Girls Gone Dead

When did rambunctious rock and roll music replace collective and subtle horror movie synth and serve as the main source of suspense when something is happening? And for that matter, when did it become hip and fun to show dozens upon dozens of bare breasts and buttocks mindlessly in a horror film? Girls Gone Dead takes both of these things and incorporates them into a rather ordinary, yet interesting horror film, almost as if there is a good, successful film struggling to overcome the weight of the lukewarm one on top of it.

The story concerns Rebecca (Katie Petersen). a young woman who has been kept tied down with harsh restrictions and a tight religious upbringing by her mother. Rebecca and many of her friends, all of whom ex-cheerleaders, plan to vacation in Manatee Creek, a place where one of the girl's daddies owns a beach-house. When the girls discover Manatee Creek is a retirement community and there is almost no fun to be had. They get the bright idea to drive down to Daytona, Florida where celebrity Beetlejuice (played by himself) is filming "Crazy Girls Unlimited," a series where girls flash every part of their body in exchange for fifteen minutes of fame. Alas, there is a stalker who is repeatedly turning up in a red cloak and an ancient weapon straight out of a grim reaper novel, and the body count begins to start.

It takes the film a good hour before even a sign of a climax appears, but in the mean time, we are bombarded with shot after shot of gratuitous nudity. It wasn't long ago I saw Piranha 3DD, a film that had me wincing at the lack of intensity, depth, and interest. All those things had been traded for gutter-minded idiocy and unnecessary female nudity. I return to my original question; when did this become a regular addition in horror films to the point where few people address it anymore? Is it just assumed from the start that audience members who will eventually pay a nice amount of money to see a horror film couldn't care less about depth and structure but more about shallow and pointless nudity? When we are finally met with consistent kills, everything happens so fast, lacks credible suspense, and becomes no different than a number of slashers that already exist. When the film does start to get mildly deep and interesting is when dialog starts to come into play during the last act, but again, the film prefers to go the way of many other low-budget horror films. That way is quick cuts, no build-up, and relentless monotony.

The characters we are supposed to sympathize with are flyweight mannequins who talk in a way that perfectly mimics stuck up girls; with a sarcastic tone in their voice and a pause between every three or four words. The dialog is solely crafted either off of redundant swear words or miserably contrived efforts to be hip in such childish insults, uttered, again, by the flyweight mannequin characters.

Girls Gone Dead could definitely be rendered as an effective piece of horror by those searching for some cheesy escapism. More power to them and I wish them a pleasant evening of viewing. The film is certainly more surprising and a tad more interesting than most straight-to-DVD titles, not to mention, the special effects work is fitfully satisfying in some parts. Its problems stem from how easily distracted it gets with scantily clad girls, its lack of suspense, how long the entire thing takes to get going, and the indifferent methods it takes to try and engage the viewer. And don't get me started on the abundance of credit cookies the film breathlessly throws at the audience after the show should be long over.

Starring: Katie Peterson, Caley Hayes, Shawn C. Phillips, Ron Jeremy, Beetlejuice, Sal the Stockbroker, and Jerry Lawler. Directed by: Michael Hoffman Jr. and Aaron T. Wells.

Part of me was semi-intrigued, being someone who is no stranger to slasher films and has liked quite a lot and the idea interested me somewhat despite being ridiculous. A large part of me was apprehensive though, having heard it was not good and that it looked like one of those cheap and overdone films with a muddled tone.

Which, when watching it, was what 'Girls Gone Dead' essentially was. It is not a complete waste of time. It is also a long way from a good film as well. 'Girls Gone Dead' may not have insulted my intelligence and there are certainly far worse films. However, if it was trying to entertain, scare or both, 'Girls Gone Dead' failed quite badly on both counts, making the film, despite a few decent things, a chore to sit through. Am not hating or trying to be malicious, it is just my genuine stance on a film that didn't do anything for me as well as many others.

'Girls Gone Dead' doesn't look too awful, the photography and editing are not award-worthy but neither are too amateurish in quality. Some of the music is catchy.

The best thing are a couple of the cameos. In particular Beetlejuice and Sal injecting a much needed trashy charm.

