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A very dark tale about two friends and a girl they find chained up all alone.

Plenty of horror movies have some sort of social commentary to them.  This is no reason to assume they all have something to say about the world.  Take Deadgirl for instance, an indie feature by directors Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel that uses a fright flick to tell a story about people, though it is not stating that most men are rapists.  Other films use horror elements to tell a different story.  Look at Shaun of the Dead, a romantic comedy set in a world that happens to be overrun with zombies.  Deadgirl puts a mysterious woman between two lifelong friends to show the dissolution of said friendship when put in a moral crossroad type of situation. 

A couple of high school “weird kids,” Rickie (Shiloh Fernandez) and J.T. (Noah Segan), decide to spend the day skipping school to wander around an abandoned hospital drinking and destroying everything.  Through their exploits they come across a mysterious naked girl chained to a table and covered in plastic.  While the girl seems alive, she is certainly something different.  At first she doesn’t move or make a sound and despite anything done to her, like the bullet holes in her abdomen or the constant stream of rape endured, she just remains in her living dead state.  The limits of their friendship, and the boundaries of right and wrong, are tested while the girl on the slab grows out of control. 

When the film first started I was rather indifferent.  The teens find this girl and there is a little ambiguity as to who, or what, she is, but nothing too exciting or interesting was happening. That all changed about thirty minutes in.  This is a zombie-esque film that does something I have never seen before, turn the living dead girl into a sex slave.  I have seen films with necrophilia, or even zombie-on-zombie sex (Dead Alive) but humans taking turns on a chained up flesheater is a new one.  What I really enjoy about the film is the lack of explanation you are given.  There is this mysterious girl behind a door which was rusted shut and no one know how, or why, she got to this place.  You get to use you own imagination to come up with her origin. 

There are definitely some gruesome moments in the film, but for something boasting the “unrated director’s cut” I expected more.  A few high gore moments shy away from the blood & guts to opt for the less is more philosophy.  The splatter scenes are shown with very quick cuts.  It makes sense why the directors would choose to go this route, but us gorehounds see the word “unrated” on a horror DVD and our mouths begin to salivate.  The bloodthirsty will not be disappointed by flick (especially with an awesome bathroom sequence which had me applauding from my couch) but don’t expect a ton of grue.

This Dark Sky release DVD has a few light extras for your viewing and listening pleasure, like the case and crew commentary or brief behind-the-scenes featurette.  There are a few deleted scenes that really add nothing and a cool little make-up FX photo gallery with some of the bloody bits you don’t really see in the film.  All in all this is a decent film with a few pretty awesome scenes.  Some might find it a bit slow at times but for the horror fan it’s worth a watch for the creep factor and a new spin on a genre film.

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