Dance of the Dead

So now we come to the dregs of my Netflix queue. I am not really in the mood for “good” movies right now so I went down my list to something that looked like it might be fun. Nothing spells fun more than zomedies. By the way, zomedy = zombie comedy. Or at least they’re fun when they’re called ‘Shaun of the Dead’.

I went with a seemingly foolproof plan in launching this one from #185 to #1 on my list. That plan? Well, ‘Dawn of the Dead’ was excellent, ‘Night of the Living Dead’ was as well, ‘Evil Dead’ is a classic as is the aforementioned ‘Shaun of’. It seems like the word ‘dead’ makes movies amazing. So I decided to test it.

I won’t be too hard on this movie because it wasn’t made to be “good” per se. It was made to be a somewhat fun 97 minute distraction full of laughs and gore. But only one of the two is delivered. Guess which one.

Anyways, the plot focuses on a group of high school kids who are too lame to get dates to the prom. Did I mention that the town they live in is next to a nuclear power plant? K, moving on…

These four guys decide to go out and investigate the local graveyard for some reason that I either cannot or don’t care to remember. Long story short; the mausoleum is empty and the dead dude is now a zombie. Then, for reasons unknown, zombies start flying out of every grave in the cemetery like they were spring-loaded under the goddamn ground (:50 into the trailer). It takes quite a bit of leg strength to dig your way six feet upwards and then have the juice left to bust out of the ground like a fucking missile.

The old adage is that zombies have to be slow. George Romero would shit on you if you made a zombie that could run and all that stuff. These zombies aren’t ‘28 Days Later’ fast (though the things in that movie are not zombies, but rather “infected”), but they aren’t slower than whipped shit either.

The violence is campy as is the endlessly boring dialogue filled with geeky sexual tension. And also the sound of an electric guitar makes them docile and causes them to stand still as someone approaches from behind and kills them one by one. Sure…

The zombies make their way to the prom where they fuck some shit up and some of the kids die and some others don’t. I don’t remember which ones to be honest because I just don’t care.

If I had to sum up the experience of watching this movie in one word: “Wha?”

It was trying to be ‘Clueless’ meets (insert overly quirky, uninteresting Wes Anderson/Jason Schwartzman movie here) and failed. Ain’t It Cool News laid a fat egg calling it “A Cult Classic” in the trailer. Please.

Score – 60