"Dance of the Dead" is adapted from the 1954 short story of the same name, written by the great Richard Matheson, about a post-apocalyptic future that has been mostly wiped out by a biological weapon during the devastating WWIII of 2008. A teenage girl meets a group of junkie-punk freaks and tags along for a night of rowdy partying around the bleak wasteland. They end up at a nightclub called The Doom Room where Robert Englund is hamming it up as the MC. The main stage act happens to involve a few victims of the bio-gas whose zombie-like twitches are boosted by cattle prod abuse, thus entertaining the crowd with the aptly named Dance of the Dead...
As I'm finally getting around to watching a lot of these Masters of Horror episodes, I've really been digging the minimal restraint and personally characterized styles that all of these well known genre directors managed to work into some very awesome one hour films. However, "Dance of the Dead" is one that I felt needed a little room to breathe due to the material Hooper was working with here. The whole family background thing, combined with Englund's character needing blood to survive - it all sort of lacked necessary explanation and depth. Still, the movie has a neat, flashy visual carriage and good performances all around. This is an entertaining MoH installment.
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