Deadgirl

Director: Marcel Sarmiento & Gadi Harel (2009)

Starring: Shiloh Fernandez, Noah Segan, Jenny Spain

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK, Amazon US

A sweet romance about a couple of boys who find a zombie strapped to a table in a basement. Like Twilight, except from a lad’s perspective. The boys then proceed to rape their zombie from every possible angle. Because, as we all know, when girls meet a fantastical creature they fall in love and bat their eyelashes a lot. Boys, however, will apparently rape anything in sight. Even the seemingly nice ones. Lesson learned: men is bastards.

Deadgirl is one of those movies that gives horror (and, by implication, its fans) a bad name. It presents a nihilist vision of both maledom and the world as a whole, suggesting that men are, as a sex, incapable of keeping our cock sheathed, even if the lady says no. I resent that. I was sixteen once, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t go around raping zombies. Even the ones that were really, really hot and naked and strapped to a table. Maybe I’m a naïve optimist (I’m not) but I don’t think many blokes would find the vision of strapped-down zombie flesh particularly inviting. Sure, our hero (Fernandez) is reluctant to follow his friend’s (Segan) rapey ways, but loyalty can only take you so far - and he takes far too long to decide to do anything about it. Jeez, the dirty bastard’s raping a zombie. I think that pretty much exceeds the limit of loyalty, and then some.

It’s a good concept, but one that’s gone all cack-handed and is a little too nihilistic in its view of the male gender. To even have one character show a little proper revulsion wouldn’t have been so hard, would it? On a particularly sour note: the way it's been marketed as a "coming of age" movie. The tagline? 'You Never Forget your First Time'. Especially not if your first time's with the zombie you raped. It's a universal thing. 'Every generation has its story about the horror of growing up trying not to rape someone'.

With all that distaste in mind, Deadgirl still manages to be compelling viewing, so I suppose it’s mostly intentional stuff. The acting is fine enough, and the direction is darn good. If only the script hadn’t spoiled by the man-hating agenda. The characterisation is sloppy and one-note, whilst the story is filled with too many unbelievable actions. It's supposed to be a moral dilemma, but it just doesn't work. Even worse, it's an apparently unclear message; so open to interpretation that idiots on youtube will very easily confuse the people who watch Deadgirl with the people in it.

Well done, Deadgirl. Now I'm never gonna get a girlfriend because I watched you. But wait... this is a bad review... so surely that statement doesn't apply to me...

Oh, cock.

As a result of the characters' unholy arseholeyness, the best parts of the movie are the ones in which Deadgirl's various bastards get their comeuppances. Behold, much penis munching (and not the good kind), gore and violence. And a particularly funny scene in which the lads try and kidnap themselves a new victim (a lot funnier than it sounds).

Do excuse me. Deadgirl seems to have awakened my inner Germaine Greer. It's a competent, well-made movie that rightfully (I suppose) gained itself a fair bit of controversy last year. It's no game-changer, and it certainly isn't as good as the hype suggests. Who is the audience supposed to be for this, anyway? Judging by the sexy poster and the lingering shots of nuddy Deadgirl, its target audience is the one Deadgirl is supposed to be critiquing. It's a self-perpetuating cycle that will further damage the reputation of horror fans and probably lead to me being put on a register of some sort, simply for having ever rented this movie. Silly, silly, silly men and our inability to resist raping zombies.