REVIEW: Deadgirl (2008)

Okay filmmakers, a lesson for you – if you want to make something grotesque and shocking, try actually writing your characters and story in a way that makes people, oh I don’t know, ACTUALLY BELIEVE what they’re seeing reflects real life in some way! That’s how you shock people! You get them invested in the story first! Because if you don’t, your movie just turns into a godawful laughing stock of terrible plot holes, inconsistent acting and characters who act like space aliens on their first day on Earth, they're so misguided and retarded. Basically if you don’t, you get Deadgirl, and why would you ever want this half-assed, poorly written sewer slime of a film?

Director: Marciel Sarmiento, Gadi Harel

Starring: Shiloh Fernandez, Noah Segan

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0896534/

Okay, so the film starts off with two idiots staring at each other like they’re high off their asses and exchanging boring dialogue. These two mutated Bill and Ted spawns are Ricky and JT, and unfortunately they are our main characters. Because they’re bored – you know, the motivation that every great film character starts out with – they go and wander around in an old abandoned mental hospital. There they smash up old chairs and desks for no reason at all until they find…

OH COME ON, ANOTHER DOG? WHY DOES EVERYTHING I REVIEW HAVE A DOG IN IT THESE DAYS? And they’re always so menacing, too! The Stuff, Hulk 2003, Omen III and now this! What’s up with all the vicious mutts in these movies? Can’t you people vary it up a little bit and put, I don’t know, a ferocious panther in there? Or maybe a Komodo dragon. Those are always cool. Just…ANYTHING but another growling dog for no reason! I’m really getting tired of it if you couldn’t tell.

But I digress. They also go into the basement of the place and find a dead girl (hmm, wonder where they got the title for this movie…) tied to some table. JT starts to grope her and his first thought is that they should have sex with her. Not “what the hell is she doing here?” or “maybe she’s been kidnapped and the kidnapper is still in the building and could kill us” (nobody in the whole movie EVER thinks about that second one…morons!), but “let’s have sex with her.” Okay, kid, just stay the hell away from me, whoever you are. I don’t want to be anywhere near you.

"Why is that? I'm just such a lovable guy!"

They find out she’s actually unable to be killed somehow – maybe she smoked bath salts or something. And no, that doesn’t stop them from just keeping her locked up down there, either; they could potentially be onto something that could CHANGE THE WORLD, but their only idea is to keep her a secret so they can have sex with her. Aren’t these characters just so riveting? It’s like this director wanted to outdo Red State for worthless assholes as characters! Even though Red State came out after this…shut up, it’s my review!

So the movie just moseys along for a while, being boring…JT and Ricky make some promise that the dead girl will be only THEIR secret, because you know, all best friends need a psychotic bloodthirsty near-catatonic girl tied to a table or else they’ll NEVER grow closer as friends! And then the next day JT breaks the promise anyway and invites this other jackass, Wheeler, to join them in the orgy of fun.

No…no…not that Wheeler…

And if you think there’s something strange about a bunch of guys in a dark room with their dicks hanging out giving each other bro-fists for fucking what is basically a corpse, well, then you’re at the wrong movie.

"Ohoh, I can put my finger in an infected bullet wound; I'm so cool!" Movie...you...you just have no shame. Not even one little inkling. In fact I'm probably going to Hell just for watching this scene. Thanks a lot, Deadgirl.

But Ricky is the moral center of the group, and apparently we should like him more because he DOESN’T want to lower his standards to zombie girls. Instead, he asks out the girlfriend of the one guy who is psychotic enough to beat the shit out of him in public later on just for talking to her. Wheeler gets involved, too, and then starts shouting at them that they don’t need the guy’s girlfriend because they already have a sex toy they keep in the old mental hospital! And then the bullies do the only sensible thing – they lock Ricky and Wheeler up in the trunk of their car and drive to the mental hospital to force them to show them the girl!

They actually shove them in the trunk of a car like some mafia movie...what is this, Mystic River? Get over yourself Deadgirl you stupid, stupid, STUPID movie!

How did they get them in the trunk in broad daylight at a public school without anyone noticing? Shhhh…you’re not supposed to ask questions like that in a movie THIS EDGY. That’d just be missing the point!

