Dance of the Dead (film)

Dance of the Dead is a 2008 American independent zombie comedy film, directed by Gregg Bishop and written by Joe Ballarini.

The film featured Jared Kusnitz, Greyson Chadwick, Chandler Darby, Lucas Till, Blair Redford and Carissa Capobianco.

The plot revolves around the mysterious reanimation of the dead and the efforts of several students to save their high school prom from attack.

A high school prom in Georgia is unexpectedly interrupted when a graveyard, next to a power plant, becomes the sudden source of resuscitated cadavers.

After making a pizza delivery and discovering that a family is now zombies, Jimmy finds a crashed truck with his enemy Kyle as the only survivor.

In another neighborhood, Nash Rambler (Blair Redford), Jensen and Dave the Drummer are in the middle of writing a new song for their band.

Gwen manages to retrieve the funeral home's hearse and the group escapes with the intent to rescue their fellow students from the prom.

While looking through the school, the SciFi club members find a small group of survivors, including the prom queen, and start to lead them out to safety.

The survivors, including a group that hid at the prom, take a bus to a pancake house for breakfast courtesy of the coach to eat and plan an attack to shut down the power plant and prevent the zombie plague from spreading.

[3] The cast of Dance of the Dead marked the debut of relatively unknown Georgian natives—including Greyson Chadwick, Chandler Darby, and Carissa Capobianco—and the return of sophomore actors Jared Kusnitz (Doll Graveyard) and Randy McDowell (Good Intentions).

Dance of the Dead was hand-picked by director Sam Raimi for distribution in a deal with his new partnership Ghost House Underground and Lions Gate Entertainment.

"[21] Scott Weinberg of FEARnet was surprised that "character development" was possible, and called it "fast and funny, sick and sweet, nerdy and gory.

"[24] Collin Armstrong of Twitch Film wrote, "Owing a sizable debt to Dan O'Bannon's classic punk gut-muncher Return of the Living Dead, Dance manages to offer a few new ideas while mostly just taking those we've seen time and again to gonzo levels of execution.

"[25] Steve Barton of Dread Central rated it five out of five stars and wrote that the film "is rife with everything we could want in a living dead flick — great characters, good-looking zombies, and tons of gore!

[27] David Harley, also writing at Bloody Disgusting, rated it four-and-a-half stars out of five and wrote, "Out of all the films I’ve seen at SXSW this year, regardless of genre, Dance of the Dead stands out as the most impressive and entertaining.

The DVD also contained several featurettes, including, "Making of Dance of the Dead," with extended commentary from cast and crew members.

The second, "Blood, Guts and Rock 'n' Roll: Effects and Stunts of Dance of the Dead", discusses the film's technical production.

Several additional features included a trailer gallery and Voodoo, a five-and-a-half minute short film by director Gregg Bishop.