I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It's gotten a lot of stick but to be honest I can't see anything wrong other than the stick up it's critics backsides. It isn't a full-on horror movie, it's more like the Buffy movie with zombies instead of vampires and a lot more gore. People like to gripe and moan about more accessible movies, declaring in a grandiose fashion that 'what has become of our once great cinematic history' blah blah blah, then instantaneously undermining their argument by finding something like Scary Movie more to their tastes. Seems Boy Eats Girl has been on the receiving end of the kind of folks who think their ability to use a keyboard makes them some kind of Brian Sewell. Well, it won't be the first time.
Aside from the aforementioned gore, Boy Eats Girl is a horror-comedy with the emphasis on the comedy. It's premise is pretty similar to Shaun of the Dead, but it's a much more mainstream kind of humour, seeing as it relates to high-schoolers. Thankfully the clichés of the 'high-school horror' are largely dodged through the combination of zombies (a surefire way of spicing anything up. The horror equivalent of a horde of angry ninjas lol) and an ace script that flips most of the clichés on their head. For instance, the preppy bimbo character who's dating the jock is not only quite intelligent and resourceful, she's also given a lot of lines and a fair chunk of plot to get on with.
The characters are one of the two key places this deviates wonderfully from the teen-horror crowd. All of these characters have a little story of their own, none of them just feel like they're serving as a box-ticker in a genre movie. You almost feel sad to see them meet a sticky end. Almost.
Why you won't entirely is the hilarious and OTT ways they go out. For instance, at one point an ageing Science teacher swears at the bimbo girl as she flies by on a scooter, only to pitch headfirst into a ditch and be jumped by five zombies. Once there's a horde of hungry Irish zombies wandering the neighbourhood, things get really interesting, really bloody and above all satisfyingly silly.
It isn't a classic horror, I'll grant you that, but it's endearingly stupid and has some of the best one-liners ever. It's funny, it's gory and it has hordes of zombies. I can't see what the problem is.
Aside from the aforementioned gore, Boy Eats Girl is a horror-comedy with the emphasis on the comedy. It's premise is pretty similar to Shaun of the Dead, but it's a much more mainstream kind of humour, seeing as it relates to high-schoolers. Thankfully the clichés of the 'high-school horror' are largely dodged through the combination of zombies (a surefire way of spicing anything up. The horror equivalent of a horde of angry ninjas lol) and an ace script that flips most of the clichés on their head. For instance, the preppy bimbo character who's dating the jock is not only quite intelligent and resourceful, she's also given a lot of lines and a fair chunk of plot to get on with.
The characters are one of the two key places this deviates wonderfully from the teen-horror crowd. All of these characters have a little story of their own, none of them just feel like they're serving as a box-ticker in a genre movie. You almost feel sad to see them meet a sticky end. Almost.
Why you won't entirely is the hilarious and OTT ways they go out. For instance, at one point an ageing Science teacher swears at the bimbo girl as she flies by on a scooter, only to pitch headfirst into a ditch and be jumped by five zombies. Once there's a horde of hungry Irish zombies wandering the neighbourhood, things get really interesting, really bloody and above all satisfyingly silly.
It isn't a classic horror, I'll grant you that, but it's endearingly stupid and has some of the best one-liners ever. It's funny, it's gory and it has hordes of zombies. I can't see what the problem is.