Los profanadores de tumbas

I was lucky enough to see "Gravedancers" at Another Hole in the Head film festival in S.F., if you were not one of the lucky members of the audience, keep your eyes peeled for the DVD you won't be disappointed.

For fans of director Mike Mendez, who's know for adding comedic elements to his films, "Gravedancers" is a slight departure from his previous work on films like "The Convent". This time Mendez goes the straight horror route and it works out magnificently. While there are moments of genuine levity, it never distracts from the film, as proved by the screams echoing from the audience at the Roxie last night. "Gravedancers" is a unique take on the rather stale "haunting" formula, and is full of self-aware characters in a well rounded script that doesn't send stupid people into stupid situations.

I was shocked at how great the film looked, if you held this film up next to any of those crappy bloated multiplex horror flicks starring some blonde ditz from a forgettable UPN/WB show, I think you'd have a hard time figuring out which cost more. The atmosphere is perfectly creepy and has many moments that will have you squirming in your seat. Great sound effects and prosthetics add to create some truly creepy ghosts, and probably the best use of a "floating ghost" since the original "House on Haunted Hill". It may have taken almost 50 years but at least somebody has made ghosts scary again. Three cheers for Mike Mendez.

...till I'm sure that you're dead!(B.Dylan) Profanations have become frequent nowadays and it is a burning subject which deserved a responsible writer and a reliable director.

The movie fails twice: mediocre story,poor acting,awful directing relying on horrible (and non-scary) special effects.The movie hits rock bottom when they hire ghost busters (from a famous university of course),one of them is the unfortunate Tcheky Karyo in what is perhaps the worst part of his career;he is abetted by a bubble head assistant (collaborator,she says)."The night of the living dead" has still no contenders in this field.

Well, this film is often regarded as one of the better entries in the 'Eight Films to Die For' sets; but I wasn't very impressed with it. Sure, it has a handful of good points; but unfortunately the film is not particularly original or interesting and that ultimately condemns it. The film does feature a starring role for Dominic Purcell; who apparently is a star of a TV program called Prison Break, which I've never watched. So I guess that a lot of Prison Break fans have given this film a high rating. Anyway, the plot focuses on three people that used to be friends and have reunited for the funeral of another friend, who died (obviously). Anyway, the three of them go out and get drunk and then decide (as you do) to go to a graveyard, where they read an incantation from one of the gravestones and then proceed to dance on the graves. This might not have been such a bad idea if it wasn't for the fact that they were in the 'psycho section'. Anyway, it turns out that the dead don't appreciate having their graves danced on; and the three are terrorised by vengeful spirits.

Credit where credit is due; and it's due in the case of whoever designed the ghosts. Like most people, I'm tired of the Japanese style watery black haired ghosts, and the common smoke-like spectres that have featured all too often. For this film, the ghosts look more like something out of The Evil Dead (and possibly took some influence from the final chapter of the Mario Bava masterpiece Black Sabbath) and they really do look horrific. They're mostly well used too, and while the film goes way over the top on many occasions; it does feature a few jump scares that work well. However, the simple fact is that the story and characters just aren't interesting enough and the reason behind what is happening to the central characters lacks imagination. I have to admit that I didn't really care about anything that went on with the plot of this film and things only got less interesting when the whole ghost hunter plot was introduced. It all boils down to a silly ending and overall, while I really did like the special effects, this is a disappointing horror film and I do not recommend it.

Let me first state that this had a amateur feel to it. However, keeping in mind that it is a horror movie, it much better than 90% of the direct to video garbage out there.

The movie uses a combo to makeup effects and CGI to create the most out of the obvious limited budget. I appreciated the makeup effects more than the CGI gone mad conclusion of the movie.

The acting was tolerable and the side story about the friends honestly didn't bring much to the table. The fact that the ghost story actually had some creepy moments as well as funny moments.

I gave the movie 6 out of 10 which is high for me for this type of production. The bottom line is while the movie has the drawbacks that I listed above, it is still a entertaining horror flick. If you like horror or supernatural thrillers then you could do much worse.

Three friends curse themselves by dancing on graves.

This has a simple plot. There's not a lot of depth but there's enough information for the viewer to invest into some characters more than others. The special effects are ok seeing as how this was released in '06 but not overly impressive.

I actually liked the story. It was a solid concept. I may never watch it again but I'm glad I checked it out.