By JOEL HARLEY
Yes, all men. And fine, even if not all men, then definitely all the men in Deadgirl, who one by one, prove themselves to be extremely willing and able to… Well, you remember.
I first encountered Trent Haaga, Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel’s Deadgirl shortly after the film’s 2009 release, and to put it bluntly, I wasn’t a fan. In some ways, it was a film ahead of its time, and I just wasn’t ready to hear its message yet – predicting the rise of the incel, #MeToo and the “nice guy” by almost a decade. Of course, those things existed long before 2009, but in recent years, the internet has put names to these phenomena, firing them into the stratosphere of mass awareness where culture wars are now fought.
In other ways, Deadgirl is horribly dated and simply not good. For one, it’s just as guilty as its male characters are of objectifying the titular character, showing an abject disregard for sensitivity in the depravities she’s subjected to. It remains divisive today, with some hailing it as a feminist masterpiece, while others dismiss it as a work of nasty, cynical exploitation.
Is Deadgirl a feminist horror film undone by low budget and poor direction? Or exploitative sleaze that accidentally struck gold in stumbling across its all-too-relevant themes? The answer, one suspects, lies in the middle. It’s a poorly-made (I said what I said!) but undeniably striking independent horror film, which, regardless of its flaws, is of great importance to extreme cinema.
Novelist Bridgett Nelson
Author Bridgett Nelson seeks to redress the balance in a new novelization from Encyclopocalypse Publications. With DEADGIRL, the shackles are broken, and the zombie is brought to life. Giving the Deadgirl a name and a voice emancipates her more than the film itself ever could – not that the filmmakers were ever really interested in doing that in the first place.
Alternating between the perspective of Rickie (in the Now) and a young woman named Ivy (way back Then), Nelson reveals exactly who the Deadgirl is and how she came to be found in an abandoned mental health facility. Knowing what we know about how it turns out, this was never going to make for happy reading.
Ivy’s story is just as heartbreaking as one would imagine. Her journey from a small Californian homestead to the boys’ rape dungeon makes for tough reading. In her past, the author finds even more sadistic and perverse menfolk, each out to exploit and control Ivy in their own way.
As for the Now, it’s faithful to the original screenplay, following Rickie and J.T.’s discovery of the Deadgirl through their fallout as the latter decides to recruit again. While Nelson doesn’t flinch from the grim reality of their actions, she is determined to reclaim the Deadgirl’s story – and layers of warmth, light and humanity emerge through the horror and cruelty.
This doesn’t mesh particularly well with the film’s nihilism, but Nelson forces the fit, making Rickie a slightly more sympathetic character, bridging the gap between Ivy’s more hopeful narration and the horrific interplay between the men.
The new material is reminiscent of Jack Ketchum and Lucky McKee’s collaboration on The Woman, which included a novel to tie in with the film, and more relevantly, a female-led sequel in Pollyanna McIntosh’s Darlin’. Although Nelson’s adaptation is never quite as transgressive nor confident in how it tackles cycles of abuse committed by men on those outside of society’s norms, it does find a way of telling the Deadgirl’s story without making it all about her rapists.
If DEADGIRL still doesn’t completely work, the fault lies with the original work. Unfortunately, Nelson is saddled with bizarre behaviour and tin-eared dialogue that’s just as odd on the page as it was coming from the mouths of the film’s young actors.
Wheeler: “You fuckers! We don’t need your fucking cheerleading whores! You know why? Because we got our own fucking whore, and she’s the sweetest one in the whole fucking town, you assholes!”
It cuts both ways, though. The scene where J.T. and Wheeler attempt to kidnap a replacement for their sex slave is back, and the bros’ beat-down is just as satisfying as ever. That bathroom scene is also replicated in a passage of stomach-churning body horror that’s every bit as grim as it was on screen.
Still, it’s hard to reconcile the Deadgirl’s fresh characterization with the drooling MacGuffin the screenplay presented us with. Jenny Spain was truly fearsome as the zombie, and while her performance was the film’s strongest, Deadgirl rarely depicted her as much more than a lump of brain-dead meat. Nelson gives the zombie an inner monologue that’s perhaps more childish than expected and doesn’t gel with her screen counterpart.
“I wish I knew why this boy keeps trying to kill me. I’m just a young girl”.
But if the film didn’t give Nelson or Spain much to work with, that was always Haaga’s intention. “In another movie, she could be a stash of hidden money or a magic locket. So, it was more of what she represented and the effect she has than what she is or where she came from,” the writer says in an interview included with the book – all but confirming that the film didn’t see her as much more than a plot device either.
In addition to Haaga’s interview, Encyclopocalypse’s DEADGIRL also features forewords from its stars, Shiloh Fernandez and Noah Segan. A short story by Jeff Strand completes the supporting material. Titled Deadgirl’s #1 Fan, it takes the Human Centipede 2 approach, making Deadgirl (both the film and the book!) a work of fiction within a world of “real” horror. Spinning the tale of a man whose fascination with the film escalates from harmless (if distasteful) fanboyism to a very real crime, it’s genuinely disturbing reading and a true spiritual sequel to the film in its depiction of man’s capacity for self-gratifying evil.
I didn’t like Deadgirl when it was released, and rewatching it after reading the book, I still don’t care much for it. Like caking make-up onto a zombie, DEADGIRL is still rotten underneath, but Nelson’s attempt to update the story for a modern, more switched-on audience is successful in its aims, making it palatable while smoothing over some of its nastier edges.
