Teach Those Boys a Lesson: 'Deadgirl'

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ONLY IN A DARK, violent satire like "Deadgirl" can a main character deliver this line with utter conviction: "There's nothing to worry about, Rickie. It's just you and me and Wheeler and the dead girl."

While the taut 2008 indie horror flick boasts a supremely disturbing premise and some obligatory gore, the new director's cut DVD makes clear it's primarily a fable about male peer pressure and relationships.

Social outcasts/best buds J.T. and Rickie ditch school to avoid some jock tormentors and head to the abandoned "nuthouse" for some warm brews and random vandalism. Breaking into a basement, they find a feral naked girl wrapped in plastic and strapped to a table. J.T. decides to "keep her, just till tonight," at which point Rickie goes home in disgust.

The next morning J.T. tells Rickie he accidentally killed her after he "hit her again, and it felt good. You wouldn't know anything about that," he says in a sympathetic yet envious tone. It's one of the film's best and most revealing moments.

But it turns out Deadgirl can't die, although she gets more bruised as J.T. sinks deeper, wearing a Hef-style robe and getting his control freak on by allowing the jocks into his lair. Meanwhile, Rickie decides to free her (a metaphor for growing up — he even becomes more clean-shaven after his epiphany), but can he fight peer pressure as well as J.T.'s probably correct assertion that "This is the best we're ever gonna have"? And will he realize his obsessive crush on Joanne (Candice Accola of "Vampire Diaries") is as objectifying as J.T.'s "relationship" with Deadgirl?

Noah Segan gives an oily Christian Slater quality to J.T.; perhaps executive producer Christopher Webster ("Heathers") had an influence on that. Jenny Spain makes a surprisingly vulnerable Deadgirl, and certainly suffers for her art. The commentary track includes the male cast and crew but neither of the female leads, which may be a commentary in itself.

Written by Express contributor Paul Stelter
Photo by Steve Dean