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 Stuff (1985)

I’ve been sitting at the computer, stumped now, for several minutes, unable to think of ANY coherent way to start this one. What am I supposed to say? What kinds of words could even begin to describe the sheer insanity of this film? It is a nonsensical and blundering piece of hack work with so little logic and thought put into it that it becomes a virtual black hole of anything forgivable. Moldy, stale, rat-bitten 80s cheese has never before been seen before the awe-inspiring ludicrous crap and a half depths of THE STUFF.

Director: Larry Cohen

Starring: Michael Moriarty, Paul Sorvino

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090094/

"Everyone's gotta eat shaving cream every once in a while."

-Mo

Yeah, The Stuff, real creative name, right?! It’s about evil ice cream and…no, there’s nothing else you need to know. Start the review!

The film wastes no time in setting up its absolutely brilliant plot by starting with some crazy old guy, never identified or seen again in the entire film, walking around in the snow and finding a mysterious bubbly, white substance on the ground. Now, we’re going to play a game, readers…if you find something like this on the ground:

What would you do?

a) say “ew,” and walk back to wherever you came from,

or

b) lick it eagerly and readily, without even smelling it, showing it to anyone else or doing any research?

If you answered “b,” well…you’re probably the writer of the film, because that’s what happens. Seriously, what kind of retarded inbred hick would ever just lick some random crap he found on the ground? Usually that’s the kind of thing that STARTS some mental deficiency. This isn’t exactly Of Mice and Men where you have reasonable characters to balance out the stupidity, either, oh no…because after THAT, we see that the whole world catches onto this phenomenon and makes a new dessert snack out of it called, you guessed it, ‘The Stuff.’

…has everyone lost their minds? IT’S JUST SOME CRAP A CRAZY OLD MAN FOUND ON THE GROUND. HOW DOES THAT EQUAL WORLDWIDE PHENOMENON? Pfft. Next you’re gonna be telling me the rival candy companies are actually going to hire some doofus to investigate The Stuff for them and figure out what it’s made of...

The blank-eyed stare, the slightly parted lips...yup, this guy is our main character, and he looks like he was dropped on his head as a kid. Get used to every god-forsaken horrible thing about him because he gets the most runtime of any character in this thing! Hooray!

Oh, come on! Is it really that big of a deal? Well, I guess it is. The guy they hire, named Mo, is some reject from a Flannery O’Connor story or something, who constantly talks in a fake Southern accent and spouts out stupid lines. Don’t believe me? Well, when one of the hoary old businessmen says “You can’t be as stupid as you look,” Mo responds by saying:

“Believe me: nobody is as stupid as I look.”

What does that even mean?

DON'T QUESTION THIS FACE.


Oh well. We’ve got more important things to focus on! Like…this other storyline about a little boy named Jason who for some unexplained reason catches onto the fact that The Stuff isn’t what it appears to be. He tries to warn his family, but they seem to be possessed by The Stuff, so instead he just runs to the local supermarket and starts smashing every carton of The Stuff he can find. If you can believe it, it actually takes THREE GROWN MEN to finally hold him down and stop him – truly a great security team this grocery store has.

Somehow, I'm not sure this incident is going to be something these guys talk to their wives and friends about later. "Hey, it took me and two other guys to subdue a little kid!" "Did you at least get him before he did anything harmful?" "...well, he wrecked about half the store and put a real scare in a bunch of people first..." "You're a failure, Billy. A failure."


And what is Jason's punishment for this? He gets grounded…yes, really…okay, we’re just going to move onto the next scene, or else I’ll be going all night.

Basically Mo goes to this middle-of-nowhere town where he gets ambushed by a crazy black man:

This guy tells him that he used to be the head of The Stuff company, until he got swindled out of it by the current owners. We never really find out if that’s even true at all, but hey, if you can’t trust the word of a crazy man who attacks you for no reason, who CAN you trust? And why did he even attack him in the first place? Because he thought he was one of the guys who swindled him out of his old position. So, basically, he was just waiting in that one spot in this middle-of-nowhere town for one of the people from that company to come by so he could attack them…Christ, I’m never going to get through this! Nothing makes sense!

After that we get the most subdued apocalyptic breakout in movie history as our two “heroes” get chased down by a bunch of “Stuffies” (that’s literally what they call the people infected by The Stuff’s magical powers):

It's just so strange how little this scene is played up. It doesn't actually feel like it's supposed to be exciting and intense. It's played out like a really minor event.

Alright, so I guess after that they split up for some reason and Mo goes to visit this one guy from the Food and Drug Administration, who doesn’t really give him much useful info at all. Mo leaves, and then the Food and Drug Administration guy gets killed by his dog because they don’t have enough of The Stuff left in the fridge.

No, seriously. That’s what happens. I kid you not. The guy even screams “I’LL BUY MORE!!!” before the dog rips out his throat…am I on Earth? Tell me. Did I just get transported to some bizarre-world other dimension where nothing makes any kind of logical sense?


One thing I didn't mention in the review itself: before the dog kills him, THE DOG CUTS THE PHONE LINE TO PREVENT HIM FROM CALLING FOR HELP. HOLY CRAP. THIS IS INSANITY. I don't know if that's the best or worst thing ever put on film.

After that we go back to Jason again. His family tries to force him to eat The Stuff, as it is obviously possessing them at this point and making them insane and evil. He gets away by substituting shaving cream for The Stuff and eating the shaving cream instead, only his dad figures it out and they all chase him outside, where Mo arrives in his car, having heard about the supermarket incident earlier that day. Jason gets in the car and tells him about what happened. Mo, ever a master of diction, responds with the following verbal poetry:

“Well, everyone’s gotta eat shaving cream once in a while!”

