Deadgirl #MovieReview

Two high school boys discover an imprisoned woman in an abandoned mental asylum who cannot die.

Title: Deadgirl | Directed by: Marcel Sarmiento, Gadi Harel | Starring: Jenny Spain, Shiloh Fernandez, Noah Segan | Release Date: 09-06-2008 | MPAA Rating: R | Runtime: 1 hr 01 min | Source: Rented

Deadgirl Review

Deadgirl is an exploitation horror movie about a pair of outcast teens discover an undead woman in an asylum basement and decide to use her as a sex slave. I’ll put content warnings here for rape and sexual violence, as well as homophobic dialogue and at least one use of the “R word.” If that’s something you don’t want to see then give this one a pass.

This is a weird one. I sought out this movie because I remembered catching like the middle 30 minutes of it on TV when I was younger, and it was so gross and bizarre I needed to know if it actually existed. Turns out it does, and it was probably worse than I remembered or could’ve expected.

The story is pretty much not great. Unfortunately I could believe this kind of “what if” scenario happening, but it’s an exploration of a really gross example of human behavior. It’s an interesting idea, but they definitely don’t flinch away from the disgusting aspects of it, and I don’t think it was done in a tasteful way. It’s definitely an exploitation film. If you don’t mind this kind of gross, in regards to sexual stuff, in your horror, then maybe you’ll enjoy it. Definitely not award-winning, but I guess it’s structurally not an absolute wreck.

The acting in this one is…okay. I think they were working with what they were given, so you can’t blame them entirely. Jenny Spain does a good job of being haunting on screen and somehow putting her expressions and behavior into uncanny valley territory. I was a little disappointed she hasn’t done really anything since then because I wanted to see her in some actual acting roles. Shiloh Fernandez was fine, I guess. Not completely unconvincing. And I hate to admit it but Noah Segan was a compelling psychopath, even if I had issues with certain aspects of how his character was written. He at least did what he could with it.

The production is a weird beast. There are aspects where I can tell they had some cash. The prosthetics on the deadgirl and things like the oozing bullet wounds were really convincing. But then they made weird choices with the camera work, like having them walk through tunnels with almost literally no lighting, and keep that going for way longer than it should have. Or a moment in the third act when I guess they mirrored one of the shots in editing, because the scratches on Segan’s face AND the lighting flip sides for one shot(if you follow me on Twitter and saw me live tweeting, you know what I’m talking about. It was weird). For most of the film it looks like they at least understood film grammar and put in some effort, but then there would be these moments where it looked like they handed the camera and lights to a high school kid and let them do their thing. I really don’t know what to make of it. I’d have less of a problem if the visuals were just consistently bad like in Terrifier, or something.

This movie isn’t one I would go out of my way to recommend. If you crave all things zombie and you want something a little off-kilter, maybe this will satisfy you. The crass handling of the sexual content is a big part of what hurts the rating for me, but also the weird inconsistent production value, to a lesser extent. It’s really not a must-see.