A lot of kids ditch school each day, and many of them choose to adventure to an abandoned building and partake in mild vandalism, but Rickie and J.T. are the first two to ever find a dead body . . . that isn’t dead. Rickie is a follower that’s good at heart, but since J.T. is a natural leader he convinces his friendly pawn not to tell anyone about finding a naked girl chained up in a ward basement. J.T. doesn’t hesitate to abuse his new power of control and sets off to christen his sex slave as Rickie draws the line and runs off. Before a night has even passed, J.T. drags Rickie back to show him a shocking discovery: she may be alive, but she doesn’t bleed and isn’t killable, thus she becomes the “Deadgirl.â€
Hit the jump for my review and a few pictures that may be uncomfortable to look at regardless of whether you’re at work or not.
A lot of kids ditch school each day, and many of them choose to adventure to an abandoned building and partake in mild vandalism, but Rickie and J.T. are the first two to ever find a dead body . . . that isn’t dead. Rickie is a follower that’s good at heart, but since J.T. is a natural leader he convinces his friendly pawn not to tell anyone about finding a naked girl chained up in a ward basement. J.T. doesn’t hesitate to abuse his new power of control and sets off to christen his sex slave as Rickie draws the line and runs off. Before a night has even passed, J.T. drags Rickie back to show him a shocking discovery: she may be alive, but she doesn’t bleed and isn’t killable, thus she becomes the “Deadgirl.”
Hit the jump for my review and a few pictures that may be uncomfortable to look at regardless of whether you’re at work or not.{{page_break}}
(Noah Segan) is more than just a stereotypical abrasive high school student who’s obsessed with sex even though he’s a novice at it, and Rickie’s (Shiloh Fernandez) on the verge of exiting that young and impressionable age where he hasn’t yet chosen to follow J.T. into a life of trouble. Their conversations are fittingly immature, their relationships with others their age are fittingly far from complex, and once J.T. breaks their secret by inviting a third member, Wheeler, we realize things will eventually spiral out of control like high school student plots often do.
In this sense they all remind me of the kids mentioned in the novel that Donnie Darko reads in his high school class. Where they act out not because they stand behind their actions, but just because they want to see what reactions and repercussions they’ll receive. That’s the biggest of the many differences between J.T. and Rickie; Rickie shows signs of hesitation and confusion while Rickie knows exactly what kind of deviant and illegal choices he’s making. You can tell J.T. has led Rickie into a lot of sticky situations in the past, and that Rickie will constantly forgive him until it’s too late and J.T. puts both of their lives or legal records in danger. So we sit back and wait to see how long until that moment occurs, with J.T.’s newfound power quickly going to his head.
In between scenes of Rickie’s home and lack of family life that were decent at best, we’re shown several good fade transitions tucked into many scenes with building suspense music that also makes me recall Donnie Darko. There’s little action for most of the movie, but while it’s admittedly cheap, Deadgirl is a master of extreme close-up shots of a scary face that’s about to lash out. Being subjected to this regularly makes you more angry at the film than scared by it, but it still adequately freaks you out. Having the film not shy away from showing us her full anatomy as her whole body jiggles adds a layer of realism that adds to the fear of constantly wondering what will happen next. When a film includes full frontal nudity of a sex slave, you never dare it to surprise you in the next scene, and that’s one of two aspects that were enjoyable in this film. The other would be watching J.T.’s unraveling that tries to make up for Shiloh’s (Rickie’s) inability to handle complex emotions on screen. His temper tantrum in particular shows faults in both him and the directors for letting those frames reach the final cut.
Halfway into the movie, Deadgirl does something that takes adolescents’ obsession with sex a step too far and ends up hurting the believability of the movie. We’ve seen enough of the three main characters to know they have some issues, but having two new characters break the law in broad daylight without knowing them well comes off as extremely odd and illogical.
Deadgirl is a movie about an obsession, and while it may be disturbing, J.T.’s infatuation with a “dead” sex slave is far more interesting than Rickie’s hormonal obsession with a girl he can’t have. With 20 minutes left in the movie it tries to tackle a piece of the plot I didn’t expect it to own up to, and while I expected the writer (Trent Haaga) to just pointlessly expand the story to round out the movie, he ended up taking it into an even darker corner that really shows how far J.T. had come with his new power. When given ultimate control over others’ lives, J.T. is molded into quite the high school villain, though this film also suffers from the all too common syndrome of actors looking much older than teenagers.
Overall Score: 6.70 – Okay. (6s are just okay. These movies usually have many flaws, didn’t try to do anything special, or were poorly executed. Some will still love 6s, but most prefer to just rent them. Watch more trailers and read more reviews before you decide.)
Deadgirl is far from a gimmick and it succeeds where Teeth and The Human Centipede failed. It actually impressed me with most of the scenes I was morbidly looking forward to, yet it oddly let me down with many of the simple foundation scenes I had assumed it would handle with ease. If you just want to see this original movie because you’re curious, then don’t hold back. If you can overlook some illogical choices and a few bad acting scenes then you might really like this film. It’s certainly better than most creepy movies you can compare it to.
Andrew Kauz:
Overall Score: 5.90 – Deadgirl has a great concept, but it doesn't get anywhere close to fulfilling its promise. With some uneven acting, atrocious dialogue, and uninteresting cinematography, this is a film that's hard to recommend for anything more than its premise. You can read his full review here!
