A music video for Edinburg-based band Auld Spells
Lyrically, “Dead Gurl” ruminates on the last hours of a recently deceased young woman. Early in the development the music video, Mills decided she was not interested in creating visuals to match what the song’s lyrics describe. Instead, Mills chose to subvert the narrative tendency to sensationalize and idealize the lives of young women who meet sudden and tragic ends.
In the video, Mills creates an ambiguous yet mystical scenario for the titular “dead girl” to play in. Is our ingenue merely an innocent victim or is she a killer herself? Is she mortal or a siren tempting naifs into her viscous pools of mire? Regardless of how she died (or if she died) she rejects self-piteous wallowing in the potential tragedy of her fate and blissfully embraces the deluge of abyssal darkness in which she resides.
Mills also handled color, wardrobe, art direction, and special effects for this video.
“Dead Gurl” was included in Cold Waves Festival’s Season Of The Glitch 2020 in Chicago, IL and in Grrl Haus Cinema’s Best of 2022 in Cambridge, MA.