I remember a timemaybe five years agowhen zombies were actually, you know, pretty cool. Sadly, that fact became too well-known with Hollywood and now it's an unspoken law that every major studio and indie producers alike must release at least five zombie movies a year. If a studio is having hard times financially, no problem! Just release a sub-par zombie movie and all the zombie geeks will have you swimming in cash before you have even written the script. Furthermore, I think "Yahtzee" Croshaw summed up my thoughts on the subject when he said: "It's my observation that zombies are second only to ninjas, pirates, and monkeys in the list of things nerds like and need to shut up about." The zombie genre has become more overbearing and overdone it makes the amount of remakes and pointless sequels look downright conservative. And what bothers me even more than that is the fact that 99% of the zombie movies I'm talking about are EXACTLY the same. If you think Dance of the Dead is any exception to the paragraph I just wrote, you have less intelligence than a zombie itself. (Forgive the terrible analogy.) People site Dance of the Dead as some sort of shining pillar of originality in the carbon-copy genre just because the movie revolves around a prom. This may be true for the setting, but aside from that, Dance of the Dead repeated every single zombie cliché known to man. The jokes are all stereotypical clichés (example: the gym teacher). The situations are all cliché (example: the romantic subplots). And if the movie was oh-so-original, couldn't at least think of ANYTHING more creative than a power plant as the source of the zombies? I mean, for once, in a "horror-comedy", can't zombies become zombies from eating bad soup or something? As I said, beyond the setting, Dance of the Dead has no originality, or even creativity.
The overall film also lacks polish to an unbearable degree. It's filmed like a made-for-TV movie (for one of the kid's channels) and the acting ranges from decent to downright painful to watch. I'd go as far as to say the acting is harder to watch than the gore. Why? Because another thing Dance of the Dead lacked was gore. While a kill happens on screen, the camera is off staring at the wall, or some flowers, or a passing car, but never on the gore itself. Never. When a kill does (rarely) happen on screen, there is no blood. This happens more than once. A zombie's head in cleaved in two, yet there is NO blood. What is up with the conservative use of gore? This is a zombie movie. I want gore. Not the camera looking at cars.
But the biggest problem I had with Dance of the Dead was the lack of entertainment value. I give it credit for being at least slightly more energetic and fast-paced than the average zombie movie, which are almost all synonymous with: "Let's slow down for grandpa; he just had hip surgery." But other than the slight energy, the action scenes are few and far between. The movie had me so bored I had to watch it in two separate viewings, desperate for anything to start happening whatsoever. 75% of the run-time is nothing but teenagers being forced to act like fake, politically correct, cliché teenagers. What is the point of a zombie movie if it's not entertaining . . .? I once loved zombie movies, and though this new sweep of pathetic zombie movies can't make real zombie movies any less enjoyable, it's sad to see zombies treated so poorly and uncreatively.
Overall, while Dance of the Dead isn't a completely bad movie, it's the one thing I despise more than anything else: FORGETTABLE. You know, I was told prom was going to be the night I was never going to forget: so I stayed home and watched Kill Bill and ate left overs. That was a night I never forgot. But everyone who did go to prom in my class completely forgot about it by a week later. I was so glad I didn't waste my time. I think that's a lot like Dance of the Dead. People told me it would be the most awesome zombie movie in years, yet when I watched it I saw a waste of time. Take my advice: don't watch Dance of the Dead. Like prom, it isn't memorable. At all. It's a waste of time and money.
2/10
The overall film also lacks polish to an unbearable degree. It's filmed like a made-for-TV movie (for one of the kid's channels) and the acting ranges from decent to downright painful to watch. I'd go as far as to say the acting is harder to watch than the gore. Why? Because another thing Dance of the Dead lacked was gore. While a kill happens on screen, the camera is off staring at the wall, or some flowers, or a passing car, but never on the gore itself. Never. When a kill does (rarely) happen on screen, there is no blood. This happens more than once. A zombie's head in cleaved in two, yet there is NO blood. What is up with the conservative use of gore? This is a zombie movie. I want gore. Not the camera looking at cars.
But the biggest problem I had with Dance of the Dead was the lack of entertainment value. I give it credit for being at least slightly more energetic and fast-paced than the average zombie movie, which are almost all synonymous with: "Let's slow down for grandpa; he just had hip surgery." But other than the slight energy, the action scenes are few and far between. The movie had me so bored I had to watch it in two separate viewings, desperate for anything to start happening whatsoever. 75% of the run-time is nothing but teenagers being forced to act like fake, politically correct, cliché teenagers. What is the point of a zombie movie if it's not entertaining . . .? I once loved zombie movies, and though this new sweep of pathetic zombie movies can't make real zombie movies any less enjoyable, it's sad to see zombies treated so poorly and uncreatively.
Overall, while Dance of the Dead isn't a completely bad movie, it's the one thing I despise more than anything else: FORGETTABLE. You know, I was told prom was going to be the night I was never going to forget: so I stayed home and watched Kill Bill and ate left overs. That was a night I never forgot. But everyone who did go to prom in my class completely forgot about it by a week later. I was so glad I didn't waste my time. I think that's a lot like Dance of the Dead. People told me it would be the most awesome zombie movie in years, yet when I watched it I saw a waste of time. Take my advice: don't watch Dance of the Dead. Like prom, it isn't memorable. At all. It's a waste of time and money.
2/10