A Frank Review of "Deadgirl" (2008)

The Short Version? Zombie fuckers.
What Is It? Horror.
Who Is In It? Nobody.
Should I See It? Hopefully not.



There is a certain type of movie, with American Psycho being my go-to example, that I respect without in any way enjoying. These are movies that are solid technically, with fully functional screenplays and sometimes downright exceptional acting performance. However, they are also miserable, joyless slogs, or else they leave me feeling unclean or maybe just dead inside, and I don't want to see those movies again. Deadgirl is one of those films.

The lead characters in the movie are a pair of moronic losers whose pastimes include ditching school to break into an abandoned mental hospital and smash shit. One day, they find a nude woman wrapped in plastic and chained up in a cellar. One of the guys, out POV character, wants to release her and call the police. The other wants to fuck her from now until she dies off on them. The second boy wins, through violence and intimidation sure, so from that point on the "hero" isn't one, despite some good intentions and inept interventions. The major complication is that the rape victim is also one of the infectious flesh eating dead, with predictable consequences.

You should be able to plot out the rest of the movie in your head. Will the scumbag teenagers "share" their zombie fuck doll? Will there be some deviant sex acts related to necrophilia? Will someone get their dick bitten off? Will there be a doomed romantic subplot? Will things progressively get worse until there's a mound of corpses and remorse? Will there be a black humored twist at the end? Yes, yes, dear god yes.

Aside from the subject matter, there's nothing wrong with the picture. It gets to all the places it needs to go with the correct performers involved. It's a steady cam indie, but it's slick enough for your high definition television. There is some explicit female nudity, but it isn't all titillating, and the sex is similarly off-putting. I don't think it's transgressive or leering enough for the deranged viewer, but it's too disgusting and drab for the less adulterated. It's an intentionally mean-spirited and dark film with unlikable characters. It may be your bag, but not mine, and my humor tends to be as gallows as they come. This is base for the sake of being base, and will likely play only to the types of creepy, charmless, unimaginative assholes it portrays.