Zombie flicks are partially about man’s inhumanity to man and, while Deadgirl does follow this pattern, it has enough of a twist to elevate it above it’s straight-to-DVD roots.
The setup is simple and dispensed with quickly – two high school stoners are fooling around in an abandoned hospital when a huge feral dog attacks them, forcing them to hide in a basement where they discover the girl of the title – naked, beautiful, strapped to a table and seemingly stone-cold dead. So – inform the police, or, as J.T (Shiloh Fernandez) suggests… “Keep her.”
As it turns out (naturally) the girl isn’t just well preserved, she’s an undead. A genuine, unkillable, flesh eating Zombie. But, as long as she’s strapped down and no threat, she’s also a gorgeous naked woman. You can see where this is going.
By turns poignant and depraved, this is also a great exercise in tension-building. There is eventually a full on undead attack but duel Directors Sarmiento and Harel make us wait for it. For most of the movie the girl becomes the least of the boys worries, the group growing as the school bully discovers their very dirty secret. The only external threat being the aforementioned guard dog, the moral battle is where it’s at here. The lust for sex without consequences pits friends against one-other as they struggle to control their baser urges.
Throughout the visuals are kept locked down, allowing things to play out as creepy courtroom drama rather than jokey gore-fest, a kind of ‘Twelve Horny Men’. While the acting is bumpy, there is a good dynamic on screen, with Fernandez in particular conveying his quiet battle with his conscience excellently, especially during moments when he’s tempted to give in, all the strain and bubbling undercurrents appearing in short bursts and ramping the mood up fantastically.
Edge-of-seat tension and some surprisingly clear depictions of sexual depravity, Deadgirl is great little shocker that will please any horror fan. And it’ll hopefully find a wider audience as well – it’s on limited release later this month, so do make an effort to see it. It’s one of the best horror films so far this year.
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Browsing Movies on Demand on Virgin bloody MEdia the other day, my missus kept shouting ‘DEAD GIRL’. I thought she was ill.
But it turns out such a film exists.
I’m sure I saw somthing like this on one of those Zone channels a while ago.
I may be very, very confused though.
Saw this at an all-night horror fest at Halloween last year in Leeds. Proper wicked.
I like the sound of this all-night horror fest.
Frightfest… that reminds me…