"As much as I'm inclined to rant about the sickness and depravity of this stuff, I'm not sure I can write off this film outright." - salon.com

Salon has jumped into the debate.

Theatrical Roadshow

Screen Daily ran a story today about our upcoming theatrical plan, "a simultaneous one-weekend, midnight-only, roadshow-style theatrical event in 9 major markets, starting July 24." Click here for the article. We'll be posting more details about all this pretty soon...

In the meantime, some advance domestic reviews as we get closer (click a quote to link to the whole thing).

"Kind of a nightmare version of 'The Last American Virgin'. One of the best horror movies of the year so far." -eSplatter

"Genre bending, weird, gruesome and one of the most interesting films I have seen in years." - Horror-Movies

"I urge you to seek out the closest theater near you that'll be showing it."- The Vault of Horror

"Disturbing, sadistic and over the top insane but also easily one of the most imaginative films I have seen in a very very long time." - ShootForTheHead

"Once in a while a film comes along that jars you out of your cinematic slumber. For die hard genre fans it’s tough to find that one gem that really cuts through the muck and raises the bar. This year Deadgirl has become that film." - BrutalAsHell

Where few have dared to go

"An indie winner. Goes places few horror movies have dared to go before in its frank and disturbing depiction of necrophilia (combined with a surprisingly effective coming-of-age story!") - Fangoria

The August issue features a page about Deadgirl-star Noah Segan, but there's a more comprehensive piece in the September issue which we're anxiously awaiting. Perfect for our 9/15 DVD release...

Some reactions from over there

Deadgirl (or as they're writing it, Dead Girl) was released in the UK this month and we've gathered some online reactions:

"A film that will no doubt stay with you for a long time to come." - World of Film

"Delightfully dark and thought provoking. Could not recommend this any higher." - Rough Cut Reviews

"It is a deeply troubling feature, but also, perhaps oddly for a film steeped in the supernatural, utterly honest and believable – and its capacity to haunt will never die." - Eye For Film

"A great change of pace, hitting on the horrific potential inside everyone. Deadgirl is really about how the freedom of being outside of society can make you power hungry, vicious, and obsessed with the alternate world where you have control." - Horror Yearbook

"A mini-masterpiece. And, in an age where audiences seem near impervious to trauma, it manages a rare feat: to genuinely shock." - Den of Geek

[click each quote for full review]

Official Poster

Deadgirl screenwriter Trent Haaga called to tell us to get back to this blog and start updating since there have been a lot of reviews and write-ups and new developments about our upcoming release. As always, he's right. So here's to a new beginning...



[click to enlarge]

"Fascinating and Vaguely DIstasteful"

Total Sci-Fi previews Deadgirl for the UK release next week. We'll save you a few minutes by giving you the highlights here:

"Fascinating and vaguely distasteful"'
"An interesting blend on coming of age and horror themes"
"Deadgirl is at least a film that provokes debate."
"An original, if vaguely sleazy, twist on the undead"

Free Deadgirl!

You have to be 18 and living in England... but otherwise, there's no catch. Deadgirl will be screening for free in five Vue Cinema theaters in and around London on June 5, and you can click here for more info (you'll have to sign in to get the exact screening times).

First and Foremost

"The thing you need to know first and foremost about Deadgirl is that it is a film about the limits of loyalty and the struggle to do right when you’re not even sure what that means. More importantly, though, Deadgirl is simply a very disturbing movie... definitely one of the more disturbing films I’ve ever seen." - Seattle Metblog

Seattlest just put Deadgirl on its list of SIFF movies to consider this week. Here's the link for tickets and information. We'll be there for the Thursday and Friday night screenings so come by if you can.

Seattle International Film Festival

The Seattle International Film Festival may very well turn out to be Deadgirl's last U.S. festival (we have our theatrical thing in July - more about that soon - and the DVD release in September). Ever since our Toronto premiere, the festival route has been amazing — every screening, audience, conversation, q&a, staff member and volunteer — so it's a weird knowing it will soon be over.

