Valentine’s Day just passed, bringing its familiar parade of grand gestures, chance encounters, and happily-ever-afters. Romantic comedies have long promised that love is what makes our hearts race — that somewhere out there is someone who will complete the story and wake us up to life.

But what happens when the love story begins somewhere darker?

This week, we’re looking at films that take an unexpected approach to romance. Stories where love doesn’t simply spark chemistry... it restores what was lost. Even in the most unlikely settings, storytellers return to the same hope: that love can bring the dead back to life.

Maybe that’s because we sense something deeper. Love isn’t just about feeling more alive. It’s about being made new.

And that kind of love doesn’t just make hearts race... it makes them beat again.

Directed by Jonathan Levine, Warm Bodies follows a young, undead man who forms an unlikely bond with a human survivor in a zombie-ravaged world. As their connection grows, his memories return, and the line between the living and the dead begins to blur. Beneath its offbeat premise, the film uses romance to explore what it really means to feel alive... and how love can revive what was slowly slipping away.

WHERE TO WATCH →

Set decades after a zombie apocalypse, Lifeless follows one wandering undead romantic who longs for something more than endless decay. Through music and unexpected tenderness, the short film leans into absurdity while treating its premise sincerely. Beneath the humor is a quiet ache, suggesting that longing itself may be the first sign that something thought dead isn’t beyond renewal after all.

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On the surface, Warm Bodies is an unlikely Valentine’s pick — a zombie romance set in the ruins of civilization. But director Jonathan Levine has spoken about the film’s metaphorical layer, noting how its genre premise allowed him to explore connection and what it truly means to be alive. Beneath the humor, the story lingers on something recognizable: people moving through the world half-awake, cut off from meaning and one another.

R (played by Nicholas Hoult) isn’t revived through a grand gesture. He’s restored through relationship. As he spends time with Julie (played by Teresa Palmer), something shifts — language returns, music stirs emotion, memories resurface. The change feels less like a twist and more like renewal. It’s resurrection language, even if the film never names it as such.

That’s what gives the movie its unexpected weight. It treats love not as adrenaline, but as rehumanization.

The zombie metaphor lands because it exaggerates something familiar: the quiet drift into numbness. Yet the story refuses cynicism. It imagines love as the catalyst for restoration — not sentimental escape, but the slow rebuilding of identity and community.

It’s a story about the undead, yes. But more than that, it’s a story about coming back to life.

The results are in! 100% of you voted for At the end, when the consequences finally settle in last week’s poll: Where do you tend to notice meaning most clearly in a story?

We spend a lot of time highlighting stories that reflect something deeper — films that explore faith, sacrifice, and hope through the lens of genre.

Plumb Tales was born out of that conviction.

Designed as a home for faith-aware, genre-driven storytelling, Plumb Tales will spotlight projects in development and connect creators with a community that believes meaningful stories deserve real traction.

Creators accepted into Plumb Tales will receive access to audience-building and other marketing tools to demonstrate traction to investors and distributors. For a limited time, Founding Creators will get free lifetime access for their movie. In return, we’re asking for partnership: sharing your process publicly, cross-promoting fellow creators, engaging real audiences, and helping us refine tools built to serve this ecosystem.

If you’re a Kingdom-minded filmmaker working on a short, feature, or series that seeks True Vertical while entertaining with excellence, we’d love to hear from you. And, tonight, February 15, 2026, we’re starting a weekly Plumb Tales Info Mtg.

The Creator Application is now open.

_{*Plumb Tales is a community-driven platform and not a funding vehicle. Acceptance does not imply financial investment or distribution guarantees.}

“We love because he first loved us.” — 1 John 4:19 (ESV)

It’s no accident that so many love stories borrow the language of resurrection. Scripture tells us that love doesn’t simply stir emotion. It initiates life.

Paul writes that even when we were “dead in our trespasses,” God “made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4-5). The Gospel doesn’t describe us as slightly disconnected or merely adrift. It speaks of something deeper — a kind of spiritual death — one we cannot overcome on our own.

That’s why love sits at the center of the Christian story. Not sentiment. But restoration.

Before we ever reached for Him, we were first loved. Before we ever changed, we were made alive.

The hope of our faith isn’t that love simply improves life. It’s that love gives it back.

Until next time,

THE PLUMB NEWS TEAM