May I Have This (Grave)Dance?

Ever watch a film that was made when you were an adult--legal to vote, legal to drink, college degree long in hand--and realize that was almost 20 years ago? That 2006, which I swear was just last week, was actually not one, but nearly TWO decades in the past? 

Children have since been born, gone through puberty, released pop albums, learned technology far better than us elderly ever will. You can watch The Gravedancers and flinch at the weird blue gray pallor that coats your frames and cackle at the CGI not because it's a fairly low budget horror movie, but because it's actually from a DIFFERENT AGE.

This is important. Maybe it's my way of not making this all about how old I feel, but remembering that this was a completely ancient ERA of genre film really helps frame your watch. 

Quick Plot: Harris is a successful lawyer trying to start a family with loving wife Allison. Life is interrupted by the death of a college pal, which reunites Harris with his two best pals from back in the day: Sid, whose primary post-university high point seems to be maintaining status as a functioning alcoholic, and Kira, who has clearly never stopped loving the very moved-on Harris. 

The trio go out for drinks and decide to continue their mourning at the gravesite of the deceased. Any worries that this is in bad taste are quickly pushed away when Sid finds a black envelope conveniently resting on a nearby stone. In it contains a poem all about living in the moment and what a joy it is to dance upon graves. Surely it's a sign that they should, you know, gravedance!

Harris returns to a rightfully displeased Allison and understandably does NOT tell her about his evening festivities (especially since they enjoyed a kiss or two with Kira). Very soon, that becomes the least of their problems as the couple begins to experience ghostly activity. Kira and Sid have similar experiences, leading them to a pair of pre-Ghosthunters being a thing ghosthunters Vincent and Frances to help stop the haunting before it becomes deadly. 

Frances is thrilled with the chance to gather real evidence of paranormal activity (note: we're still several years away from Paranormal Activity). A little digging turns up the obvious: dancing on graves will unleash the ghosts of those inhibiting said dance floor. Naturally, these particular ghosts were homicidal maniacs: pyromaniac child, rapist judge, and axe-wielding piano teacher. 

Directed by Mike Mendez, The Gravedancers is a film that ages oddly...even as you watch it. For the first act, I found myself cackling at the typical aughtsness of fairly awful, very dumb young(ish) people making terrible choices with every breath. The ghosts seemed silly, the dialogue even siller. But at some point, something started clicking into place. Mendez has since gone on to make some successful outright horror comedies, and while The Gravedancers isn't a laughfest, the film has a sly sense of humor. The cast is far sharper than they initially seem, and even the Beetlejuice by way of Bava-y monster makeup becomes, at times, kind of creepy. 

The Gravedancers grew on me. It's a standard ghost story with some specific twists, executed with deceptive intelligence by Mendez and his screenwriters Brad Keene and Chris Skinner. I don't know that I'll ever watch it again or work hard to recommend it, but I ultimately enjoyed myself. This is VERY far from great, but it's never boring, and more importantly, never takes itself too seriously. 

High Points

Once our cursed dummies gather in one place, The Gravedancers really hits its stride in terms of timing and momentum. The finale is both funny and scary and yes, looks pretty terrible at times, but really helps to up the energy

Low Points

I know, I know: CGI did not look very good on a low budget in 2006. But I'd forgotten just HOW not good it was. Pair that with the weird gray-blue tint this streaming version has and it makes for a fairly ugly watch

Lessons Learned

I have yet to heed this, but The Gravedancers is just one more reminder that in any supernatural disaster, the ability to drive stick may save your life

Yes, it's irresponsible to be in your 30s and drunkenly party in a graveyard, thus inviting murderous spirits onto your trail, but the REAL culprit in this haunting is the wife who decided to not spend time with your awkward college love triangle and went home, thus opening the door for you to drunkenly party in a graveyard in the first place

Setting your film in a graveyard is a great trick for directors looking to take home a prop that includes their name

Does the Cat Die?

No! because apparently, the feline actor was a jerk who scratched Clare Kramer (AN ACTUAL [BUFFYVERSE] GOD) and was fired from production. So don't worry!