The only thing that makes it a little easier to accept is the fact that the end of the line is going to be such an awesome festival. Seattle is going to be great.

Thursday May 28, 9:30pm
Friday May 29, Midnight
Friday, June 5, 9:30pm

Tickets here.

With our three screenings at the Amsterdam International Fantastic Film Festival now over, we took a look over the blogs scene to see what the reactions were... and it looks like things went over pretty well.

Zone 5300, a hipster mag that's big in the Netherlands, had nice things to say. Here's the link to the whole review. It says, more or less (here, translated), "Deadgirl is an intelligent film... On genre-components as gore and special effects is not reduced, but the heart of the film is on a totally different place, and zombie clichés are largely to tread - no apocalyptic situation, but drama on the square meter. This zombie has a moral sense, and that makes her plight all the more painful." You can't argue with that.

Also, here's a blog which seems to be the festival's most comprehensive source for reviews, and they had three different people check out Deadgirl:

Reaction 1
Reaction 2
Reaction 3

UK Release

So we now have our official release date in the UK... June 8th. We'll have more news about that soon. But if you live there and want to see Deadgirl a month before the movie becomes available...

London’s Brunel University will once again be hosting its Cine-Excess Film Conference – a three-day annual event that brings together leading scholars and critics for talks, interviews, and special screenings. The conference examines cultural traditions surrounding zombies, vampires, mummies and other cult phenomena appearing in different forms of media (film, TV, games, internet, comics, etc.), and celebrates some of the biggest trends, icons, auteurs and periods of global cult film production.

On May 1, the conference will feature an exclusive UK pre-release screening of Deadgirl, courtesy of Metrodome Entertainment.

5/1, 2pm, Odeon Covent Garden, London

Our first of three Amsterdam screenings took place over the weekend (the other two are later this week), and Xi, one of the oldest media websites in the Netherlands, just offered up its thoughts on Deadgirl. It's a strangely translated review as it sounds like the writer wasn't a huge fan – but then he put the film in his top three favorites of the fest list below.

UPDATE: Just ran it through a different translator and the line "The end of this scene is recommended, that of the whole film does not" came up "The end of this scene can be guessed, which of the complete film moreover not." Which is more consistent with liking it. So no more mixed messages.

"Rush to Brussels"

Thanks to Cinema Fantastique for writing up Deadgirl in its Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival preview. Here is the site, but if you want to read some sort of english translation, click here.

As usual, the auto-translator makes you work to make sense of things, but we think they liked it. This section in particular is pretty easy to grasp:"... a breathless thriller, full of effects and inflated style of a dizzying pace. Therefore, how to resist the appeal of this film that feels so good and will enhance the displays of a 2009 BIFFF already shining? Simply impossible! Therefore, you should be many of you rush to Brussels to attend the screening which may make noise."

They Might Be Right

There are a lot of great things that come out of playing festivals. One of them is discovering regional film societies, writers, blogs, and enthusiasts that we – secluded in LA – would normally miss. The Massachusetts-based They Might Be Critics is a perfect example.
[read their thoughts on Deadgirl]

Marcel @ Hong Kong

"Sexual and Nasty"

"The best kind of horror movie. Jumps and gore can be laughed off later, but uncomfortable thoughts tend to stick with you."

eFilmCritic is the web's number one resource for festival coverage, and it just posted its five-star review after our screening in Boston. Read the whole thing here.

April Screenings

Florida Film Festival
Screening April 3, 11pm
Screening April 4, Midnight
Info & Tickets here

Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival
Screening April 15, Midnight
Info & Tickets here

IMAGINE
Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival
Screening April 19, 11:50am
Screening April 23, 9:50pm
Screening April 25, 5:50pm
Info & Tickets here

We also gave a late-month screening in Portland. More information on that when it comes in.

With the incredible number of features screening at the Florida FIlm Festival (155?!) the Orlando Weekly's festival preview does some important work by distilling it down to the essentials. So thanks to the OW for including Deadgirl among the seven films mentioned in this overview.

