August 22, 2011

  • Deadgirl is uncomfortable to watch

    So I ran into this movie, Deadgirl. I think IMDB recommended it based on another movie I was watching. The description sounded interesting, "Two high school boys discover an imprisoned woman in an abandoned mental asylum who cannot die." I was thinking in terms of the woman having been trapped there and in the process of getting her free, they learn something from her immortal perspective, something like that. Or, at least, an enjoyable little zombie flick as they get stalked through the sanitarium. But no, the movie is essentially about having the strength to make moral choices. Or perhaps the tendency of people to make excuses to not make moral choices. And, fair warning to anyone planning to watch it and for whom this is a trigger issue, a major aspect of this involves rape.

    Yes, when the two boys find a naked woman chained up, the reaction of one of them is to repeatedly rape the zombie, and he later starts selling chances to his friends. Meanwhile, the other guy wrestles with the decision of whether to try to turn in his buddy, especially since a) the whole "not actually alive" thing leaves him unsure of whether to treat the woman as a person rather than as an object, b) this is his friend since childhood, and c) he's got his own curiosities about sex and the idea of having an outlet to test the waters is more of a temptation than he'd like. It's actually a very interesting movie. It's also very uncomfortable for me to watch.