And then we get…oh, come on:

"I'm running a very delicate operation here. And you boys will NOT mess this up for me."

Ha ha, you know, I think somebody ought to tell this kid he’s taking this whole thing a little too seriously. He acts like he’s Citizen Kane or something! Look at him, sitting there like a miniature Hugh Hefner, or some botched Superman villain or something. All he needs is a fluffy fat cat to stroke and a cigar in his mouth and the caricature will be complete.

Then we get some high school stupidity as the lead jock guy decides to take a dare and put his dick in the girl’s mouth. Given that she’s completely insane…it’s no surprise that she takes a big bite and leaves him bleeding and infected, and the next day he runs from the classroom, goes to the bathroom and explodes from the inside, because…no, wait. There is no reason. My bad. And what's that, the other jock kid goes to the mental hospital to try and free the dead girl and take her away to the hospital and police? He gets killed off faster than you can say 'blueberry pie.' Why didn't he just bring the police with him FIRST; that would've been the sensible option, and it would have prevented the rest of this whole movie from happening! I'd really like that actually.

But yeah, apparently JT has figured out that by biting people, the dead girl can spread the zombie plague and turn people into immortal catatonic zombies just like her. So are we actually going to see either of the two jocks who she killed turn into zombies? Of course not! For a movie with such a creative premise, the whole zombie thing is really just glazed over, and it's one of the film's main problems. If they would just explain the exact workings of the zombie infection stuff in this movie, it would be a lot more plausible! It would actually make people a little bit invested in the rest of this shithouse story, too! Instead it's just like 'meh, zombies, skip over it; that's not why people are watching this. Let's have more scenes of that kid putting his finger in an infected bullet-hole! That's good cinema!'

But I digress: this does give JT and Wheeler the idea that they can have 'new' zombie sex slaves too, if they kidnap women and get them bit by the original dead girl; aren't these two just delightful? I'd want them around MY daughter any day! They don’t really know what will happen truthfully, since they weren’t there when the original girl got turned, and they have no idea what other side effects it will have…oh, who cares about this shit anyway? Just show the scene where they get the daylights beat out of them by a prostitute:

HA HA HA! Totally worth the price of admission! I'll give the movie one star for that alone, just because getting the shit beat out of them by a prostitute is exactly what these two anuses deserve.

And one ridiculously over the top scene later, they run into that chick whose boyfriend got his penis bitten off and infected and exploded, who…somehow found them at this abandoned gas station at the middle of the night? I don’t know. They kidnap Joann (yeah…that’s her name; couldn’t really fit it anywhere else) and tie her up back-to-back with the dead girl. How come they don’t just kill Joann now? How did they even take the dead girl off the table without her fighting back? I guess the answers to these questions would prevent our brilliant climax of having JT and Wheeler circle the two tied-up girls like cartoon Bugs Bunny villains twirling their mustaches.

Ricky comes in with a machete…seriously, a machete? Where did he get that? He cuts off Wheeler’s hand when he tries to touch Joann…

…and then the dead girl gets loose and starts killing everyone. JT stabs Joann (I guess because he wants Ricky to get the Deadgirl to bite her so Joann can be his undead sex slave...? I dunno) and somehow Ricky gets her to be undead like the dead girl even though we never see her get bit, putting her in some nice lingerie and everything. And we get some nice sunny-day shots of Ricky walking around clean of bruises and blood and just enjoying life! So I guess everything is all good then!

Comic books are the cure for anything, even necrophilia and losing all your best friends to a bloodthirsty uncontrollable zombie.

Except…how about that ZOMBIE on the loose?! What happened there?!? There’s no resolution! We see her running away into the night and…that’s it! What, so there’s a zombie running free and you’re just going to act like everything is completely normal? What the hell?

And for that matter, what about all the kids who went missing? We never hear about what happened to that jock kid who exploded in the school bathroom. And nobody ever asks about what happened to the other jock kid, JT, Wheeler or Joann, at all? Shouldn’t there be some kind of investigation going on? Anything?! If you’re going to rip off Shaun of the Dead, movie, DO IT BETTER THAN THIS HALF-ASSED NONSENSE!

