Boy Eats Girl

Samantha Mumba brings some spark as the love interest in this Irish teen-zombie flick, and the premise should work - awkward teen Nathan accidentally zombifies his school after a botched resurrection, forcing his crush Jessica to navigate gory hallways and undead hormones. There's charm in the suburban Irish setting (imagine Shaun of the Dead but with uniformed teens and more rain). A few gags land, like Nathan's mom obliviously serving "special" meatloaf or a zombified jock still flexing in a mirror.

But it's a shambles of missed opportunities. The satire on teen angst and conformity feels toothless - no real jab at clique mentality or authority figures, just splatter and slapstick. The gore's restrained to PG-13 levels, draining the fun from what should be chaotic, irreverent carnage. Characters make baffling choices (why is the principal still enforcing detention during an apocalypse?), and the tone wobbles between dark comedy and half-hearted romance without committing. It's neither scary nor sharply funny, just... there.

The Verdict: Harmless for forgettable. Fails to ignite as satire, horror, or romance. Watch Shaun instead.

From the title "Boy eats Girl" it's pretty clear that this film is one that requires you to leave your brain outside the door. Do that and you should enjoy it. If you're hoping for anything more than a bit of enjoyable fluff, look elsewhere.

The film starts off great, the audience gets to know the main characters quite well, and there are more than a few good laughs. It goes downhill slightly from the moment in the film were the infection begins to spread. This is mainly because it all seems so rushed. However the gory bits (which there is quite a lot of for a 15A film) are varied and inventive enough to keep the viewers entertained.

The main cast all do a good job, in particular David Leon and Tadhg Murphy. Samantha Mumba is good in her role, but she hasn't got as much dialogue as you'd expect from the films lead. Some of the supporting cast however (for example, Bryan Murray as Fr.Frears) are awful.

Overall it is an entertaining, funny, gory movie, and one of the best Irish productions in a long time.

I didn't expect a whole lot from this movie, and to be honest I didn't get that much. From the onset the movie was pretty tame and I felt the set up was a bit long, I was praying for the carnage to just start already. However once it did, the movie found some very funny moments. The main characters weren't all that compelling but the two comic relief friends Diggs (Tadhg Murphy) and Henry (Laurence Kinlan) did manage to get a few good lines in. The movie had its share of plot holes (quite a few of these were pretty big.)

But on the whole I did find it funny and I was smiling by the end so it wasn't too bad, just nothing to write home about. I felt it tried a little too hard to fit with what are usually American high school stereotypes and could have been a little more homegrown. The over the top gore (which was my whole reason for viewing) was good but the movie ended very quickly and after such a long set up I was a little disappointed. All in all a vaguely entertaining watch with a few (but not enough)laughs.

If you've seen "Die Nacht der Lebenden Loser" (I guess it's called "Night of the Living Dorks" in English), you can basically imagine this movie to be an exact rip-off, except that this one has more gore in it, but less good gags in exchange.

That said: It's enjoyable. The gore and FX are well-done most of the time, the zombies do look decent. The acting isn't bad and there are actually some gags that work. It's too bad that most of them don't, however, at least not for me. The main character turns into a zombie more slowly than anybody else, but that's okay. The problem is, his desire to eat humans obviously is so small, it doesn't even count, and there are no funny scenes like "oops, I ate *insert name here*" or anything like that. Lots of occasions for gags wasted. For a comedy that's pretty lame.

Still, there are a few gags in there, the zombies are decent, the gore is good and the story isn't that bad, which makes the film enjoyable.

I was of course drawn to "Boy Eats Girl" because it is a zombie movie, but also because of the pun title of the movie. And I am a sucker for anything zombie. I watched this movie back in 2005 or 2006, and then decided to revisit it again in 2019 and actually getting around to making a review of it.

While "Boy Eats Girl" is a zombie movie, it wasn't really all that great, and I did remember it as being a funny movie from back around 2005-2006 when I first saw it. I guess my memory of the movie was off. Watching it again in 2019, I can honestly say that the movie is definitely watchable, but it is by no account a great addition to the zombie genre.

There wasn't enough gore and zombie make-up or special effects to keep me properly entertained. I guess I am just way too seasoned when it comes to zombie movies and have a certain standard that I would like movies to have. "Boy Eats Girl" wasn't one such movie.

It pains me to the very core when I see the zombies or infected running around and sprinting. Sure, it makes enough physiological sense when they return from the dead before rigor mortis has set in. But it just doesn't feel right, it is as if that shambling zombie feel is a must for a zombie to be scary for me.

While the characters in the movie were pretty much stereotypical and generic college student, I will say that David Leon was actually the primary force driving the entire movie with his performance, and he was also the one with the more detailed and meaningful character.

For a zombie movie, then "Boy Eats Girl" holds very little aside from a hilarious movie title. If you've seen it once, then chances are slim that you will return to watch it again. I know that I will not be returning again, now that I have my memory refreshed and up to date on the movie.