Dance of the Dead Like a great number of people into Zombie horror films I had heard nothing but great reviews and criticism about this film, so when I brought a copy of Amazon I was excited to see this film reading reviews that compared it to the now legendary Shaun of the dead which is some kind of feat in and of itself, though sadly this appraisal seems to be both its downfall as much as its main selling point.
The cast, Greyson Chadwick is a fine looking young lass who I would happily knock bones with and a reasonable actress though she is given little beyond generic teen fodder lines to work with, Jared Kusnitz is also a reasonable physical actor at best however not one line is remotely memorable seconds after being said, other than that acting wise no one else really stands out, there's a "tough kid" drop-out who provides the only moderately amusing moment of delivering a weak head but to one of the nerdy kids who's name escapes me, but again he like many is just playing a stock generic run of the mill character like they all are, also there's a young blond girl who's easy on the eye, but with so many of these characters on TV and film these days she's easily forgotten about as are most, a cemetery man who's delivery is so bad and wooden that your so grateful he's only in it for a handful of scenes, and the high school coach who although looks the part over-acts more than anyone else including the zombies in the film, Oh and some lame high school band that play a song that even a elephant would have trouble remembering. Oh and a load of zombies of which none stand out, take a look at Dawn of the Dead, you had nurse zombie, football helmet wearing zombie, Zombie holding riffle the wrong way etc they all had there own unique idiosyncrasies and movements here not one leaves an impression and that's a shame as the Zombie's usually stand out nicely.
Secondly, the story, its been done before time and time again, monsters attack the school and unlikely people save the day, you know the nerds, the freaks, the romantics, the drop-outs, the pizza delivery kid , it's brain-dead horror film making 101 that's not to say that the plot is bad or anything just the same old same old we have seen a million times before, there's beheading and biting and such however it's the same old thing that we have all seen before a million times, the script was bland and feels like a binned script from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, albeit with even less originality than Buffy, and the main gripe being the one thing parody films need is good comic actors, people who are genuinely funny people and can deliver the lines with perfection, however this film doesn't have that at all, it has people on it who don't seem like very likable people once you strip the film down to its core they just seem like the shallow rich teenagers who have invested more in self marketing in trying to make the film go "Cult" than they have on making the film itself.
The Director, the director did the usual thing with contemporary indie genre stuff of making things overly dark as to hide the fact that the film has an obvious low budget, clearly thinking that it makes the film more atmospheric and intense when actually all it does is make you re-tune the brightness of your TV and sit closer to the TV to try and comprehend just what is going on 90% of the time.
And finally we come to the marketing If you do a good search for reviews of this film you'll find endless praise for the film, citing its greatness as an independent film and as a zombie comedy, hey if you go on IMDb you'll find people throwing reviews and hype for this film like no other however and here comes the shocking and hilarious truth of it.
Nearly every review has been submitted, written, or inspired by either film festival goers or the cast and crew of this film and there respected families and friends, bear in mind how many people work on an indie film these days you can imagine the numbers for that being very high indeed, nearly every review is laced with some back slapping high five slapping ass kissing praise or worse so name dropping of the actors involved, seriously imagine the worst film ever having its cast and crew defending it and making a fake buzz about the film in a vein effort to get your cash and get higher sales than its worth, then the defence for such a laudable act according to some of the people involved in the film is "I'm sure you've seen worse films, get over it." Granted we all probably have but rarely have I been duped into seeing something this bad in my life.
Dance of the Dead is a lot like being "Rick Rolled" You know your on a forum or a message board and someone promises something cool and interesting, yet when you click on the said link you get the same old tired joke that only a complete moron would make and only an even bigger moron would find amusing yet the rest of us just click backspace and ignore the person who did it, only to find something better to invest our time in, of course being Rick Rolled takes less time and money and if I'm being honest isn't half as bad as this film.
3/10
The cast, Greyson Chadwick is a fine looking young lass who I would happily knock bones with and a reasonable actress though she is given little beyond generic teen fodder lines to work with, Jared Kusnitz is also a reasonable physical actor at best however not one line is remotely memorable seconds after being said, other than that acting wise no one else really stands out, there's a "tough kid" drop-out who provides the only moderately amusing moment of delivering a weak head but to one of the nerdy kids who's name escapes me, but again he like many is just playing a stock generic run of the mill character like they all are, also there's a young blond girl who's easy on the eye, but with so many of these characters on TV and film these days she's easily forgotten about as are most, a cemetery man who's delivery is so bad and wooden that your so grateful he's only in it for a handful of scenes, and the high school coach who although looks the part over-acts more than anyone else including the zombies in the film, Oh and some lame high school band that play a song that even a elephant would have trouble remembering. Oh and a load of zombies of which none stand out, take a look at Dawn of the Dead, you had nurse zombie, football helmet wearing zombie, Zombie holding riffle the wrong way etc they all had there own unique idiosyncrasies and movements here not one leaves an impression and that's a shame as the Zombie's usually stand out nicely.
Secondly, the story, its been done before time and time again, monsters attack the school and unlikely people save the day, you know the nerds, the freaks, the romantics, the drop-outs, the pizza delivery kid , it's brain-dead horror film making 101 that's not to say that the plot is bad or anything just the same old same old we have seen a million times before, there's beheading and biting and such however it's the same old thing that we have all seen before a million times, the script was bland and feels like a binned script from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, albeit with even less originality than Buffy, and the main gripe being the one thing parody films need is good comic actors, people who are genuinely funny people and can deliver the lines with perfection, however this film doesn't have that at all, it has people on it who don't seem like very likable people once you strip the film down to its core they just seem like the shallow rich teenagers who have invested more in self marketing in trying to make the film go "Cult" than they have on making the film itself.
The Director, the director did the usual thing with contemporary indie genre stuff of making things overly dark as to hide the fact that the film has an obvious low budget, clearly thinking that it makes the film more atmospheric and intense when actually all it does is make you re-tune the brightness of your TV and sit closer to the TV to try and comprehend just what is going on 90% of the time.
And finally we come to the marketing If you do a good search for reviews of this film you'll find endless praise for the film, citing its greatness as an independent film and as a zombie comedy, hey if you go on IMDb you'll find people throwing reviews and hype for this film like no other however and here comes the shocking and hilarious truth of it.
Nearly every review has been submitted, written, or inspired by either film festival goers or the cast and crew of this film and there respected families and friends, bear in mind how many people work on an indie film these days you can imagine the numbers for that being very high indeed, nearly every review is laced with some back slapping high five slapping ass kissing praise or worse so name dropping of the actors involved, seriously imagine the worst film ever having its cast and crew defending it and making a fake buzz about the film in a vein effort to get your cash and get higher sales than its worth, then the defence for such a laudable act according to some of the people involved in the film is "I'm sure you've seen worse films, get over it." Granted we all probably have but rarely have I been duped into seeing something this bad in my life.
Dance of the Dead is a lot like being "Rick Rolled" You know your on a forum or a message board and someone promises something cool and interesting, yet when you click on the said link you get the same old tired joke that only a complete moron would make and only an even bigger moron would find amusing yet the rest of us just click backspace and ignore the person who did it, only to find something better to invest our time in, of course being Rick Rolled takes less time and money and if I'm being honest isn't half as bad as this film.
3/10