Dead Girl, The

TV Guide Ken Fox

All behave in ways that may at first seem incomprehensible, but through Moncrieff's expert storytelling, each woman is finally rendered merely human.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Moncrieff pushes a view of women as victims that might create its own pornography of masochism if it didn't touch so many authentic shattered nerve endings.

Premiere Jenni Miller

Dark little indie thriller.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

The cast is something of an indie movie hall of fame that includes Giovanni Ribisi, Mary Steenburgen, Brittany Murphy, and Toni Collette. Marcia Gay Harden is particularly fine as the murdered girl's mother.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

There is no surprise or justice or sense to the whole thing. Just sadness. And a sense of all the lonely people and where they all come from.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Moncrieff manages to get beneath the skin of several of these characters, a nifty trick considering what a crowded world she's created. In all, it's a grueling, emotionally taxing, discomfiting film.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The film is also an impressive showcase for a large ensemble cast that also includes Josh Brolin, James Franco and Kerry Washington. The standout, however, is Hurt, who gives an almost unbelievably courageous performance as the movie's least sympathetic character.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

A challenging film populated with characters who are depressed, on antidepressants, or strung out on mood-altering drugs, The Dead Girl is a downer with resonance.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

As with her debut feature, "Blue Car," Moncrieff treats sensational material with a disarming matter-of-factness that ultimately makes a deeper impression.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

By the movie's end, writer-director Karen Moncrieff's The Dead Girl delivers considerable emotional impact. But that doesn't mean you've enjoyed the journey.

Variety Robert Koehler

More ambitious than her 2002 debut, "Blue Car," Moncrieff's new film maintains her focus on women, expanding to include a range of ages, circumstances and psychologies. Picture's drama, however, is deliberately fractured into a quintet of stories that vary considerably in their overall impact.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

The universe of The Dead Girl is an almost uniformly dreary one, whose women are all either dowdy or whorish.

Village Voice Jim Ridley

Moncrieff's glum, somber film is something of a needed corrective at the moment, when horror movies are turning into weightless exercises in morally sanctioned sadism.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Confounds expectations -- about slasher stories and about film narrative in general, in part by being closer to a collection of interconnected short stories than to a novel.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Darker than the shadow of death.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The way Moncrieff has structured The Dead Girl, it's catnip for actors: Divided into five chapters, the script affords juicy roles requiring only a few days' work from each member of its impressive ensemble.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust

If the segments are uneven, Moncrieff -- with the help of her excellent cast -- nevertheless crafts a gripping overall narrative that exposes a shared dissonance among the protagonists.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Stylish, highly accomplished and, thanks to its severely restrained palette, mostly off-putting.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The film is mired in gloom, not just sadness, but heaviness.

New York Post Kyle Smith

What happens when several characters' lives intertwine with the maggot-infested corpse of a prostitute in The Dead Girl? A whole lot of crying.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Just when it seems as though the language of insult and humiliation couldn’t get any nastier, the movie escalates the barrage.