Nice effects though.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

I like horror movies with a preference toward haunted house movie and old school horror, and I like this movie... up to a point. The premise: three friends get drunk after a funeral and dance at the cemetery on graves in the area for the deranged. Afterwards, they become haunted by the psychos over whose bodies they danced. Why? Because a mysterious person left behind a chant which they... just happened to announce out loud. The premise is good, but the why is contrived. The story is scary, the ghosts are casual and the chain of events is preposterous as is the ghost hunters who risk their safety to help them. It is very hard for me to believe that the parapsychologist in the movie would go to such extreme ways and such a leap of faith to dig up some graves and follow a ridiculous mystical ritual instead of just tracking down the person who left the note that starts everything off. What? Did he get his degree out of a box of Crackerjacks? Besides that, several of the ghost sequences are scary, but the climax is a bit anticlimactic. Paranormal accuracy is out the window for sake of story, but the movie is a "worth-see" if you want good to uneven scares.

When it comes to horror movies, I'm not very demanding. It probably helps that I'm spooked pretty easily. Rating a horror movie is never done in the way one rates "serious fare," such as "Atonement," or "Casablanca," which is another reason. The rules that govern movies such as my given examples do not apply to the horror genre. That being said, horror movies have to deliver the goods that they promise. "The Gravedancers," one of the "8 Films to Die For" in the 2006 AfterDark HorrorFest, contains some spooky and freaky moments, but it is by no means an unqualified success.After the funeral of one of their college friends, Harris (Dominic Purcell), Sid (Marcus Thomas) and Kyra (Josie Maran) find a note amongst the flowers with a poem telling the to "celebrate life." To that end, they dance on some graves (all three of them are completely wasted at this point). Unbeknownst to them, they have subjected themselves to a curse by the graves they danced on, which include: a pyromaniac, a murdering adulteress, and a sadist. They seek the help of a pair of parapsychologists, Vincent Cochet (Tcheky Karyo) and Frances Culpepper (Megahn Perry) to help them survive.Acting is never a definitive requisite for horror movies. Protagonists usually take the form of the "average guy," and this makes less interesting (this doesn't just apply to horror movies; most movies that have "average guy" characters as leads suffer from this problem). Additionally, most horror movie villains don't talk, which eliminates this problem (although there are exceptions). Therefore, acting ability only matters so far as we can care about their fate, or failing that, they aren't so annoying/badly acted that we actively wish for them to die (women have an additional requirement: good looks and the ability to belt out a great scream). The acting in "The Gravedancers" is on the lesser side of the in between. Dominic Purcell is so low-key that he's just dull, and his cursed co-stars don't fare much better. Tcheky Karyo is an interesting character actor in his own right, and would seem to be right at home in his role as the wannabe Ghostbuster. Sadly though, it is immediately clear that he does not want to be a part of this film, and plays his role as if he were forced to do it. The bright spot in terms of acting is Meghan Perry, who is delightful as the somewhat sassy and sarcastic Frances.The most important part of creating an effective horror movie is generating an ominous atmosphere and properly pacing the story. Director Mike Mendez tries to do both, but fails. He lays the atmosphere on thickly, but it isn't effective. The first part of the film is poorly paced, and that is the film's biggest flaw. In order to generate tension, it must be built slowly. Even the all-out action thrillers like "The Descent" or "Aliens" (which was a sequel, so audiences were already freaked out by the aliens before they walked into the theater) had a starting point for the thrills. "The Gravedancers" doesn't do that. It skips the build-up and goes straight for the scares. Pacing issues are resolved one Vincent and Frances enter the picture, but suffice it to say, the film doesn't get off to a good start. Worse, he uses some quick cuts to "build tension" in some scenes, but thankfully, he doesn't do it often, and never during the action scenes (which begs the question why he would do it in the first place...) Although it's not a classic, it's watchable and contains a few good spooky moments. If anything, it's a outlet for those who like their horror violent, and with actual blood.

Okay, lets start with the good:The acting is passable. In fact, I laud the actors here for decently portraying such stupid, cut and paste characters. For the most part, the main three characters do a good job with their respective roles, with the "other two" being much more terrible.The cinematography. The work done on the visual aspect of the movie as well as the effects are laudable. While mainly somewhat cheesy and very obviously low budget, many times they do a very good job in covering up that fact. In fact, many scenes were enviable of much better budget movies, and I appreciated thatThe audio, while decent, was far from great. It was there enough to not be dismissible, but it felt very lacking. It had little to no impact except for maybe one or two scenes.Now for the bad:My biggest problem had to be the story. Forget the plot holes galore, forget the ridiculous premise, forget the terrible, terrible characters and their unremarkable lines. No, the biggest part was the entire movie. For an entire hour and a half, you are visually and verbally assaulted with the most ridiculous, phoned-in plot you have ever experienced. Yeah, there's some half baked subplot with the friends, but the overall main story is absolutely bad to the bone. This movie may just make you cry after all.The audio. Incredibly bad and clichéd at times. Such a mixed bag.Watch it if you just want some decent, mindless scares, but beware, the truly terrifying part of this movie is the story.

I wouldn't pay to see this movie, but I watched it on TV. By the way I loved the comment someone made here that only blonde women tend to live in horror movies even when the dark haired girls are smarter or something. There is apparently a Nazi plot, hey that would make a good horror movie.The acting was O.K. and they had a better cast than I would have thought for your basic cheesy horror crap movie like this one. I guess Kramer and Keryio (or however you spell it) needed the work, but hey that is o.k. too. A lot of good actors have done their fair share of crap when their star fell a bit (Sean Connery did the horrifically bad "Highlander II" and HE has an Oscar). Don't forget Keryio was in the original Luc Besson film "La Femme Nikita".Really Truly terrifying movies are few and far between so I don't expect much just some halfway decent entertainment and anyway this one is better than stinkers like "Unrest" where they get wrong which continent the evil Aztecs were supposed to live on or "Darkness Falls" with the Evil Tooth Fairy villainess.Someone here thought it was crazy that the "bad" people would be buried together in one part of the cemetery, but, historically Catholic/Church of England cemeteries often excluded those who died outside of a state of grace to be buried on holy ground so I guess I don't have a problem with the concept of "undesirables" being buried together in a special non-blessed part of the cemetery. Concepts like those are hard for our modern sense of fair-play to understand but I believe suicides are still buried in a special non-sanctified part of some cemeteries.If people are going to object to something in a movie, perhaps they should know their history before doing so, in this case, the writer was correct. Anyhoo, not horrible, but just the same I wouldn't pay to see this.