All the crap that After Dark has put me through is officially forgiven. Seriously, all the atrocious marketing BS and even worse movies (Dark Ride, here's looking at you) are officially forgiven in light of "The Gravedancers." The movie is that good.
It's hard to make an effective and scary ghost story. So many have already been done and the whole genre feels tired. Even the gimmickry of exotic Asian takes on the genre is beginning to fade. One needs look no farther than this years sole major release ghost story, "Dead Silence" to see how dire the situation has gotten.
But somehow Mike Mendez has taken a tired conceit and knocked it out of the park.
"The Gravedancers" tells the story of three friends who sneak into a cemetery after a friend's funeral. While there they find a mysterious and poetic letter that tells them to dance in the hallowed ground. They do so and soon discover they have placed a curse on themselves to be haunted by the ghosts whose graves they defaced. Of course, this being a horror film, they were dancing in the section of the cemetery reserved for "undesirables." The characters in "The Gravedancers" are all well drawn and filled out by the actors and the ghosts are each iconic with unique back stories. Also, the characters act like real people. They look for help and make intelligent decisions. This grounding in reality allows the film to really go off the deep end in its final reel without leaving the audience feeling insulted.
Though one matricidal phantom seems a bit too much of a coincidence haunting the married couple, the film rarely strains credulity and manages to wrap up almost all of its plot lines into one fulfilling arc. Characters die in surprising ways and the gore, though minimal, is done excellently by the team behind "Hellboy." And then there are the scares. I don't scare easy. I've seen hundreds and hundreds of horror flicks and I've taken enough film theory classes in college to know structurally when the jump scenes are coming, but Mendez flips the script and managed to make me squirm with tension and even surprised me more than once. There is one scene with a character waking up in bed that ranks amongst the most unsettling things I've ever seen.
Sadly, the ghost makeup is too cartoony to be effective when seen for any length of time and the film's micro-budget leaves the grand finale awash in sub-par effects that detract from an otherwise exceptional whole. But, because the 80 minutes leading up to the finale are so strong, the audience can easily forgive these short comings.
It's hard to make an effective and scary ghost story. So many have already been done and the whole genre feels tired. Even the gimmickry of exotic Asian takes on the genre is beginning to fade. One needs look no farther than this years sole major release ghost story, "Dead Silence" to see how dire the situation has gotten.
But somehow Mike Mendez has taken a tired conceit and knocked it out of the park.
"The Gravedancers" tells the story of three friends who sneak into a cemetery after a friend's funeral. While there they find a mysterious and poetic letter that tells them to dance in the hallowed ground. They do so and soon discover they have placed a curse on themselves to be haunted by the ghosts whose graves they defaced. Of course, this being a horror film, they were dancing in the section of the cemetery reserved for "undesirables." The characters in "The Gravedancers" are all well drawn and filled out by the actors and the ghosts are each iconic with unique back stories. Also, the characters act like real people. They look for help and make intelligent decisions. This grounding in reality allows the film to really go off the deep end in its final reel without leaving the audience feeling insulted.
Though one matricidal phantom seems a bit too much of a coincidence haunting the married couple, the film rarely strains credulity and manages to wrap up almost all of its plot lines into one fulfilling arc. Characters die in surprising ways and the gore, though minimal, is done excellently by the team behind "Hellboy." And then there are the scares. I don't scare easy. I've seen hundreds and hundreds of horror flicks and I've taken enough film theory classes in college to know structurally when the jump scenes are coming, but Mendez flips the script and managed to make me squirm with tension and even surprised me more than once. There is one scene with a character waking up in bed that ranks amongst the most unsettling things I've ever seen.
Sadly, the ghost makeup is too cartoony to be effective when seen for any length of time and the film's micro-budget leaves the grand finale awash in sub-par effects that detract from an otherwise exceptional whole. But, because the 80 minutes leading up to the finale are so strong, the audience can easily forgive these short comings.