I have been looking forward to seeing this ever since I saw the first trailer for it. February was a weird month, in the sense that I didn’t make it out to the theatre to see it, but I still wanted to see it. I am surprised that it didn’t gross that much during its theatre run and I can’t exactly figure out why. The stars, Katheryn Newton and Cole Sprouse are very popular amongst the younger generation this was Zelda Williams directorial debut and should’ve sparked some interest, and it was a return to horror for screenwriter Diablo Cody.

The premise of the film is a mixture of 80’s teen films like Weird Science and Return of the Living Dead. Lisa (Kathryn Newton) has recently lost her mother and is dealing with a new stepmom and stepsister when the film opens. The only way she has to cope with the loss of her mother is by tending to the grave of a young man who passed away centuries ago. During a lightning storm, said young man (Cole Sprouse) comes back to life thinking that when Lisa says to him she’d want to join him, that she meant she fancied him, and not that she only wants to join him in death.

Thus, begins the hilarious pursuit of trying to conceal having a zombie-like creature in her room whilst also attempting to put him back together again. Newton’s and Sprouse’s chemistry was very tangible and their funny moments are funny. I think the thing that this film did wrong is that they had too much going on for such a short run time – it had body horror, grief horror, and slasher horror – it was almost like they didn’t know which trope to stick to. I also thought that there were few moments in which the characters connected and for being a teen horror, we barely saw Lisa at school. The pacing was a little off, and the party/drug scene lasted way too long.

But this film had a killer soundtrack and it was an overall fun horror movie. I just wish that they had leaned in more towards the comedy aspect since this wasn’t a movie that leaned into the scary elements.

Check it out if you like feminist horror and monster movies.

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