Product: The Dead Girl (2006)
Rating: 4.0
Along the Edges of a Murder
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.