Gossipgirl

Congratulations to Deadgirl's Shiloh Fernandez for landing a lead role in what will most likely be a spin-off series from Gossip Girl. Read the Hollywood Reporter story here.

Also, Moving Pictures magazine posted its three-part video interview with Shiloh and Noah Segan, talking about Deadgirl:

Part 1 (click to view)
Part 2 (click to view)
Part 3 (click to view)

Next week, we have two late-night screenings in Orlando as part of the Florida Film Festival. Info is right here. Click to buy tickets and read their write-up, which ends with: "Deadgirl is as sick, bloody, disturbing, funny, perverse, and original as it gets--consider yourself warned!"

They liked it. You know who doesn't? Roger Moore, staff-writer for the Orlando Sentinel. His preview gives the movie "one star" - which you'll see if you click here, is less than he gave Paul Blart, Bride Wars, Marley & Me, Last House on the Left, and The Jonas Brothers concert movie. Bad reviews are fine. You can't take the good if you don't take the bad. But Moore comes off as just another guy who believes the movie aims to appeal to the worst in men, for the entertainment of "male horror fans."

Thank God for film writers like Michael Guillen who was so quick to note how wrong this assumption is during our recent, and lengthy, talk – seen here on Twitch.

Live, from Hong Kong

From Hong Kong International Film Festival, where Deadgirl screens three times this week, co-director Marcel Sarmiento reports that Oliver Stone just told him "It's a terrible business" -- followed by at least four "good lucks"s. More news, as it comes.

"ragazza morta"

Today marks Deadgirl's Italian Premiere at the Rome Independent Film Festival. Not sure what else to say about it. Wish we were there...

3/24 @ 10PM
Nuovo Cinema Aquila
Via Aquila 68

Playing favorites

The Boston Underground Film Festival kicks off tonight. Click here to read Twitch's festival preview, where Deadgirl gets called the "favorite film" – as well as fantastic, uncomfortable, sickening, and fascinating.

Asian Premiere

Deadgirl will be screening three times at the Hong Kong International Film Festival, beginning next week.
Tickets for the first two showings are still available here, but the third is already SOLD OUT!

Going to Harvard

Next week, we're screening at the prestigious Brattle Theatre in Cambridge as part of the Boston Underground Film Festival. Scheduling is going to keep us from this one – a huuuuge disappointment. So bring your Cinema Studies class and let us know how it went.

Friday, 3/20 at 9:30pm [Brattle Theatre]
Thursday, 3/36 ay 9:30pm [Kendall Square]
Buy tickets here.

"My manager prepared me, and she was like, 'It's not your average script, just be warned.' And it wasn't... there were parts that physically made me sick to my stomach. Blood doesn't really creep me out, so if there can be anything that evokes that kind of emotion, that's a good sign."

Click here to watch Moving Pictures' interview with Deadgirl's heartbreaker, Candice Accola.
Text version available here.

From Best to Worst

In an effort to be fair and balanced, we have to point out Deadgirl's placement at the bottom of the list in this 2008 wrap-up, which puts it even below Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Since Deadgirl is the only independent film included, we think it's safe to say we hit a deep nerve with this kid. It's his opinion so we're happy to share it without needing to defend ourselves – but we will say that if he's really going to write "...two guys having their way with a female zombie in an abandoned insane asylum. That's the entire movie" we do wonder if he stuck around to see other 80 minutes. Either way, there it is: Worst of '08

Top Ten

Another missed list! (Thanks to Jenny for pointing it out). AMC TV says Deadgirl is one of the "Top Ten Horror Movies of 2008"! [Although since we're really going to be an '09 movie, that may have been a little premature... but we'll take it]

This Week's Screenings

Deadgirl makes its German premiere Saturday night, kicking off a month-long tour around the country. Click here for cities and dates.

Also, MSN's City Guide recommends Deadgirl this Sunday, 3/8, if you're in Honolulu. Click here for more info.

