Unearthed Films, in recent years, have really made their
presence known in the boutique releasing label community and subsidy of MVD
Entertainment Group as, second to Grindhouse Releasing and Synapse Films, one
of the most transgressive shock horror film home video companies in the marketplaces. From their deluxe edition (and forthcoming
documentary) on A Serbian Film to the recent acquisition and unveiling
of the August Underground trilogy, Unearthed Films is known for the
turbulence generated by their unsavory roller coaster rides released in beautifully
prepared disc releases.
Their latest venture, the 15th anniversary release of The ABCs of Death directors Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel’s still unspeakable Deadgirl, a film that takes notions of the coming-of-age film, mystery horror and elements of the rape-revenge subgenre to uncharted depths past the ninth circle of Hell. That it exists at all, let alone holding a collectible disc copy of the film in my hand, is more than enough for yours truly to process before the unfathomably disgusting and disturbing vomitorium spreads its dark wings. You will never look at high-school age bracket horror the same way ever again.
High-school outcasts Rickie (Shiloh Fernandez) and his best friend J.T. (Noah Segan) pass their time ogling hot female classmates out of their league including but not limited to Rickie’s childhood sweetheart Joann (Candice Accola) when one day during playing hooky they wander off towards an abandoned psych ward. Rusty and decrepit with a bloodthirsty stray dog wandering the halls of leaky pipes and empty rooms, the twosome find a shocking discovery in the empty ward’s basement: a mute naked woman chained to a table covered in plastic wrap who is inexplicably very much alive. What follows will test the limits of their friendship (and the audience’s investment in the film) as it proceeds to transgress into areas that cannot be written about here.
Penned by Cheap Thrills and Mad Heidi screenwriter Trent Haaga, this deeply sickening transgressor takes time-honored cliches of the coming-of-age film and turns them inside out after running them through a meat grinder. Simply put, Deadgirl is one of the most appalling and disgusting horror films ever made. Startlingly graphic in its nudity with some inspired make-up effects work and daring performances, particularly Jenny Spain as the titular Deadgirl who not only has to endure a lot of degradation onscreen but creates a terrifying threat herself as a creature whose origin remains murky at best. Special attention goes to recurring Rian Johnson actor Noah Segan from The Last Jedi and Knives Out as sicko friend J.T. who starts out evil and then somehow sinks lower. Evil Dead actor Shiloh Fernandez as his beleaguered friend Rickie for awhile functions as the audience’s perspective, seeing the gravity of what’s playing out before him but unable to pull himself away from it.
Visually speaking the film is brooding, shot dimly in the corridors of the squalid mental hospital basement by Harris Charlambous of The ABCs of Death aided by a brooding ambient score by Joseph Bauer that rains doom and gloom over the soundscape. The makeup effects work by Jim Ojala is remarkable and also speaks again to actress Jenny Spain’s commitment to the part having to endure a lot as an actress contextually and physically with a lot of injury makeup involved. All of this builds up to a filthy septic tank explosion of taboo imagery that will encourage you to take a long hot shower as soon as the end credits roll.
Vile, vulgar, cruel and uncompromising as it freely dabbles further into unspeakable acts, Deadgirl amassed instant notoriety from the moment it was first shown at festival circuits and word-of-mouth began. Following a unique releasing model where only a handful of cities played the film at Friday and Saturday at midnight only and widespread rumors of massive walkouts compounded with a rather sexualized image of a woman’s dead lips for the poster art (replicated for the 15th Anniversary blu-ray), Deadgirl was shaping up to be a whirlwind of extremist horror with little concern for how an audience would take it.
Seen fifteen years later, it has lost not of its ability to sicken and unnerve and as such is not for most people. Those who are looking for spooky Halloween horrors are inclined to keep scrolling past this lean mean indie, a film that bites down hard and winds up giving you something akin to a sexually transmitted disease. Wallowing in misogyny, repellent hypermasculinity and onscreen atrocities that cannot be printed here, Deadgirl is positively wicked. Deliberately provocative and offensive from top to bottom with increasingly horrific situations playing out in the film, this is the coming-of-age teen flick shat out through the ass end of Beelzebub’s rectum, a nauseating roller coaster ride whose greasy rails give out from under you with no telling how deep down you will plunge. Consider this a very harsh warning.
--Andrew Kotwicki