Boy Eats Girl

DECEMBER 22, 2007

GENRE: COMEDIC, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

In an odd way, it's kind of a bummer that Shaun Of The Dead is so damn good, because every "funny zombie" movie that has come along since gets compared to it, and usually unfavorably. In fact, it's almost impossible to find a review of Boy Eats Girl that DOESN'T mention Edgar Wright's film, which must be particularly annoying for the filmmakers.

Luckily for them, their film is quite good. In fact the biggest complaint I have about it is that it is too short. Running only 80 minutes with credits, the movie could have used another setpiece and maybe a tad more character time, but it works without them. It's funny when it's supposed to be, with a very good hit/miss ratio for the gags (I could do without a few of his geeky friends' quips). Almost all of the characters are likable, even the bitchy girl who you're supposed to hate is somewhat endearing (mainly for her response to "I'll eat you myself!"), and since the movie doesn't really spend a lot of time 'getting to know' them, that's high praise for the (mostly no-name) actors playing them. The lead in particular is quite good (and I am sure this is just coincidence, but he actually resembles Edgar Wright), pulling off the raging zombie version just as well as the lovesick emo kid version.

On that note, I'd like to point out the soundtrack: it's great! If you like pop rock. If not, oooh boy you'll hate this soundtrack. But for the rest of us, it's a treasure trove of UK pop.

My only other complaint is, again, the amount of production company logos (counting them, this movie is really only like 70 minutes!). There's a half dozen animated logos, and then EVERY SINGLE ONE IS REPEATED during the opening credit crawl!! Why, why why all of these goddamn things are at the top of the film is beyond me. On TV shows, the logos are shown at the END. Would you want to hear "Sit Ubu sit" every time you wanted to watch an episode of Family Ties? Of course not, that's why it's at the end, so you can shut it off. I've said it before - no one cares whose production companies worked on it except for the people whose production companies worked on it. If you just want to suck yourselves off, for the love of Christ stick it at the end of the film so people who just want to watch a movie don't have to sit through this crap to satisfy your whimsy. In this case, Lionsgate should be the only one at the top. Even though they didn't work on it, they are the ones directly responsible for distributing it in a manner that allowed me to see it in the comfort of my own home. I thank them in advance; if the movie is good I can see what companies 'presented' it at the end. Imagine if you put a CD in and before the first song came on, you had to listen to the names of all the guys who pro-tooled it to hell.

Kind of bummed the DVD has no extras though. Alexander gets 3 2-disc releases and this movie doesn't even get a blooper reel??? Then again, as it is a "foreign" film (Ireland, I believe), perhaps the Region 2 release has the usual stuff... anyone know? I'm too lazy to go look.

What say you?