What the?!---no! No!!! No they don’t!! Well, I guess that DOES explain Mo's character a lot more now.

Oh and by the way, that subplot with Jason's family going evil due to The Stuff’s influence? Never brought up again – this was their final scene. Is he going to get any character development that will let us see how he was impacted by the loss of his family? Nope! Oh The Stuff, you wretched excuse for screenwriting…

Then they team up with this chick named Nicole who used to advertise for The Stuff, I guess, but was turned over to Mo's side in an instant by his charm and character…or maybe just because she has the personality of a piece of cardboard and is incapable of making her own decisions. Either way. They go to the plant where The Stuff is created and leave Jason on an airplane. He almost gets killed by The Stuff, so he runs away and…okay, time for another guessing game.

Do you think he…

a) runs into the woods, like a smart person would do, to remain out in the open and able to find help,

or,

b) hides in an enclosed gas tanker in the middle of the enemy base in which any number of unpredictable and likely bad things could happen?

If you answered ‘b’ again, well YOU’D BE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. This kid is a moron! How did he even manage to get dressed in the morning by himself?

You're a stupid little boy!

Never to be outdone, though, Mo and Nicole COMPLETELY IGNORE JASON'S EXISTENCE AND FORGET ABOUT HIM. I’m not even kidding – they don’t ask about him at all or anything. They’re just dandy without him! They don’t even question whether he’s even alive at all. In the previous scene they left him asleep on the airplane and told the pilot to look after him – and now they just don’t even bother asking if he’s alright during the middle of this supposedly really dangerous epidemic?! Shouldn’t they at least be a LITTLE BIT CONCERNED about the life of a YOUNG TRAUMATIZED CHILD?! I seriously don’t understand who wrote this movie. Were they just actively trying to make as little sense as possible? How is it so hard to make just enough sense so the viewer’s head doesn’t explode?!?

But hey, I guess it’s easy to get distracted when something like this happens:

Be honest, didn't you have a night that ended this way in college?
.....
I thought so.

…yeah, I’d describe exactly what it is you’re looking at, but frankly I have no idea myself.

So FINALLY they save Jason and Mo takes them all to go see an old army buddy of his who owns some radio station or something, I guess. The army buddy is played by Paul Sorvino, who had some roles in minor movies like Goodfellas, but also in CLASSICS like Repo the Genetic Opera! Splendid!

Clearly stoned off his ass, but then again how can you blame him?

Sorvino does nothing but flirt with Nicole, presented in such detail that the film practically becomes a romantic comedy for a short period. Because that’s really what I wanted in a movie called The Stuff; a fat balding middle aged man hitting on a woman. Truly they picked the right focus for this picture. Oh and there’s a few minor parts in there about The Stuff coming to life and killing people…but that doesn’t matter too much…

At the radio station, the black guy from earlier comes back; remember him?! He shouts a lot about how he wants to bring down The Stuff company and how they wronged him and blah blah blah. Then they take him in the back to go on the air, but his head explodes in the same way that those who have eaten The Stuff do:

Uh, sorry, I don't think using your 8th grade detention doodles as special effects was the BEST possible idea...


Wait a minute, what? Wasn’t the whole point of his character that he HATED The Stuff? Why would HE consume it at all? The people who made it STOLE HIS CAREER! Why on Earth would he ever eat enough of it to make this happen? And he had already seen the effects of it before when he first came into the movie so it makes even less sense...god, this is too much. This movie can’t even follow its own logic anymore! Ugh.

Okay, so basically the radio broadcast goes on the air. We then flash forward to a later time where the girlfriend character is standing in front of a TV and broadcasting that people just believed them all the sudden about The Stuff and stopped eating it, burning all of it in the streets like some kind of Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451 shit or something. So it was that easy to convince everyone to just stop and go back to normal? What about the kid’s family, who were so far gone that they were ready to kill their own child? What about all the people who were going crazy and exploding and attacking people? Never brought up at all, never resolved in any capacity. Everything is just peachy now!

Oh, and it isn’t over yet, either! We have another scene where Mo and Jason going to the office of the people who made The Stuff. Only two of them are there, even though earlier in the movie there was a whole board of them. They force the executives to eat the rest of The Stuff they’ve managed to salvage from the mass-burnings of it in the streets, and that’s it. Now everything is cool.

Except for, you know, how did they save that much of The Stuff without it going crazy and rising up to kill them again?

Oh, right, THIS MOVIE IS HORRIBLE. Certain movies get a lot of their garbage excused just for being “campy,” but The Stuff is inexcusably heinous in almost every aspect. Yes, it was trying to be funny, and I’d be lying if I said the absurdity of it all wasn’t entertaining in some ways, but it’s entertaining in spite of itself, not because of any actual jokes or good, sensible humor, like Ghostbusters or Killer Klowns from Outer Space used. The Stuff is just crap. The characters are annoying when they’re not ungodly stupid, the story is full of gaping plot holes and inconsistencies and there are a million things that are never resolved or explained at all. It’s all just too much. While you’re trying to wrap your brain around one ridiculous plot-hole, about a dozen more jump to take its place. There’s no sense, no logic and no brains to any of this.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go check myself into a mental institution. I don’t feel quite right in the head anymore after this…

All images copyright of their original owners.