Movie Review: The Gravedancers

Harris (Dominic Purcell) and Allison (Clare Kramer) are a young, attractive couple dealing with all the problems of young, attractive couples. They worry about money, his ex-girlfriend stalking him, him cheating on his wife with the ex-girlfriend, losing friends and being haunted by three ticked off ghosts.

What? That never happens to you? Well, here's what you do. Go get drunk, head over to a cemetery and start dancing on graves at night. But don't tell anyone I sent you.

Harris has gone to the funeral of an old friend when he meets up with two other friends and the three of them decide to have a 'wake' for their deceased buddy. This is a nice idea. But when they are pretty well smashed, one of the guys in the group finds a card on the grave and reads it. Realizing that the words form a cadence, he reads the card aloud.

Folks, there are a lot of horror movie rules — don't go in the basement, and stuff like that. Here is another one: If you find a strange card in a graveyard, don't read the stupid thing out loud. Try to remember that.

So, now we have three vengeful spirits after our daring couple and the other two clowns from the graveyard.

So our modern couple are now dealing with a jealous woman who murdered her lover with an axe and then died several decades ago. Just what every man needs, a dead woman with an axe who has the hots for him. Yes, now she is fixated on our hero and wants him as her boy toy. She is joined in her fun time delights by the spirit of a ten-year-old boy who burned to death in a fire he started and a psychotic rapist who would kidnap and torture women, sometimes letting them starve to death after he used them.

We are not talking about The Three Stooges here, folks. Director Mike Mendez has pulled ideas from films like 13 Ghosts, Hell House and Burnt Offerings, all without copying them. He has taken their influence, the thing that made them such classic films, and put those into The Gravedancers to give us a classy, old-fashioned ghost story. Yee-haw.

Article Author: Larry Stanley

Raised in Arkansas and born in Tennessee, Larry Stanley is just a good old boy who still acts like a kid. He writes reviews of movies, books and videos and in his spare time works at inventing a time machine and proving the belief in Supeerman.
…

Visit Larry Stanley's author page — Larry Stanley's Blog