REVIEWED - BOY EATS GIRL: THE starting point of Stephen Bradley's brisk and breezy Dublin horror-comedy is that a 17-year-old student, Nathan (David Leon), is so distraught that he accidentally hangs himself after he mistakenly forms the impression that the object of his desire (Samantha Mumba) is involved with another student.

Fortunately, Nathan's mother (Deirdre O'Kane), being one of the more resourceful parents in the Dublin suburbs, draws on some voodoo mumbo jumbo to bring him back to life - not entirely successfully, as he returns with an intense desire to eat human flesh. One thing (a bite on an enemy's ear) leads to another, and there's a slew of zombies rampaging in the streets.

Working from a lean screenplay by Derek Landy, and with an exceptionally busy make-up department and special effects team, Bradley entertainingly transposes the US teen horror movie to a deftly employed Irish context.

This cheerfully unpretentious romp is played out against an energetic rock soundtrack that includes Snow Patrol and The Chalets, and, while the material doesn't make any great demands on the thespian skills of its cast, Tadhg Murphy steals the movie with elan in scene after scene.