Women are crazy. Am I right? *dude-bro high five*
No? You’re not having any of that? That’s okay, neither am I really. I mean – I know my fair share of crazy gals – but mostly, “crazy” is relative. Yes, it’s even relative in Burying the Ex, the latest genre-mashup from Joe Dante.
I admit it, I had a good chuckle or two when I saw the trailer for Burying the Ex – completely ignoring the sexist tropes at hand. Don’t get me wrong, when I sit down to watch a Joe Dante film, I know what I’m getting into. The Burbs is one of my favorite sittin’ around movies and I was super happy with The Hole; I’m not even going to bring up Gremlins or Piranha, because: duh. With all of that in – and then out – of mind, I sat down to take in this new supernatural-zom-rom-com.
The plot:
Max, a horror fan with a dream of owning his own scare shop, and Evelyn, his attractive and high-strung, lifestyle-blogger girlfriend move in together. When Evelyn starts to put the kibosh on all of Max’s favorite things (hanging out with his promiscuous, stoner half-brother; hanging posters on the wall with thumbtacks; eating unhealthy malts with his dream girl down the street) he decides it’s time to let her go. As Max gathers his courage to break up with Evelyn, she is struck by a bus and dies. Time moves forward and Max begins to heal, coming around to dating his dream girl – presumably for more than her malts. But, Evelyn comes back, and – get this – she’s crazier than ever, trying to end Max’s life so she can ruin it in the grave.
Are you hanging your head? Yeah. I know a lot of you are. But here’s the thing, it was sort-of entertaining. There were a handful of funny moments – other than what was in the trailer. And the misogynistic notes weren’t any worse than what you saw in a two minute clip. Side note: I have an incredibly high tolerance for misogynistic humor, mostly because I am guilty of it from time to time. (Let’s be honest, I’m guilty of it a lot of the time).
Basically, what you get from Burying The Ex is exactly what you expect: some run-of-the-mill early 20s humor, topped off with just the right amount of gross and gore to remind you that there is – in fact – a zombie in this movie. It’s good background noise, if you’re into that sort of thing. I found myself watching less and less of the film and doing other things while I listened and glanced occasionally. Fortunately, it works for this movie. Unfortunately, it works for this movie.
Dante probably isn’t the director you look to for some deep and meaningful insight into relationships or the world, so don’t start now. The cast is good (Anton Yelchin is pretty spectacular in everything, yeah?). The script is so-so, mostly because there’s only so much you can do based on the premise of a short film of the same name about “eternal love with an undead nut job.” You do get Dante’s great ability to switch between genres seamlessly, so that’s something.
Ultimately, I’m pretty middle-of-the-road about Burying The Ex. On one hand the “crazy” undead girlfriend was way too crazy. (Admittedly, if we were dating, I would let you think it was okay to tack posters to the wall – until I moved in, then I would get frames for those bitches.) On the other hand the new “perfect” girl-of-interest was just too damned perfect. There was no happy medium to the characters or the plot; both ends of the spectrum are over exaggerated for the sake of laughs – which were sparse – and despite that, the whole thing just seems to flatline.
Burying The Ex isn’t going to rejuvenate the zombie-comedy genre and it’s not going to win any feminist awards either. However, it might make you go “ewwww” and chuckle a little while rolling your eyes at those crazy womenz… but probably not.
Zombie Honey Rating: 2 Cravings for a Malt out of 5
Originally written for and posted at The Horror Honeys.
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