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Overall Rating : 6/10
Directed By : Marcel Sarmiento, Gadi Harel
Shiloh Fernandez (Red)
Noah Segan (Brick)
Michael Bowen (Kill Bill Vol. 1)
Candice Accola (Juno)
Supplied By : MPI/Dark Sky Films
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : June. 23, 2009
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| PLOT When high school misfits Rickie and JT decide to cut school and find themselves lost in the crumbling facility of a nearby abandoned hospital, they come face-to-face with a gruesome discovery: a woman whose body has been stripped naked, chained to a table and covered in plastic. When both react to the situation in extremely different ways, the boys soon find themselves embarking on a twisted yet poignant journey that forces them to decide just how far they're willing to stretch their understanding of right and wrong. |
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| THE REVIEW In DEADGIRL, best friends Rickie and JT are social outcasts at school. On day they ditch class to do a nearby mental hospital that has been shut down for some time. There they plan to drink some beer and trash the place - your typical teenagers behaving badly sort of thing. But it's when JT takes Rickie down into the institutions tunnels that things get more exciting than the two bargained for. The tunnels which were designed to transport the most dangerous of patients from room to room are dark and scary in their appearence alone, but way in the depths of them, behind a rusted shut door they find something pretty disturbing. Their grisly discovery? The body of a nude women who appears to be dead on is she? Rickie is immediately freaked out by their discovery and tries to persuade JT that the right thing for them to do would be to tell someone, but of course JT has other plans. JT stays behind to have a little "fun" with the body as he says, while Rickie returns home. The next day JT tells Rickie to come back to the building, because he has something to show him. Rickie reluctantly joins JT, but what his friend show's him would be unfathomable. It turns out that the "dead girl" is alive in some form or another because she tried to attack JT the night prior. JT. goes on to explain that he killed the girl by breaking her neck, but it appears that she never dies, not ever a bullet will kill her. With the discovery on the never dying girl, JT becomes obsessed with her, so much so that he spends all of his days with her, neglecting to even attend school - the body is used and abused by JT....it becomes his plaything of sorts. Rickie not wanting any part of it, tries to lead his normal life while ignoring the situation, but that gets increasingly hard when word about the dead girl spreads across campus and the body essentially becomes an attraction for all of the males at school to see. Prior to receiving this film for review, to be honest I had never heard of DEADGIRL. But after a little research I discovered that this indie film has garnered a bit of interests due to film festival showings and what have you, it has also been called quite controversial. Whenever I see the word controversial, just like anyone else my interest peaks a little more. So what did I find in DEADGIRL? Well, for starters, at it's core it's essentially a zombie flick but it's a rather unusual one. This story isn't your typical film about a walking creature of the living dead, but rather a member of the living dead that becomes a sexual plaything for a group of typical male high-schoolers. As bad as that description sounds, it's not as harsh as it may seem. Because DEADGIRL in itself is more like a coming of age story, in particular for the character of Rickie, because not only must he deal with knowing of he and JT's grisly discovery, it's in the meantime that he's also vying for the "re-attention" for his childhood crush Joann. It's this central love story that keeps the plot grounded giving it some more substance, rather than just being a film about the dead girl and the film's "gross out" moments. DEADGIRL was written by low budget Horror Actor Trent Haaga who is regarded as a favorite to some who are familiar with his work/ Haaga is indeed a fan of the genre himself as it is indeed apparent. His imagination for the subject is vivid and he shows us that he's not at all afraid to push the boundaries so to speak. He approaches the dark subject with a bit of both realism and dark comedy, for subject that could've been taken a lot more serious, at times it's just hard to take DEAD GIRL serious, and for me, it makes it that much more enjoyable. The mix of seriousness(especially in the film's first act) and comedy, may cause the film to be uneven at times, but overall, as a whole I found this film to be pretty entertaining - it's definitely a zombie film of a different breed, which is a refreshing change from the norm. As for the acting here, I found it to be mixed. We have Shiloh Fernandez(Rickie) and Noah Segan(JT) as our leads, who deliver great performances as best friends who are more or less torn apart and strained from each other due to their "dead" discovery. Out of the two, Fernandez's character happens to be the one that has the more development. Despite the discovery of the dead girl and having to keep it all a secret, it seems as if Rickie himself lives a lonely life one with an absent mother due to work(he is only joined at home by mom's drunk boyfriend, who isn't much company at all), he also has to sit back and watch the love of his life, JoAnn being courted by the generic, but popular jock, JT on the other hand is quite different, as his true self really emerges after the discovery. The dead body for JT becomes more of an obsession for him, as he eventually ditches school to spend his days and nights down in the darkest part of the asylum. As time goes on, it seems that JT's obsession takes a hold of him and he starts to lose it a bit - in my opinion Segan does a great job in displaying this. Candice Accola(JoAnn), also provides a good performance. JoAnn is essentially at first glace the "eye candy" type of character, the object of Rickie's affection, but later in the film she starts to have a little more significance, especially playing a major part in the film's send off ending. Outside of the key players is where the performances sort of differ, however, no one is terrible per say, let's just say that their performances add more comedy to some situations. Overall, I thought that DEADGIRL was a film that was pretty up and down at least for the first half, but eventually I found that it evened itself out to be a pretty enjoyable zombie flick with a twist. |
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| GORE
METER 5.5/10 There are gunshot wounds, bite wounds, some blood splattered, guts spilled among other things. For an indie film, the effects here are pretty well done and effective. |
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MUSICAL
SCORE 3.5/10 All that I can remember is some indie rock tunes and some light scoring, nothing truly stands out here. | ||||
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM DEADGIRL is a rather enjoyable twist on zombie fare, one that involves realism, some comedy and even a little Asian Horror influence. Although I did expect to enjoy this more than I did, I did find myself having a good time with it overall. Be sure to check this out if you can when MPI and Dark Sky Films present this in select theaters starting on July 24th. This film will be released in select theaters on July 24, 2009 |
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