Rent/Bury/Buy

If you can forgive the fact that this movie looks like it was dropped in a puddle and brushed off, there's a fair amount of fun to be had with The Gravedancers. It's dumb, but in a smart way. It's currently streaming on Amazon Prime in its muddy glory. 

Where'd You Go?

 

Ah, the made-for-TV movie. Even as the golden era ended at the turn of the century, stations like TBS kept gifting the world with these treasures. 

Quick Plot: Nothing unites a new family like a road trip! Dad Jim (my early Clash of the Titans crush Harry Hamlin) is hoping that some Nevada desert will warm his nice teen son Matt and bitter tween daughter Katie to his new wife Patty (The Partridge Family's Susan Dey), a book editor with a cell phone (slightly ahead of the curve in 2002). Also in tow is Matt's pal Ethan. 

After stopping for terrible burgers at a greasy diner filled with ominous locals, budding photographer Matt convinces his family to take a detour to an abandoned mining village. It's a fun hour spent wandering a mysteriously empty main street but also just enough time to cause some car trouble. The family makes a camping trip out of it with a sense of adventure until they discover a dusty video camera with some early found footage home movie of the last group to open their sleeping bags in the same house. 

Things look worse in the morning when the car goes missing. Yes, these hills have eyes, and they're not smiling. 

Made for the TBS Superstation (THROWBACK!), Disappearance is a curious piece of cinema (well, small screen cinema). The film is written and directed by TV veteran Walter Klenhard, a man with dozens of Garage Sale Mystery credits to his name, plus the irresistibly titled Baby Monitor: Sound of Fear. 

I've been talking a lot about one's level of expectation when approaching a genre film. Standards change depending on budget and ambition. They also get very skewed when we're talking about a television network that hasn't aired its own film content in twenty years. 

Like any TV movie, Disappearance shows its format with some commercial fade outs and a fairly clear TV-14 limit. But it's also filmed in the sprawling Australian outback and has an aura of something slightly bigger. The cast is strong, and that includes the younger actors who feel quite lived in and comfortable as this family. There's a kind of YA literature energy to how things go down, which I mean as a compliment.

I think a lot of viewers, both from 2002 and 2025, won't find much in Disappearance. But if you go into it with an open mind and fondness for a time when the letters TBS had a certain ring, you might, as I did, walk away having had a surprisingly good, albeit confusing time. 

High Points

The combination of good writing and confident performances from young Jer Adrianne Lelliott as Matt and Basia A'Hern (who went on to do editorial work for Furiosa, which is pretty badass) as Katie really do help to make the family antics of Disappearance work well

Low Points

I love a good ambiguous ending, but it's genuinely bizarre how little a made-for-TBS thriller ends up disclosing. I have no idea what actually happened in this movie, which is admirably daring on Klenhard's part, but incredibly unsatisfying on mine

Lessons Learned

Any pilot knows never to nose in 

The best defense against a rattlesnake is a cushy polyester wallet

If it's on tape, it has to be real

Rent/Bury/Buy

I had fun with Disappearance, though it's certainly not for everyone. Find it on Amazon Prime (or your local TBS station).

Shoe Goes There

 

As we continue honoring horror films that feature vertically challenged villains in the month of February (as one is wont to do), I find myself hitting against my first real existential question: does an object that one wears to become TALLER still fit the category? 

Quick Plot: Two teen girls are waiting in an empty subway tunnel when they discover a pair of lonely, flattering hot pink pumps. Like traveling pants, the shoes seem to be the perfect size for both young ladies, causing an immediate brawl over who is the rightful owner. As the victor stalks off, an invisible force follows at her ankles and, well, takes off a few inches.

Elsewhere in Seoul, an unhappy mother/wife named Sun-jae walks out on her distant husband after she discovers his affair. Sun-jae moves her young daughter Tae-su into a questionable apartment (amenities include a wacky old lady who lives in the basement) to start her new life. While riding home on the metro, Sun-jae stumbles upon a familiar pair of heels.

Sun-jae seems to be on the right track rebuilding her life. Her divorce is almost finalized, and she's close to opening her own eye clinic. She also begins a relationship with her interior designer, In-Cheol, much to the chagrin of Tae-soo.

