Product Details

• Actors: Toni Collette, Piper Laurie, Brittany Murphy, Rose Byrne, Nick Searcy
• Directors: Karen Moncrieff
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: First Look Pictures
• DVD Release Date: May 15, 2007
• Run Time: 83 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000MTFFO0
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #23,263 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Dead Girl" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

The clues to a young womans death come together as the lives of seemingly unrelated people begin to intersect. Studio: First Look Home Entertain Release Date: 08/05/2008 Starring: Giovanni Ribisi Toni Collette Run time: 85 minutes Rating: R

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Powerful and riveting drama, April 19, 2007

By 

MattW "Matt" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Dead Girl (DVD)

An amazing all star cast show off serious acting chops in a dark drama/thriller told in segments and concentrating on different points of view and experiences revolving around the death of a young woman. Harrowing, moving, and suspenseful, the films draws a sudden and suprising conclusion that is both realistic and shocking. A great character piece that paints complicated portraits of its character both both good, bad, and neurotic. I would describe the film as being very dark but told with such conviction and lack of heavy handiness that it's also very entertaining. Toni Collete as always gives an incredible performance alongside quasi walking legend Piper Laurie, Mary Steenburgen, Giovanni Ribisi, Kerry Washington, and many others including stand out performances by an amazing Mary Beth Hurt and a right on target Brittany Murphy (nobody does almost-insane and/or drugged out better than her). A good film elevated by an amazing cast and inspired performances.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Search for Ways to Fill Holes in the Soul, May 17, 2007

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Dead Girl (DVD)

Karen Moncrief has written and directed this terrifying, searching, agonizing, and exceptionally fine story of the responses of five different people to the discovery of a dead girl. By dividing her story into chapters named after The Stranger, The Daughter, The Mother, The Wife, The Sister, and The Dead Girl she offers us fully realized characters, each of whom is affected by the opening discovery of a mutilated young dead girl's body. The technique of non-linear film is not new, but Moncrief raises it to a new, powerful level, a fact that makes this film one of the more sophisticated and successful of the past few years.

Arden (Toni Collette) is a homely frail girl who accidentally discovers the dead girl, taking a necklace from the corpse before reporting the discovery to the police. She is a caretaker for an invalid, foul-mouthed cruel mother (Piper Laurie) who berates Arden for being so ugly and for involving them in a murder case. Arden flees, meets The Stranger Rudy (Giovanni Ribisi), a tattooed, scary appearing guy who is attracted to Arden because she appears so innocent. He courts her with tales of serial killer manners and yet eventually gains Arden's fractured self-perception trust with physical contact. The next chapter introduces Leah (Rose Byrne) who works with Derek (James Franco) in the mortuary where the dead girl's body has been deposited for autopsy. Leah discovers markings on the dead girl that convince her this is the sister who has been missing for 15 years, a fact that her parents (Mary Steenburgen and Bruce Davison) refuse to accept. Leah's tenuous hold on reality is altered by Derek's consolation and physical attention.

The Wife episode offers a view of Mary (Mary Beth Hurt) and Carl (Nick Searcy), a married couple with mutual distrust: Mary knows Carl has flings with prostitutes while Carl feels Mary is too controlling. Mary discovers a chest of torn bloody underwear in one of their business Storage Containers, connects the items with Carl in a suspicion that Carl may be related to the death of the dead girl, and burns them. In The Mother we finally meet the true mother Melora (Marcia Gay Harden) of the dead girl Kritsta (Britanny Murphy) as she traces the clues from the body to a seedy motel where she meets Rosetta (Kerry Washington), Krista's roommate and lover, only to discover that the dead Krista ran away from home to become a prostitute and drug addict in response to a childhood abuse problem with her father. Melora is informed that Krista has an illegitimate three-year-old daughter Ashley whom Krista loved and Melora seeks to care for the only remains of the dead girl - her granddaughter and her lover.

This film beams with brilliant performances: Collette, Harden, Byrne, Laurie, Hurt, Searcy, Washington, Steenburgen, Franco and Ribisi are poignant in their depiction of damaged people whose lives are altered by the Dead Girl. This is ensemble acting of the finest category. The production values are strong and the director's control of what could have been a meandering saga is firm and keeps the story from becoming sensationalized. This is yet another brilliant little film that deserves a very wide audience. Grady Harp, May 07

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finest Film of the Year, June 23, 2007

By 

David S. Jenkins (On the Road) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Dead Girl (DVD)

Absolutely the most remarkable piece of cinema I've seen all year, and one of those rare gems that gives us reason for hope - there actually are brilliant directors and cinematographers out there even though they toil in the fields of low pay and unrecognition. As other reviewers have mentioned it seems unbelievable that I'd never heard a word about this film... but of course I know much more than I need to know about Spiderman 12 and Pirates of the Caribbean 9, all of it drilled into my skull every hour of every day for weeks.

There's not a note of music, a sound, a line, an expression or a bit of body language in this deeply moving film that doesn't ring true. Welcome to the real Los Angeles.

Karen Moncrieff deserved or deserves an Oscar for Best Director, and I doubt there's any film that can match this one for such unfailing brilliant performances by an obviously dedicated cast.

If you're serious about films, don't miss The Dead Girl. It's a hard one to shake off.