Burying The Ex (2015)

Have you ever dreaded having the breakup talk with someone? In June 2015, Max already felt bad for wanting to breakup with his girlfriend… So, you can imagine how bad he felt when she died.

Directing this 89 minute comedy/horror is Joe Dante.

Staring in this one is: Anton Yelchin as Max, Ashley Greene as Evelyn, Oliver Cooper as Travis and Alexandra Daddario as Olivia.

Max isn’t sure about his relationship with Evelyn. He sees a lot of good things about her, but he’s just not happy. Of course breaking up with someone isn’t an easy thing to do, especially when Max’s other half doesn’t think anything is wrong. Luckily, fate steps in and takes the pressure off of Max in the form of a freak accident that kills Evelyn before they have a chance to have “the talk.” Unfortunately, just when Max thought things were looking up, Evelyn has come clawing her way back to him, because… she loves him.

Before I watched this movie I had heard the title mentioned a few times but didn’t know anything about the story. I figured from the title that it had something to do with the death of an ex boy or girl friend, which didn’t really grab my attention at first. However, I looked into it a bit more and saw Yelchin was one of the main stars and decided to give it a shot.

Now, unlike some of director Joe Dante’s previous films; Gremlins (1984), Innerspace (1987), The ‘Burbs (1989) and The Howling (1981), this one doesn’t have as big of a budget. However, with that whole “less is more” mentality, they filmed the whole thing in twenty days and wound up pulling off a really good film. Now, one of the things that might bother some people is while, yes it’s a zombie movie, it’s not a bloody humanity is falling and zombies are taking over the word kind of flick. It’s just about a guy, his girlfriend and the comedic hardship of life and relationships… that happen to revolve around a zombie.

Writer Alan Trezza penned a story of happiness, heartbreak, grief and even love all wrapped up nicely in a horror comedy that’s based off of a 15 minute short film with the same name. It’s a bit of a dry dark comedy revolving around death… or the undead that is. I really liked the script, it has a lot of quick wit and good dialogue, but the story never gets serious or heavy.

The playthrough was great and held my attention the entire time. I thought the small cast really worked for this one. You have three main characters that the story focuses on, with an occasional fourth character jumping in and out for quick humor breaks and to help move the story along. The story moves at a good pace and never drags or slows down.

The cast does an excellent job. Yelchin does a great job carrying the lead role and brings his usual wit and charm. Even though you (kind of) feel bad for Greene’s character, she does awesome at also giving us someone you can’t help but hate. Daddario comes in and does her part by delivering a fun and friendly character that helps balance out the trio.

The special effects looked great and the small bit of CGI used was ok but didn’t blend too smoothly. I thought they did a killer job on Evelyn’s slow zombified transformation.