So all in all, Deadgirl was totally worthless. I can’t even think of one redeeming factor. It tries to set itself up as a serious social commentary on gender roles and what not, but it totally fails due to the crapsack acting and the horribly godawful storyline and plot holes. There is just nothing about this movie that in any way makes it worth seeing. So why did I watch it? Frankly, I’d rather be dead than have to sit through this again!

However, if I had to choose between seeing this movie again and having someone have sex with my corpse…well, put the friggin’ movie back on. I think I’ve made my tough decision for the week. I feel better about myself now. Peace out.

These images were taken from the film on Netflix's instant player, and none of them belong to me. They are all under the copyright of their respective owners.

REVIEW: The Breed (2006)

The Breed…a movie about superintelligent, super-vicious dogs attacking people on an island. It’s stupid, it’s kind of bland, so why are we even wasting any time, right? You know what has to happen now.

Director: Nick Mastandrea

Starring: Michelle Rodriguez, Michelle Rodriguez, Michelle Rodriguez (not that I really like her that much, but compared to the rest of these characters, sure).

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455362/

The film begins with our generation’s Christopher Columbus and his bikini-clad girlfriend drinking on a boat and searching for a new world to colonize. They’re excited because in their random sailing in the sea they found a random island! How delightfully random. No, seriously, that seems to be what they were doing…just arbitrarily floating along with no clear destination. Isn’t that always a recipe for greatness? The girl goes into the woods to see what’s on the island and gets eaten by the camera.

Camera-devouring deaths are among the most lethal kinds. Especially prominent in hot blonde girls prone to starring in horror movies. -The Surgeon General

Then we see our main characters who are flying in a private jet to the same exact island, where apparently the two brothers, Matt and John, had an uncle who died and left them this cabin, which they’re now going to stay in for a little mini-vacation while Matt is studying for finals…because I guess they couldn’t have waited until he was just done with them, or something. Oh, and we’re also introduced to the only good thing about this movie, Nicki. She’s Matt’s girlfriend, who is played by Michelle Rodriguez. And she’s pretty much the only really interesting character in this.

So they get to the cabin and fool around for like 20 minutes…the token black stereotype character, Noah, and the other girl of the group named Sara flirt a little, and so do Nicki and Matt. And that’s really about it…woo-hoo?

Then Sara finds a little dog outside which she brings inside, only Noah says something mean to it and it runs away, like it can actually understand him. She chases it outside, but then a bigger dog jumps out and bites her on the leg. Even though Matt wants to do the sensible thing and take her back to the mainland where they can get it treated, John and the others say no, they want to stay out and party, because it’s not too serious yet. Yeah, screw personal safety and health; we want to stay and party! God, these people are dumb. You know what; they deserve everything they get. No sympathy for them anymore!

Then the next day Sara is acting weird. So weird, in fact, that she violently stabs a pancake in cold blood.

Did this movie really just try to make pancakes intimidating? “Watch out, she stabbed that pancake like she MEANT IT!” Truly I am horrified now.

Then the guys all go hunting in the wild, which is fine until Noah gets split up from the others and runs into the world’s only dog mafia:

"Calling Kibbles n' Bits Agent 12, over! He's headed for the south side, over!"

They know about those debts he didn’t pay and they’re fed up with waiting. They follow him without attacking (for some reason) and he finds the others JUST IN TIME for them to run into Christopher Columbus from the opening, who apparently has survived this entire time and is covered in blood, which I hear is very tasty when you're the opening kill character in a horror movie that somehow survived to the half-hour mark. The dogs decide they want to find out for themselves, and they tackle him like a football team. A big, hairy, four-legged football team.

And thus ended his quest for the new world.

Seriously, they jump him like a bunch of starving kids at a McDonalds! I guess they just really liked him a lot better than the other guys even though all four were standing in the same area…oh, I forgot; if they attacked now, there wouldn’t be as much suspense later on. Silly me.

Then everybody reconvenes at the cabin and they decide to try and go get the boat, except they can’t do that, because the dogs bit the rope anchoring it down, and now it’s floating away. But they can’t go swim and get it either, because whoops, there are dogs sitting on the plane’s wings too! The lengths these dogs are going to stop them from getting away is just ridiculous, and moreso when later on you see how inconsistent they are about it.

