When was the last time you said a movie really stinks? Did you really mean it?
Thanks to “Stick-O-Vision,” movie theater audiences will truly understand how bad a movie can stink when they see “Dead Lover.”
The very funny second feature from Grace Glowicki, who also stars in the movie as Gravedigger, plays in a similar sandbox as cinema cult favorites “Young Frankenstein” and “Mountain Python.”
Inspired decades after John Waters’ “Polyster” and Odorama, select audiences can experience “Dead Lover” through the power of “Stink-O-Vision”: a scratch-and-sniff card accompanying the movie.
Odors of dirt and poop waft from the card. Numbers flash on the screen with corresponding 10 boxes on the card, each with a distinct and smelly odor.
The unusual marketing ploy was deployed in New York City last weekend to nearly sold out showings at IFC Center in Greenwich Village.
“Everyone in New York seemed really into it and really keen to smell all the bad smells along with the movie,” Glowicki told NBC New York over Zoom. “I feel like New Yorkers are more used to bad smells, like in the subway and on the streets in the summer and like.”
The process to find the right smells was not only a new one for the director, it also posed a particular challenge.
“I was actually very pregnant when I was making the card, so on top of it I had a very sensitive nose, which made it even harder because a lot of the smells are like manure or rot, blood, campfire, mildew,” she explained.
Glowicki directs herself and only three other actors who each play several characters throughout the movie.
Gravedigger, played by Grace Glowicki in her sophomore feature “Dead Lover.” Photo credit: Rhayne Vermette, courtesy of Feature Creatures Inc.
Gravedigger’s days are spent, well, digging graves. She’s wistful for a chance at love but her disarming B.O. keeps getting in the way. Her charm is certainly rounded out by an inconsistent Cockney accent.
“So that actually came very late in the game,” Glowicki said. “We were in the rehearsal hall and like someone joked — I can’t remember who — but someone was like, that’d be so funny if she had a Cockney accent.”
“And then I tried to do one and everyone’s like, you can’t really do it and don’t do it. But I just had a feeling that it was actually the perfect thing for the character.”
The result is a madcap Frankenstein-like pursuit of love with results you have to see to believe.
“Dead Lover” is now playing at IFC Center with select “Stink-O-Vision” screenings.