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 might be because the copy I saw was so dark that any scene not taking place in broad daylight was totally unwatchable, but Ghostdance did nothing for me. There are some good ideas and the death scenes I could make out were decent like the one with the hapless victim falling through a glass display, but it was hard to tell who was who and I couldn't help but check out. This might be a film that will get a much needed reappraisal if it ever comes to Blu-Ray with a brighter transfer.

Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of Ghost Dance; here's the breakdown of my ratings:

Story - 0.75 Direction - 1.00 Pace - 1.00 Acting - 1.00 Enjoyment - 1.00

TOTAL - 4.75 out of 10

I do love a good supernatural revenge hack-an'-slash. Sadly Ghost Dance is not a good one. It teeters on the verge of averageness.

The main issue I have with this little picture is the story's scope. A native American's spirit possessing one of his descendants would be looking for some serious payback, and rightly so. However, we don't get half as much as was required, and there's real mention of the tribesman's motive. It gets mentioned in passing but is never expanded upon - It should have been his driving force; his incentive to kill, to set the tables straight. Details such as this are the difference between an okay picture and a wonderful one.

The filming of the screenplay isn't too inventive, though the director does attempt to add more interesting shots and a varied tempo. The shots mostly work and are used when the low budget didn't allow for a respectable special effect. Such as the runaway truck at the burial dig site. The truck pins a man to the side of the opened grave. Instead of seeing the man's legs crushed and held between the truck and mud wall, the director opts to show the scene from outside the grave. By doing this, the actor has to sell his pain and torment. It works, though the scene isn't too well composed. The varied pace isn't as successful, and for one simple reason, it's not varied enough. Though the cutting is quicker and sharper, it's not by too much, and as such, the film's flow hardly alters - not enough to help.

The actors and actresses are the best things about the movie, which isn't much compliment. The only one who hinders the film is the bad guy, Nahalla, played by Henry Bal. It's not Bal's fault though. A non-speaking role is tough to play as it relies on the body and facial acting of the performer; it also needs a good director. In most of the sections Nahalla's in, he's a hulking shadow. Though he has the physique he doesn't possess much ominousness or danger - except for the massive blade he wields. And for a resurrected killer, that is a shame.

Ghost Dance had good possibilities that both the writers and director overlooked. That said, it's still a passable movie to pass an hour and a half, but only if you have nowt else to watch and you've stumbled across it on a streaming service for free.

Please feel free to visit my Absolute Horror list to see where I ranked Ghost Dance.

Take Care & Stay Well.

Horror films like "The Ghost Dance" are the most difficult ones to rate and review. On one hand, it's quite dull, incredibly slow-paced, and suffering from too many budgetary restraints. On the other, however, it takes its subject matter seriously and the cast and crew really do try hard generating a suspenseful atmosphere and a couple of authentically tense moments. The concept is quite like "The Mummy", namely that an important archaeological discovery comes to life, turns out to be pure evil, and goes after the scientists who dared to disturb its final resting place. Here, it's the spirit of a raging Indian warrior that possesses a tall Indian medicine man and turns him into a silent killing machine. Writer/director Peter R. Buffa, who didn't really accomplish any other things in his film career, does an admirably fine job during a handful of sequences, including a spooky cat-and-mouse game on a highway at night, and a suspenseful confrontation inside the museum's research room. The performances, from an overall unknown cast, are rather good as well. Still, though, it's painfully obvious to see why "The Ghost Dance" is so obscure and doesn't have any cult status whatsoever. Although featuring three or four vicious and explicit murders, the overall pacing is too slow, the characters are bland and dull, and the killer isn't menacing enough.

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.