Thursday, September 04, 2014

Venice 71: Film Festival – Burying the Ex – Joe Dante



Photograph courtesy La Biennale di Venezia


Venice 71: Film Festival – Burying the Ex – Joe Dante. Burying the Ex is a romantic zombie movie directed by Joe Dante and stars Anton Yelchin, Ashley Greene, Alexandra Daddario and Oliver Cooper.  Burying the Ex follows Max, all-around nice guy and classic movie buff, and his overbearing but incredibly sexy girlfriend, Evelyn. Their relationship takes a nosedive after Max invites Evelyn to move in and she turns out to be a controlling, manipulative nightmare. Max realizes it’s time to call it quits, but he doesn’t want to hurt her so he stays the course. Fate steps in when Evelyn is involved in a freak accident and dies, leaving Max guilty, single but eventually ready to mingle. Several weeks later, Max has a chance encounter with Olivia, a cute and funny girl who also loves movies and who just might be his soul mate. But that same night, Evelyn becomes the “Ex Who Wouldn’t Die”— she’s back from the grave as a dirt-smeared undead (and horny) corpse, and she’s crazier about Max than ever. But crazy is the operative word, and Max’s life is turned upside down as his decomposing “Girlfriend from Hell” takes over while.

Photograph courtesy La Biennale di Venezia

Burying the Ex. The director Joe Dante states “Exes. We’ve all had them. But every once in a while, there’s that one special ex. The one who keeps coming back. No matter how hard we try to move on with our lives, bury the past and learn to love again, they’re just a phone call, text, or surprise visit away... I always believed that the best zombie films are the ones that use the undead as a metaphor for a larger, more universal issue—whether it be race relations in Night of the Living Dead, fear of disease in 28 Days Later, or mass consumerism seen in the mindless zombies attacking a shopping mall in Dawn of the Dead. Still, with all the belatedly popular zombie entertainment that has been made over the years, no one has used a zombie to represent a psychotic ex who just won’t go away... until now. Burying the Ex is a zom-com, a new spin on the zombie/romantic comedy genres that will prove once and for all that some relationships never die...”

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