Boy Eats Girl

From the title "Boy eats Girl" it's pretty clear that this film is one that requires you to leave your brain outside the door. Do that and you should enjoy it. If you're hoping for anything more than a bit of enjoyable fluff, look elsewhere.

The film starts off great, the audience gets to know the main characters quite well, and there are more than a few good laughs. It goes downhill slightly from the moment in the film were the infection begins to spread. This is mainly because it all seems so rushed. However the gory bits (which there is quite a lot of for a 15A film) are varied and inventive enough to keep the viewers entertained.

The main cast all do a good job, in particular David Leon and Tadhg Murphy. Samantha Mumba is good in her role, but she hasn't got as much dialogue as you'd expect from the films lead. Some of the supporting cast however (for example, Bryan Murray as Fr.Frears) are awful.

Overall it is an entertaining, funny, gory movie, and one of the best Irish productions in a long time.

"Boy Eats Girl" is an Irish-made romantic zombie comedy ("RomZomCom?") about a high schooler who, when he thinks he's lost the girl of his dreams, commits suicide ... only to end up becoming Patient Zero of a zombie outbreak thanks to his well meaning but misguided mother, who resurrects him from the dead with the help of a voodoo spell book. After reading that description, I'm sure those of you who are looking for a serious zombie movie are already going to look for something else. For those who are still reading, "Boy Eats Girl" was a hilarious horror/comedy treat with -- gasp! -- a sweet side!!

As the film begins, our high school hero Nathan has already got enough problems -- being bullied by the jocks, abused on the rugby field - but when he accidentally misses a chance to tell his long time friend Jessica how he really feels about her, he goes home and hangs himself. Re-awakening the next morning after a last minute "rescue" by his mother, Nathan begins to notice some, errrr, "changes" in his body, chief among them the urge to munch on human flesh. Turns out Mom used a voodoo spell book "borrowed" from the local church to bring Nathan back from the dead... but there was a page missing from the book so she accidentally left out a step. Whoops. Nathan is able to contain his, errr, "appetite" for only so long, until he finally takes a bite out of one of his high school tormentors at a school dance. This, of course, is a bad idea. His victim goes on to bite some people, who then go on to bite some more people, who go on to bite even MORE people, until sure enough, his quaint little Irish village is being overrun by zombies. Even though he may be one of the Undead now, Nathan still doesn't want anything to happen to his beloved Jessica, so he and his two doofus friends race to her family's home to rescue her just before the horde of undead descends upon the place. Hilariously over-the-top mayhem ensues.

It takes a little while for the zombie shenanigans to really get going in "Boy Eats Girl" but once it does I doubt any gorehound will be disappointed. (The scene where Jessica charges into the horde on her father's farm machine is friggin' EPIC!) From then on, the blood and guts, as well as the one liners, come fast and furious. The compact run time (just about 80 minutes) keeps "Boy Eats Girl" from overstaying its welcome, and wraps everything up nicely.

Fans of "Shaun of the Dead" or "Zombieland" should get a few kicks out of "Boy Eats Girl," and the film is a worthy addition to the growing Zombie Comedy genre.

The restorer and single mother Grace (Deirdre O'Kane) is working in an ancient church and she finds a hidden crypt with a voodoo book of resurrection. However, Father Cornelius (Lalor Roddy) asks her to go home and forget her findings.

Her son Nathan (David Leon) is a sensitive and shy teenager bullied by Samson (Mark Huberman) at school. He has a crush on his friend Jessica (Samantha Mumba), but he does not declare to her. His best friends Diggs (Tadhg Murphy) and Henry (Laurence Kinlan) schedule a date of Jessica with Nathan. However her father grounds her in her bedroom and when Nathan calls Jessica, her father tells that she has dated a good looking guy in a car.

Jessica flees through the window, but Nathan and Jessica fail to meet each other. Jessica takes a ride in Kenneth's car and Nathan 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 she hangs her son. Grace resurrects Nathan, but soon she finds that something did not work out when her son bites Samson and his schoolmates start eating each other.

"Boy Eats Girl" is an unoriginal Irish comedy about a group of zombies that are not living dead, but teenagers infected by the bites of their schoolmates that follows the American style with Irish accent. This B- movie entertains, but is not funny enough for a comedy or frightening for a horror movie. The lead actress is miscast for the role of Jessica and the slut Cheryl is never naked along the story; therefore one of the basic rules of a B-movie is broken. But there are also funny dialogs that make laugh. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Samantha Mumba brings some spark as the love interest in this Irish teen-zombie flick, and the premise should work - awkward teen Nathan accidentally zombifies his school after a botched resurrection, forcing his crush Jessica to navigate gory hallways and undead hormones. There's charm in the suburban Irish setting (imagine Shaun of the Dead but with uniformed teens and more rain). A few gags land, like Nathan's mom obliviously serving "special" meatloaf or a zombified jock still flexing in a mirror.

But it's a shambles of missed opportunities. The satire on teen angst and conformity feels toothless - no real jab at clique mentality or authority figures, just splatter and slapstick. The gore's restrained to PG-13 levels, draining the fun from what should be chaotic, irreverent carnage. Characters make baffling choices (why is the principal still enforcing detention during an apocalypse?), and the tone wobbles between dark comedy and half-hearted romance without committing. It's neither scary nor sharply funny, just... there.

The Verdict: Harmless for forgettable. Fails to ignite as satire, horror, or romance. Watch Shaun instead.

Boy Eats Girl is the kind of film to watch when you're in a non-committal mood, something that demands only vague attention and which doesn't try to be clever. If you want a horror or a zombie movie then look elsewhere, it's neither nor does it try to be.

It is a comedy, let's get it straight right now, not a zombie film. Romero's legacy to pop culture and the film industry certainly gets a good outing here, but this isn't a film to make gorehounds feel fat and happy, nor will zombie purists find anything to debate over.

A lot of the characters are like those from sappy American Teen comedies but with Irish accents and in situations involving blood and throw-away limbs.

Perhaps this helps: It's California Man with gore.

It entertained me for the short running time (about an hour I made it) and I liked it enough to cough up £5 for it. If you give it a chance as a silly gory comedy, you may well like it too.