Val Kilmer was cool to the bone as Iceman in Top Gun, darkly intense as Jim Morrison in The Doors, and charmingly ravaged as Doc Holliday in Tombstone. To witness the star in fully unhinged mode, it’s necessary to track down arguably the most obscure film – ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Girl – on his resume, a movie that’s gone largely unseen for the last 29 years.
This $3 million indie movie was made in 1996, while Kilmer was still a bankable star. Heat and Batman Forever had just come out, and The Saint was just over the horizon. Yet, for some mysterious reason, Kilmer still signed on for an extremely quirky, low-budget, independent movie made by a first-time director.
1996 was an interesting year all-around for the actor. It saw the release of one of his most notorious flops, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and one of his more intriguing semi-successes, The Ghost and the Darkness. The third 1996 entry in Kilmer’s filmography is ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Girl, a movie that was never released theatrically, and that almost no one has ever heard of, let alone seen.
ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Girl Stars Kilmer As The Crazed Dr. Dark
He’s Not The Only Big Name This Movie Mysteriously Roped In
ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Girl tells the story of aspiring actor Ari Rose (Adam Coleman Howard), whose personal and professional struggles lead him to seek the help of psychiatrist Dr. Dark. When Rose shows up at Dark’s office one day in need of counseling, he finds the doctor unavailable, and his son, also named Dr. Dark, holding down the fort in his stead.
The younger Dr. Dark is played by Kilmer, and he is anything but a conventional psychiatrist. Indeed, the doctor seems little interested in the mental breakdown his father’s patient seems to be in the middle of having.
ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Girl writer-director Howard later made Dark Harbor, starring Alan Rickman and Norman Reedus
While Ari unfolds to Dr. Dark the twisted tale of his relationship with the beautiful Helen-Catherine (Anne Parillaud) – including the not-insignificant detail of having murdered her and taken her corpse home – Dark busies himself with frivolous activities: monologuing out the window, obsessing over a huge blow-up pH๏τograph of Faye Dunaway, and practicing his tennis stroke.
Kilmer changes his hair-style and wardrobe from scene-to-scene, like he’s in a wacky spoof movie. It’s hard to say if he’s doing this for his own amusement, or if he’s genuinely trying to destroy the film. Be they snarky subversions or honest attempts at performance, his eccentric touches are responsible for most of the film’s entertainment value.
The only other performer on Kilmer’s level is Amanda Plummer as Frieda, Helen-Catherine’s manic roommate. Frieda is obsessed with Ari, but the would-be actor only has eyes for Helen-Catherine. Ari’s indifference spurs Frieda to insane outbursts, and Plummer dials up the shrieking craziness even higher than she did in Pulp Fiction.
Everyone in the movie seems off their rocker, except for Helen-Catherine, who somehow displeases Ari, and ends up being murdered by him. In a development that only the movie’s writer-director-star finds funny, Ari treats Helen-Catherine’s corpse like a prop, performing allegedly hilarious comedic scenes with her in bed, in the shower, and at the local diner.
The story may focus on Ari Rose and his necrophilia, but there is little of interest to be found in Rose actor Howard’s performance, which toggles randomly between blandness and hysteria. Howard is like Tommy Wiseau without the inexplicable charisma, and one quickly grows tired of his grating presence, while becoming genuinely offended on behalf of Parillaud.
How Kilmer even ended up in the film is a mystery unto itself, but it’s perhaps significant that Howard is the grandson of Ann Landers, the son of “Dear Prudence” columnist Margo Howard, and the stepson of Tony-winning actor and one-time SAG president Ken Howard.
Kilmer’s increasingly weird Dr. Dark scenes provide much-needed relief from Ari’s cringe-worthy exploits. How Kilmer even ended up in the film is a mystery unto itself, but it’s perhaps significant that Howard is the grandson of Ann Landers, the son of “Dear Prudence” columnist Margo Howard, and the stepson of Tony-winning actor and one-time SAG president Ken Howard.
These connections may have helped Coleman secure the services not only of Kilmer and Plummer, but also Famke Janssen, Seymour Cᴀssel and Emily Lloyd. Janssen makes perhaps the most puzzling appearance, playing another woman who seems as vacant as the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Helen-Catherine, until she suddenly speaks.
Kilmer was no stranger to being funny, beginning his career in comedies like Top Secret! and Real Genius. ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Girl benefits greatly from the actor’s deft comedic timing and oddball line delivery, but he can’t save the movie all by himself.
ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Girl Was Released Online For Just One Day
The Producer Hoped The Digital Release Would Spark Interest (It Did Not)
The tale of ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Girl producer Philippe Caland’s efforts to get the movie distributed is more epic than anything to be found within the film itself. Caland indeed told some of that story himself through his documentary Hollywood Buddha, which came out back in 2005.
Caland spoke to Variety around the time of the documentary’s release, indicating he was still looking for someone to acquire ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Girl, and blaming his frustrated efforts on the corporate nature of independent film distribution. The same Variety piece hints that Kilmer’s reps could partly be to blame for the movie remaining shelved.
Caland’s main claim to fame is having written the original story for the Sherilyn Fenn cult movie Boxing Helena.
It would be no surprise if Kilmer was indeed embarrᴀssed by his performance in ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Girl and wanted the movie buried, just as Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire desired to have their notorious low-budget movie Don’s Plum wiped off the face of the earth.
Don’s Plum did eventually get out to viewers overseas, despite DiCaprio and Maguire’s lawsuit. ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Girl has never had anything like a real release, its only official drop coming in 2005, when producer Caland teamed with the now-defunct website NetMusic.com to offer the movie digitally.
ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Girl was made available for exactly one day, and Caland told Variety he didn’t receive any money in the deal. He may have hoped a potential distributor would download the movie that day and become interested, but that apparently did not happen.
A movie made with little skill and almost no taste, ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Girl remains on the shelf, probably forever. Kilmer’s unhinged performance remains on the shelf too, which might be what the late actor wanted, though there is plenty of entertainment value to be found in the unhinged way he brings to life this truly bizarre character.
