5/10
Enjoyable zombie horror comedy.
23 December 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Dance of the Dead starts as the students & teachers of Cosa prepare for the big end of year prom, everyone who's anybody will be going which means the likes of the geeks, punks & no hoper's have to find something else to do. A bunch of sci-fi geeks head down to the local cemetery & soon discover the dead rising from their graves hungry for human flesh, they try to survive as best they can with what weapons they find & encounter various other people also trying to survive the zombie outbreak. The assorted oddball group decide to stick together & warn everyone at the prom but when they get there they find out that zombies beat them to it & have already killed & eaten most of the guests, it's then that they come up with a plan to destroy all the zombies & save the world...

Edited, produced & directed by Gregg Bishop this very light hearted tongue in cheek zombie horror comedy (a Zom Com?) offers a decent enough way to pass 80 odd minutes but it's nothing amazing or as clever as it tries to be. The script places far more emphasis on the comedy & self referential mickey taking than the actual horror aspects, I think the main inspiration for Dance of the Dead was The Return of the Living Dead (1985) & even more so it's sequel Return of the Living Dead Part II (1988) which large parts of the main story here are taken from but Dance of the Dead doesn't have quite the right mix of humour & horror & I personally didn't think it was that funny either. The humour is very hit & miss, fans of 80's horror & the genre in particular will get more from Dance of the Dead than most I would think. At only 80 odd minutes long Dance of the Dead is pretty short & moves along at a very quick pace but all of the character's are deliberate clichés that are likable enough I suppose & there's not much of a story here, there's some silly ideas as well like the zombies who stop when they hear (awful) rock music. So it has it moments, it's never boring & there's s a few amusing one liners, some decent gore & it's fun for the majority of it's duration.

There's some gore but none of it is lingering or sadistic, it's more played for laughs & is fleeting. There's some flesh eating, some severed limbs, a decapitated head or two, various gory gunshot wounds & a similar sequence as in Return of the Living Dead Part II where a zombies legs walk around after it's upper bodies is ripped off. Not to be confused with the awful Masters of Horror episode Dance of the Dead (2006) from the first season directed by Tobe Hooper. Since the film goes for laughs there's not much in the way of suspense or scares on show.

Probably shot on a low budget the production values are good & it's well made, it doesn't look cheap & has good special effects as well. The acting is alright, I can't say I recognised any of the faces on show but they do a decent enough job.

Dance of the Dead is a perfectly likable & watchable zombie horror comedy with far more emphasis on the comedy than the horror. I thought it was pretty good overall but many of the jokes & gags aren't that funny, at least it's short.
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