The New Tease

While we work on a more formal trailer in preparation for our '09 release, we've decided to revise and improve the Deadgirl teaser – which you can now find a link to on the right side of this page...

Best of the Fest

JustPressPlay posted another story – their recap of the San Francisco Independent Film Festival. Thanks to all involved who put Deadgirl at the top of the Best Of list.

Speaking of lists, here's one that we totally missed from back in December. FEARnet put together their Best of '08 and while Deadgirl didn't make the list, it was included in the "omissions" section since it didn't have an '08 release. Clearly made an impression, so maybe next year...

The SF press was really great and our interview with JustPressPlay's Arya Ponto was one of the highlights. Here's an excerpt from his insightful review, with link below for the whole piece.

"...it's how convincing it is at presenting the boys that makes it such a creepy film. Deadgirl acknowledges that base urge in teenage boys to indulge in sexual conquest and the frustration that comes with being rejected by girls when you're at your most curious about sex. It does so by stripping its protagonists of the responsibilities that young men have to learn at that age. A teen horror movie that deals with being a teen? What a strange idea!"

Click here for the review.

San Francisco's legendary Roxie, where Deadgirl closed out SF IndieFest with a pair of back-to-back screenings.
We had some of our best media experiences this week. Great interviews all around, but it also marked our first foray in the world of public access TV, with an invitation onto Channel 29's Movie Close Up, hosted by Bonnie Steiger.



It was live television, so thanks to Rod for being our one call-in, and if you ended up coming to the screening, I hope you liked the movie.

We invited Bonnie to moderate our post-showing Q&A at the Roxy – but she wasn't the only surprise guest. Here's Noah Segan getting ready to face a tough San Fran audience.

"Queasy does it!"

So says the SF Bay Guardian. Hope to see you at the screenings. Pictures from the trip and fest, coming soon.

San Francisco

Info and tickets for this week's San Francisco screenings can be found here. A secret-surprise guest (Jenny Spain, aka deadgirl) will be joining us for this one.

(click image for bigger version)

At last

Tonight's the night.

"Funk has the smile, the ’tude and the flat-ironed hair that make tween girls melt" - TimeOut NY Kids
"The hardbodied Funk can certainly bust a proverbial move." - Entertainment Weekly

Spectacular!

One more day.

The Heat is On

If you've seen Deadgirl, you know him as Dwyer. But Nolan Gerard Funk is going for live ones this time in Spectacular!, Nickelodeon's answer to High School Musical, which airs next Monday.

Perez Hilton has given him the "hot" vote, but click here to cast yours in the Nolan Gerard Funk vs. Zac Efron debate, currently reaching fever pitch on Perez' site.

Deadgirl returns to the UK on February 20 as part of the Glasgow Film Festival (thanks to FrightFest UK for making that happen).

Here's the coat of arms for Glasgow (granted in 1866). The emblems represented on it are listed as such:

Here's the bird that never flew
Here's the tree that never grew
Here's the bell that never rang
Here's the fish that never swam

Buy tickets to Deadgirl here.

The French Premiere

While the audience prepares itself for Deadgirl...

Marcel practices a "good luck" tradition of standing on a frozen lake.

Tomas Alfredson, director of Morse (we know it as Let the Right One In ) at the awards ceremony. Morse won Best Picture.

Gérardmer is located in northeastern France, quite close to the Swiss border (coordinates are 48°04'23"N and 6°52'46"E, give or take). So if you find yourself in the area, please stop in to one of five screenings of Deadgirl showing this coming week.

For more information, click here.

"It's so ludicrously offensive that I figured it must be satirical. And I was right: Deadgirl turns out to be a genuinely disturbing disquisition on the madonna/whore complex, a film that feminists who don't flee the theater in disgust at once can ultimately applaud." - Mike D'Angelo, film critic, Esquire

We have a bunch of upcoming screenings (more on the rest soon) including a few in the Bay Area, where Deadgirl will be the Closing Night movie at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival. Hope to see you there.

Click here for more info and tickets.