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Short summary

A female band, who are exponents of "death rock", retreat to a cabin for the weekend. They soon find themselves being knocked off by a masked killer who uses weapons they have mentioned in their songs.

User reviews


  • comment
    • Author: Dorintrius
    This film is a blast! DEAD GIRLS falls into the now-defunct category of "heavy metal horror," a small subgenre that mixed 80s rock mentality, big hair and leather pants with either a slasher or satanism horror plot. Other films in this field include ROCKTOBER BLOOD (1984), TRICK OR TREATS (1986), SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROCK (1987) and SHOCK 'EM DEAD (1990), but DEAD GIRLS has them all beat. Despite a loopy plot and low-budget limitations, director Dennis Devine pulls out the stops to make sure this is an entertaining film.

    The Plot: Gina, lead singer of the all-female rock band The Dead Girls, has ESP abilities and foresees the future. In the opening dream, Gina's sister Brooke ("Life's a dog! A total bummer!") and her friends commit group suicide, slashing their wrists with razors. Brooke ends up surviving, so Gina and the band travel back to her hometown, where everyone finds their morbid lyrics to be responsible for the teenage suicide deaths. The band decides they need a vacation so Brooke can recooperate and they can avoid bad publicity, so off they go (with tour manger Jeff and a nurse) to a secluded lakeside cabin. A black-gloved psycho in a trench coat and skull-face mask shows up and starts to kill everyone off. The murderer kills according to the band lyrics, leaving behind such titles as "Nail Gun Murders" and "Drown Your Sorrows" at the scene of each murder.

    Points are deducted from the film for its fully clichéd plot, and it is, like I said, a late bloomer in both the slasher genre and the heavy metal film genre, but it's still a very fun flick...featuring fine acting from a likable cast, good gore effects and a well-written script with several interesting plot twists. Some may think the end goes a TAD bit overboard, but it's unpredictable and original. And despite what the other poster said, this was not shot on video. The film looks fine.
  • comment
    • Author: Kabei
    *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!* Some horror fans would probably debate with me over this. Some think BLOODSTREAM his Dennis Devine's best film. Considering I haven't seen it yet, I will say DEAD GIRLS is probably his best film. It was a late entry in the genre, but it still managed to entertain. It also has some chilling moments (i.e. the dream sequences with Gina's sister Brooke come to mind). DEAD GIRLS tells the story of an all girl rock band called "The Dead Girls" whose main claim to fame is performing songs about suicide, death, and destruction. Gina, the leader of the band is called back home because her sister Brooke attempted suicide after listening to her sister's songs ("Life's a dog!" A total bummer!" "The only to get out is to end it!") A line she spouts to her friends as she convinces them to commit mass suicide. Upon her arrival home, her aunt (a grotesque man-looking woman who condemns Gina for her lifestyle) hassles her, Brooke's boyfriend blames Gina, and Brooke's church pastor tells Gina she has strayed from her path with God. On top of all this, Gina is having horrible nightmares of being murdered by her sister, Brooke. In order to recuperate and spend time with her sister, Gina and her band, along with Brooke, Brooke's bitchy nurse, and their bodyguard head up to Gina's family's cabin for a nice vacation. Soon, the band members start dying horribly, one by one. They are killed off according to songs that the band has performed (i.e. Drown Your Sorrows, Nail Gun Murders). The remaining band members and Gina try to figure out who is killing everybody and try to stay alive. I was actually surprised by who the killer was. His motive wasn't that original, but the actor pulled it off well. The woman who plays Gina also did quite well in her role. She is a good actress who showed potential. Too bad she is no longer actively involved in the industry. I'm positive she would have made it to the A-List industry.

