Dead Lover
Even without the scratch-off cards that the audience can scratch and sniff during a film, the on-screen images are pungent on their own.
Most films, good or bad, provoke some kind of visual and aural responses. That’s the point of the multi-sensory art form. At least, this is what movies have done since the advent of the talkie. DEAD LOVER also stinks. This isn’t meant pejoratively. Set in a world surrounded by dead bodies and no running water in sight, Canadian director Grace Glowicki’s follow-up to Tito is a freakish and more randy adaptation of Mary Shelley’s foundational Frankenstein where smell playfully and erotically figures into the story.
Gravedigging is a dirty job, and the gravedigger (Glowicki) here still falls on the stinky side of the profession. Her stench is her defining trait, factoring into how every other character interacts with her. Potentially romantic partners turn in the other direction after getting a whiff until a man mourning his sister, the lover (Ben Petrie, her real-life husband and frequent collaborative partner), finds her smell irresistible. His olfactophilia or scent kink matches her stinky freak. When he dies, the gravedigger concocts a weird potion to bring him back to life Frankenstein–style, but, as with most scientific attempts at resurrection, things don’t go so well.
Continue reading at Rue Morgue.