Cast: Marcus Thomas, Clare Kramar, Dominic Purcell, Josie Maran; Director: Mike Mendez; Producers: Al Corley, Lawrence Elmer Fuhrmann Jr., Bill McCutchen, Eugene Musso, Bart Rosenblatt; Screenwriters: Brad Keene, Chris Skinner; Music: Joseph Bishara; Editor: Mike Mendez; Genre: Drama/Horror/Thriller; Cinematography: David A. Armstrong; Distributor: After Dark Films; Location: North Carolina, USA; Running Time: 95 min;
Technical Assessment: 3
Moral Assessment: 2.5
CINEMA Rating: For mature viewers 18 and above
Harris (Dominic Purcell), one of the three long time friends with Sid (Marcus Thomas) and Kira (Josie Maran), misses the funeral of their friend Devin who died in a car accident. Harris thinks that they should pay their last respect to Devin together in front of the grave in the cemetery, an idea which Sid and Kira do not initially agree with, but they eventually do. The solemn purpose to pay respect turns out to be a singing and dancing spree with loud music after reading a poem they see at the grave. Unfortunately, the poem read by Harris is like a magical spell that awakens dead spirits especially those in the ground where they danced. Since then all of them including Sid’s wife Allison (Clare Kramar) experience strange eerie occurrences in their respective places. With the help of a paranormal investigator they realize that they are being haunted by the angry spirits they bothered by desecrating their graves with their dancing spree at the cemetery. How will they get over these harrowing experiences?
As a horror thriller film, The Gravedancers successfully delivers and keeps the interest of the viewers from beginning to end of the film. It has a very good plot that was treated with careful special effects, musical scoring and sounds. The actors gave their distinct justification of the characters they portrayed in the film: that of tactless Harris, focused Sid, disturbed Kira, and concerned and frightened Allison, which is also to the credit of the director. It is not the usual screaming horror film but one that gets established as the film progressed to the end. Overall, the film has very good technical qualities.
The film conveys strong messages to respect the dead not necessarily in the context of religious belief, rather on the paranormal dimension. It underscores how irresponsible actions desecrating graves can make the person’s life miserable and even brings death. It aggravates when selfish motives like that of the paranormal team member cheated in the operation got in the way, but at least she regretted doing so when she realized the worst results of her cheating. In a sidelight, the film shows valuing relationships of friendship and marriage. It will be noticed that in the entire run of the film there was no reference to the Church’s intervention; but rather solely on human ability and paranormal science. In reality, when things go beyond human understanding, people seek enlightenment and draw strength from Divine providence to fight evil forces.
