starts to feel impervious to pain and feels hungry all the time. His 2 pals, Henry and Diggs (Laurence Kinlan and Tadhg Murphy) who at times seem even less shiftless than their dead friend, get worried when they see Nathan's disenchantment with Jessica vanish.

At the night's school disco, resident slut and girlfriend of the toughest jock in school, Cheryl (Sara James) propositions Nathan. Not exactly willing to do what Nathan wants from her, she ditches him. Unfortunately for Nathan, the jock boyfriend follows him as he stumbles on to the rugby pitch. Normally, this would be a cakewalk for bully-kind everywhere but Nathan's newfound undead ability of super-strength makes it easy for him to overpower the jock. He finally gives in to temptation and takes a couple of deadly chunks out of him. Nathan runs home and is given the bare bones of his worsening condition by his mother who promptly locks him in the garage as she finds a cure. Things start to get a whole lot worse for him after last night's attack starts a chain reaction of killings, each spawning a much more vicious version of Nathan's condition.

The plot and situation 'borrows' heavily from a handful of movies, especially the 1993 cult classic, My Boyfriend's Back with virtually the same sub-plot of unrequited love between the unfortunate undead and his high-school sweetheart. As most will use Shaun of the Dead as a touchstone in understanding the film's comedy/gore tandem, it's intended use of black comedy and detached humour falls short.

The backyard splatter that comes from fending off ravenous classmates and neighbours is refreshing to see and it does it well. The violence and the reactions of the harried survivors are always tongue-in-cheek which is satisfying, as the zombie horde never comes close to being scary, just downright silly. The flaying of skin and removal of limbs is a requisite in any good romp through a town full of undead. However, the gore starts of perfunctory, not exactly a good sign when it takes almost half the movie to get there.

As the film progresses to its climax, a visible shift in priorities takes place. Suddenly, the story stops and a zombie free-for-all take place, courtesy of a pimped out tractor and surge of adrenaline from the heroine. As the movie is a relatively short enterprise, clocking in at about 77 minutes (including credits), it almost makes up for the lack of spilled blood and guts when the horror aspect of the film finally kicks in.

Most satires succumb to taking themselves too seriously at some point in their films and Boy Eats Girl is no different. The romance between Nathan and Jessica felt too overdone in the beginning, leading to the most controversial scene in the movie that initially got it banned in its native Ireland. The attempted suicide scene was clumsy and awkward; not exactly an endorsement for depressed teenagers everywhere.

The film starts out slow, working out the set-up of the eventual suicide that triggers the rest of the plot, leaving just a third of the movie for bona fide zombie mayhem. Each transition is disjointed and rushed, especially the weak example of a deus ex machina during the last minutes of the film.

The 1-note characters and unresolved story lines are indicative of the apathetic acting and lack of fleshed out character development. Mumba does not show any signs of being a tough female character in the beginning, making a transformation into the movie's heroine seem out of character. Leon's Nathan seems too self-aware and confident to pull off being the angst-ridden chump who finds it hard to bring up his true feelings around Jessica.

From start to end, its campy throwback to nonsensical horror-comedy masks over its inability to find its feet and its problematic attempts at satire. Suffering from a painfully short running time and an overly brisk pacing, Boy Eats Girl does not fulfill the potential that it has. What it does achieve is a quick and harmless way to spend just over an hour when bored.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars