Skirting the Edge

"Pic skirts the edge without going over, and judging from the raucous reception during its Midnight Madness preem at Toronto, twisted auds clearly do exist for such blatantly "wrong" material. The titular corpse more accurately qualifies as a "living deadgirl," with the pic joining the recent trend of zombie movies that never identify themselves as such. Instead, tyro horror helmers Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel focus on the script's more "River's Edge"-like aspects… The directors maximize their location choice for some ominous haunted-house antics. Shooting on a Viper FilmStream camera at Linda Vista Hospital in East Los Angeles, the helmers capture every glint and shadow as they track the teens through creepy underground passages, matching the action with nerve-jangling sound design. Not since "Session 9" has an abandoned asylum been used to such unsettling effect… The two leads show promise, with Fernandez sporting the pinch-faced sneer of a young Joaquin Phoenix. Jenny Spain's a good sport as the deadgirl, flashing her grease-smeared breasts and blackened gums on command (a cult starlet in the making)." - VARIETY