However, the rest of the acting, from particularly the leads, is both overplayed and stiff. In all fairness they were hindered by hammy direction, constantly awkward and limp dialogue and that the film has no interesting or likeable character whatsoever.

The script is childish, flabby and even improvisatory-sounding. The story is not much of one and takes forever to get going, when it finally does it is not for long and it is too late to care. 'Girls Gone Dead' seemed like a comedy mixed with slasher horror, and over-emphasises the comedy too much.

Sadly, the comedy is not even close to being strong enough to make this imbalance not matter, it is completely witless, childish and so overdone it gets exhausting. The more horror-like elements are a long way from tense or suspenseful, generating little interest even. The kills were not creative and would go as far to say they were too tame, while the things there to by the film's definition "spice things up" (especially the nudity) came over as gratuitous and abused.

Overall, weak with nothing wild or killer. 3/10 Bethany Cox

Ho-ho, what a great opening for this flick, A girl entering a church were everything seems normal suddenly changes into a black mass and one girl has to die, full frontal gratuitous nudity combined with gore so it surely had my attention. But then the girl that entered the church wakes up, it was a nightmare.

From there on we got all clichés. The virgin looking girl becoming the hot chick. being warned not to go to a place because it's weird. Scantily clad girls....cell phones placed in cleavage, swimming pool swim turns into breast showing, you know what I mean, it's one for the boys because boobs do act better than the girls but they do forget it has to be a horror as stated on the DVD. I never watched it for the comedy because by now we all know that horror and comedy mostly doesn't work out that good.

When the killer enters it do has a few nasty moments and it all looks good but it's the acting that tears this down and the slowness of the flick itself. What attracted me more were the well known faces, Ron Jeremy, Beetlejuice, Linnea Quigley and I can go on and on.

At the end of the day, no horror, bad acting, when the killing comes in it's okay and bloody, but overall its watching girls showing their tits from A till C cup and walking around in bikini's. Not that much blood running but i'm sure that some guys watching this will their blood have running to one place....

Gore 1,5/5 Nudity 3/5 Effects 1,5/5 Story 1/5 Comedy 0/5

Is this the worst flick I've ever happened to view? no is it good? no. The very beginning seems promising enough(confusing shameful church sacrifice dream) there's some gore, but then we play into the rest of the movie.

What's good about it - the production value is pretty decent but only slightly better than some late night skinemax weekend movies. there's cameos by Ron Jeremy and beetlejuice(which even lowbrow his lines are funny) and Jerry the King Luller from WWE fame

Okay, so what's not good about it. Other than the opening sequence, it takes damn near half an hour for anything sinister to remotely happen. the girls' acting ranges from mediocre to subpar(even for a bmovie) I kept having to tell myself I'm too far in an need to just power through. this is even with gratuitous shots of breasts mixed in. No spoilers but the killer to me seemed easily identified to anyone who cared to wonder who's actually doing all the killing (I mean they didn't even throw in an obligatory red herring!) I want the last hour and a half of my life back.

Hands up if you like hot women. And hands up if you enjoy excessive violence. If you haven't got both hands high in the air, then you've got the wrong film, because babes and blood is what Girls Gone Dead is all about. Although described as a comedy/horror, decent laughs and scares are in short supply, while T&A and gore fill almost every frame.

The film sees six sexy girlfriends spending spring break together being targeted by a killer brandishing a massive warhammer (a cool weapon—part axe, part hammer). That's pretty much it as far as plot is concerned, at least until the unmasking of the maniac and we get a typical slasher explanation for their killing spree.

During the course of the film we get lots of skin from some very curvaceous cuties (blonde lead Katie Peterson and brunette Brandy Whitford are smokin'!), oodles of cool blood and guts courtesy of Marcus Koch, and fun cameos from cult icons such as ex-pornstar Ron Jeremy, scream queen Linnea Quigley, and teeny-tiny bug-eyed Howard Stern regular Beetlejuice (who gets his head chopped off!).

Obviously, it's all very puerile, but since when did a film have to be sophisticated to be fun?