My Boyfriend’s Back (1993)    Touchstone/Comedy-Horror    RT: 85 minutes    Rated PG-13 (zombie violence, language, teen sex fantasy)    Director: Bob Balaban    Screenplay: Dean Lorey    Music: Harry Manfredini    Cinematography: Mac Ahlberg    Release date: August 6, 1993 (US)    Cast: Andrew Lowry, Traci Lind, Danny Zorn, Edward Herrmann, Mary Beth Hurt, Jay O. Sanders, Libby Villari, Matthew Fox, Philip (Seymour) Hoffman, Bob Dishy, Paul Dooley, Austin Pendleton, Cloris Leachman, Paxton Whitehead, Joe Stevens, Jerry Haynes.    Box Office: $3.3M (US)

Rating: ***

 There are ways the zombie comedy My Boyfriend’s Back could have been better. The most obvious is they should have gone for an R rating so they could give audiences a healthy dose of zombie-related blood and guts and brains. It’s my guess that the suits at Disney wanted director Bob Balaban (Parents) to deliver a more teen-friendly movie in order to earn a PG-13. That’s all well and good, but what they failed to take into account was that teens would be left cold by the movie’s decidedly weird and uneven tone. It’s an odd blend of teen comic book romance and zombie horror. Balaban also throws in a bit of social commentary with the townspeople’s reaction to the undead kid walking among them. He’s clearly trying to make a statement about prejudice. It comes through loud and clear, but feels as out of place as the movie’s undead protagonist.

 Johnny (Lowery, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) has been in love with Missy (Lind, Class of 1999) since the first grade. She’s the prettiest and most popular girl in school. Johnny sees his chance to ask her to the prom after she breaks up with her longtime boyfriend Buck (Fox, Party of Five). Eager to impress her, he arranges a fake robbery at the convenience store where she works so he can save her and look like a hero. Unfortunately, it goes horribly wrong and Johnny is shot dead by a real robber. He’s not about to let a little thing like dying get in the way of his dream. He comes back from the dead to take her to the prom. Some people, like his parents (Herrmann and Hurt), take it in stride. Others react with hatred and prejudice. Missy, for her part, starts to fall for Johnny after some initial reluctance.

 The town where the action takes place is populated by some real weirdos like the gravedigger (Dishy, Brighton Beach Memoirs) who warns Johnny that leaving the cemetery grounds could have disastrous consequences. And it does, he starts to rot. Thankfully, there’s an old lady (Leachman, Young Frankenstein) who’s an expert on such matters; the same thing happened to her husband 15 years earlier. She tells Johnny he must eat the flesh of the living in order to stay around long enough for his prom date. When he eats the school bully (Hoffman, Boogie Nights), it only causes him further problems with the townspeople. Then there’s the mad doctor (Pendleton, Short Circuit) who tries to find a cure for Johnny’s condition. Naturally, he ends up trying to kill Johnny instead. Meanwhile, the bully’s father (Dooley, Sixteen Candles) gets together a lynch mob to go after the zombie that ate his son.

 I didn’t really care for My Boyfriend’s Back the first time I saw it at a free screening the night before it opened. I thought it was idiotic. When I watched it again about ten years later, it hit me that I missed the point. It was never meant to be a mainstream movie. It’s a cult movie much like Balaban’s 1989 cannibalism comedy Parents. It’s supposed to be weird. This explains bits like Mom bringing home a little kid from the supermarket for Johnny to eat. Her sweet nature only makes it funnier when she pulls a shotgun on the leader of the lynch mob when he threatens to kill her son. The characters exhibit behaviors that imply they exist in some alternate reality. As such, it’s difficult to judge the actors’ performances. I can say that Lowery doesn’t have a lot of screen presence. He’s fairly generic as far as teen actors go. Lind is easy on the eyes. I guess she and Lowery make a cute screen couple even if their chemistry feels slightly forced. The late Hoffman, in an early role, shows none of the talent on display in later movies like Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Capote (for which he won an Oscar). He’s terrible in this movie, but I suspect that’s intentional. It’s that kind of movie.

 Surprisingly, the 1963 song of the same name is nowhere to be found in My Boyfriend’s Back. Instead, it features a generic rock/pop soundtrack not unlike countless other teen movies from the 80s and early 90s. The zombie effects are cheap. There’s no blood or gore of which to speak. It could have used a bucket or two of the red stuff. It’s fitfully amusing but never laugh-out-loud funny. At the same time, the movie’s weird tone had me chuckling on more than one occasion. When it comes to zombie comedies, My Boyfriend’s Back has nothing on The Return of the Living Dead or Shaun of the Dead, both high-water marks in the subgenre. It’s more on par with low-budget jobs like Frankenhooker only tamer.

 I like My Boyfriend’s Back because of its unevenness. What would be a detriment to normal movies works to this one’s advantage. It just feels right in this case. To date, it doesn’t have any kind of cult following, but I’m sure there are fans out there reluctant to admit they like it. Well, if Movie Guy can cop to enjoying a movie as silly and stupid as My Boyfriend’s Back, so can you.