Richard Matheson’s short story does get a very kinetic bit of treatment by Hooper’s often surreal direction here. The world in “Dance of the Dead” is a world where even death isn’t the end, and even the bodies of the once living are used as entertainment in a world run by teenagers who do nothing but get high and wreak havoc on the world. Robert Englund has an especially serpentine-like walk-on role as a wicked DJ who runs the show from behind the scenes and seeks personal finance by the misery of others. “Dance of the Dead” can tend to be a twisted and gruesome look at the post-apocalypse world. It’s pretty hard to think of a very good Hooper production after “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Poltergeist”, because I’d say Hooper really hasn’t scored a slam dunk in a good long while.
“Dance of the Dead” is–again–no true exception. It’s an installment I was really looking forward to, and it was a colossal disappointment in spite of some positive points it presented. If the “Masters of Horror” wasn’t so hell bent on exposing its symbolic storylines and allegories, and actually tried to scare us, this could be an excellent series. Instead the show’s become nothing but a display of bravado from these top notch directors, and the only truly good episode has been the pilot. “Dance of the Dead” is a weak installment that really just tends to ramble on and on. It’s surprising that a story that’s basically only over fifty minutes is incredibly boring. And confusing.
What actually happened to the world to make it look the way it did, and why were kids running the show? And were the people whom were deformed actual zombies or just people who couldn’t die? Regardless, “Dance of the Dead” lacked any sense of compelling narrative with characters that really did nothing much but get high throughout the episode especially in one utterly ill-fated attempt at mimicking a drug high which looked a lot like a shot from “Natural Born Killers”. The directing was also often very jarring with quick cuts, and choppy editing that was never truly compelling or pleasing to look at. “Dance of the Dead” attempts to convey some sort of message about the after life and the apocalypse, but any sort of message is lost in the translation with a boring story, jarring directing, and derivative elements.