Ferraro - "Boy Eats Girl"

"Boy Eats Girl"
Directed by Stephen Bradley
2005

"Boy Eats Girl" is somewhat a mix of thriller and comedy. A boy confesses his love to the girl of his dreams, only to get killed later that night. He is ressurected, however, becoming a flesh-craving zombie who unwittingly infects others. And.... that's it. Seriously.
This film, which I came across on On Demand because the summary sounded too funny, lacks the structure that would normally make a movie enjoyable. Most movies have three to four act structures. This one seemed pretty straight forward; no act 1 decision, no clear mid-point, no identifiable beats, no plot points. Just basically from heart break, to death, to lots of blood, then the end. We don't even know who's suppose to be the protagonist and antagonist. The fim leads us to believe it's the boy, but near the end he tries to eat his friends and it's the girl (whose name comes first, and is up front and center on the promotional poster) who fends him off.
Although there is closure in the end, the boy getting the girl he loves, the only character change he gets is from alive to dead then alive again. We see his want (the girl) but he doesn't change to meet his need. The characters are one-sided and their personalities are flat, so it's impossible to connect with them. We don't even have any sympathy for the mother, who accidently kills her son and then performs a forbidden ritual to bring him back to life. We don't see her reaction to his death, we don't see how it affects her, nor do we see her drive to bring him back. She hangs him, then BOOM, he's suddenly waking up in the morning and she's cleaning her hands. She is worried, but so what? There's no suspense. We can only assume he's somehow a zombie, but nothing is there to keep us on the edge.
So yeah, this film was a flop for me. Maybe picking a thriller, thinking it was more of a comedy, and expecting to report a narrative structure on it wasn't too brilliant on my part. However, "Boy Eats Girl" does give a good example of what film has little to no structure.