Like "River's Edge" 23 years ago, youth's normal curiosity about death and sex becomes unhinged and grows unspeakably perverse within a social climate which favors unconscious, desire-based consumption over fixed principles. These observations employ a darker and more relevant conviction here.
Whether intended or not, the ideas at work in "Deadgirl" are so complex that calling this a "horror film" is perhaps not really accurate given the limitations by which the genre is judged. The film employs standard horror grammar, but through economy and purpose, the directors avoid pitfalls and cleverly make the genre's limits work in their favor.
For example, the girl in question, an "object" in strictly horror terms, is carefully crafted to be something other than a person - she seems less an external creature than something within the characters themselves. A cipher onto which alternative meanings can be projected. Unlike typical "horror girls," she evolves into the most profoundly disturbing idea that contemporary horror has given us: a fever dream of narcissistic-sexual pathology, trauma-based-attachment-porn made flesh.
Also, the context of the story, an abandoned asylum is rendered abstractly enough that one may read it equally as a metaphor than as simply a place in the real world; an image of the rotting mind where deviance waits - normally it's just a spooky old building when used in horror.
The characters enter such a bottomless pit in terms of real human behavior that whether intentional or not, a sense of allegory provides grounding for the audience. Grounding is desperately missing in the world these characters occupy, which is perhaps the point.
The film's male protagonists are are certainly of their time; they seem quite real to me. As with many kids today their sensitivities seem bleached away by what we all encounter: a relentless, post-narrative media blast from earliest childhood and an education without adequate social breadth. Their personal, familial inadequacies seem to be the seedbed for a hunger focused on effortless, narcissistic attachment. These are familiar kids. Placing them into this particular tale and intelligently imagining an outcome is what the directors have done. It is startling how effective it is.
While "Deadgirl"could easily have come across as a simply ghastly spectacle, the film transcends genre, as well as outflanking the need to simply entertain, shock or titillate. By its solid execution, its restraint and primarily through the indigestible, dark brilliance of its idea, the film rises to the level of art.
Whether intended or not, the ideas at work in "Deadgirl" are so complex that calling this a "horror film" is perhaps not really accurate given the limitations by which the genre is judged. The film employs standard horror grammar, but through economy and purpose, the directors avoid pitfalls and cleverly make the genre's limits work in their favor.
For example, the girl in question, an "object" in strictly horror terms, is carefully crafted to be something other than a person - she seems less an external creature than something within the characters themselves. A cipher onto which alternative meanings can be projected. Unlike typical "horror girls," she evolves into the most profoundly disturbing idea that contemporary horror has given us: a fever dream of narcissistic-sexual pathology, trauma-based-attachment-porn made flesh.
Also, the context of the story, an abandoned asylum is rendered abstractly enough that one may read it equally as a metaphor than as simply a place in the real world; an image of the rotting mind where deviance waits - normally it's just a spooky old building when used in horror.
The characters enter such a bottomless pit in terms of real human behavior that whether intentional or not, a sense of allegory provides grounding for the audience. Grounding is desperately missing in the world these characters occupy, which is perhaps the point.
The film's male protagonists are are certainly of their time; they seem quite real to me. As with many kids today their sensitivities seem bleached away by what we all encounter: a relentless, post-narrative media blast from earliest childhood and an education without adequate social breadth. Their personal, familial inadequacies seem to be the seedbed for a hunger focused on effortless, narcissistic attachment. These are familiar kids. Placing them into this particular tale and intelligently imagining an outcome is what the directors have done. It is startling how effective it is.
While "Deadgirl"could easily have come across as a simply ghastly spectacle, the film transcends genre, as well as outflanking the need to simply entertain, shock or titillate. By its solid execution, its restraint and primarily through the indigestible, dark brilliance of its idea, the film rises to the level of art.