By Geno McGahee
A heavy metal band called “Dead Girls” is causing quite the stir with their controversial lyrics. They sing about death, death, and more death. They are obviously trying to compete with the Clowns from TERROR ON TOUR, but they seem small time. The clowns don’t have anything to worry about.
Gina (Diana Karanikas), the lead singer of the band, returns home to pick up her sister, Brooke, who has had a mental breakdown. She has been in a semi-coma and her grandmother is not happy about it. Actually, the grandmother is an absolutely awesome character, tearing into Gina the second that she comes to visit. Gina takes Brooke and her nurse to a remote cabin to party with the band and get some time away from Granny. It will fix her up…but that’s when a masked killer shows up.
I really like when killers wear hats. I don’t know why, but it’s sort of my thing. CITY IN PANIC and THE BURNING, we see killers that have style. Here, we once again see a killer sporting a hat…a fedora along with a skull mask. It looked cool! They could just follow the killer around for 90 minutes and I would have loved this movie just because he looked neat.
There are plenty of suspects. One of the most notable is Elmo, a slow groundskeeper that has strange expressions and is often peeking into the windows as the women get naked. He is very amusing and they named him “Elmo.” You can’t go wrong with this character! Most of the characters in this are very over the top and fun. This is your typical 80’s style slasher that brings the fun element to the screen.
DEAD GIRLS used a few twists and turns at the end to make it unique, but collectively it wasn’t anything really special. The very ending was great when a surprising decision is made, leaving the main character in quite the pickle.
If you like the whodunit 1980’s style slashers, you will love this. It tries a few different things and has a lot of heart. The killer is badass and the characters are distinct and amusing. I highly recommend this.
Rating: 7.5/10
