THE OVERLOOKED HOTEL
The horror movie is a tricky thing to pin down. Some movies try to scare you and make you jump. Others try to gross you out. Others try to unsettle you. Most commonly today, horror movies try to shock you with violence or gore, desperately trying to elicit a reaction in the desensitized brains of 18-25 year old men.
Deadgirl does all of the above and actually manages to genuinely horrify. The set up seems to fit nicely within this decade's "torture porn" genre of horror movies when two disassociated high school slackers cut class and go exploring an abandoned mental hospital, cigarettes and beer in hand. They make it deep within the structure when they find a secret room in which an immaculately preserved female corpse is strapped to a table. Only she is not quite dead. Nor is she alive, either. One of the two decide to put her to "use" and what follows is a disturbing take on the teenage male mind and sexuality.
Like any great work of horror, Deadgirl is a deeply offensive and troubling movie that takes us on a trip through the shadowy corridors of the mind. It is dark and unpleasant, but ultimately rewarding for the honest insights that it offers. It differs from your Saws and your Hostels in that the horror does not solely come from gore and violence but from the main characters and how the horror upon which they stumble actually affects the course of their lives and its about the choices that they make and how it reveals the horror within them. Deadgirl, despite the fact that it is basically a zombie movie, is much more reality-based than your average horror movie. It has a strong indie-movie portait-of-middle-America feel that supports the horror elements very nicely.
Deadgirl is a movie that came in way under the radar ( it just got its own Wikipedia page entry within the last week) but that should not stop you from checking it out. Deadgirl does the work of the horror film admirably: it pulls the darkest parts of human nature from our unconscious kicking, and screaming into the light where we can see them and maybe really consider them. It has recently been released on DVD and is currently streaming on Netflix for your viewing pleasure. If you can stand the dark places that this movie takes you, it be a very rewarding experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment