Dance of the Dead (2008)

You have your jocks, geeks, cheerleaders, punks, underachievers and of course, the SciFi Club.  Combine all of these elements leading up to the high school prom with a toxic sludge leak from the nuclear power plant (which is right next to the graveyard) and you have the recipe for an excellent zombie movie.  Think Sixteen Candles meets Shaun of the Dead.  This is Dance of the Dead.

The purposely hilarious 2008 zombie flick seems to have completely flown under the radar on the zombie scene.  The writing is good, the plot is solid (for a cheesy horror movie) and the effects are great.

The story starts of with the various cliques getting ready for their high school prom.  It’s the whole over the top teen angst thing up until the undead start exploding from their graves.  That’s right, none of this crawling out of the dirt stuff here, these suckers fly right out!

Naturally the SciFi Club is exploring the cemetery at this late hour because they don’t have dates and the only better thing to do is walk around the graveyard.  You’d think this would mean trouble but they actually have the upper hand by being aware of the outbreak at it’s onset.  Their advantage allows them to run around town helping other survivors until they eventually assemble a small platoon of zombie killers to go save the prom.

There’s all kinds of great kill/fight scenes in the movie.  We see bodies sliced in half running around, heads being split open, zombie make-outs and even a zombie frog.  Not to mention the unique ability of the school’s rock band to stave off the dead with a metal version of Pat Benatar’s Shadows of the Night.  Yes, trust me, IT’S AWESOME.

I really have to give Director Gregg Bishop and Writer Joe Ballarini big props on this one, they managed to deliver a great flick on a low budget.  I haven’t had this much fun watching a tongue in cheek zombie movie since Planet Terror.  You won’t want to miss it.

That’s it, that’s your zombie movie.

Have you seen this movie?  What did you think?