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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: First Look Home Entertain
Salesrank: 64949
Released: March 3, 2009 |
| Our Price: $7.19 |
| Used Price: $7.18 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
The life of a lonesome caretaker (Toni Collette) is turned upside down when she stumbles upon the body of a murdered girl. The discovery may provide closure for a forensics graduate student (Rose Byrne) whose sister went missing when she was a child. A housewife (Mary Beth Hurt) makes a disturbing connection between the body and her own husband (Nick Searcy) which leads her to take dark and decisive action. A mother (Marcia Gay Harden) desperately searches for answers about her runaway daughter's life and finds them in one of her daughter's troubled young friends (Kerry Washington). A volatile young woman (Brittany Murphy) goes on an odyssey to deliver a birthday present to her little girl. Together, these stories paint a devastating portrait of seven women whose lives are linked by a single act of violence a desire for change.
Description of Dead Girl - Steelbook Packaging:
Director Karen Moncrieff has created short vignettes to show how one murder can affect a plethora of people both related and unrelated to the victim, in her chilling feature, The Dead Girl. The film unfolds with quiet repose, like a series of photographs, as the viewer learns from various points of view how Krista (Brittany Murphy) was murdered, and by whom. Opening with the most disparately related segments, the viewer meets Arden (Toni Colette), slave to her abusive mother (Piper Laurie). Arden, full of hatred that manifests as self-mutilation, is equally scarred by her discovery of Krista's body. Next, we witness Krista's grad-student sister, who, with her knowledge of forensics, combs cadavers for physical clues to find her missing sister's body. The second half of the film is more affecting, with better pacing and more pointed plot, since one sees the motivations behind the serial killer's crime, and later, Krista's mother's devotion to solving the mystery. As the victim's mother meets Krista's old friend, Ashley, and discovers the she left a daughter behind as legacy, there is a sense of rebirth that feels satisfyingly redemptive. The Dead Girl's cinematography reinforces the pervading melancholy so completely that the film itself begins to symbolically represent Krista's dead body. --Trinie Dalton
Dead Girl - Steelbook Packaging Reviews:
A Must See Movie 
2009-09-10 - The Dead Girl is a one of a kind movie that slowly lets you in and then gives the viewer the "psychic" ability to know what the tragic ending will bring to the characters. Great performances by Toni Collette,Mary Beth Hurt,Marcia Gay Harden and Brittany Murphy.
somber but well done 
2009-04-30 - This movie is definitely not for everyone. It presents a dark, disturbing reality that left me moved and haunted for several days. The movie is so well made, though, in just about every theatrical aspect, that I have to rate it highly. I usually don't care for a movie that is presented in segments or chapters, but this movie's form of storytelling is masterfully accomplished at the hands of its director. Acting performances are outstanding. I walked away with both a lot of emotions and a lot to ponder after seeing this picture...a sign of excellence in my book. Just don't view this if you are looking for something light or uplifting.
very strange 
2009-04-04 - This movie is horrible. I don't even see the point in making it.
You can describe the entire movie (and I do mean ENTIRE) in a paragraph or two.
---------Spoilers------------sorry
The Dead Girl is a very strange movie and I hated it. It is a movie about different people and how all of their lives are somehow interconnected. A girl is murdered and a woman finds her in the back yard, then she gets in a fight with her mother, goes off and meets a random guy and has sex with him?. Next scene is a girl who works in the morgue where the dead girl's body is taken, and she sees a birthmark resembling that of a sister of her's who went missing years ago. The parents don't believe her and then it turns out it isn't the girl's sister. Then it moves on to the mother of the dead girl coming and identifying the body, which leads her to her estranged daughter's girlfriend and they are both prostitutes who live in a nasty hotel. She finds out that her daughter had a child and goes and gets the little girl. Then there is the scene about the creepy old couple who live in a house near their storage shed business and while the husband is gone the irritated wife finds a dresser in an empty storage unit full of dead women's clothing. She bags it up drives to the police station, sees a cop, then takes it home and burns it and her own clothes, and walks away back to the creepy murderous husband naked! Then at the end there is a flashback scene to how the girl met the killer (old creepy man) while hitch hiking because her loser pimp? boyfriend wouldn't take her to give her daughter a present. Then when the scene comes that the dead girl and murderer are in the car together it just ENDS!! So basically you waste all this time and it ends in such a random spot....I hate this movie and it was a waste of money renting it.
Collectors edition, new packaging...looks cool
2009-03-18 - Awsome cast. This movie will stay with you long after its over. Murphy and Brolin are both great in this. I had to spring for the collectors version!
Along the Edges of a Murder
2009-03-11 - THE DEAD GIRL is an interesting new take on an exhausted genre. Since THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS nearly 20 years ago, we have been bombarded with the serial killer in film over and over. Sometimes something good like SEVEN comes along, but most of the time its by-the-book blood and mayhem that only gives a lame story a convenient excuse. Oh, it's a serial killer.
In this movie, we travel back and forth in time to see how one really messed-up girl's murder affects friends, family and total strangers.
If two of the stories had better conclusions (not easier, just better), I would've given this movie 5 stars. The first one, THE STRANGER, is interesting and definitely well-acted...but it just stops, it doesn't end. I wanted to know more. I was hoping for something better for her. Same for THE WIFE. Mary Beth Hurt plays a middle-aged house frau who watches her sinister husband go out night after night, leaving her to keep their miserable, loveless lives going. She thinks he's just frequenting prostitutes...until she finds a dresser filled with bloody trophies like slashed underwear. (I didn't even know it was Ms. Hurt until the end titles! I remember lusting after her as the girlfriend/wife from THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP back in '82! She really becomes this sad character in this movie.)
I guess the complaint I have is that these two stories didn't give me enough of these characters. And I wanted more.
The other stories are filled with authentic performances and gritty details. Unfortunately, I knew a girl just like The Dead Girl. Fortunately, she pulled it together...and survived the streets. But she could've ended up like the girl in this movie.
You never see The Dead Girl's murder. Or see Ashley Judd or Morgan Freeman heading up the investigation to bring the killer in, or any investigation, for that matter. But you do see how far reaching a senseless murder can go and the damage it does beyond its sad victim.
