deadgirl

Well, you sure picked a pretty shit-poor time to man-up, Rick.

When skipping class for the hell of it because of a fire drill at school, JT and Rickie are out and about, locating the derelict mental institution, just screwing around, eventually finding the body of a young woman, wrapped in plastic, soon realizing that she's not...quite...dead.
**½

To say I’m a bit exhausted after revisiting Deadgirl (2008) would be the understatement of the week. God, to say the protagonists made me sick would certainly be an apt statement. I cringe at the thought that this could happen. It is as much a study, I think, about how far alienated loners, cast to the side, on the bottom rungs of the high school ladder, might go in order to gain access to pleasure, achieve a sense of power and control--to be the rulers of their own private universe, so to speak--and attain their own private nirvana absent the pitfalls that come with unremarkable lives…through this, they fall into such an immoral abyss, that turning back seems futile.

 JT (Noah Segan) is so depraved, and becomes so psychopathic, that I just wanted to hit the shower and scrub myself clean with steel wool. JT is a real fucking sicko. So JT and his weak pal, Rickie (Shiloh Fernandez), decide to blow the rest of the school day to goof off, heading for an abandoned institution (this is a real doozy that reeks of horrors), finding the naked corpse of an undead “lab experiment” (that’s my only reasoning as to her being alive..and dead) with a hunger for flesh and a thirst for blood. While Rickie believes they should call the cops, JT, because he’s warped in the head, on the other hand, isn’t about to unveil the details on a piece of pussy he can secretly bang any time he wants. What does Rickie do? Does he do the right thing? Of course not. 

The film follows mainly Rickie, as he deals with the moral crisis and dwells on what to do about the situation. While Rickie might be the focus of the film, he is, by no means, a hero. Far from it. Sure, he feels a little guilty, and, maybe, he has a bit of a conscience, but to not tell the local authorities immediately, and allowing this twisted business with JT sexually molesting the naked, filthy, sweaty, bullet-ridden body of Deadgirl (Jenny Spain; this girl deserves kudos for what her character has to endure throughout, naked the entire time, and looking worse for wear) to continue, doesn’t paint him in a good light at all. The ending especially eschews any semblance of positive feelings we might even remotely have for the Rickie character. He’s always begging and pleading with JT, like a little girl seeking mama to buy her a lollipop in a Walmart checking line, and Rickie doesn’t have the initiative or wherewithal (or, better yet, the spine) to do the right thing. He’s a coward, a weakling. I don’t give a shit about how JT is his friend and snitching on the only person who gives a rat’s ass about him could be a deterrent in going to the cops, but any obligation he might owe to the victim – regardless if she’s dead or alive – seems to pale in comparison to upsetting one’s good buddy.

We never see Rickie’s mother. She probably works double shifts just to make ends meet. I know this will be looked at negatively…a mother absent during a pivotal time in her son’s life and growth as a human being into adulthood. But if the absentee father isn’t available to his son, what is she to do? So I won’t get on that soap box. Still, he spends afternoons in his room fantasizing about the girl of his dreams from school, Joann (Candice Accola). Joann dates the head jock (surprised?) in school (a bully, surprised?), and she really doesn’t have any interest in Rickie whatsoever. Rickie is presented as an antisocial misfit who sketches gory, violent cartoons in class, pining for Joann, quietly keeping to himself, riding his bike home, and often spending evenings (when not alone) with his mother’s loser, drunken boyfriend (who, actually, isn’t a bruiser in a wife-beater; he’s just a dead beat who eats from the fridge and gulps free beer). JT is aggressive and confident, just doesn’t give a shit, and offers a double middle finger to society’s expectations of high school’s graduation class. He has a grandmother (his guarantor) dying, no career options of serious worth to the society at large, and his prospects for the future appear non-existent. In the basement of the destitute institution, however, he’s king. Unless Rickie develops some sort of backbone, JT (and eventual buddy of theirs joining him, Wheeler (Eric Podnar) can carry on his rape of Deadgirl’s person. 

While the actual sex is thankfully not explicit (this isn’t Nekromantik), there’s plenty hints and camera setups that depict the molestation and rape of Deadgirl. JT’s description of his sexually vile acts to her, considering her a piece of his property, a slave for his unpleasant sexual appetites, is reprehensible. He gets what he deserves. While JT, Wheeler, and the two jock punks who mistreated the film’s bullied slackers wind up facing punishment for their misbehavior, ultimately Rickie escapes the same suffering, mainly because he avoids the zombie bite. When Joann gets involved, unknowingly provoking JT and Wheeler to kidnap her to “replace Deadgirl”, Rickie certainly faces a dilemma. Oh, he rectifies this, but the solution to a tragic occurrence to Joann leaves a bad taste…that is unless you consider necrophilia an act most seductive and appealing. For me, I will move on to a movie that doesn’t leave me wanting to throw up.

 

Oh, besides the rape and molestation of Deadgirl, JT also uses violence to shut her up. He attempts to strangle her, even using a gun to shoot bullets in her, to no avail. Despite shooting her body, and revealing he had tried to kill her three times with no success, JT seems not the least bit worried that Rickie would snitch to the cops on him. JT mentions later he knows Rickie better than Rickie knows himself. I think he's right. The most sickening part of the movie that had me more than a bit queasy is when JT squeezes puss from her bullet wounds, realizing there's a new warm hole for him for penile pleasure. Gross. What the characters do to Deadgirl throughout make her an undeniable sympathetic figure. I truly wanted her to go ferocious on their ass once she was eventually freed from her heinous imprisonment.