Trigger Warning: The subject matter within Dead Deer High centers on the aftermath of a school shooting. While a great deal of care is given to ensuring little feels melodramatic, the material may still be difficult for sensitive viewers.
As of the time of this publishing, there have been 108 mass shootings in 2026 as of March 30th. Of those, at least five of them occurred on college campuses and three at K-12 institutions Events like these are not new in North America with even the likes of Kids in the Hall member Scott Thompson having survived one himself as a kid. Rather than dealing with the issue of access to weapons and increasing mental health services, school administrations and government officials seem to encourage children to accept shootings alongside other school-related downers like homework and detention. This is a key component of filmmaker Jo Rochelle’s (Jasmine Is a Star) latest drama, Dead Deer High, having its world premiere in the Spotlight section of SXSW Film & TV Festival 2026. Though it’s well-intentioned as it seeks to highlight the importance of art and community for the process of healing, Dead Deer High struggles as it attempts to balance theme and character.
Still reeling from the loss of their teammate after a school shooting, WordQuake Champions Stephanie, Kyle, JT, and their teacher, Mr. Kelly (Kyla Brown, Christian Cruz, Holden Goyette, and Zack Kozlow, respectively), are each battling their own demons as the time to defend their title arises. The question isn’t whether or not they want to compete, but whether they have the capacity to as their sorrow threatens each of them in vastly different ways.
It’s a pretty middle-of-the-road notion that children who attend school should feel safe there and that taking steps to ensure that safety are neither progressive nor conservative ideas. This seems to be the stance of Joshua Roark’s script (his first time as a screenwriter) in the way that it utilizes secondary and tertiary characters to espouse the typical “good guy with a gun” mentality and other reactions that more often minimize the trauma of violence, while freeing the characters at the center from having to make such proclamations and, therefore, make the film mired in political opinion. Of course, the way in which the characters react to these opinions is telling all on its own, from the administrators who try to maintain employment for Mr. Kelly (whose denial of trauma forces him to teach from a window outside his class) to a sibling who would rather provide so-called “solutions” than listen to a parent who seeks comfort in faith, each places the onus on others rather than on those with the power to take action. Having been a college educator who taught traditional and non-traditional students, the answer isn’t metal detectors and arming teachers, though anyone with a stake in the school security industry will likely disagree. It’s significant, then, that Roark and Rochelle place a bit of emphasis on the inclusion of a school therapist who seeks to challenge Mr. Kelly and the other three; the notion being that individuals can’t improve, can’t heal, without the tools to even acknowledge outwardly that they’re flailing. This is an important message and one that deserves being uplifted alongside the poetry that flows throughout the film — each line, each stanza, a sorrowful and rage-filled challenge to those who continue to fund law enforcement rather than enact solutions that might actually help prevent communities from suffering such tragedies. Unfortunately, the character focus is so splintered and the depth of the examination is so shallow that all of the well-intended aspects are lost.
L-R: Kyla Brown as Stephanie and Christian Cruz as Kyle in DEAD DEER HIGH. Photo courtesy of SXSW.
The film introduces four primary characters at the start — the three members of the spoken word team and Mr. Kelly — but the bulk of the film centers the teacher. He’s the most outwardly-expressing character, his trauma visible to anyone looking at him by virtue of his inability to enter the classroom or school building. He literally sits on a stool at his window and teaches from there. Through various scenes, we come to understand that his passion for teaching remains unabated, Mr. Kelly just can’t cross the threshold of his classroom window to enter the building. It’s through Mr. Kelly that the audience gets their first sense of a past trauma via exposition and it’s through this character that much of the film revolves. However, this choice minimizes the respective arcs of the three students who are important to the larger narrative at work and its themes involving restoration and healing, yet are not given the same narrative position as Mr. Kelly. This means that moments that should be powerful for the characters come off feeling unearned. We’re more or less told how to feel instead of being on the journey with them. Perhaps this is a problem of expectation wherein one surmises that, given the topic and structure, the audience will be getting to know the students as well as the teacher, yet, because of the absence of intimate character exploration, one feels distant to the ones impacted by the incident and, as a result, feel distant to the whole of Dead Deer High.
To their credit, the performances by Brown (Lazareth), Cruz (Masukista), Goyette (Zilla and Zoe), and Kozlow (Devil’s Domain) pull the audience in. Especially during the poetry readings that the three younger performers complete in their roles, one can feel their authenticity in the moment. Poetry recitation, particularly in slam poetry, requires presence and immediacy, which each of them offers. It’s more often through these performances that the audience gets a better understanding of who their respective characters are and what they’re going through. It’s also to the credit of the script that Roark doesn’t dumb things down with a great deal of exposition, using only just enough to tell us what we need to know, and then spending the rest of the film teasing details. This makes the world of the characters feel realized as there are some things that would be discussed naturally and others that would not. It’s because of this the audience doesn’t receive an info dump on everyone at the start, but is given details as is natural within a moment. Kozlow handles the responsibility of the character around which the film truly revolves with depth and grace. Not a single dishonest performance resides within any of the four co-leads. All of this is supported by Rochelle’s confident direction and a few cinematography choices from Anup Kulkarni (San Francisco Bae) that keep guns as visual metaphors that are never seen but always known by the characters.
It’s because of the performances, direction, and cinematography that one remains curious about the film, even as it dissatisfies in the watch. It’s not that the perspective of Mr. Kelly is invalid (it’s key), and it’s not that the decentering of the victim is an issue (the film is about the wake left not the incident itself), but the absence of exploration on the students beyond cursory needs so as to go into greater depth as to the pre-existing trauma that courses through Mr. Kelly makes one feel as though the film is unsure of who should be explored. This results in a dissatisfying conclusion that comes off as manufactured and manipulative rather than earned. We’re told what to feel and how, when that’s not the purpose of art. Based on the words of Mr. Kelly in his poetry class, he would likely agree that art is meant to pull something out of you, not necessarily tell you what precise thing to feel or think. As such, while one roots for the success of Dead Dear High, another pass before performance day may be in order to bolster those weaknesses so as to bring home the gold.
Screening during SXSW Film & TV Festival 2026.
For more information, head to the official SXSW Film & TV Festival Dead Dear High webpage.
Final Score: 2.5 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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