Directed by Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel, 2008
Written by Trent Haaga

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Before watching DEADGIRL I was reading a recap at EvilOnTwoLegs.com of Fangoria’s most recent Weekend of Horrors in NYC.  Jon was recounting actors and directors across multiple panels who all lamented America’s new remake fueled industry, an industry that leaves no room for risk taking.   Well I hope someone gives the original cast of LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT a copy of Marcel Armiento and Gadi Harel’s DEADGIRL, which is exactly the kind of film the industry doesn’t have room for any more, a film from the independent sector gambling for notoriety with nothing to lose.

And notoriety is precisely what DEADGIRL found on the festival circuit and is bound to find in the years to come.  What else can filmmakers expect when they make a movie about two high school aged outcasts, Rickie and JT, who find the naked and bound body of a pretty girl in the basement of an abandoned insane asylum.  Soon discovering that the pretty girl is a pretty undead girl, the degenerate boys take advantage of the situation.  Undeterred by her lack of a pulse, dead girl’s body becomes their private adolescent play ground.

I don’t think I need to explain the risks involved with such a film.  I also don’t think I need to explain that I’m having a hard time conjuring up a more misogynistic horror film than DEADGIRL.  Sarmiento and Harel have no agenda other than to push buttons, to get people talking about their manifested controversy.  I cannot fault an agenda of this sort as it cuts to the core of what all horror movies aspire to do, particularly since few recent American titles with actual talent behind the camera have yearned so deeply for the grunge and the grime as DEADGIRL.  But simply reaching the end of an agenda does not guarantee that something special has been accomplished.

DEADGIRL has an obvious strategy and a campaign to reach it staffed with admirable performances, great makeup and a measured hand to pull the wool over the audience’s eyes, but it doesn’t have a point.  It’s a well crafted but hollow repulsion, the film equivalent of chugging ipecac on an empty stomach.

Theatrical Trailers and Clips

• EDEN LOG – Trailer

Studio News and Attachments

• Paul W.S. Anderson will not deboard his RESIDENT EVIL life raft.
• MGM buys THE HOW-TO GUIDE FOR SAVING THE WORLD, which might as well give up.  We all know MOM AND DAD SAVE THE WORLD, not some guy with a tutorial.
• The new box set for FRIDAY THE 13TH will include the much needed 3D glasses.
• Surprise!  Rob Zombie is doing HALLOWEEN 2!  Le sigh.
• Witchcraft brings career success in MGM’s CONJURE WIFE, which I’m pretty sure has the same plot as WITCHES OF BREASTWICK.
• PRIEST shakes off the dust of inactivity with the announcement of effects pro Scott Charles Stewart as director.

Remakes

• Attention all parents (I’m looking at you, John); it is your duty to put son or daughter in the TROLL remake.
• How did I miss that the remake of the Russian roulette happy 13 TZAMETI was not only happening, but starring Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham, Ray Liotta, Ray Winstone and Fiddy Cent?
• Pair behind fest groupie DEADGIRL plucked to remake Danish film MURK for Gold Circle films.
• James Cameron supposedly orbiting a trilogy – part remake, part prequel, part sequel – of FORBIDDEN PLANET written by J Michael Straczynski.

Indie, Foreign and Random News

• Studio 407’s comic series HYBRID, about a creature aboard an adrift vessel at sea, to become a movie under 407 and Myriad Pictures.
• JUDGE DREDD is coming back thanks to DNA films.
• Alfred Hitchcock’s THE BIRDS Barbie Doll is out of stock, but definitely real.
• Barbie of the Undead, however, is slightly less commercially viable.

Non-Theatrical Trailers and Clips

• PENANCE – Trailer (would be red band if submitted to the MPAA)
• PULSE 3: PULSIER – Clip
• BAJO LA SAL (UNDER THE SALT) – Teasers
• AGAINST THE DARK – Vampires taking over the world.  Steven Segal won’t let them.
• SAMURAI ZOMBIE – Trailer
• MUM AND DAD – Clip

Last Week in Horror found no shortage of minor announcements, but enough of which excite me in earnest.  In the world of TV, Goyer and “TREK” vet Braga sell an intriguing hour long series premise to ABC, HBO renews the proven cool “TRUE BLOOD” and Sci-Fi orders full the unproven “WAREHOUSE 13″.

A few pieces of remake news, though nothing mind blowing.  And then we get to one of the juiciest nuggets of the week that I think may be a beacon of great things to come.  Two outfits have teamed up to finance four films from a quartet of rising independent filmmakers.  I’ve only seen a few of their earlier films, but all four are names I’ve only ever seen associated with positive buzz, so to know they have a new house over their heads is very cool.

Oh, and does anyone else find this innocent picture of Earth during a solar eclipse as ominous as I do?