"Sick, twisted and delightful"

"An interesting examination of classism, misogyny and high school cliques along with some blurred boundaries around necrophilia, Deadgirl brims with unpleasant moments that are sure to polarize audiences — either utterly repulsing them or making them laugh with discomfort ... Sick, twisted and delightful - Detroit Metro Times

There's something to it.

"Directors Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel lend adolescent emotional cred to taboo horror, taking the uncomfortable satire of, say, 'Teeth', and dragging it to an even gnarlier level. Shiloh Fernandez and Noah Segan are high-school outcasts who make a gruesome discovery while ditching – the nude body of a seemingly lifeless woman chained up in an abandoned mental hospital. Turns out she’s not exactly dead, and they’re not exactly good Samaritans. Extras: The unrated cut of the film includes commentary and a featurette. You’ll snort at the word choice when the filmmakers characterize this as a relationship story, but there is something to it." – The Boston Globe

BUSTed!

Yep, that's Deadgirl's Candice Accola on the very left, in what is probably the most gorgeous mugshot we've ever seen [click to enlarge]. Clearly, living in Georgia during the shooting of the new hit show Vampire Diaries is not keeping her out of trouble.

Three Days...

... till the release. As we turn the corner, a few more responses trickle in.

A SCREWED-UP WINNER

"The film belongs to Segan, who captures every nuance of J.T.’s steady descent into utter depravity, sinisterly posing moral questions to excuse his own indiscretions and touching on underlying themes of suburban isolation and homoerotic longing. Co-directors Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel, both relative newcomers, as well as camp horror writer Trent Haaga have a screwed-up winner on their hands with Deadgirl. It cuts deeper than expected... Buoyed by excellent performances and a cool soundtrack, Deadgirl is a thoroughly twisted ride." - Home Media Magazine

WITH A WARNING

"It’s hard not to reveal everything about the movie. If you can get through the sex with a corpse part, you’re really gonna enjoy this one... This one is gonna make people feel uncomfortable and someone may end up cursing me that I suggested they watch it but I enjoyed it enough to recommend it…..with a warning of course!" - The Film Reel

GUILTY THRILL

The Orlando Weekly highlights the "guilty thrill" of Deadgirl in its list of "OW-approved titles" out on DVD this week.

"Seek this one out."

"This movie serves as a bit of a twisted form of social commentary in a way, and is a bit of a coming of age tale. This one's about storytelling, mixed with good acting. It's hard to watch at times, violent and somewhat unexpected. I absolutely recommend it!"

JoBlo.com gives Deadgirl another great review today, and we especially appreciate the spoiler-free ending: "If you can dig a plot that is a little out there (and I'm dying to tell you about it, believe me), you should seek this one out."

Awesome. Also, here's JoBlo's first (and perhaps slightly less spoiler-free) review from July.

Synergy!

Make sure to check out Candice Accola's new show Vampire Diaries, debuting tonight on the CW. Here's a quick 411 interview about the show in which Deadgirl actually gets a mention. Thanks!

Back from Lisbon

Here we are with two living legends — Stuart Gordon and John Landis — after the screening of Deadgirl at MotelX (Lisbon's International Film Festival of Terror) this past weekend. On Friday, the four of us went to see Re-Animator on the big screen, and having them check out our flick the next night was even more of a ridiculous thrill.

As it happens, the screening was exactly one year to the day we premiered Deadgirl in Toronto, and – with the movie coming out on DVD on the 15th - also marked what will probably be our final screening with a festival audience. What an unbelievable experience it's been.. and ending in Lisbon with some of the coolest people around was the perfect way to go. Thanks to everyone who was there.

A Country Divided

Go figure...

The Republican defends Deadgirl and
The Liberal wants it destroyed.

[warning: spoilers at every link]

Dead & Loving It

Make sure to pick up the new issue of Scars or just go to the website and get one (order the issue or download it there). Some great coverage about Deadgirl including the standout piece, an insightful two page interview with the dead girl herself, Jenny Spain.

"Spain's role of the Dead Girl has risen above normal zombie cinema, and opened up the sort of debates horror movies were first meant to invoke." - Scars Magazine

To sleep with a dead girl

The price some people are willing to pay to spend eternity laying on top (somewhat suggestively) a pile of bones that were once called Marilyn... [LA Times]

And according to this Reuters article, the man currently buried there is positioned face-down. Nothing perverse about that!

"Spectacular"

That's what Buried.com calls the unrated DVD of Deadgirl, complete with "a raft of must-see extras." You can pre-order it now by clicking here.

"Bored teens looking for trouble, an abandoned building and a naked woman. These are the ingredients that combine to form one of the most terrifying and disturbing American movies in years." - Buried.com

Makes us want to believe in Heaven

While Wisconsin has only recently decided that rape laws should apply to the dead, we were surprised to learn that a few remaining states still haven't quite come to that conclusion.

Found these online, from a Moving Pictures magazine photoshoot right after our Toronto premiere. Left to right: Candice Accola, Noah Segan, and Shiloh Fernandez. [click pic to enlarge]

Just by their names alone, these all sound like people we're glad to have on our side:

Necrotic Cinema
Liar's Society
Exploitation Nation
Wildside Cinema
Horror Society

Plus-Sized Praise from the U.K.

FOUR STAR REVIEW / DVD OF THE MONTH!
Deadgirl is "a rare beast... an intriguing coming-of-age movie... so deliciously dark and unsettling, you may have trouble scrubbing it from your head."
(DVD on sale in the U.S. on 9/15)

Women vs. Women

As with every demographic or group, Deadgirl splits Feminists right down the middle (wow, didn't mean that to sound so gruesome). Over at Feministing.com, an interesting debate is taking place – but there are massive spoilers within, so be aware and read carefully.

Click to read "Deadgirl" (Or, The Most Feminist Horror Movie I've Seen This Side of 'Teeth')

"The best horror film of the year"

That's from the Seattle Post Globe.

It goes on to say that Deadgirl was "so despised and reviled at SIFF that few of the festival revelers dared speak its name lest they be shunned by the sophisticated elite. I won’t tell the plot of Deadgirl, because such things are not spoken of in polite company and I don’t want to put any bad pictures into anybody’s head, but I can say, without fear of reprisal, that the title is a half-truth. The picture is reminiscent of erotic horror films such as Jean Rollin’s 1982 La Morte Vivante. Entwining sexuality and mortality with the poetic revulsion of a vision from Edgar Allan Poe, directors Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel explore adolescent desire in a way that is almost unheard of in American movies. It is a truly frightening and disturbing movie that offers pictorial evidence of William Shakespeare’s weary desire that 'this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.'"

"Horror Of the Modern Male"

Dayle McClintock of Tor.com kicks off a review of Deadgirl with this doozy: "Horror, like pornography, often focuses on violations of the body."

Want more? Click to read.

"I truly had to mentally prepare myself because this kind of role can mess someone up." So says Jenny Spain in the new issue of Fangoria, which features a 4 page article about Deadgirl. On newsstands now...

This month's Nylon features Deadgirl-star Shiloh Fernandez – "From American Apparel model to one of Hollywood's most promising actors." Pick up a copy and learn how he was discovered, what he did to screw up his on-screen kiss with Brittany Snow, and why the role of Rickie in Deadgirl was not the kind he normally gets to play.