The Ghost Dance

There are hidden gems and then there are petrified turds. This film pretty much falls into the latter category. First of all, it's just hopelessly low budget and not scary. Like it would probably bore your grandparents. Not so much an "indigenous slasher" film, as some reviews have mentioned, but a vengeful spirit possession film. The leads try desperately to act scared in various situations throughout the film, and it just falls flat. There's barely any suspense or jump scares or gore, as you would have in a typical slasher flick. Just some possessed Native American dude in a wig randomly appearing throughout the film offing museum goers and staffers. Another annoying aspect is the lack of lighting in various scenes (will somebody turn a bloody light on in this flick!) It's understandable that it's an unearthed piece of drivel, but it would be nice to see what's happening in key scenes. Don't waste your time with this one.

It's late afternoon on the Arizona desert as workers unearth an Indian body.Dr.Kay Foster(Julie Amato),the director of anthropology at a local university supervises the dig.She finds the remains of an ancient Indian warlord known as Nahaluh.That sinister night an Indian scavenger,Aranjo(Henry Bal)creeps into the excavation and steals an Indian medicine bag.That's where the horror begins.Peter F.Buffa's "The Ghost Dance" is a bloody supernatural slasher flick with a nice Indian angle.The acting is surprisingly good and there is some suspense and gore,including throat slashing and spear impaling.The film is extremely obscure,so grab the copy and treasure it.Highly recommended.8 out of 10.

Most of the other reviewers here on IMDb have The Ghost Dance down as an obscure slasher gem. While I certainly agree that it's obscure, I don't think it's a gem. It's moderately entertaining, I suppose, and better than Fred Olen Ray's similarly themed Scalps (1983)—but then most films are.

Admittedly, for much of the first 15 minutes, I couldn't actually see what was happening thanks to the darkness of the picture, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the basics: it's the hoary old cliché of an Indian burial ground being disturbed by anthropologists, with a vengeful spirit inadvertently freed to go on a killing spree. While scientist Kay (Julie Amato) and partner Tom Eagle (Victor Mohica) try to unravel the mystery of the mummified body discovered at the site, the Indian proceeds to kill off the staff at the museum.

This tired premise leads to lots of stalking by the nasty native American, and a couple of passable kills (best of which sees a woman pushed onto a spear), but also lots of dull chit-chat, while the obligatory shower scene fails to deliver the gratuitous nudity one expects from such nonsense. Performances are adequate for this kind of thing, and director Peter F. Buffa manages the occasional effective moment (the creepiest scene taking place on a lonely highway), but on the whole this is forgettable, formulaic stuff, as evidenced by the predictable 'shock' ending.

4.5/10, which I feel obliged to round up to 5/10 because I rounded Scalps up from 3.5 to 4/10.

So I got this somewhere recently and for some reason put it on to watch. It looked super duper cheesy and sometimes I get in the mood for that. I put it on and saw a dark poorly made movie and thats always reason to make me wanna quit watching, but I didn't.

It was a plot thats been done a million times of archaeologists digging on sacred ground and the mummy of a native American comes and kills a bunch of people! the end LOL.

It was decent for a slasher movie and although I never want to see it again I will say if you like slasher movies that it is pretty good. Its not just a slasher movie its a bit deeper plot wise. Very rare movie, so if you find it you might wanna watch it.

4 out of 10 stars

I'm not really sure if I can even give this movie a legit rating, considering everything worthy that happens in it is in the dark, and since the print is so dark its literally like watching a pitch black screen at times. Pretty much all the kills are in those dark scenes so hopefully one day this rare thing finds itself on a cleaned up blu ray, until then I'll just give it a 7 because what I saw did entertain me.