DEADGIRL
October, Halloween, ghosts, and the ZomBOOsical. All these things make a guy like me want to get his scare on, and so off to the Netflix cue I go.
Based on a recommendation from the Drunken Zombies and the fact that it was the talk of the Toronto Film Festival, Phneri and I decided to check out the indie film DEADGIRL. At its core, this movie is a zombie movie, but then again it’s not. It’s disturbing and yet thought provoking, artfully filmed and well thought out; and yet so very hard to watch. It’s for these reasons that I am torn on recommending this film, but discussing it is a must for zombie fans and so a thread I shall start.
Ricky and TJ are two very lost teenage losers. They are ridiculed by their peers, shunned by their parents, and not far from kids I knew in high school. They are representative of the awkwardness of the teen years. One day they decide to skip class and drink a few beers at an abandoned mental hospital. They kick over chairs and break some stuff until they venture deep into the basement where they find something unusual. There, barricaded behind a door is a woman, chained to a table and covered with a plastic sheet. TJ and Ricky freak out at the sight of what must be a dead girl when they notice that she is still breathing. Ricky wants to call the cops, but TJ recognizes that there are opportunities to be had with a woman tied to a table and that losers like them should take advantage of that. Ricky gets pissed and leaves TJ and the mystery girl behind.
The next day TJ pleads with Ricky to come back to the hospital. There is something he needs to show him, something he can’t explain as Ricky would never believe it. Ricky reluctantly agrees and back to the Asylum they go. Here TJ explains that while he was trying to have his way with her, the mystery girl kept trying to bite him, and so he broke her neck. But there on the table the girl lay, very much alive. TJ takes out a gun he stole from his Dad and shoots the girl. Ricky screams in horror only to see that she indeed is still breathing. TJ explains that she is obviously not human and that they should continue exploring with her. Ricky agrees, only if TJ can keep this a secret. The secret eventually gets out, and to the worst person imaginable: Ricky’s teenage crush, JoAnn. What follows is a twisted tale of a teenage fantasy gone astray and the horrifying mess that is left in its wake.
DEADGIRL is far from your average horror film. It’s not a fun romp like Zombieland, and it’s not piss-your-pants-scary like Paranormal Activity or some Japanese horror flick. DEADGIRL takes what many in Hollywood deem too shocking to produce and puts it onscreen in an artistic and clever way. And yet co-directors Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel take these very disturbing themes and weave them into something chillingly complex that skillfully pushes the limits of explicit violence and sexuality without ever slipping into something exploitative. Most of the crazy shit is merely hinted at as you almost never see the actual “act” itself.
Again, I’m torn with this movie, for abuse of a woman – zombie or not – is something that I have trouble condoning in any movie (Last House on the Left, save yourself 2 hours and watch the Wes Craven original). But there are some very deep messages being told in this movie that I believe need to be discussed. Not discussing them leaves you with mixed emotions and feeling empty; kinda like watching JFK and NEVER talking about what you saw. The film explores the awkwardness of the teenage years, albeit to a chilling extreme. The boys in this film are teenage outcasts and their obsession with the DEADGIRL is their attempt of maintaining some feeling of control in their lives. These and other themes are powerful and eventually overtake the whole idea of what they are doing in the mental hospital. The acting is superb, especially the performance of Jenny Pain who plays the zombie. There are times we see glimpses of humanity in her and for a moment we forget that deep down inside she is a monster.
Sadly, Phneri grew tired and had to bail for the last thirty minutes of the film, and arguably the best part. Things get out of hand and disaster ensues. So if you want a thought provoking, discussion-laden zombie movie, and you can get past the premise, I’d go check out this film. You can stream it on Netflix.
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Tags: deadgirl, Netflix, Teenage Shenanigans, Toronto Film Festival, Zombies