And did I mention that I’ve always wanted to fly the “dogs on wings” airlines? It has a certain je ne sais quoi to it.

They're here for the airline food. If you know what I mean.

So yeah, they lock themselves back in the cabin after that, and we’re treated to the movie’s exceptional racial sensibility when we see Noah acting like the stereotypical black character he is. So glad these writers aren’t insensitive. It’s like he’s a manlier Chris Tucker at some points. Anyway their next plan of attack is to use the pulley to slide on a rope to the shed, where the car is. Only Nicki can do it, except she got injured on the leg when John shot her with an arrow – like the true archer he is. But since it’s Michelle Rodriguez, this really is only a flesh wound, as she makes her way over to the shed, gets inside and does some kuh-razy gymnastics to escape the dogs. This is the only good part of the movie, and even then I suspect it’s because it only has her in it, and not the rest of those morons. And she didn’t even accomplish anything by going over there anyway, since the car wouldn’t start and the dogs started jumping at her before she could fix it. Sooooo sadly, a pretty pointless scene aside from getting to watch Rodriguez kick some ass.

You go girl. Keep in mind that she's doing this with a heavily injured leg, and she's STILL kicking more ass than the rest of the characters combined. That's classy right there.

Back at the cabin, Noah goes down to check the fuse box and get some more wine out of the cellar when he gets attacked by a dog that was somehow silently waiting down there! It didn’t go up and attack them all indiscriminately because it knew it was in a horror film. So it just waited for someone to come down there instead. I guess dogs are smarter than we give them credit. Oh, and nobody really cares that their friend is dead, either – the most he gets is a casual “I can’t believe Noah is dead” before they change subjects again; real great friends these people were.

Truly the most emotional death scene I've ever...oh who am I kidding

After that, it’s nighttime, and we learn several things, like a) the dogs just leave them alone at night and don’t even try to come in at all, and b) being bit by one of them makes you act…slightly irritable when people try to touch you, for some reason, as Sara does when John tries to hug her. OK then; I thought it would actually be something a little more interesting than that…

Then the next day the dogs crash through the walls of the house to attack them. Why didn’t they do this before? No answer...I guess they just really liked building up the suspense.

John and Matt get the car and drive out, intending to…do something, I’m sure. When they reach the cliff and remember that they’re actually on an island, they go back to the house and get attacked by some dogs on the way. Why didn’t the dogs go to the house and attack the helpless and injured females still there all alone? Maybe John and Matt just smelled better.

Sara dies and none of them seem to care at all, and they drive away to find the dog “training” facility on the other side of the island. They somehow climb over the barbed-wire fence and go in. John climbs up this big electric tower to try and get some cell phone signal working when he sees the boat that Christopher Columbus and his doomed busty girlfriend brought in at the beginning. And why didn’t Columbus go back and use the boat to sail away in when he was running away from the dogs during the first part of the movie? GOD, HOW MANY PLOT HOLES ARE THERE? You know it's a bad sign when I have to ask these questions every few minutes!

The dogs try to attack Nicki, but she blows them up along with the whole factory in a giant blaze of fire. Matt and John think she’s dead, but her Michelle Rodriguez powers pulled her out of it fine, and she escaped without a scratch. They get on the boat and start going home when another dog attacks! It had been hiding in the boat the whole time just waiting for someone to get on and relax their guard! So THAT’S why Columbus didn’t take the boat! Because the movie had to set up a contrived and silly ending jump scare! Of course!

Yeah, that was the end of the movie, too. This whole thing was just dumb. Every single plot point, and the center of the movie’s suspense, was entirely reliant on the fact that these dogs are smart enough to outwit the human characters. But that doesn’t work when the writers can’t seem to decide on how smart they are. One minute they’re smart enough to make sure the humans can’t use their plane to leave, but then they seem like they don’t even know what they’re doing when they ignore opportunities to attack them later. And I thought there could have been an interesting plot point with Sara getting sick from being bitten. A few times it seemed like she was becoming one of them, or something (which is actually a good idea), but she got killed off before we could really see, so yeah, big waste of time there too. What a piece of cheap junk this was.

Now I'll end this review the only way I know how: