Dead Girl (2008 Marcel Sarmiento, Gadi Harel)

"She's just some dead girl"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0896534/

Zombie in a new horrific and personal way, Deadgirl brings all the scares you would want in ways you wont expect. As always I recommend you watch this and then read my review as I can't help spoiling a few little things and for me part of the joy of this film was that it wasn't quite what I expected however I warn you there are some pretty sick ideas, not visually but still.... ick... an 18 for sure, you have been warned. In a time where Zombies are everywhere, from The Walking Dead to Pride Prejudice and Zombies, they are inescapable and in a kinda funny way like the zombies themselves are all pretty much mindless and formulaic each have interesting flares and a lot aren't bad but they don't do or say a lot, unlike classic zombie films (see Romero).

Deadgirl manages to break the monotony of Zombie formula by making the film about what a group of male teenagers would do with a zombie... a female... naked... zombie.... Pretty sick you were warned already! So the story itself isn't an outbreak story, and unless me and a quick google search are wrong, its one of the only  zombie films not set during or after or focusing on an Outbreak. Instead Deadgirl focus' on the human characters that are outcasts and "freaks" struggling with life in their own unique ways. Noah Segan (Brick, Looper) gives an amazing performance as the twisted ring leader of the crew JT who is a convincingly sick teenager, by convincingly sick I mean he does some really sick things but for some reason (although he starts a little extreme) you really expect it from him and see him fall down and down his depraved hole. It is amazing to see humans look so damn awful when stood next to zombies!

Although I believe JT to be the star and the most interesting of characters he is not the protagonist, as an audience we follow the more morally just Rickie, the bright side of the duo that is "JT and Rickie". However when the friends find a tied up naked zombie they both have different ideas on how it should be treated, before long more people get involved and it spirals and spirals. This is really the more boring part of the story, after the initial argument between JT and Rickie about what they should do with the "dead girl" who JT has already "killed three times" the more predictable narrative comes into play SPOILER and the rest of the film is just one extreme after another pushing Rickie to snap and fight against JT. Whilst in spoiler mode I like the end but think it should have been a little more ambiguous, maybe you just see him go through the door and don't see her but it was still a good ending.END OF SPOILER

As far as simple horror is concerned, I jumped more than once and the subject is horrific, as are many of the visuals but the majority of the story is more of a psychological and thrilling drama with heavy horror elements. I think that is better than horror without substance but thats just my opinion. Deadgirl is dark, scary, thrilling, uncomfortable and unique re-imagining of what a zombie film can be. As a zombie fan I rally enjoyed its take and I think if you can get over the necrophilia I have warned you of then its a really good watch.
8/10