Deadgirl: the most depressing zombie movie EVER

Zombies are fun, aren't they?  Gosh, yes!  Just look at Zombieland, or Shawn of the Dead or even Fido (which is really pretty good). Even look at I Am NOT Infected, here on the web (which we love). Laugh a minute, those shambling, decomposing, corpsefolkken. (We just made that up, but it sure sounds cool.)

But once in a while it's nice to remember the cultural antecedents of the Walking Dead -- you know, back when we shuddered at the dead part.  The idea of bodies physically rising from the grave, even as they rotted away, with no brain but an undying hunger for human flesh -- that was was supposed to horrify and repel us, remember?  For the most part, however -- absent 28 Days Later, which revived the brand a bit, albeit in fast motion -- we've  become inured to the whole concept.

C'mon.  Zombies are fun.  

Until you see Deadgirl.

In fact, Deadgirl has more in common with the bleak, existential "high school as Bergmanesque death camp" genre of filmmaking that has depressed us for years now than it does with Zombieland.  Think The River's Edge, or Brick -- both excellent films, but absolutely unremitting in their hopeless and almost lifeless view of life for the contemporary teenager.  Deadgirl shambles through the same territory, with a slow but relentless plot, a set of horribly convincing characters and portrayals, and a grimy, gray production design that gives "depressing" a whole new level of depth.

The plot is simple enough: a couple of bottom-of-the-barrel no-account teens, ditching school and looking for trouble, break into the sub-basement of an abandoned hospital (asylum, maybe?) and find what looks like the almost-freshly-deceased body of a teenage girl -- an exotic, even wild-looking girl they've never seen before.  She's strapped down every which-way, slightly blue and not breathing ... but as they go for a closer look she snaps to life and attacks them as best she can: with her teeth.  Mindless, roaring, twitching, she's obviously not dead at all and pretty damn crazy ... but she's not quite alive either.  And best of all .. she's theirs.

Rape, kidnapping, necrophilia ... all the very worst that lies just under the repellent surface of really serious zombie movies is here in stomach-churning profusion.  And though the ending may seem as inevitable as an oncoming freight train, you really, really don't want it to happen.  Please.  But it does.

Made for about a buck fifty by people you never heard of, Deadgirl is available on DVD and has been out for a while now.  And if you want to get a sense of just how undeniably creeeeeepy the whole "zombie" thing was back in the days of White Zombie and the original Night of the Living Dead, here's your chance.  Just plan to take a shower right after you watch it.