Myortvye docheri

First and the most important thing to know about this movie - it's served as a typical horror. And it's NOT.

It's not a ghost story or a teen-slasher-roller-coaster, it is a story of people. Some unfortunates who found their place in society, but haven't found personal harmony with life that's been given to them. Not very pleasant, but truthful slice of modern society. That people don't have any point in their life, they don't know any better than "do what society expects of them", they're cowards and hypocrites, they don't deserve to live and they prove that as film goes. THAT is the story, and it has some ghost motives in the background.

Expect to see people's drama - and you'll get it. Expect to take a ride on a teen-slasher - and you'll miss.

firstly i was really shocked by those extremely negative comments below, so i decided to write this. so: i watched the movie on the la indie film fest with a bad subtitles, in horror program. there's a lot of dialog and it is NOT the horror movie. in-spite of this the film made strong impression to me, i lived it like a piece of lifetime, and i, the watcher, was changed by this movie. - this film DO NOT "entertain". art DO NOT suppose to "entertain" you. if it does, that's good for you, but entertainment is not the aim of real art - watch TV, go circus, make parties, if you need to have pleasure of just spending some funny relaxing moments. What i saw is no doubt a masterpiece, i don'n know the director but i prefer to be in "co-" with Ruminov then with some angry foolish guys (yes, YOU) which do not see, hear, feel art itself, blind mouses in a rat world of kitchen "likes-dislikes", those nazi. If you have bad taste that is your tragedy, what you see from your small eyes is not the reality. try to understand art, or don't talk and write about what you Don't understand.do not try to Analise the landscape if you are blind. don't try to Analise the movie by matching it with some other you luckily just saw. We need to fight for art if we want it to stay on this planet! Do not let them turn the art of cinema into the huge nazi fast-food! So again: this is a great movie, but it is frightening that there soon will be no viewers of such art anymore.

This ain't you typical horror flick, although director Pavel Ruminov makes you think the opposite for the first ten minutes or so. It soon gets obvious that this film is much more sophisticated and thought-provoking than The Ring and other Japanese horror remakes/originals. The whole "ghosts of drowned girls seeking revenge on humankind" premise serves as a backdrop to an eclectic thriller that's rich in social satire, extremely dense in visual detail and is way closer to an existential drama than any other "horror" movie out there. Basically it appeared to be sort of a shock therapy for the Russian audiences. Most of the moviegoers expected to see another quality adaptation of an old Japanese concept, but instead were bombarded with a chain of disturbing and highly involving events that made the viewing experience very personal, intimate, and, it appears, in many cases quite unpleasant. As for me, I had no problems with this film whatsoever, probably because I was already familiar with Ruminov's style of movie-making and actually expected much more than a typical ghost movie.

No one's ever done it in Russia before. And I still cant f...ing believe I saw it yesterday and the world wouldn't – in the nearest 6 months (according the rumors). Taking a profitable original idea, proclaiming "doing the first Russian j-horror movie", getting the best underground (but rather non-major) casting-shooting–post-production team, fighting producers and all surrounding stupidity, Pavel Ruminov made neither a first national teen-horror, as he was expected by anyone, distributors incl., nor a "our answer to the best of genre". It should have been called "an auteur mystical thriller-drama". With a potential of blockbuster". Story of five young people socially trapped by a so familiar legend-of the-dead-dark haired-pussies-killing-everyone-who-sees-their-victim-last turned out to be just a ground for director's eagerness to use 10-year-making-short-movies experience on a big-screen project. Not to forget that in Ruminov's case "making movies" was never without a great deal of keen understanding, exploring and widening cinema horizons. Did he reach one of them? – Definitely yes and not for a minute of his Dead Daughters did he forget of the audience expectations. Brilliant camera-work (by Lyass), incredible city and interior visuals, astounding editing (by PR himself), mind-blowing sounding and variety of genres (well, horror mostly – from hints on Italian gore to the more or less American pattern) exploited during 110 minutes made me think I saw an indieAmerican-European movie, as nothing ever got closer to the cinema art in recent Russian cinema as DD did. Proclaiming himself a Russian Shyamalan-Kubrick-Spielberg kind of filmmaker, Ruminov is not so far from the truth. Surprising twist-in-the-end? Yes. Intelligent style? Yep. Commercial appeal. Well, if Praktika Pictures whose mythic promo-buzz made this project attractive for Hollywood wouldn't slack the speed – everything is possible. Since DD is done, there is nothing for them to be afraid of – unless its director is alive.

Well done camera work - sometimes a bit shaky but for those who watched Lars von Triers movies this is nothing :). Beautiful film. The plot is typical for horror genre, but with a Russian (Dostoevsky type) twist - the monsters don't kill "just because" but for not being "good" - giving you a chance to think about what is good and bad. Sometimes it's not so obvious. Acting could be better but generally it is a well done entertaining movie with good suspense. For reasons not clear, some Russian reviewers got so disgusted with the movie (see the 'valektburg' comment) that I honestly thought it must be personal. The film didn't deserve this kind of reviews.