Dead Girl (Marcel Sarmiento, Gadi Harel, 2008): USA

Reviewed by Natalie Envall. Viewed at the AFI Film Festival, Archlight Hollywood.

Deadgirl will shock you to no end. After seeing this movie I was truly amazed. Dead Girl is truly one of a kind, the movie combines a lot of geners into one movie. It’s a horror film with a mix of drama, comedy and psychological thriller.

The plot follows two outsiders Ricky ( Shiloh Fernandez ) and JT ( Noah Segan ). Two teenagers who spends most of their time cutting class and smoking pot. Ricky is a quiet guy who keeps mostly to himself and the few friends he has, and is in love with his childhood crush JoAnn, who is dating the schools jock. JT is the more out going and he has no problem voicing his opinions about Ricky and how he should try to hook up with a girl that is more in his league. One day after school they decided to hang out at an abandon mental institution, after doing some vandalizing they get chased by a dog who wanders the halls of the hospital. While running away from the dog they end up in the basement. Their they find something that will forever change their lives and friendship forever, a naked woman chained to a stretcher. Ricky wants to free her, but JT has other plans.

The movie delivers a great deal of emotions as the story goes on. The actors Shiloh Fernandez (Ricky) who really is a nice guy who wants to help her, but is afraid of her and has conflicting feelings throughout the story, should he be loyal to his best friend? or should he help this poor girl? who also seems be dangerous, makes you root for him and desperately wanting him to be the hero of this movie and ( Noah Segan ) delivers a chilling performance as  the evil and calculating JT.

The script was originally written in 1999, but since the movie is of such disturbing nature it has been really hard to get distribution for the movie. When you see this film your gonna be blown away by it’s very many disturbing and scary scenes, It’s inappropriate, but amazingly dark humor and the surprizes that just keeps coming. This movie is not for sensitive viewers. It’s for people who can look beyond the twisted and sick plot that this movie portrays and see it for what it truly is pure brilliance.