Masters Of Horror - 1x03 - Dance of the Dead [HDTV]

Masters Of Horror - 1x03 - Dance of the Dead [HDTV][www.pctorrent.com]


Once you go zombie, you never go back. Or at least, that seems to be Tobe Hooper’s new edict. A director renown for his slasher flicks (Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Toolbox Murders) and supernatural tales (Poltergeist, Salem’s Lot), Hooper’s first foray into undead waters on the big screen will be Zombies, due in 2006. For a taste of what’s possibly to come, you should check out his Masters of Horror episode, Dance of the Dead, debuting tonight on Showtime.



Based on a short story by the renown writer Richard Matheson, and adapted for the screen by the author’s son Richard Christian Matheson, Dance of the Dead is the story of what happens after a nuclear holocaust that causes a “zombie rain” to fall. Some people live, others grow horribly sick, and some die yet live on as animated corpses made to dance as nightclub entertainment for the leather-n-liquor crowd.



The story centers on Peggy (Jessica Lowndes), her overprotective mother Kate (Sharon Heath), and the young criminal Peggy falls for, Jak (Jonathan Tucker). One night, when Peggy sneaks out into the big, bad, dangerous post-apocalyptic world with a drug-fueled Jak, she finds herself at the Doom Room. The no-holds-barred nightclub is a brutal hole where the dead are made to dance for a bloodthirsty crowd. Hosting the nightly spectacle is The MC (Robert Englund), a macabre character with a predilection for theatrics.



The cinematography by resident Masters of the Horror DP Jon Joffin is as beautiful as ever, but unfortunately, it’s marred by some rather bizarre in-camera effects. Regardless of how the effects were created, much of the show looks as though it was completed by someone who just bought some fancy new plugins for his Avid and couldn’t resist trying them all. Superimposed images clash with ghosting, zooming, and freeze-framing over earthquake-shakes, seemingly willy-nilly — the effect, while thankfully not constant, is used during a conversation in a quiet diner to the same degree it’s used during the most violent reveal. Some might find it fun, but it didn't work for me.



Dance of the Dead, the third show to air in the Masters of Horror series, is the least bloody and the least “traditional horror” in approach, but to make up for it (if you’re a 14-year-old boy) it’s got the most cleavage and cussing.



The acting is somewhat uneven but luckily the ones who really count — Lowndes, Tucker, and Englund — make their performances count. Englund, who’s been known to soar over the top even under Hooper’s competent hand (The Mangler), is a larger than life character (think: Liza Minelli in Cabaret channeling a foul-mouthed, blood-swilling sadist) in Dance of the Dead but The MC is mad cool in a way that only Englund can be.



Personally, I would rather have seen different aspects of the Dance of the Dead story played up (to tell you what they are would spoil it) but overall this episode is well worth seeing because it’s something completely new and different from Hooper, and the story shimmies to a spectacular payoff.