The Gravedancers DVD review

The film’s story is fairly simple. A group of friends mourning the loss of their friend go on a drinking binge by his grave and discover a mysterious black card that contains a poem. The friends read the text out loud and dance on the graves near because it seemed like the thing to do. Things start to get freaky after that as it seems that the occupants of said graves are a little peeved that these drunkards disturbed their eternal sleep. With the help of a parapsychologist they try to stop the merciless attacks that are far from subtle and are turning deadly. You see the graves they danced on were situated in the part of the cemetery where the criminals and the unwanted of society were buried. A child arsonist, a perverted judge and an ax wielding piano teacher are people best not fucked with so the three friends are in a heap of trouble to say the least. They have till the next full moon to try and stay alive and the ghosts are just getting stronger and eager to get the people six feed under.
The first thing you notice with this film is that is not the crazed, humor filled horror fare that Mendez took on with The Convent. The film takes itself very seriously with a little black humor thrown in the mix and some of it works and some of it doesn’t. The horror scenes are well handled and it’s apparent that Mendez has a great eye for creepy things and the dark surroundings. The thing I liked the most about the film were the ghost designs, with their stretched out grins on their face and dead white eyes. The action scenes I liked as well as Mendez isn’t afraid to throw his leading ladies through a wall or two. The film doesn’t rely on gore to freak out the viewer but rather mood and setting which it does well. The effects are handled well, most being practical make up effects but the film turns to CGI during the last two or three minutes of the film but it’s well handled and doesn’t hurt the ending, although I’m sure some people might find it a little over the top. The script is probably the weakest link of the chain. The characters are not well formed and you know very little about them other than the little exposition you get in the beginning. It’s a run of the mill horror story and nothing overtly original but Mendez keeps it fun and scary and that what matters the most.
As for the acting the cast is likeable enough to make you not hate anyone or guess who goes first. Dominic Purcell is much better here than he was as the Russian mobster look-a-like vampire lord in Blade Trinity. The dude looks like he could kick some serious ass but here he is flung around like a rag doll by the spooky creatures. Major hottie Josie Maran plays Purcell’s former girlfriend and gets the worst treatment of all of the three from the ghosts and Marcus Thomas plays the last of the group, the friend who didn’t fare as well in life as his other buddies and bears a little jealousy towards Purcell’s character. Rounding up the cast are Megahn Perry, French character actor Tcheky Karyo as the parapsychologists and Buffy alumnus Clare Kramer as Purcell’s wife. The acting is fine all through although I wasn’t too keen on Marcus Thomas but Karyo is delightful in his part and keeps what little humour there is in the script flowing.
While I enjoyed The Convent more than this you can’t really compare the two as they are totally different in tone. Mendez clearly doesn’t want to get pigeon holed as a one trick shock pony and he does very well with this. This is a guy who should be doing a lot more films than he has done because he clearly has the talent. He just needs a solid script to prove it.
I watched this film of a bizarre Dutch DVD release that boasted a very nice looking tin case and promised a 2 disc special edition. There are two discs in the set but they are totally unrelated. The first disc is of course the feature, with no extra materials other than a few trailers. The technical specs are pretty good, clean and clear picture and nice DTS sound. So it’s a good presentation of the film. The second disc however is something that I feel that the distributor had a crap load of in his warehouse and saw a way to get rid of it easily. It’s a disc featuring two episodes of the TV series The Unexplained about Poltergeists and Spontaneous combustion. I can sort of understand the Poltergeist one being there but there is no Spontaneous combustion in the film although there is fire so maybe they thought that this episode would be relevant. It’s the sort of stuff Discovery Channel puts on, on a slow night and like I said is something that seems to have been thrown in there as a filler and to make is seem like the release was more special than the barebones edition that it really is. I heard that the US release will be featuring extras that have actually something to do with the movie so I’m sure I’ll pick it up when it arrives. You should too.