"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.

Our Green Screen

At a recent Q & A, we were asked about digital effects in the movie. There are probably three or four very minor moments, things that needed smoothing out but hopefully go unnoticed... but we did have one green screen shot, which sorta makes it Deadgirl's most complex digital effect.

Here's the hospital we needed to show the boys approaching.
But it was the last day of production, and we were out in the middle of nowhere. So we filmed Shiloh and Noah against a green screen.
A quick test showed us that this might actually work.
Then it just took some time to finesse, including making the building look even crappier. Voila, a much-needed establishing shot.

As seen in Chicago

Jenny Spain at the Music Box Theater screening.
The Horror Society caught the Chicago screening and reports about it here.

Also, a couple of other reviews from this weekend:
"If there weren't some poisonous kernel of truth in Deadgirl's grotesque, testosterone-poisoned 'what if?' premise, no-one would be squirming." - Miss Flick Chick
"Twisted and unpredictable." - We Are Movie Geeks
"Sickly fascinating." - Critic's Notebook

Thanks

We had an overwhelming turnout to our cross-country screenings this weekend, so to everyone who came out to see the movie -- THANK YOU.

As seen in LA

As seen in New York

As seen in Austin

This new Fangoria review has some nice things to say, though this paragraph is our standout:

"While providing a wealth of subtext to ponder, the movie also delivers a heaping helping of graphic gore and sexual material, though the former can’t be enjoyed on the level of traditional splatter and the latter is anything but arousing. DEADGIRL intends to crawl deep under your skin and stay there awhile, and its creators’ refusal to frame the violence in a manner where it can serve as vicarious entertainment may be part of the reason some genre fans have complained that it doesn’t go far enough—itself a comment on how certain people (expect to) view women."

"Read this review carefully..."

The Staten Island Advance begins its review with those words, and what follows is nothing short of brilliant: "It's entirely possible that this movie couldn't be for you, and should you wander into it by mistake it could leave you irreparably damaged, unable to have a healthy sexual relationship, to experience love, to make friends. And nobody wants their life ruined by a movie."

"Expect Deadgirl to Raise Hell"

The release of this movie has introduced us to some new (for us, but probably not for everyone else) blogs and websites and magazines. Buzzine is just the latest example of this. Here's their take on the movie.

Scared of the Truth

Every once in a while we get a review where it's pretty clear the writer actually loves the movie but is either unable to admit it to themselves or to others. This is such a review.