The Gravedancers (2006)

 

When I first read the synopsis for this movie, I was on the fence about it because everything pointed to “Meh” being the general consensus.  But here’s the thing, it stars Dominic Purcell (Prison Break and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow) who I really like.  It also has Mike Mendez directing and if there’s one thing I know about Mendez is he knows how to do a black comedy horror.  I mean he’s directed Lavalantula, Big Ass Spider, and Satanic Hispanics, what else do you need to know?  But then Gravedancers starts and whoa boy, this isn’t a black comedy horror this is just a straight up ghost/haunting story.  At first, I hated this movie, it’s about everything I hate: thirty-something upper middle-class yuppies meeting at a friend’s funeral and talking over the good old days when they were all in college together.  Boring shit!  Especially considering Purcell, who granted doesn’t have that wide of acting abilities but here he has the personality of an oak tree in winter.  Purcell plays Harris McKay who along with two of his college friends; Josie Maran (Van Helsing and The Mallory Effect) is Kira, Marcus Thomas (Ice Road and Drowning Mona) is Sid. 

 

The three of them are all mourning the loss of their friend who recently died.  Kira and Harris, along with Harris’ wife Allison, who is played by Clare Kramer (Bring It On and D.E.B.S.), go to the funeral but Sid sits it out and meets them at a gathering held afterwards.  The three friends decide to go to a bar to catch up on things.  Allison bows out and goes home letting the friends have the time to mourn their loss.  They decide to take the party to the cemetery where their friend is buried and have a sort of memorial party there.  Sid finds an envelope at the grave site and inside is a poem that encourages them to dance on the graves.  Treating it as a celebration of life, they begin to dance, and they dance on several graves.  Soon all three are seeing the beginnings of being haunted.  Kira is sexually assaulted by a spirit sending her to the hospital.  Sid keeps experiencing things around him catching on fire.  They all decide to go to a paranormal investigator to see if they can help.  Which of course they say they can.  The investigators are Tcheky Karyo (Bad Boys and Goldeneye) as Vincent and Megahn Perry (The Perfect Host and The Convent) is Culpepper his colleague or his assistant, all depends on who you ask. 

 

 

The ghost hunters (don’t call them that) soon discover they are being haunted (and hunted) by three vengeful spirits: a rapist, an axe murderer, and a child pyromaniac.  This one goes from zero to a hunnit in no time.  The beginning, I want to say about the first thirty minutes is crap, I mean maybe not even a one-star rating.  Right around the time Vinnie and Pepper show up, who now that I’ve called them that, sounds like they should be a pair of 70’s detectives, shit starts to get real.  The special effects really start ramping up.  Whoever made the ghosts or spirits or whatever you call them they should be applauded.  They look like serious nightmare fuel.  Just thinking about them as I write this review creeps me out all over again.  By the time I got to the last fifteen minutes of this movie I couldn’t believe it was the same movie I was watching earlier that I thought was terrible.  So, like I said the first third is one star the second third is three stars and the last thirty minutes is close to five stars.  That means I have to math a little here.  OK, I’ll go three heads in a duffel bag out of five.  If that beginning was just a little less terrible, I would go three and a half.  Still, I say give it a go.

We are shooting for two films per day: the orange film and the green film.  Don't read too much into that, I just like those colors for Halloween.  Day one in the books.  Have a great month and a Happy Halloween season!