When I saw 2022’s The Loneliest Boy in the World on my door, I thought “hey, someone made my life story!” Nope, as instead, World promises “a modern fairytale – with zombies”.

Because his mother isolated him for years, Oliver (Max Harwood) lacks strong socialization, and this leaves him adrift after she dies. To work on this problem, he digs up friends – in a literal sense, as he exhumes corpses.

Much to Oliver’s surprise, these dead folks mysteriously come to life. This leads Oliver and his new zombie pals on a series of adventures.

No one should expect a horror story from World. Instead, it goes for a tongue in cheek view of the genre, with a lot of camp connected to its topics and 1980s setting.

Given that it opts for comedy over scares, it becomes important to assess the quality of its attempted laughs. Does the movie manage to find anything hilarious with its subject matter?

Not really. World feels more like a short film extended to feature length than a well thought-out narrative in its own right.

World wears is influences on its sleeve. We get an attempted mix of John Hughes and Tim Burton, with some Weekend at Bernie’s tossed into the mix as well.

In more skilled hands, World might pull off the mix of perverse comedy and weirdness it desires. Unfortunately, director Martin Owen never really evokes his inner Tim Burton as well as he might like.

This means World feels sketchy and without much real cleverness. It relies on its basic concepts to entertain, but these prove insufficient.

Just as Owen taps Burton, Harwood comes across like a Johnny Depp knockoff as our lead. He brings little real charm to the part, as his performance consists of quirks and tics more than anything else.

As noted, a short version of World - maybe around 15 to 20 minutes – might strike the right chord. Stretched to 90 minutes, though, the movie becomes one-note and tedious.

The Loneliest Boy in the World appears in an aspect ratio of 2.40:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. This became a generally good but slightly inconsistent image.

The main concerns came from sharpness, as the movie could veer a little soft at times. While most of the film appeared well-defined, occasional fuzzy moments arrived, and those created odd distractions.

No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects materialized, and I saw no edge haloes. Print flaws failed to create concerns.

Colors varied. Oliver’s home opted for heavy pink, and other interiors went with orange, while exteriors usually veered toward a more natural – albeit chilly – vibe. The hues could seem overly strong at times, but they usually worked as desired.

Blacks felt deep and dense, while shadows were fairly smooth, though they could seem slightly thick at times. Though much of the movie looked fine, the erratic parts made it a “B-“.

As for the film’s DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack, it tended toward the low-key side of the street. Much of the film stayed with character material and/or comedy, and these scenes lacked a lot of involvement.

Occasional scenes opened up the mix, such as aspects of a plane crash or other accidents. Nonetheless, most of the soundscape stayed subdued.

Audio quality worked fine, with speech that felt natural and concise. Music seemed vivid and full.

Effects displayed good accuracy, and those elements demonstrated nice range. Expect an appealing but not great soundtrack.

A Behind the Scenes featurette runs five minutes, seven seconds. It involves actors Max Harwood, Hero Fiennes, Zenobia Williams, Tallulah Haddon, Alex Murphy, Ben Miller and Susan Wokoma.

The actors discuss what led they to their roles and their co-stars. No real substance emerges here.

The disc opens with ads for Alienoid, Unwelcome and The Witch Part 2: The Other One. We also find the trailer for World.

Essentially a riff on the Tim Burton style of comedic horror, The Loneliest Boy in the World fails to go much of anywhere. More a collection of wacky concepts than a coherent story, it never turns into anything engaging. The Blu-ray offers generally positive picture and audio but it lacks notable bonus materials. Despite some promising moments, the end result fizzles.