I've now watched this movie a total of three
times. Once by myself, once with my other half, and lastly with guests
who seemed to like the idea of a zombie romantic comedy. The first time
I watched it I wondered why it had taken me so long to watch such a
piece of sheer cinematic genius and immediately declared it my new
favourite movie. The second, I enjoyed it immensely, but agreed with my
boyfriend that the ending seemed a little rushed and lacklustre, and
the third time I fell asleep. Don't get me wrong, perhaps the fact that
I had worked all day and I watched the movie at 2am was a contributing
factor, but this movie definitely fades each time you watch it. Unlike
Girls Just Want to Have Fun, which I have seen approximately 834,768
times. Who knew Helen Hunt was once so cool?
 As
most romantic comedies go, zombie or not, boy A is desperately in love
with girl B, in this case, Johnny Dingle is head over heels for Missy
McCloud and has been ever since the first grade. However, Missy has a
boyfriend named Buck who is handsome, popular, captain of the football
team, completely boring and massively predictable. When Missy and Buck
break up, Johnny sees this as the perfect opportunity to snatch up the
girl of his dreams. Little does he know that he won't live to see the
next morning.
Johnny's plan to ask Missy to the prom after class fails when Buck
sweet talks his way back into Missy's good books. Desperate times call
for desperate measures, and Johnny convinces his friend Eddie to help
him stage a robbery at the convenience store where Missy works. Johnny
dashes in, saves the girl and is the hero. Foolproof right? Johnny's
scheme backfires when a real burglar shows up and shoots him as he
attempts to save Missy. As he sits against the counter dying, Johnny
asks Missy to the prom. Bewildered, she accepts. Giving the thumbs up
to Eddie, Johnny dies.
 But
what's a small inconvenience like death to a man with the date of a
lifetime? Johnny intends to go to prom with Missy, even if he has to
crawl from the grave - so that's exactly what he does, and that's where
the trouble starts.
Johnny finds out that being dead is a real social no-no back at school,
and he's now more unpopular than ever. Missy won't talk to him, and
Buck doesn't take too lightly to his girlfriend hanging out with the
dead kid. But Johnny finally manages to get Missy to agree to a movie,
and the two of them have a great time, until Johnny's ear falls off.
Frantic, he heads to see doctor Bronson. He finds out that like all
dead things, he is decaying. Leaving a skin sample with the doc, he
heads out to see an old woman whose husband came back from the dead
twenty years prior, she informs him that unless he starts to eat the
flesh of the living, he won't live to see prom. Johnny doesn't want to
eat anyone, but he really wants to go to prom, so when Buck's meathead
friend Chuck gets in a nasty accident with an axe, Johnny makes the
best of a bad situation.
 Even
though Missy thinks its sweet that Johnny ate Chuck for her, her
father, the towns sheriff, won't let her go to the prom with the
undead, a group of townspeople led by Chucks father want him dead - or
deader, Dr Bronson has discovered he can make a fortune off Johnny's
zombie flesh and his mother has started raiding the morgue and
kidnapping small children from the supermarket in case Johnny feels
like a snack.
Things aren't going to well for Johnny, and all he wants is one dance
with the beautiful Missy, but he's getting hungrier and weaker. Can he
make it to prom without eating someone else?
I think this was one of the most unique and bizarre high school teen
movies that I have ever seen and everything up until the last 15
minutes or so seemed perfect. I really liked the fact that being dead
made Johnny unpopular at school and everyone just treated him like that
kid who smells as opposed to the living dead. The characters of
Johnny's parents and Dr Bronson were fantastic and really made this
movie even stranger than it already was. I guess true love really does
prevail, even from beyond the grave.
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Year: 1993
