★ 3 / 10
1992: A ballet slasher travesty!
Coventry
Okay, we need to talk about the "grand finale" of this (righteously) forgotten early 90s slasher. I honestly don't want to ruin it, but is there anyone…
Okay, we need to talk about the "grand finale" of this (righteously) forgotten early 90s slasher. I honestly don't want to ruin it, but is there anyone -seriously - who didn't figure out the supposedly shocking end-twist from the first moment Svetlana rolls into the picture in her wheelchair? Slashers from the early 1990s don't score well on inspiration or creativity, I know, but the revelation of "Dance Macabre" is too preposterous, ridicule, and predictable for words. Besides, after looking up the film here on IMDb, I also noticed the cast listing blatantly gives away the big twist as well.It had potential, though. Based on other sadistic and bloody horror flicks with a ballet academy setting (like Argento's "Suspiria" or Fulci's "Murder Rock") and my appreciation for writer/director Greydon Clark (he did make "The Return" and "Without Warning" after all), I had relatively good hopes that "Dance Macabre" would at least be an undemanding but grim slasher with a massive body count. And, of course, there's the lead role of horror monument Robert Englund as the scar-faced and sinister ballet academy's headmaster. How bad can it possibly be, right?The painful truth is that, since the "Nightmare on Elm Street" sequels, Robert Englund only starred in lousy flicks in which depicted eccentric weirdos ("Phantom of the Opera", "Night Terrors", "The Mangler") and this is his worst and most unconvincing role of them all. The body count is reasonably high, but the killing methods are dull, unimaginative, and frustratingly un-gory. Clark's direction is thoroughly unremarkable. Perhaps he felt restricted by the omnipresence of producer Menahem Golan, but even Clark's notoriously terrible "Uninvited" had more panache. In fact, there's only one brightness in "Dance Macabre" and it's lead girl Michelle Zeitlin. Not necessarily because she's a gifted actress, but because she's a beauty with a breathtaking body. She's a lot curvier and more voluptuous than a ballet dancer ought to be, but I'm not complaining. Apparently, Zeitlin quickly quit the acting business and hosts wellness workshops nowadays.
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★ 3 / 10
Mind Bogglingly Boring
rickypeters-49138
The age of Blu-Ray has brought out some really excellent hidden treasures that, for whatever reason, time had forgotten about. I'd hoped Dance Macabre would be…
The age of Blu-Ray has brought out some really excellent hidden treasures that, for whatever reason, time had forgotten about. I'd hoped Dance Macabre would be one of those films. It only had a quick release on VHS back in the early 90's and no one ever brought it back up again. Still, hearing about it, I was intrigued.The elements are all here for a great movie. You have genre legend Robert Englund in a bizarre, multi-character performance, a great setting, the backdrop of ballet, and a crazed murderer running around. It all appears to add up to some potentially interesting Argento-esque thrills. How did it end up being this boring?Englund's character is the head of a prestigious ballet school in Russia who believes his newest addition to the program is a dead ringer for his lover who was killed in an accident years ago. Someone starts killing people so that she can end up being the star dancer.All the death scenes are bland and suspense-free and only Englund really sticks out as an interesting actor. Any scenes he's not in are nap inspiring. The music score sounds like something from a late 80's training video and the big twist is so telegraphed and obvious that you wonder why they even bothered to give it a big reveal. Don't bother with this one.
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4.1/10
571
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Anyone else think the old lady with the glasses and the voice box looks like Daria Nicolodi? I'm getting SUSPIRIA vibes.. like a cheap knock-off. I'm in.