But then there is the matter of those shoes. 

They seem to send out a siren song to any woman, be they 8-year-old Tae-su or Sun-Jae's best friend. The latter wears them a little too long down the street and ends up in an Argento-esque murder scene while Tae-su is hospitalized after a shoe-inspired bleeding frenzy. 

Internet searches, microfiche scrolling, and survivor interviews take us down a Ringu-like trail of discovery. Like many Korean horror films, The Red Shoes feels ten minutes too long, with a bit of a dueling narrative between the shoe's supernatural, ballet-filled history and the more immediate concerns of Sun-jae's very human flaws. Normally I'd never fault a movie for a last act detour into a choreographed dance, but The Red Shoes, dare I say it, didn't really need it. 

Sun-jae is a richly drawn mess of a woman, which I mean as an extreme compliment. Wonderfully played by Kim Hye-su, she hasn't made the best life choices, and that's before she brings home a pair of haunted high heels. Her relationship with her daughter is awkward. She doesn't stand up to her awful husband. She seems like a pretty crappy friend. 

It's actually kind of great! Somehow, mixing her life with a more lyrically melodramatic flashback to frenemy ballerinas in the 1940s takes AWAY from the more intriguing idea that a put-upon wife and mother might just need one sexy pair of heels to unleash something cruel and vain inside. There's plenty to explore, and had The Red Shoes been a little more confident in its core story, it would have been great. 

High Points

My Hoopla-rented copy of The Red Shoes wasn't of the highest image quality, but it was still clear to see how visually interesting a film it is. Director Yong-gyun Kim brings a unique color palette and off-kilter set design to keep the entire film in a slightly otherworldly realm

Low Points

I was never bored during The Red Shoes, but I also never really felt confident that I understood what was going on and why it was happening 

Lessons Learned

Self-pride will always do you wrong

There's an age limit to wearing red

To properly identify a body, one must check the face and feet

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Red Shoes is a messy story, but there's a lot here that I found quite striking. It has a great lead performance, visual intrigue, and some nasty twists fitting of the early aught era but with a slight sense of whimsy from the very nature of this being somewhat of a fairy tale. It's streaming on Hoopla, though the print quality is less than ideal. Keep an eye out for a cleaner version. 

A Very Long Weekend

 

In the year 2024, it seems pretty official that '90s horror, once despised by genre fans, has aged in a fairly charming and enjoyable way. 

Maybe we just need another decade for the grisly aughts to find the same redemption. 

Quick Plot: Rob is a successful prosecutor taking his French artist girlfriend Pia on a romantic getaway. Their destination? Fishing in a rather rudimentary rented boat through the marshes of Australia. Confident Rob wants to do some exploring, while reluctant Pia is quickly proven right in her instincts: they're lost, it's pouring, and the only shelter nearby makes Leatherface's adobe look like Graceland. 

Pia and Rob quickly end up on the bad side of weed-growing brothers Jimmy and Brett, but the worst is still to come with the return of their dad, Poppy. Egos are bruised, baby kangaroos are stewed, and some very rusty implements are put to use.

Storm Warning came out in 2007, which was four entries into the Saw series. Horror was pretty ugly at the time, and I mean that literally. It was the era of including the phrase "grisly violence" under your R-rating in your red band trailer to make sure genre fans had a reason to care. 

As you might guess, this isn't my favorite mood of film. That being said, Storm Warning, with its Aussie bonafides, feels far more justified in its visceral darkness than some of its American counterparts because at its heart, it's Ozsploitation. Screenwriter Everett De Roche penned the story sometime in the '80s following his down under classics Patrick and Long Weekend. While the actual filmmaking feels of the aughts, there is a throwback quality that works.

For director Jamie Blanks, Storm Warning feels slightly out of character. He's better known for the fun twist on late '90s slashers with Urban Legend and the campy Valentine. Storm Warning is meaner, but there are still some touches of dark humor. This is the kind of movie that you can smell, which is both a compliment and a warning.

