Dance of the Dead (Review)

Dance of the Dead

Dance of the Dead (2008)

Directed by Gregg Bishop

You know what we Americans do best? Make a frakin kick ass zombie film.

Score another one for the US of A. USA! USA!

Gregg Bishop's uber indie Dance of Dead rivals Shaun of the Dead's silliness, blends in some 80s Return of the Dead for the millienial age and clicks in some Buffy-logue to boot. It's amazing nobody ever thought to make Buffy but with zombies.

It's a blender of geekiness heroes without the superpowers and makes the sci fi club cool.

And so Dance of the Dead entertainment value has inappropriate language, gore and scenes of violence. Huuuuaaaaaaaa!

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A high school prom is unexpectedly interrupted when a graveyard, next to a nuclear power plant, becomes the sudden source of resuscitated cadavers. As zombies march on the high school, a motley group of dateless teenage outcasts take on the zombies and save the day.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Geeks are 8.7 on the coolness meter. Maybe you didn't get the memo. So our rag tag group of misfits all have that Buffy-ish character mish mash to them. Jimmy our detention anarchist (ala Buffy) and his girl sqeuaky clean Lindsey (Angel?) are joined by Gwen (our Cordelia like cheerleader) and Steven the Xander in love with her.

We got some Willows as well in the form of our Sci Fi club (Jules, George and Rod) and a Giles in the embodiment of a redneck coach. A pseudo Blink 182 band (Dingoes ate my Baby anyone?) complete our contingent. All seem in their dance-verse element, meshing in with their own uniqueness, which I have to say would have been trouble if we the audience didn't like our heroes and heroines.

This is definitely millenial zombie movie for the Generation Y universe. And its damn good. The quips, dialogue and converfunnies are all relatively timed perfect. Massive zombie horde about to attack? Lets jam out and have a prom dance to remember.

The "gear up" weapons montage echoes Raimi and Romero like homages stay true to the maestro.

It's funny and its proud to be it.

As for the zombies, we've got fast movers, slow movers. Take your pick. They all end up gunshot, bashed in and pummeled into slosh. The gore and splatter are in epic form. If CGI was done, it was not noticeable. Bishop and his crew did their zombie homework.

Like a BTVS episode, its tick tocking and it works well. Dance of the Dead is a tour de force of a zombie comedy done uber cool, and LOLing at all the right moments.

Even George could use some pointers from this flick.

Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)

Zombie bashing in all forms (gunshots, decaps, arm and leg rips, etc.)
Ax slicing
Spine ripping
Gunshot head shots
Lots of offsceen crange hijinks

Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)

Some cheerleader cheering (but full frontal boobies, err nada)

WTF moment

A zombie makeout session. That's a first!

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

For all the shitty POV zombie flicks and other zombie reimaginings, a Dance of the Dead comes along and blows you away.

It's a horror comedy that establishes a zombie-verse, makes sure we're entertained by our main characters and unleashes slayerville on the undead.

The ending hints on a possible sequel, and Dance will probably spawn mucho zombie-omedies that will not be as clever.

So if your looking for a decent BTVS fix, put down the season 8 comic and watch Dance of the Dead. And you'll see the sci fi club and anarchist cliques in a whole new light.

Rating:

The Trailer





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