Right from the beginning this film radiates a familiarity that can be traced back to the classic 1986 movie River’s Edge starring Crispin Glover and Keanu Reeves. Its opening cut scenes show us troubled teens as they leave school on a pursuit of teen angst inside an abandoned mental asylum. You can feel that his film is going to travel on an edge of stripped away realism and you welcome the ride as its pace is slow, never rushed to get to the emotion lying deeper under the surface. Mind you, Deadgirl is disturbing, but not in a in your face, visceral bloodfest but in the way it gets under your skin and builds in a creepy unforgiving look at male sexuality and the objectification of women. There are no heroes in this movie, there is no redemption for its characters; just a frank realistic look at what lies in the back of most male’s brain when it comes to the opposite sex.

Deadgirl has been shown at festivals since last year and has been picking up a lot of positive accolades at each stop. The film has been compared to the early work of David Cronenberg and its horror aspects are more cerebral than most effects-driven scarefests.

This film dares you to stop watching, to stop looking like a voyeur in on a world that is at the basic taboo and on higher levels a very disturbing look at what men can be when it comes to what women are to them.

This is a modern telling of disturbed teens. Take the kids from River’s Edge, have them attend Columbine as the foster kid’s of the Firefly family from Devil’s Rejects and you barely scrape the psychological depravities of the characters in this movie.

The filmmakers are virtual unknowns in the film business. Co-directors Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel have only a couple projects under their belts, and the writer Trent Haaga has a non-acting credit on Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV.  But when this film is released in limited release on July 24, 2009, it might launch their careers into the limelight as this motion picture will have a buzz just by its controversial subject matter alone.

But don’t let that keep you from seeing this film. While it is a horror film and definitely falls into the torture rape genre as the Hostel series, it is very character driven, very emotional and offers a very stripped down look at what lies deep inside. If you want a hero, don’t expect one. If you want redemption, there is none.

Deadgirl is a modern horror tale that is completely unique as it falls in the range of zombie films but as if George Romero had been replaced with Ted Bundy as a director. Trust me that if you are a horror fan of films like Hellraiser, The Devil’s Rejects and Hostel, you will love this movie.

Below is a plot synopsis and spoiler, so don’t read on if want this movie to remain a surprise.

“A teen-angst and terror opus”

Fangoria

“A cautionary tale for the ages”

San Francisco Bay Guardian

“Audacious. This adolescent fantasy gone wrong proves difficult to dismiss.”

Hollywood Reporter

“A coming of age film like you’ve never seen before.”

Slash Film

“One of the smartest teen horror films I’ve watched in a some time.”

Indiewire

Rickie (Shiloh Fernandez) and JT (Noah Segan) are long time friends. Rickie is the quiet misunderstood kid with a crush on the popular girl and JT is a teen who is the complete outsider with no supervision and no future. JT convinces Rickie to skip school and hangout with him. They take a stroll which leads them an abandoned mental facility. Once there, they drink beers and destroy furniture. They write graffiti on the walls and smash windows. JT decides he wants to show him the basement where they used to keep the murderers.

The basement is dark and moody. Down there, they discover a demonic looking dog and a hidden door. They go exploring into this room where they find a dead naked girl under a tarp.

Or is she dead?

JT removes the plastic and pokes her. The girl is alive and hauntingly beautiful. Rickie wants to free her, while JT has other plans.

Later, they learn that she cannot die. They learn this through beatings and bullets. JT wants her to be a sex slave while Rickie can never get her eyes out of his dreams of his high school crush. JT explains to him that this piece of snatch is the best they will ever get. The best they will ever be towards the opposite sex.

From there, Deadgirl travels down some disturbing paths. The woman is never considered to be more than a sex slave. They are never concerned about how she got there or why she is there, only to what they can do with her. Even when she is nothing more than a battered bag of meat, they figure out a way to refresh their Deadgirl.

This movie is never over the top and never goes into any sense of camp or parody. It is because of the realistic portrayal of the subject matter that this movie excels on so many levels.

Yes, this is a rape torture movie but it is frank look at just how our current climate of porn and objectification of woman can lead young males down dark twisted roads in their own sexuality.

I highly recommend this film. It is a unique twist on the zombie genre that is as disturbing as it is real.