    The negatives of DEAD GIRLS was the choppy editing and the horrible mono sound sometimes resulting in the actor's dialogue being muffled. Horror fans should be happy to know that it sports a decent body count and a wonderful twist ending that I did not see coming. Any self-respecting horror fan should enjoy DEAD GIRLS. It's a prime example of the late 80s/early 90s "Heavy Metal" slasher flick sub-genre that soon died out. It's probably the best one too. Unfortunately, DEAD GIRLS is now super-rare and I doubt it will ever see a legitimate DVD release. If you are able to track it down, I urge any horror fan to buy it. It's definitely worth the price.
  • comment
    • Author: ChallengeMine
    Dead Girls puts us back in killer stalking heavy metal group territory, only this time it's an all girl gang of head bangers put to the sword. With the amount of rock bands that have been stalked since the slasher genre launched in the early eighties, it's amazing that there's any of them left recording! It all kicked off with movies like Terror on Tour and Rocktober Blood, which were the first hack and slashers to feature a band as the body count material. Even the Australians got involved with the sub-genre giving us Ollie Martin's insipid Houseboat Horror just before the turn of the decade. The theme ran extremely sporadically throughout the nineties, probably because the genre was phased out due to poor sales and even poorer production qualities. But after the Wes Craven inspired reinvigoration in 96, movies like Slash and Backlot Murders have given the category a new lease of life to build upon…

    Lucy Lethal, Cynthia Slayed, Nancy Napalm, Randy Rot and Bertha Beirut are all members of the heavy metal band Dead Girls. They have found notoriety with a gimmick that revolves around murder, death and lyrics that glorify suicide. Bertha Beirut is the lead songwriter and would like to try and move them in a more uplifting direction, but her band mates just don't think it would work. "We're the Dead Girls not the Shirelles," remarks Lucy Lethal sarcastically. Looking at the clearly bemused songwriter she continues, "You call yourself Bertha Beirut and strangle yourself with the American flag every night, so we're not gonna break out in a chorus of Stand by your man!" I'm pretty sure that Tammy Wynette would certainly agree…

    Just as the group are about to embark on a nationwide radio, television and stage tour, Bertha receives a shocking letter via special delivery. Her younger sister Brooke has attempted to commit suicide whilst repeatedly listening to their morbid album and she is currently comatose in a hospital bed. After visiting the youngster, Bertha decides that the band need to be alone together for a short time to clear their heads and maybe start afresh. They head out to a remote cabin in the woodland to find some peace and serenity away from the pressure of their superstar status. Meanwhile, an ominous stranger dressed in a black raincoat, gloves, fedora and skull mask has decided to follow the band to their retreat and is sadistically slaughtering the musicians one by one. It seems someone else has taken the death gimmick a tad too seriously…

    Director Dennis Devine (who also had a hand in slashers Blood Stream and Fatal Images respectively)) admits that Dead Girls is widely regarded as the best of his B movie output. He also notes that it was possibly the most difficult and frustrating project that he has worked upon, which was mainly due to the size of the script that he had to squeeze into a fourteen-day timescale. Apparently the abysmal weather conditions didn't help, as he had to shoot a lot of scenes outdoors and it kept snowing at all the wrong times. Snowing in California – now that was bad luck!

    Despite these production blunders, Dead Girls is at least a relatively enjoyable late entry to the cycle. It takes a little while to step up a gear, but once the victims are stranded in the realms of woodland wilderness - struggling to uncover the maniac's identity - it provides a few cheesy thrills. All the essential slasher movie regulations are intact, including a tad of nudity, some tacky gore and a soundtrack of ear numbing heavy metal that seems only to be found in these kind of pictures. There's even a gooey finger-lopping scene, which looks to have been inspired by Tony Maylem's The Burning.(Although co-director Stve Jarvis swears blind that it wasn't!) The killer himself looks pretty creepy in a decent rubber skull-mask and traditional Giallo-like psycho garb and there's more than enough suspects to keep viewers playing the guessing game until the film's lengthy climax.

    The only real problems with Dead Girls are those that plague almost every other genre attempt from this period – uneven performances. It doesn't even look as if Devine hired this particular cast for their looks, as they're not your typical buxom bimbo brainless Dolly Parton wannabees.It's a shame that the dramatics continuously blow so hot and cold, because in this particular movie it really does hold back the chance of a higher rating. Some of the potential shown by the leads was hampered by unconvincing work from the supporting cast, which never allows the motion picture to fulfil it's full potential.The only other complaint I have to make is the amount of twist and turns leading up to the films conclusion. Some could call this artistic flair, while others will just want to know the true culprit ASAP!

