“Deadgirl” (Or, The Most Feminist Horror Movie I’ve Seen This Side of “Teeth”)

***Humongous, Ginormous Trigger Warning***
Recently there has been a Feministing thread, started by Jessica, about the new movie “Deadgirl”, a horror film making its way through the festival circuit currently and possibly slated for some sort of theatrical release in the future. As is the case in many of these instances the original poster was working off of secondhand knowledge (plot synopses, reviews, marketing campaigns, etc.) in order to try to understand the film, and came to a rather negative conclusion about the film. A lot of people don’t have the time, volition, or ability to watch a film like “Deadgirl” because it’s only on the festival circuit and because even if one got a copy it’s a really tough movie to sit through.
I did watch “Deadgirl”, though, and this is the most feminist movie I’ve seen this year. That’s no small statement, either. I review movies for my college paper, and on average see at least one new movie a week, but usually two or three. I sit through everything. It’s part of the perils of being an entertainment writer, albeit a volunteer one, and occasionally you get a big surprise when a movie you expect to be one thing turns out to be something else entirely. I expected “Deadgirl” to be like other schlock horror I sit through all the time. Not so. The film is the most nuanced, and most horrifying, look at manhood in a misogynistic culture I’ve ever seen. It’s scary precisely because it pulls no punches.
Why is this?
***Spoilers Below***

“Deadgirl” is the story of two 17 year old males in a non-descript American town. Ricky and J.T. are both outsiders, born on the wrong side of the tracks and poor as heck, but while J.T. has long since abandoned all hope Ricky pines for Joann, a once-kinda-girlfriend who has since moved on to the school’s upper-crust social structure. They cut school together one day and stumble upon the body of a woman tied to a table in an old mental hospital. Ricky initially flees, while J.T. proceeds to abuse the woman and comes to find that she can’t be killed. What happens after this is a descent into the darkest heart of contemporary masculinity. What happens when boys who have been taught to commodify women stumble upon a woman they can treat like a commodity with seemingly no ramifications?
That’s where the monster(s) come in. “Deadgirl” is a horror movie, a monster movie, but the monster in this film is not the deadgirl. It’s every male character. Each man or boy in this movie is reprehensible in his own way, because each one happens to buy into a culture in which women are something less than people.
Ricky is not the hero here. In fact, he’s used as the perfect example of the male gaze. He stares at Joann throughout the film, not simply longing after her, but viewing her almost entirely as a sexual creature. This culminates in the sex fantasy he has on his bed inter-splicing Joann and the deadgirl. Ricky searches for a way to “be a man”, but his role models downright suck. There’s Clint, his mom’s alcoholic boyfriend who advises him to fight and get with girls and have fun. There’s J.T., his best friend who pressures him into looking at the deadgirl as some sort of sex slave. There’s the other friend, Wheeler, who succumbs to J.T.’s pressure and wants Ricky to join in as well. There’s Johnny and Dwyer, two jocks who treat women (Joann in particular) in the same way, only their social acumen allows them to attract actual women. And there’s his teacher, a guy who can’t be bothered to notice when Ricky is beat up and clearly in a world of trouble. No man is exempt in this film. Not one male character does a single good or noble deed. Only Joann manages this film’s single good act, picking up the inhaler of a kid who’s being picked on.
Now, a few of these guys get truly monstrous in how they treat the deadgirl. J.T. is the first to abuse her. He rapes her, and admits to killing her several times prior to Ricky returning to the basement. He admits that he starts hitting her initially and keeps doing it, harder and harder, because he comes to enjoy it. The deadgirl may be a zombie, but J.T. (and later Wheeler) clearly sexualize her, to the point of a perverse attraction. It’s technically necrophilia, but all they see is a nude female body. And the directors go out of their way to show this body in a semi-rotting state. There’s nothing alluring about her, but these boys are titillated by nothing more than complete control over a female body.
This is rape, and the films calls it that, but only once, and to drive the point home. The scene is semi-ridiculous, almost a parody of contemporary culture. Wheeler and Ricky are forced by Johnny and Dwyer (through physical violence, of course) to take them to the deadgirl. There’s J.T., sitting on a lounging chair he’s somehow gotten into the basement, wearing a dirty bathrobe and surrounded by empty beer cans and bags of open chips and snack foods. He’s sort of a deranged Hugh Hefner, or at least that’s what he’s trying to emulate, but it’s so vile as to be almost laughable. J.T. treats the deadgirl as a sort of prostitute, and asks Johnny and Dwyer to partake of their terrible fare.
In true “Deadgirl” fashion these boys ask few questions about the fact that this girl is chained up and clearly beaten. J.T. and Ricky pressure them into having sex with her. Johnny states that he already has p***y (referring to Joann as what he really considers her to be), to which the up-to-this-point timid Ricky says, “How about her mouth?” Ricky assumes the role he has learned from J.T. so as to try to hurt another boy, and that sure does happen. After some genital mutilation by a zombie Johnny and Dwyer threaten to go to the cops, and that’s when the R-word comes out. J.T. states explicitly that they can’t go to the police and say that they were raping a girl in a basement and something bad happened.
After Johnny’s bite causes him to zombie-out J.T. and Wheeler begin to consider the possibility of making new deadgirls, eventually kidnapping Joann. Ricky, who has never been with the deadgirl, ends up fighting with these men, but in a way clearly influenced by his culture. He only attacks Wheeler when Wheeler dares to touch Joann, and he never actually hits J.T. There’s a long conversation between Ricky and J.T., with J.T. spouting off all the worst possible things we might think of. “Here in the basement,” he says, “we’re in control. This is the best we can get… I did this for you, Ricky.” J.T. is explaining all the desires that a rape culture seeks to inculcate in men.
Well, Ricky tries to “save” Joann, but fails when she is stabbed by J.T. However, the now zombifying J.T. offers to “help” Ricky. How about a deadgirl of his very own, and of Joann?
The final scene is of Ricky, all spruced up and cheery looking, walking along on what appears to be the pre-cursor to a date. And then we cut to the mental hospital, and Joann, tied to a table, as his, and only his, deadgirl. The guy who, while not a hero up until this point, has at least not acted on his horrible desires is the new J.T. Oh, the trimmings are different to be sure, and the basement has been spruced up, but the effect is the same. Every male under the age of 18 is now either dead or has succumbed to the allure of the commoditization of a woman.
Horrifying? Absolutely. But the deadgirl ain’t the monster of this film. “Deadgirl” shows, to great effect, how boys seeking to “grow up” or “man up” can become monsters in they buy into contemporary culture, and how even the most noble-seeming guys can be doing this “noble” stuff for the entirely wrong reasons. The male who we think is the protagonist never looks at Joann as a person, but merely a girl, something to own and protect. These boys have learned, from adults and from each other, a value system that, when presented with the case of a deadgirl, something that is far more terrible than a mere zombie attack. The monsters are the boys here. Zombies may not be real, but rape culture and boys learning it are.
And that’s what makes “Deadgirl” so gosh-darn scary.