Deadgirl (2009)

Theatrical Release Date: June 21, 2009

Directed By: Marcel Sarmiento, Gadi Harel

Cast: Shiloh Fernandez, Noah Segan, Jenny Spain

Review By: Marc Patterson

Once in a while a film comes along that jars you out of your cinematic slumber.  For die hard genre fans it’s tough to find that one gem that really cuts through the muck and raises the bar.  This year Deadgirl has become that film.  On the surface Deadgirl is a simple coming of age story.  Two young sixteen year old males, while vandalizing an abandoned hospital, discover a naked woman chained to a table.  At first they react in horror to finding a dead body, but they are shocked to find that this woman isn’t dead, but she isn’t quite alive either.  They struggle to decide what to do with her ultimately making the turn to use her as their personal sex slave. 

Without question Deadgirl is one of the most perverse, twisted, and original horror films I’ve seen in ages.  It reads more like a dark allegorical fable than horror, and for all the storytelling going on the filmmakers decidedly allow the audience to draw their own conclusions, rather than lead one to a pre-defined message.  That isn’t to say this is at all a pretty affair.  At times it’s as discordant as it is literary, and as messy as it is stunning. 

As the film begins you can almost hear an audible groan of disgust of “Here we go with another torture porn rape film”, and this may be an especially true reaction from any female viewers.  But if you give the film a chance you’ll likely find the film to challenge your preconceptions and even deliberately pose challenging questions, to which there are no clear cut answers.  This in itself sets it apart from other horror films.  It’s not simply a joy ride of jump scares and exploitive violence.  Deadgirl is vastly complex, while appearing excruciatingly simple.  It’s a film that also straddles a delicate line between satiating the animalistic bloodlust of genre fans, while appealing to a wider audience of indie film enthusiasts, and not always successfully.

At the center of the film is our dead girl, portrayed by an incredibly talented first time actress Jenny Spain.  Spain delivers a debut performance with bravery and gusto, and alone is worthy of our applause.  She spends most of her time onscreen completely naked, covered in blood, slowly decaying into a rotten mess, and subjected to the most atrocious of horrors.  Without delivering so much as a single line Spain magnetizes the audience to the screen and brings the level of suspense to a nail biting height with each passing scene.  Opposite her are the villainous leads of Rickie and JT (Fernandez and Segan respectively) who though supposedly sixteen appear a lot older.  In spite of this discrepancy they both wage a moral battle to which there is no clear solution, and through their strong acting abilities they are able to emotionally connect with an audience that for all intensive purposes should loathe the both of them.  With each of these characters the filmmakers take risky moves by allowing them to develop in a natural way.  They don’t force a formulated plot line upon them and coerce them into predictable behavior.  Rather, they allow the film to move through its course to a twisted ending that will shock as every bit as it will gratify. 

Though unlikely to find its way into a gender studies course this film would make an excellent source for material.  The film takes on the concept of female objectification and literally lays it out on the table for discussion.  Here femininity is seen as bound, speechless, purely an object for which to act out lustful desires on.  Even the other female characters in the story are objectified, yet in a more sensitive and socially acceptable way.  Every male character that comes in contact with the dead girl must make decisions on how they will react to this situation.  The camera never stops probing and exploring and the filmmakers constantly walk a fine line throughout the film, presenting a highly sexualized story without either being erotic or exploitive. 

All said, Deadgirl isn’t perfect and the balancing act the directors put on will inevitably alienate folks to both sides of the fence.  Hardened genre fans who are looking for sadism and blatant violence are likely to be disappointed, though for the other half of us who are sick of the torture porn, and are looking for a heavily thematic film that is truly frightening, dark, and haunting Deadgirl will satisfy immensely. 

Brutal As Hell Rating:

4 out of 5