Part of the Narrative Spotlight at this year’s South By Southwest Film & TV Festival, DEAD HEER HIGH is one of the more anticipated entries in this year’s festival!
About: In the aftermath of a tragedy, a once-brilliant slam poetry team has lost their voice. While their English teacher, Mr. K, struggles to overcome his crippling fear of returning to the classroom, the team of young poets, led by Stephanie, must prepare for this year’s slam championship just a few months away. The odds are stacked against them: they’ve lost their star poet, team members JT and Kyle are constantly fighting, the parents and administration are worried this is all “too soon,” and the competition is tougher than ever. To win, and to heal, Mr. K and the kids must learn the power of their own voice on the national stage.
A powerful story of healing, poetry, and resilience in the face of tragedy, Dead Deer High was directed, written, produced, and edited by teachers.
Reaction: A lovely slice of the Seattle area with a pulse, DEAD DEER HIGH started to get to me as I saw its premise slowly but surely develop throughout our lead character’s slam poetry. How this develops after a particular tragedy I dare not reveal, but I love how the movie slowly but surely reveals its character motivations as well as the amazing dynamic teachers have on their students, and vice versa.
While I loved seeing all the teacher characters here truly passionate about helping students express themselves, there are also some really good performances by the younger cast here, in particular Madelyn Grace, who I spent half the movie wondering where I had seen her before and noted that I saw her a few years ago in the DON’T BREATHE 2 sequel. She’s a standout here along with Joshua Roark as one of our lead poets. Since this was all created by teachers, I was also pleased to see the relationships between the teachers and students here have strong dimensions and I loved seeing the process of them all working together.
I was also reminded of the slam poetry movie called, yes, SLAM from 1998 which was a movie about a man trying to use slam poetry to deal with the crime in his neighborhood. It’s a different premise here in DEAD DEER HIGH, but the movie has a similar effect in how its slam poetry totally captivates you as you are watching it, and in one of the film’s final segments I was truly floored by not only how words can help heal but also challenge us to do better.
DEAD DEER HIGH is a smaller releaser and in most cases, this will have an uphill battle to fina an audience, and I wish it success. As this is the world premiere, I also look forward to seeing where the movie goes next on the festival circuit and eventually finding its way to more audiences (in particular more schools, I hope). Maybe the Seattle International Film Festivalcould also give it a good home? Either way, seek this out if it comes your way.
This film and many others like it are showing at South By Southwest this year from March 12-18. For more information on this and other titles, point your browser to www.sxsw.com!
Great review, but I think you got the name wrong in your story. Josh Roark is not one of the actors, he is the writer/ producer. I think you meant to say Holden Goyette who plays JT? All the cast was fantastic. What a tough story to tell, and some of what you see in the film is from actual experiences. I stayed for the q and a after the film and learned that the bird scene is from actual events that happened to one of the teachers! Impactful. I can only imagine what it is like to grow up nowadays being a kid and living with the burden and threats of gun violence every day. Great job to all the filmmakers. Great review.