PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Way back when (this was released 15 years ago, hence the anniversary Blu) Trent Haaga, then known primarily for leading the “Diaper Mafia” in The Toxic Avenger IV: Citizen Toxie wrote a script for a little film called Deadgirl. With it, he made, along with co-directors Marcel Sarmiento (Totem) and Gadi Harel (The Passengers) one of those unsung/little seen films that changed the game. With a spiffy new Blu-ray edition from Unearthed Films, it will finally get more of the credit it deserves.
Synopsis
“Two high school boys discover an imprisoned woman in an abandoned mental asylum who cannot die.”
Here’s a look at the trailer!
A tale of friendship, boundaries, and morality, Deadgirl, even 15 years later, loses none of its impact. High school outsiders Rickie (Shiloh Fernandez; Evil Dead) and J.T. (Noah Segan – read our interview with him HERE) really only have each other—their friends, like Wheeler (Eric Podnar; 68 Kill) are even more downtrodden than they are, they’re constantly bullied by the jocks like Johnny (Andrew DiPalma; Killer Movie), and they secretly pine for the popular girls like Joann (Candace King; The Vampire Diaries).
With prospects like these, it’s no wonder they cut class to have a few beers in a nearby abandoned hospital. Therein, they discover a mysteriously mute, nude woman (Jenny Spain; American Girls) chained to a table and covered in plastic. Relationships, and sanity, are tested as a strange bond forms, for disparately different reasons, between this unholy trinity.
Panned by some as a misogynistic exercise in excess, Deadgirl, upon a deeper look, emerges as an unflinching study of how the seemingly unbreakable bonds we form in our youth, fissure and crack apart as we mold into our eventual adult selves—with some really fucked up subject matter to bring it all home! Featuring career defining performances from Fernandez, and particularly the insanely talented Segan, Deadgirl is so much more than an edgy horror film.
Sure, there are sequences that are hard to watch, and the dehumanizing, and serial rape, of a young woman aren’t the types of things you’d normally associate with an emotionally wrought, moving film about the end of youth and innocence, but that’s what makes Deadgirl so effective. A expertly written script, with some jaw droppingly amazing acting (Spain, in what is essentially a mute role, conveys a painful desperation and agony that is on par with Karloff in Frankenstein) really make this film, which shouldn’t work, work.
I love Stephen Biro. Seriously, he has the courage (or marketing savvy) to release films that other distro companies wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole. And this edition of Deadgirl is just definitive! A nice slipcase with the suggestive “lips” version of the artwork, reversible art on the slick clear box round out the package. And the extras are legion—new interviews with Segan, Fernandez, Haaga and Harel, a “making of” featurette, new galleries of stills, and a pdf of the shooting script and the sequel (!), with all of these extras your only question left will be “how in the Hell did this get an ‘R’ rating?!?!”. The film proper is as crisp and clean as you’d expect from a special edition release, and looks exceptional on a hi def set, good stuff kids!
Deadgirl – Final Thoughts
While definitely not for everyone, Deadgirl is an interesting, well crafted film, spotlighting some film talents who went on to do even more amazing work in the 15 years since it’s release. If you haven’t seen it, check it out, it deserves to be seen!
The Deadgirl 15th Anniversary Blu-ray is available now from Unearthed Films at fine retailers.
