Dead Lover plays like a collection of inside jokes and running gags that the filmmakers wanted to bring to the screen. The trouble is that they forgot to offer the audience any context. Director Grace Glowicki with co-writer and co-star Ben Petrie create a whacky riff on the Frankenstein story that follows a lonely and dejected gravedigger who finds love, loses it through death, and who then works to resurrect her soulmate with unexpected results. Death is the enemy, love is life. A noble and worthy notion. However Dead Lover seems to lack the subtext and wit that would engage the viewer and assist in a more resonant impact. Dead Lover, didn’t love it.

The film opens on our grimy gravedigger. She toils away, digging into earth, offering the final disposal of bodies while chatting with the moon about her longing for true love. While a bit rough around the edges and sporting a broad Cockney accent, she is a pretty stand up person overall. It’s just that she stinks of rotting flesh. One dreary night, as the gravedigger is moving another mound of dirt she spies the funeral of a famous opera singer. The brother of said opera star meets the gravedigger and is entranced by her scent. The two fall madly in love but it is short-lived While traveling overseas the gravediggers beau dies in a maritime tragedy. Local fishermen find only a small boat with the ring finger of the gravedigger’s true love remaining. With her knowledge of botany, her connection with dirt, a relentless devotion to true love, and a finger, the Gravedigger aims to bring her true love back to life.

To their credit, Glowicki and Petrie have a great idea. What’s more, they know how to manage a budget to create something to shoot. With a total of four actors including Glowicki, Petrie, with Leah Doz and Lowen Morrow, we are treated to an ensemble cast of four that fleshes out the Gravedigger, her lover, the supporting cast that includes the dead Opera Singer, her Widower, a trio of gossiping townsfolk, and the rest of the villagers. The film is shot with minimal sets and extreme, colorful lighting. It’s as if we were watching a production in a black box theatre. This isn’t a bad thing. Glowicki makes this visual language work and we are there for it. Yet that isn’t the issue.

It is apparent that Glowicki has talent. Anyone that can write and perform a funeral for a forgotten soul (a rather poignant scene) deserves some consideration. In fact her entire crew of artists give it everything. Yet for all of the inventiveness, we sit watching hoping to be looped into the gag. As an example there is a scene where the Gravedigger argues with the finger of her deceased lover for pointing at her. This might be infectiously funny, maybe hilarious if we had the assist of context or other, methods. But as it stands we see a protracted joke that never lands.

There is so much that works for Dead Lover but there is so much more that kills it.