You Can’t Find Good Paranormal Help These Days
Main Cast: Dominic Purcell, Josie Maran
Director: Mike Mendez
Each year there are movies produced that are never seen by the public. Their content is considered too graphic, too disturbing, too shocking for general audiences. This is one of those films.
THE GRAVEDANCERS is a movie that I went into fully expecting to hate, was surprised by how much I liked it, and then, in the last 10 minutes, destroyed my faith once again.
In this movie, three old friends, Harris McKay, Kira Hayden, and Sid Vance (Dominic Purcell–Prison Break, Josie Maran–VAN HELSING, and Marcus Thomas–DROWNING MONA) are lamenting the death of their friend Trevor when Sid decides to return to the cemetery since he missed the funeral. Harris and Kira follow him there and the three get even drunker while talking about old times. Sid then finds a card on Trevor’s grave. The card is printed with a poem “The Gravedancers Lament” which inspires the three friends to, well, dance on the graves.
The next morning, Harris returns home to his wife Allison (Clare Kramer–BRING IT ON), then off to work and all seems fine.
Two weeks later, the hauntings begin. A creak here, an opened door there. Allison is convinced the culprit is Kira. Allison and Harris go to Kira’s house only to find her sick and delirious, curled up in her tub. It’s obvious that whatever’s going on over at the McKay house, Kira had nothing to do with it. Sid has things of his own going on. He urges Harris to come over and that’s when they see just how big this is, whatever it is.
It seems the dancing has awakened the spirits of those whose graves they danced on. There is only way to stop the haunting and survive the ordeal.
Directed by Mike Mendez (THE CONVENT) and written by Brad Keene (THE GRUDGE 3), THE GRAVEDANCERS is a moody, atmospheric movie that tells an interesting story that doesn’t follow a traditionally predictable pattern (for the most part) while providing several cases of genuine creeps. The haunting scenes in the McKay house most specifically were very effective when watched in the dark.
Mendez wisely cut out a few cat scares and tried to edit the movie down to the essentials, which comes through in the finished product. The story moves along at a pretty descent pace without ever feeling bogged down. In fact, the first two acts are set up wonderfully for an outstanding ghost story. The third act is where things take a turn for the cliché.
Once the act three action gets underway, the movie begins to feel more like a standard slasher movie where the ghosts are going to start picking off our characters one by one because they’ve all split up to see what’s going on. While the effects are amazing, the make-up outstanding, it also reeks a little too much of “goofy”. I mean, they look great, it’s the theory behind them that doesn’t stand up.
None of this is to say the third act doesn’t work, it just gets a little too physical for my liking, taking the story out of the realms of atmosphere and implied terror and going straight for showing you what’s behind the door instead. The twist in act three works very well as a means to keep the story moving, I just wish something more could have been done here, something creepier, especially considering how well the first half of the movie worked in that regard.
But all that is nothing compared to the climax. Holy crap. See, going into the movie, THIS is the kind of thing I was expecting, thanks to years and years of Hollywood making such ridiculously bad horror movies with the dumbest climactic scenes you can imagine, full of large floating ghosts and spectral lights and loud noises and swirling mists. I’d hoped THE GRAVEDANCERS would avoid such tripe but, as I learned, Mendez sought just such an ending.
I loathed the giant floating head chasing the Humvee as the survivors tried to escape, but I was holding out hope this was an executive studio decision (after all, the studio insisted on the cliché opening sequence establishing the “horror movie” feel, despite Mendez’s staunch objection), and was greatly disappointed to learn this ending was all the director’s doing. Seriously? You couldn’t have come up with ANYTHING better? Rarely has a movie that’s worked SO well throughout been so ruined by the last 10 minutes.
Made with a budget, “just under $3 million”, THE GRAVEDANCERS looks like a bigger budget movie, which I attribute to Mendez and cinematographer David A. Armstrong (every SAW movie) who created such a great, creepy atmosphere you’re sucked into the tale, hopeful for the characters, and eager to see them succeed. And then that ending. Jeez.
The cast work well together, I can believe Harris and Sid are friends, I can believe Harris and Allison are married. I can believe Sid’s been carrying an unspoken torch for Kira. Overall, there are no complaints about the performances. Well, Purcell does seem a little outside of the action sometimes, which becomes more apparent during the director’s commentary as he mentions several instances of Purcell refusing to either be a part of a particular scene or not wanting to do whatever everyone else is doing for fear of looking stupid–most notably when the research facility is shaking and everyone’s reacting except Purcell.
In the end, THE GRAVEDANCERS is a pretty decent package. The story is good, the acting is fine, the effects are pretty cool, and the movie is just plain creepy. I can recommend the movie, but it has to be with the understanding that, no matter what comes before, those last 10 minutes really stink to high Heaven and, for me, just about ruin any credibility this movie has built up to that point. So if you want a really good 85 minutes, with a crappy 10 minutes tacked on, THE GRAVEDANCERS is a good place to find it.
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C. Dennis Moore is the author of over 60 published short stories and novellas in the speculative fiction genre. Most recent appearances are in the Dark Highlands 2, What Fears Become, Dead Bait 3 and Dark Highways anthologies. His novels are Revelations, and the Angel Hill stories, The Man in the Window, The Third Floor, and The Flip.
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