Dance of the Dead (2005)

movie ever, seriously. From the foolish dialog to the dull acting, the plot that goes no where, for no reason, and takes forever doing it.Every second of this film is painful to watch, and don't be fooled by reviews saying this movie is too "deep for your average gore hound" there's really nothing going on below the surface here.It's sad to see Tobe Hopper has gone off the deep end like so many other great directors (Argento, Romero, Carpenter) and just started turning out lazy work.This movie is dull, and stupid; don't waste your time, instead watch a good episode of this show like Dreams in the witch House, Cigarette Burns, or Imprint(the best of the series)

Here we go with another episode of Season 1, this time the number 3 and the volume 11 of the Region 4 DVDs, Dance of the Dead. As you know, Tobe Hooper directed The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Poltergeist and this time he gives us a decent episode but unfortunately nothing more.The story takes place after the World War III and we have in Peggy (Jessica Lowndes) our protagonist. We know since the beginning that she, and her mother Kate (Marilyn Norry), is still suffering the dead of both her father and her sister but also both suffers the consequences of Blizz. Unfortunately the story focuses more in the typical relation between a teenage and his/her parents so with Peggy's new friends she is going to experience new things and is very conventional this part of the episode since it is just the classic awake of a teenage going against the authority and wanting to have new "experiences". The bar where the new "friends" of Peggy hang out has its main show in the dance of the dead and has in The M.C. (cool performance of Robert Fred Krueger Englund) its leader. Of course all of this are kind of the reflection of that post-war time and of course the best thing of this episode is its final part when you realize about the new "job" of Peggy's sister and why she has that "job". When you realize about the real story of Kate with her other daughter Anna, you will think something like "damn this episode could have been much better with the same basic story" and in the end, what dance?Then and finally, Tobe Hooper's first contribution to Masters of Horror is good to see just once but is also the weakest episode of the ones that I have seen that are only 6 (all from Season 1).

Tobe Hooper certainly deserves his reputation as a 'Master Of Horror', especially for his masterpiece, "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" of 1974, but also for a few other films, such as "Eaten Alive" (1977) and "Salem's Lot" (1979), that certainly couldn't come up to the brilliance of TCM, but definitely were interesting Horror films. His first contribution to the "Masters Of Horror" series, the third Episode, "Dance Of The Dead", however, turned out to be a minor disappointment. The episode is certainly not entirely bad, it has some atmosphere and is very creepy at times, but it simply lacks an adequate structure of storytelling.The story, which takes place in a post-apocalyptic America, sometime in the near future when the majority of Americans have died in a terrible war, and the anarchistic conditions only allow the strong to survive. One of the most popular gathering points for the drug addicted youths who rule the streets, is the macabre 'Doom-Room' hosted by an eerie creep named 'The M.C.' (Horror icon Robert Englund). 16-year-old Peggy (Jessica Lowndes) runs a little restaurant with her protective mother (Marilyn Norry). Peggy is fascinated when a young hoodlum named Jak (Jonathan Tucker) shows up in the restaurant with his no-good friends one day...The movie has some good moments, Robert Englund is creepy as hell and Jessica Lowndes as well as Marilyn Norry deliver good performances. I couldn't ignore the fact, however, that director Hooper was obviously more interested to make the episode look as 'cooool' as possible, and focused on effects and visuals rather than on telling the story, which makes the episode look like a 1-hour video clip. Over all I was disappointed with "Dance Of The Dead", although I admit it was macabre and entertaining at times and has some qualities. 5/10

The only thing that kept me watching this episode was the sexy bad boy performance of "Jak" by Jonathan Tucker. I was thoroughly impressed by his ability to show sensitivity through such a tough character. Tucker carried this whole film. Robert Englund is better off writing this character off as "what not to do in future film choices".The budding love story (or fascination story) between the two main characters is the only good point of this story, the rest of it was just plain rushed and horrible. The director seemed to caught up in trying to shock us with what the world had become that the characters and the story itself were lost in translation. The only horror I felt by the end of watching this was how small Tucker's paycheck must have been for such a great performance.