By Ben Bussey
Our old hero Joe Dante doesn’t seem to be having the best of luck with his new movies in recent years. His last feature, 2009’s kiddie horror The Hole, sat on the shelf for a couple of years before being largely (and unfairly) ignored by the mass audience. Half a decade on, his next movie Burying the Ex unfortunately arrives in the wake of another movie with a very similar premise: 2014’s Life After Beth. As at the time of writing I’ve still yet to see that Dane DeHaan/Aubrey Plaza movie (though our own Quin loved it), obviously I can’t remark on how similar the two films actually are, but I can say that Burying the Ex feels considerably closer in spirit to Dante’s overall body of work than The Hole did; though kid-friendly, there was a surprisingly dark tone to that film, with Dante’s signature anarchic humour in short supply. By contrast, if we turn a blind eye to the digital photography and occasional use of low-rent CGI, we might easily envisage Burying the Ex having come directly from Dante’s 80s heyday, with its larger than life characters, slapstick-flavoured gags, and slew of gratuitous nods to B-movie horror of years gone by. However, hand in hand with that, the gender politics of Burying the Ex might also have come directly out of the 1980s; subsequently I suspect not all modern viewers, specifically those with feminist leanings, will take too kindly to much of it – whilst on the other hand Gamergate-type guys will probably love it. I know that’s about as far from a recommendation we can get – but lest we get into a debate on ethics in zom-rom-coms, I should reassure both sides that if you can put politics to one side, Burying the Ex isn’t all bad news.
Any way you cut it up though, it’s hard not to read the premise of Burying the Ex as a pretty standard insecure male fantasy scenario. Our central protagonist, a horror-themed costume and memorabilia store clerk named Max, played by the likeable everyman type (read – very average looking but just handsome enough not to seem a total dweeb) Anton Yelchin, is in what at first seems like a happy, stable relationship with Evelyn, played by the somewhat better looking Ashley Greene. We’re introduced to her as Max casually attempts to kick out his half-brother Travis, the even more average-looking and slightly overweight Oliver Cooper, who has slept on the sofa following a three-way with two even-more considerably better looking anonymous women with jaw-droppingly nice arses. Yes, Burying the Ex plays its hand pretty fast: average joes get with smoking hot babes and all is right with the world, hooray for Hollywood.
But of course, Max’s situation isn’t ideal. As hot as Evelyn may be, and as great as we’re told the sex is, she’s also – portentous thunder – very high maintenance. She won’t let Max have any food in the house that isn’t vegan. She’s anally retentive about environmentalism, insisting he switch his old car for a hybrid, and killing the post-coital mood by pointing out the need for energy saving lightbulbs. She also demonstrates borderline-insane jealousy when she thinks Max is flirting with ice cream store owner Olivia (the – wouldn’t you know it – also very good looking Alexandra Daddario). Then, once Evelyn officially moves in with Max, she commits the cardinal sin of redecorating the whole apartment in – but of course – green, taking down and carelessly folding up Max’s pristine condition vintage Italian horror posters in the process, then making him feel like the bad guy when he dares complain. Anxious to break off the relationship but also suffering from a near-terminal case of being chickenshit, Max takes Travis’s advice and arranges to meet Evelyn in a very public place where he can tell her it’s over – but before he gets the chance, Evelyn’s hit by a bus and dies right then and there.
Months pass in which a grief-stricken Max barely leaves his home – but, on finally venturing outside, he once again crosses paths with Olivia. Aside from also being much prettier than he is, Oliva’s everything Evelyn wasn’t. Given she owns an ice cream store, she obviously isn’t a vegan; given that she named her store ‘Ice Scream’ and litters it with horror movie and punk rock memorabilia, she’s obviously way more on Max’s wavelength culturally. Alas, just as it looks like something real might be brewing between Max and Olivia, a rather significant complication arises: Evelyn returns from the grave, and drags herself straight back to Max’s life, in an even more possessive mood than she was before.
Yes, Burying the Ex perpetuates a great many movie relationship stereotypes: easy-going fun-loving male, uptight domineering bitch, free-spirited idealised pixie dream girl. If none of this sits well with you, it’s unlikely that Burying the Ex will win you over. It might well be argued that the real object of criticism is Max, given that his own cowardice over breaking up with Evelyn is responsible for the whole mess in the first place, but there’s never any doubt that Evelyn is the real object of fun here, the most frequently mined areas of mockery being her veganism and environmentalism. Now, I don’t mean to suggest that absolutely everybody is an ultra-green vegan these days (I know I don’t fit that description), but considering this film is aimed first and foremost at 21st century young people, I have to wonder whether Dante and writer Alan Trezza (also the writer, producer and director of a 2008 short on which this feature is based) are misjudging the tastes and proclivities of their audience just a touch. If Max’s own lifestyle choices were put up for similar scrutiny it might have balanced things out a bit, and made for a somewhat more interesting, perhaps even Judd Apatow-esque dissection of a modern relationship, by way of a zombie movie (also, given this is a comedy horror, it probably wouldn’t have hurt if it was a bit funnier too). Instead, Max is given an easy way out in Olivia, a mirror opposite for whom he need make no personal changes whatsoever. Alexandra Daddario is innately likeable, but the material really doesn’t do her any favours; she’s ultimately just another 2D love interest there to service (in more ways than one) the male protagonist, much as the also very likeable Greene is never allowed to be anything more than an obstacle to the lead.
Curiously though, the person I come out of this feeling the most sorry for is Anton Yelchin. Between this, the Fright Night remake and Odd Thomas, the guy just can’t seem to land a leading role in anything above average, and – despite my earlier disparaging remarks about how his looks pale in comparison with those of his female co-stars – I do actually have a lot of admiration for Yelchin as an actor, and there are brief moments here that seem to hint at what he might be capable of. In Evelyn’s (initial) death scene, for instance, his display of grief is genuinely powerful – yet Dante opts to cut away from it almost immediately, and once she returns it’s all just a macabre twist on a slamming door farce. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with farcical humour, but I would have liked to have seen something more – and, again, I’ve no doubt Yelchin, plus Greene and Daddario for that matter, have it in them to deliver a great deal more.
Still, I can’t say I disliked Burying the Ex completely. As I said, it does bring back a lot of Dante’s old school charm (and yes, of course there’s a cameo from a really, really old looking Dick Miller), and as simple, undemanding comedy horror goes there are plenty worse out there. However, there’s a fine line between evoking the past and just feeling thoroughly out of date, and Burying the Ex slumps right over it. Such a shame, as with a slightly better script this was a premise that might have made for something really great. Hmm, maybe it’s time I gave Life After Beth a look…
Burying the Ex is available on VOD and download in the US and UK from 19th June 2015.