Deadgirl

In case anyone tries to tell you otherwise, I have to clear one thing up: I LOVE zombie movies. Something about the inevitable hopelessness of fighting a horde of deranged once-human monsters is nearly endlessly entertaining to me. But you can only sit through that plot so many times before you start to want something a little more complex.

Enter Deadgirl, a zombie movie that's really not a zombie movie at all. Two teens find a dead, naked women strapped to a table in an abandoned mental hospital. Only she's not really dead, since she tries to bite their faces off when they start to untie her. So what would any disfunctional teenage boy do with a helpless naked woman? Needless to say, the titular character remains tightly restrained for a good part of the film.

All this sounds remarkably dark and pessimistic, which it is, but here's the good part. Because the zombie here is completely helpless, the real plot involves the gradual implosion of the teens who find her, and their circle of friends. While this is still not a particularly nice story, the counterpoint of a coming of age drama mixed with such a unique plot device to drive the whole thing along really works.