Burying the Ex (Movie Review)
I haven’t seen Alan Trezza’s short film from 2008, called “Burying the Ex,” but I have seen the feature length adaptation of the same name, which Trezza also wrote, and I can tell you that it should have stayed a short. It is appropriate then, that while watching the film, I kept thinking to myself how there’s only about 30 minutes of plot, stretched out thin to 90 minutes.
I think it’s time we all bury zombie comedies for good. Between “Burying the Ex”, “Warm Bodies,” and “Life After Beth,” it’s apparent that there truly is no more life in this sub-genre. This latest offender begins with Max, an employee at a horror-themed novelty store in Los Angeles, stuck in an unhappy relationship with Evelyn, who is supposed to be a overbearing, high maintenance girlfriend. The day he plans to break off the relationship, she’s hit by a bus subsequently killing her. But due to a cursed promise made early in the film, she literally rises from the grave to continue their relationship, which complicates Max’s current fling with Olivia, who works at a themed ice-cream parlor.
The hijinks that ensue never rise above sitcom level humor and it doesn’t help that we know exactly how every scene is going to play out, complete with unbearably obvious jokes that you’ll be saying before the characters. The film so desperately wants the audience to dislike Evelyn, yet it never presents a clear case for that. There’s nothing that bad about her, they simply clash as human beings. A smarter script would have taken bolder steps with the dynamic between them. She’s described as a “lunatic,” yet her crimes, according to the film, include a healthy diet, a successful career, and a disdain for Max’s slob of a brother, who engages in threesomes on the floor just down the hall where Evelyn and Max sleep. Seems pretty sensible to me, so a scene where she yells at Max in the ice cream parlor in front of Olivia comes across forced, a cruel and embarrassing unearned moment whose sole existence is to manufacture the shrew archetype. It’s a scene that one would expect a bitter teenager to write.
If it weren’t for the charming enthusiasm of the actors, “Burying the Ex” would be nearly unbearable to sit through. Anton Yelchin, Ashley Greene, and Alexandra Daddario carry the lackluster film. Daddario, last seen being hilariously abandoned and trapped in a car in “San Andreas,” brings a lot of warmth to Olivia, and the moments with her and Yelchin just talking are where the film comes alive. Greene does as much as she can with her zombified girlfriend, clearly having a blast throwing Yelchin all over the place.
The film is directed by Joe Dante, an artist of endless imagination, who is at his best when he can be infinitely bizarre. When in charge of a mundane script, he just seems bored, as is the case with “Burying the Ex.” There’s nothing here for him to explore his warped sensibilities.
Film 
Jordan Grout
I never stand in front of the elevator doors when they open. All because of the movie The Departed.
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