This is a film that despite its 2005 release I did not hear of this piece until around 2008. My initial inquiry into Boy Eats Girl did not fascinate me much, but it seemed promising enough to be added into my ever-long queue of horror films to give a watch to, and now two years later I have given this piece the time of day.

Boy Eats Girl follows David Leon as Nathan, an unpopular second-rate student/athlete who has finally decided to confess his love to Jessica(Samantha Mumba), a lifelong friend of his whom he cannot remain just a “friend” with anymore. On the night of his planned profession of love to her Nathan is killed in a freak accident involving his mother. His mother, an employee at an old Catholic church in town, uses an old pagan spell book hidden within the walls of the church to re-animate David, which comes with dire consequences. David is fine at first, but quickly succumbs to the symptoms of the undead and his craving for human flesh. Unfortunately for his fellow classmates, it is prom night, and David has arrived for the festivities, and the populous amount of human flesh.

I am always iffy on teen-oriented zombie films because they usually never stay remotely close to what true zombie lore is all about, giving us running zombies and very little gore. However, thanks to the success of the awesome Dance of the Dead, teen zombie films are not as risqué for me, but I still do not let my guard down. From the get-go this film’s atmosphere had me hooked, and its fun yet dark tone made this an enjoyable feeling film throughout its short 80 minute runtime.

Director Stephen Bradley made his feature film debut with this film, and despite this being his only non-TV non-short film he gave a positive effort in direction/execution. He brought a fun feel to the film that did not come off as a non-respectable teen zombie film but a teen zombie film that gets most of its elements right, such as the gore. Throughout the majority of the film we do not get as much gore as a zombie fan would expect, but the ending sequences give us massive amounts of gore that I really never saw coming, which in a way made the scenes fun to watch despite me having to wait and question whether or not they would come. Honestly, I gave up on this film not delivering the “goods” about an hour in, and I am glad that I was proven wrong.

Story-wise this flick gives an interesting look into teen love with its usage of the “gent” turning into a zombie before he can profess his love to his longtime friend and potential lover, who of course for the sake of all the females and romantics watching…equally loves him as well. While it comes off cheesy at times, we all probably can relate to such teen antics and that brings some fun into this film, so I’ll give the storyline props for that. The rest of the story was nothing special to me, and played off of the usual zombie formula in which everyone other than Nathan transforms into a zombie immediately whereas he, the person who “started” it all slowly develops into a brainless bub as he tries to save Jessica and his friends. That is really all that goes on in this film, but I must say that I really enjoyed the idea behind Nathan’s resurrection, which had nothing to due with toxic radioactive chemicals but hoodoo voodoo, which we don’t see too much in zombie films anymore. To me, resurrection at the hands of supernatural powers is much creepier than anything involving man-made mistakes any day.

Overall, this is an OK zombie film that plays on teen love antics that most of us can relate to, especially if your mother resurrected you from the dead before you could profess your hopeless love to your longtime friend and potential lover. Positive direction and a fun feel make this worth a watch if you are a fan of the zombie sub-genre, but keep in mind it takes an overly long time before any “goods” are shown.

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