    Dead Girls is hilariously cheesy and gratuitously gruesome in the same breath and adds just the right amount of both to remain interesting. Recommended to fans of rare-ish slasher movies that enjoy gore and decent killer disguises. Oh and for those who often falsely note that Dead Girls was shot on video - WRONG! In fact this was Dennis Devine's first feature to be shot on film…
  • comment
    • Author: Mbon
    Heh heh heh. Good news my fellow stinky moovie fans. You, yes, you too can make a cheeeeeeap, easy horror film of yer very, very own! Dew yew have your own camcorder? Got a few jiggly female friends?? Got at least 2 brain cells to rub together??? Cowgradulations!! You too can make a lame, dull, infantile stinker just like Dennis Devine("Things", "Amazon Warrior", "Vampires of Sorority Row")! "Dead Girls", indeed! Starring a bunch of nameless, faceless, brainless jiggly bimbos, this straight-to-video piffle is definitely dead on arrival. The jigglers try to pass themselves off as a death rock band by wearing dark, revealing clothing, big hair, & lots of make-up. Someone finds their mindless droning offensive & decides to kill them off one at a time in a cabin someplace cheap to film. But it's moore of a Whocares than a Whodunnit, because the characters are all thinner than Celine Dion's wrist. They are tacky, unattractive, gum-chomping bimbos that you wouldn't bother peeing on if they went up in flames before you. Poverty level production values, rank amateur acting, non-existant direction, and a wretched soundtrack are all waiting for you in "Dead Girls". This is the sort of feeble flick that makes an ultra-cheapie like "Cannibal Hookers" look professional. Needless to say, the MooCow does not recommend that you spend dime one on this disaster. In fact, if you were to pick it up off the shelf merely to glance at it, you've wasted moore time, energy, and thought than this flick deserves. But that's why the MooCow is here, folks: watching wretched, stinky films so you don't have to. Give this one a wide berth in the horror isle. :=8P
  • comment
    • Author: Alexandra
    A frenzied killer wearing a fedora and a skull mask stalks and murders the members of hard rock group Dead Girls during their weekend in the cabin.The girls have interesting names for example Nancy Napalm,Bertha Beruit,Lucy Lethal and Cynthia Slain.There is also mildly retarded Elmo the caretaker who enjoys watching girls naked or semi-naked."Dead Girls" by Dennis Devine is one of the few better rock slasher movies.The cast is OK,the budget is low and the killings are suitably gory.I enjoyed its downbeat ending too.It's a crying shame that we don't see Dead Girls performing on stage.As a fan of depressive black metal or doom metal I'd like to hear their lyrics about suicide and death.Fans of "Rocktober Blood" or "Terror on Tour" should give this one a try.6 suicide pacts out of 10.
  • comment
    • Author: IWAS
    A fresh, hot new death metal band called Dead Girls is ripping through the charts and perhaps due to their depressing subject matter and lyrics leave teenage suicides in their wake. One band member Gina (Diana Karanikas) is having horrible dreams and visions which along with the suicides lead the band to take a two week hiatus to get their heads back in gear. So, off to the cabin in the woods to get killed off one by one.

    It really is a bad horror film that makes a late entry into the slasher genre that includes spotty acting and nothing really new. A sad point as well is not only do you not see the band perform, individually they never even play a musical instrument during the entire movie. For me the viewer that does strain on the belief that these five band members are in a band together. Not to mention they also seem to be at each other's throats during the movie. May not have lasted long anyways if they weren't killed off. Also steals from a much better FRIDAY THE 13TH as we are left with young people alone without anyway of communicating with the outside world and we do not know who the killer is. Problem is I guessed the killer before they even got to the cabin. I also thought the ending was pretty stupid.
  • Cast overview, first billed only:
    Diana Karanikas Diana Karanikas - Gina
    Angela Eads Angela Eads - Dana
    Kay Schaber Kay Schaber - Amy
    Angela Scaglione Angela Scaglione - Susie
    Steven Kyle Steven Kyle - Mark
    Deirdre West Deirdre West - Nurse
    Jeff Herbick Jeff Herbick - Jeff
    David Chatfield David Chatfield - Mike
    Ilene B. Singer Ilene B. Singer - Brooke
    David Williams David Williams - Elmo
    Brian Chin Brian Chin - Artie (as Brian Burr Chin)
    Mara Holland Mara Holland - Karen
    Marshall Martin Marshall Martin - Reverend
    Robert Harden Robert Harden - Sheriff
    Carol Albright Carol Albright - Aunt Annie
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