High Points

Storm Warning has a small cast, but each member delivers incredibly well to elevate the whole film, with Nadia Fares standing out and holding it all together

Low Points

It's just...you know...this is a fairly disgusting and unpleasant film

Lessons Learned

The French are lovable for their ability to cook and be cool

Something they apparently don't teach in Australian law school: if being held captive by a violent band of outlaws, it's best practice to not tell them that you're a lawyer

Even weed-growing dirty Australian backwoods criminals are smart enough to not leave their keys in the car

Rent/Bury/Buy

Storm Warning came out in one of the least enjoyable eras of horror, but for what it is, it's quite good. That doesn't mean you'll ever be in the mood to watch it. Still, when you crave this very specific, rather unpleasant mood of horror, this will satisfy. Find it on Amazon Prime. 

A Dog's Life

 

It's wild to accept that 2006 happened 18 years ago. Low-rise jeans and chunky belts? They never went OUT of style!

Anyway, yes, we've reached the point where the early aughts are now nostalgic. Life is weird. 

Quick Plot: A dumb and drunk couple park their yacht on a mysterious island, only to disappear. Shortly after, a batch of recognizable college kids led by trust fund brat Johnny fly a private plane to the same lands for some beer and margarita-fueled fun (but sadly, no Maxim Magazine, in case you needed a reminder that it's 2006). 

Along for the ride is Johnny's younger med-student-in-the-making brother Matt, Matt's girlfriend (and Johnny's ex) Nicki, and lifelong pals Sarah and Noah. After a montage of nauseating fun (remember when you could drink warm margaritas and spin on playground rides without dying?), they discover an adorable German Shepard mix puppy, who leads Sarah to get bit by his much less adorable and aggressive parent. 

Sarah doesn't feel great, but Matt estimates she can spend a few more days chugging beer before she really needs a rabies shot. Of course, the pack of wild canines that now smell their new well-fed prey aren't eager to let the kids go. 

A well-trained cast of German shepherds and Malinois proceed to turn the vacation into a siege. The dogs even chew through the ropes holding the plane in place, ensuring their targets won't have an easy escape. All the while, Sarah's infection grows worse as she finds herself identifying more with her hunters than friends. 

I'm not here to say that The Breed is a particularly good movie, but nearly 20 years after its release and with various cycles of other subgenres passing by, what was probably a forgettable, even unpleasant straight-to-DVD flick has aged into something...okay. This is Nicholas Mastandrea's only full directorial credit, though he has dozens of high profile second unit films to his name. He clearly knows his way around the technical side of filmmaking. If you're looking for a fairly straightforward, competent dog-eat-hot-people movie, you' could do a whole lot worse. 

High Points

There are just as many hot young actors today as there were in 2006, but it really does make more watchable when your cast is actually charismatic. Taryn Manning has been, well, a bit of a confusing human being in recent years, but she's always had that it factor that makes you want to see her onscreen. Likewise, Michelle Rodriguez is in top form here. We believe she's the kind of athletic coed who can zipline with an arrow sticking out of her calf. Their characters may be underwritten, but their performances have enough energy to keep us involved

Low Points

Did I mention that I also kind of hated everyone in the movie?

Lessons Learned

Archery is a very white sport filled with very terrible white shots

There's a difference between being lost on a creepy abandoned penal colony and being stranded on a creepy abandoned penal colony

Dating your brother's ex takes more than 2 years to no longer be awkward

Adorable Puppy Notes

I'm a dog person. I grew up with dogs, spent years working with dogs, and generally spend every day in public hoping to pet a dog. Had I known The Breed was going to involve dogs being shot by wayward arrows and fired up by CGI flames, I probably would have passed. The poster and quick description suggested I'd be getting MUTANT dogs, and as we all know, there is a difference. All that is to say that the credits included several disclaimers that no animals were harmed during filming, and quick Googling suggests these were professionally trained dogs. This isn't the most pleasant film for a dog lover to watch, but most of the editing suggested these animals were treated fine. Make of that what you will

Rent/Bury/Buy

Early 2000s horror completists can do a lot worse than The Breed. It's far better put together than a lot of its competition at the time, though all that said, it's still not in any way the most innovative or dynamic movie. It's on Peacock for when you have that very specific era (or flea bite-induced) itch.