Review of Deadgirl (2008) by Andrew C — 04 Jul 2012

Twisted, dangerous, and unsettling, this film really pushes the envelope. Putting a new and wholly original spin on the zombie film, two teens discover a girl chained to the table in the basement of a desolate mental institution.

She is under a plastic bag, like she is an piece of equipment. Nobody knows how long she's been down there, but she is dead, and yet not at the same time. The boys, one a straight-shooter with morals and the other a relentless psychopath, are acted quite poorly by Shiloh Fernandez and devilishly good by Noah Segan.

But, the star of the show is Jenny Spain as the titular dead girl, who has no lines but conveys everything with her facial expressions and actions. She is terrifying, beautiful, and mesmerizing. That makes it sound like I'm into necrophilia, but I assure you I'm not.

If I was, I'd get off on this film. There is a lot of necrophilia here, the bad boy JT has sex with the dead girl on many occasions, and lets people join in. He also "kills" her three times, but they discover she can't die (again).

So what I gathered is she was an experiment at the hospital ever since she was a child and they didn't know what to do with her, so they kept her in the basement for a couple decades. There are several memorable shots by the cinematographer, including the scene where Rickie is knocked down by the girl and he watches her climb the stairs and try to escape while upside down and blurry.

It's a fairly topical story about young male fantasies and what some guys would do for love, only a few shades darker of course. And the many plot holes aside, I enjoyed myself immensly and it made for a nice gross viewing.

Lastly, any movie that opens with an Animal Collective song and closes with Akron/Family gets it bonus points.