Movie date: Burying The Ex (NC16)
STARRING: Anton Yelchin, Ashley Greene, Alexandra Daddario
DIRECTOR: Joe Dante
THE SKINNY: Max (Yelchin) has the beautiful and sexy Evelyn (Greene) as his girlfriend. However, when she goes from sweet to Type-A control freak, a suffocated Max decides to end things. But before he can break the bad news to her, she dies in a freak accident. Max soon starts a new relationship with
Olivia (Daddario), but Eveylyn isn’t going to let him go — not even when she’s a zombie.
MARS
Though he's best known for playing Chekov in the Star Trek movies, Yelchin is carving out a nice little niche for himself in the horror genre.
He has shown great taste in choosing cool projects like Fright Night, Odd Thomas, Only Lovers Left Alive and now, Burying The Ex.
The thing I like about his horror filmography is its 80s flavour.
Indeed, Burying The Ex is the latest offering from 80s horror maestro Joe Dante, who cemented his place in cinema history with Gremlins (1984).
Burying The Ex isn't as good as Gremlins, but not many movies are.
What we have here is an amiable, modest little effort that's basically an extended metaphor for an undead relationship.
It's not laugh-out-loud funny, but it's cute and occasionally clever.
Greene is game as the zombified nightmare ex, and the more she deteriorates, the more compelling she becomes.
Her strongest scene is probably the one where her hunger for brains finally kicks in, and she goes after Yelchin's bro. Meanwhile, Daddario is a fresh face and loads of fun.
Burying The Ex is basically a throwback to the days when savagery and silliness in horror movies were better balanced.
- JASON JOHNSON
Rating: 3/5
VENUS
How Max scores two such pretty gals is a huge puzzler.
He's not quite a loser, not quite a hunk, and not exactly swimming in money either. Perhaps he's good in bed? We don't really know as he always has his clothes on when making out.
A winning personality? Don't really know that either since we never get to see who he is - except as someone who's a horror memorabilia store keeper.
That's my main problem with this horror-comedy.
The plot's so thin that even at its short running time of 90 minutes, it still feels stretched.
Max, Evelyn and Olivia seem like interesting people, yet their characters are poorly written.
I always believe that you can still root for someone or something no matter how bad the movie is.
Here, there's really no one I can connect with.
Baby-faced Yelchin does his best to inject some life into a genre that seems up his alley. Daddario, like in the recent disaster blockbuster San Andreas, is definitely a sight for sore eyes.
Greene probably is the only one who understood Dante's direction, delivering a whole lot of camp as the clingy zombie chick.
If not for the trio's commitment, this silly flick that celebrates B-horror will certainly be quite at home in direct-to-video hell.
- JOANNE SOH
Rating: 2/5
THE CONSENSUS: The campiness from the central menage a trois keeps this from being dead and buried.
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