Dance of the Dead (2008)

(In French, On Cable TV, May 2021) You don’t understand, screams the anguished teenager, To hell with the zombie apocalypse — there’s the prom to think about. Or at least that’s the impression I keep from director Gregg Bishop’s Dance of the Dead, a somewhat cheap zombie film that, at least, presents a clear setting and focus for its gory shenanigans. The big joke here has to do with its outcast dateless high schoolers (members of the Sci-Fi club!) being in a position to contain the zombie infestation striking their more popular colleagues attending the prom. Unlike other no-budget zombie films, Dance of the Dead does have mildly compelling narrative material to go along with the red dye and repurposed entrails — there’s some perfunctory character development, mildly amusing dialogue and a high-school setting that helps distinguish it from other similar efforts. (I’m currently bingeing on zombie films thanks to a horror-channel marathon, and they get really repetitive really quickly.)  While I’m not going to be Dance of the Dead’s biggest fan, it’s comparatively better than most films of its sub-genre, and not a bad watch if you’re already looking for undead films.