After the death of an old friend, Harris is reunited with his old college buddies Kira and Sid, and since Sid didn't attend the funeral, he suggest that the group go to visit their friends grave in the night to pay their respects. When at the cemetery, Sid starts reading sort of a poem from some card that he found along with that the friends drink, and in their drunken state, they just happen to do some dancing on some graves. Shortly after the incident weird things starts to happen to Harris and his wife. It begins with them hearing strange sounds in the house, but later some ghostly woman appear in the bedroom and someone's playing piano as well when no one's in the living room. Eventually things go too far and they seek out Kira and Sid to see if they are the ones who have been messing with them. But both Kira and Sid have had their own fare share of problems, and it seems like the old buddies are haunted.
I watch a heck of a lot of horror movies every month and while most of them are usually not that great, every once a while one get to see those kind of movies that are, and The Gravedancers is such a movie. It was quite long ago since I saw a film that was genuinely scary and that really had me on the edge of my seat, delivered the creeps as well as a breath of fresh air in the polluted horror jungle. The Gravedancers proved to be such a film that one is always on the look-out for when it comes to horror, and even though I must admit that I had some minor problems with it during the last 20 minutes or so, I would still like to say that most of what's in this movie comes quite close to being excellent.
For a bunch of years now, it seems like only a few Asian horror films have been able to deliver those really thrilling and chilling moments that has an extremely creepy atmosphere and that can be a bit exhausting to watch due to that you tense up. So it was absolutely awesome to see a western film that could truly be scary in this day and age, as they are quite rare. The film started off with a bang - it looked great, but I can't say that it was the least bit scary though even though we were dealing with such a scene, but it gets there eventually, that you can be sure of. Some old college pals whos friend recently passed away, goes to visit the grave, reads this poem and dances around on some graves. For those who haven't seen the film (yet), it might sound a bit stupid with this whole gravedancing thing, but it plays out way better than it sounds like, so bear that in mind. Apparently, reading the poem and dancing on those graves wasn't such a good idea and the friends soon find themselves to be haunted by the ghosts of those who were in the graves that they danced on.
 
The hauntings begin in a light sort of way to later increase and become more terrifying. It might be a bit cliched at times, but since the film does a fine job delivering mystery, it's so easy to ignore that. Soon things starts to get much worse though and action needs to be taken. Harris, played by Dominic Purcell (Prison Break) and his wife look up Harris two other friends to see if they're screwing with him and his wife. But no, they have not been screwing with them, in fact, things are even worse for those guys with Kira who has gotten severely beaten by a ghost and is now in a hospital, while Sid has problems with some ghost lighting small fires in his apartment. Sid has taken some action though and has hired two paranormal scientists, and later when the group talks about their experiences, it comes quite clear that they're all being haunted.
The scientists tells the group of gravedancers that the ghosts have one lunar cycle to get back at them and that the spirits will be getting stronger, as well as the attacks will become more frequent. Eventually the paranormal scientists figures out a way to reverse the curse, but if it will work or not is for you to find out. The Gravedancers had a lot of positive things going for it; for one the script felt really fresh and inventive, the film had a lot of mystery to offer which made for a lot of scary moments and an overall really creepy atmosphere. Another great thing was that there were no teens in the movie and all the characters were quite strong, likable and had some depth to them. Just for the fact that there were no freakin teens involved made one take the film more seriously, and it all worked out quite nicely to say the least. Other than that, it was not totally predictable and had an interesting story to tell.
My problem with the last 20 minutes was just that I thought that you got to see too much; the ghosts became visible and were chasing the people around in a house. While the film was still really entertaining, the spooky feel and the mystery that it had to it earlier somewhat went down the drain. It was not all bad though, it was just that the dreadful atmosphere kinda disappeared, but it still had plenty of horror to offer which was quite entertaining and delivered a lot of cool action scenes as well. The very last minutes of the movie were pretty darn great though - a giant ghost head chasing after some people in a car, a giant hand dragging a person down into the cold ground. Sure, it was all CGI, but looked so darn awesome you just gotta to see it for yourself. Acting-wise it's all good, while the character-development wasn't really that heavy, it still worked totally all right and all the actors very pretty likable as well as belivable. In the end, even though there might've been some minor problems here and there, overall The Gravedancers proved to be one helluva horror film that you should most definitely check out.
For an indie feature, The Gravedancers looks absolutely smashing and all the way through I never thought of it as an indie film, it just looked and was too darn good. Best thing about this film was that it delivered a genuinely creepy feel and even had some really good scares too offer, and it's not too often horror films works that way these days. Highly recommended.
By
Back to Horror Review Archive
|
ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 2005
DIRECTOR: Mike Mendez
WRITING CREDITS: Brad Keene, Chris Skinner
GENRE: Horror
CAST: Clare Kramer, Dominic Purcell, Josie Maran
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 99 min
RATING: 8/10
Gravedancers, The Website/IMDB Click here
Gravedancers, The Trailer Click here
|
