DEADGIRL

(USA, 2008, 101 mins)

HDCAM

Cast: Candice Accola, Michael Bowen, Noah Segan, Shiloh Fernandez
Producers: Marcel Sarmiento, Gadi Harel
Executive Producers: Chris Webster, Rob Hickman
Director of Photography: Harris Charalambous
Editor: Phillip Blackford
Music: Joseph Bauer
Co Producer: Cynthia Graner
Co Producer: Vince Maggio

• www.deadgirlmovie.com/

This unexpectedly challenging film tangles the archetypal male coming-of-age narrative with the mechanics of paracinema. Using familiar visual tropes of a slasher-zombie-voyeur-horror flick, co-directors Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel make literal the terrifying hyperbolic metaphors of adolescent anxiety. Thus, the story begins under the guise of a film that we have seen countless times. Rickie (Shiloh Fernandez) and JT (Noah Segan) break into an abandoned mental institution to release their repressed energy, getting drunk and obliterating any evidence of order. In the sinister basement, they find the body of a hot girl, defiled by grime and bodily fluids. Soon, the initial shock is surpassed by the alarming discovery that her body still moves. When faced with the decision of what to do with her, the boys encounter the dark side of their own pathologies. JT decides to make her the test-subject of a horrific fantasy while Rickie struggles between his own desires and moral responsibility. A dangerous battle of wills erupt and lead to actions that are sadistic, vulgar, and yet somehow predictable… that is, until more people begin to find out about her. In its ineffably lewd climax, all the social constructs begin to corrode. Our repulsion crescendo to a degree that makes DEADGIRL as hard to watch as it is to look away from.

-- Aliza Ma

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