The Gravedancers

Let’s suppose that you’re drunk in a cemetary. Let’s further suppose that you find a sympathy card left resting against a headstone, which exhorts you to dance around on people’s graves while reading off some lines of, well, let’s call it poetry. Certainly not a magic spell of some kind. That would be crazy talk. And let’s suppose that your local cemetary has a section devoted to the graves of undesirable folks, rather than being divvied up by family plots or by the calendar. And that the graves you happen to dance on while reading the lines of the magic spell, er, I mean poem, are all in the undesirable section. That would probably turn out just fine. Right? I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

So, yeah, the second movie was The Gravedancers, and if the premise seems a little thin, well, let’s just say you’re not alone. But after the premise was established, the middle section turned out to be downright creepifying, with pretty well acted (and written) tension among the principles and the exact right notes of humor to relieve some of that tension from time to time. And then out of nowhere, in the final act it reinvented itself again, each new development more over the top than the one before. As it was put to me while the credits were rolling, “I’ve never seen that many people laughing at a movie that was so scary!” I’m not sure I can successfully express just how hilariously awesome this movie was. I plan to own many (though not all) of them when the opportunity presents itself. But this is just about the only one I am certain to buy, as soon as I find it.

No breasts. Four bodies. Three vengeful spirits. Heads roll, sort of. Axe to the spine. Chopin fu. Graverobbery fu. Drive-in academy award nominations to Velma the ghost hunter for saying, “I’m sorry. I had to keep them from resting so we could get some proof!”, to her boss for saying, “Could somebody take me to the hopital, please?”, and to Dominic Purcell for missing his putt. Four stars.

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