Teenager Johnny Dingle dies during a prank that was meant to impress Missy, the girl of his dreams, but he comes back from the dead to romance her into going to the school prom with him, despite him being a zombie! The explanation for his rising from the grave is not explained until near the end and it is nothing to do with Voodoo, radiation or a scientific experiment. No, the unconvincing cause is Heavenly. This movie was produced by Sean S Cunningham, the man who directed the original Friday the 13th (1980) so I saw this as a positive sign, sadly this proved wrong. When Johnny comes back from the dead he goes home, goes to school etc as if him being undead is no big deal, I know that this is a comedy but c'mon! Missy is played by the gorgeous Traci Lind, sadly Andre Lowery's performance as Johnny is lame, and once again we have actors who are well into their 20's playing teens, nah! The comic lines are relentless, Dad - "We were all convinced that you were dead", Johnny "I got better"; "I was like Tom Cruise. Only Dead", Missy - "You ate someone just so that you could go to the prom with me?", and so on. The "special effects" consists of a few rubber limbs and there is virtually no gore. One aspect that I did like was the EC Comics style storyboards between some of the scenes but not much else for me to recommend it. The emphasis here was mainly on romance and comedy, not leaving much for us horror fans. In 2004 Shaun of the Dead did for the zombie movie what Scream did for the slasher back in 1996, it unleashed a wave of zombie movies. Many of these were zombie comedies (or zom-com) and within this sub genre was the romantic zombie comedy (rom-zom-com), many of which were mediocre at best. My Boyfriend's Back is an early example of a rom-zom-com, probably made long before the term was coined. I had hoped that it would have been fresher than the glut that followed but I'm afraid that it was a disappointment, in the end more annoying than funny.
Review of My Boyfriend's Back
