Here we have a film that tries extremely hard to present itself as a cohesive piece of quality horror fiction, but falls short courtesy of a hand full of awkward implausibility’s, some of which are just too offensive to ignore.
The story focuses in on three longtime friends who get together for the funeral of another old college buddy. It’s been years since this group has been together, and reuniting for the funeral of a friend is obviously not the greatest of scenarios. It’s also the signaling point for the script to get a little murky.
The cast can’t quite seem to decide if they’re happy to be reunited, overrun by sadness or spiteful of each other. The dialogue and demeanor of the performers just seems to clash in terrible fashion; the irony is the combination of emotions is actually very realistic, it’s just the idiosyncratic chemistry between the three focal actors (I’m not comfortable saying “characters” as there’s some wooden acting on display here).
Heading back to the (shaky) story itself, this trio of 30-something friends decide it would be a wise idea to head back to the cemetery in the middle of the night to visit their deceased friend’s grave. An honorary notion quickly turns into dancing and urinating on random graves, and as you might have guessed, this overtly unnatural series of events kicks off the serious trouble for these three.
The film makes a marked improvement at this point, as our main players shift from mental midgets to haunting victims. Some research leads the group to some disturbing facts: their not only being hunted by those whose graves they pranced upon, but those specific soil inhabitants happen to reside amongst the cemetery’s most nefarious.
The dialogue improves dramatically as the third act gets underway, and this group of actors (Dominic Purcell, Josie Maran, Marcus Thomas ) seem to find their natural groove (almost as if the picture was actually shot in chronological order, and the trio finally got comfortable working together), but there’s still enough clichés at work to syphon a few snickers, and they only become more pronounced as the film rolls.
For all the flaws this After Dark Horrorfest installment comes attached with, there are actually some noteworthy qualities to the picture. First off, David Armstrong does a pretty solid job with the cinematography, and Mike Mendez’s editing work isn’t perfect, but there are some nice cuts on display. Those who may be due the greatest nod however are Roland Blancaflor and Nikki Carbonetta, who do a fine job with the special FX; there are a few truly chilling shots during the picture, and without these two they’d be as lost as the chemistry between Purcell, Maran and Thomas.
Keep an eye out for some excellent lighting in the latter portions of the film, an appeasing appearance from Tchéky Karyo and a few CGI shots that look about 1000 times better than they probably should.
All in all, there are plenty of awkward moments on display during the brisk 95 minutes The Gravedancers runs, but there are some chilling shots, creepy concepts and a few visuals that pay off big. When compared with most of the other Horrorfest offerings, this flick is actually a bit of a diamond.
OVERALL SUMMARY
The Gravedancers is a tale of desecration and haunting that suffers from a slew of plot holes. However, ultimately this one battles back to do a fair job of redeeming itself courtesy of a big finale and some chilling special FX.
