The Gravedancers Year: 2006 Director: Mike Mendez Written by: Brad Keene, Chris Skinner Threat: Ghosts Weapon of Choice: Fire Based upon: none Color/B&W/3D: Colour Language: English Country of Origin: USA IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
Please see the After Dark Horrorfest series page.

Rish's Reviews
When a friend of theirs dies, a group of old friends meet at the graveside, sweet, sweet alcohol dulling their better judgment. When they read a poem suggesting they dance in the cemetery, they do so . . . stirring up the ire of the ghosts of those whose graves they defile. Unluckily for our heroes, it's not a kindly old schoolmarm or silent film actor they awakened that night.
The Gravedancers was the first film we saw in the series touted as "Eight Films To Die For." And this was quite a good film. It wasn't great, but it well could've been: the premise is an excellent one, the cast is attractive, the characters interesting, and the dialogue is pretty freaking wonderful.
I do wonder, in cases like this one, how much more work it would've taken to make a great film out of a good one, and if people would be willing to put forth the effort if they knew.
My theory is, a lot of people (both in the filmmaking community and those outside it) don't know what it takes to make a great film. When things in movies really work, there are probably a lot of unknown factors, like actor chemistry, a talented editor, really good cinematography and lighting, the proper score, etc. that contribute to a successfully made film. But a lot of times, you don't know what you have until it happens.
But you know what? It may be that greatness begins with the right screenplay, and a good director can see a great movie in his head simply by reading the script.
I don't know, though. I'm not sure how great films are made, and how they are separated from the mediocre and only good ones. If I did, you'd be on a website writing, "The latest effort from filmmaker Rish Q. Outfield proves that monkeys aren't the only ones that make a habit of handling excrement," instead of reading me doing it.
I will tell you this, the first half of Gravedancers is excellent. It's scary as an English child's voice at your ear in the middle of the night. There's one image of a ghost in our heroes' bedroom that is nut-shrivelingly scary.
But eventually, the first half ends and the second half begins.
There's some rather cheap CGI towards the end which, frankly, undercuts the tension and the impressiveness of the threat. And it gets illogical and a little silly, which is really too bad. Of the three After Dark Horrorfest films tyranist and I have seen, this was the best one, and I do recommend it. I just wish it was as good as it could have been.
Posted: July 4, 2007

The tyranist's thoughts
When we first heard about the Horrorfest, Rish and I thought that it had been made specifically for us. Normally, this kind of flick only gets a screening in a major market (the closest thing to a major market is about 9 hours away by car and the closest thing to a major film market is about 12 hours away). But here, they were showing 8 horror films that weren't going to get wide releases together in a festival type format for one weekend in November. Brilliant.
But two significant interferences made us miss the theatrical festival. First, Rish's job, at the time, directly conflicted with all of the times they were showing the films and second, that was the weekend Casino Royale came out. And if you think I'm a big horror film fan, don't even get me started about James Bond.
Anyway, when these finally hit DVD and we decided to watch what we could of them, this was our first choice. It had about the best trailer and so far has turned out to be the best movie in spite of a weak ending. I liked the ghosts, I liked the plot, I liked the actors (mostly). I did find the actual grave dancing sequence to be a bit silly, but the movie worked pretty well until they started in with the bizarre and horrible CGI stuff.
Unfortunately, I don't have much more to say about it. I liked this movie and I would recommend it to any horror fan. It's not going to work for everyone, but it's better than the rest of the After Dark stuff I've seen so far.
Posted: July 4, 2007

Total Skulls: 21

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?