Masters of Horror: Dance of the Dead

"Management has requested no guns, no meaningful conversations and no self-surgery during the show."

- The M.C.

"Dance of the Dead" is the third telemovie of the horror anthology series Masters of Horror. It was directed by Tobe Hooper and written by Richard Christian Matheson based on the short story originally written by his father, Richard Burton Matheson. It first aired on Friday, November 11th, 2005 on Showtime. The story takes place in the near-future of a post-apocalyptic middle America. In the wake of nuclear fallout, the dead have begun rising from the grave. An unscrupulous night club owner uses these zombies as exotic dancers in his "Doom Room", injecting them with blood, and prodding them with electric shocks, much to the adulation of the young, teenage audience. A seventeen-year-old girl named Peggy accompanies her new love-interest Jak to the Doom Room where she finds that one of the dancers is her sister Anna, who passed away several years ago.

Notes & Trivia

 * Not to be confused with the 2008 film Dance of the Dead, which also maintains a zombie-apocalypse theme.


 * "Dance of the Dead" was released to DVD on September 12th, 2006 by Starz Productions and Anchor Bay Entertainment. The DVD bonus features includes director's commentary by Tobe Hooper and writer Richard Christian Matheson, an interview with Matheson entitled "The Written Word", an interview with Tobe Hooper entitled "Primal Screams" and a behind-the-scenes featurette.


 * Director Tobe Hooper is better known as the creator of the original 1974 independent slasher film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. In addition to this episode, he also directed the premiere episode of season two, "The Damned Thing". Hooper is also known for helming the directing chores on Steven Spielberg's 1982 ghostly horror Poltergeist.


 * Actor Robert Englund has appeared in dozens of horror films, but he is best known for playing the child-murdering dream demon Freddy Krueger in the A Nightmare on Elm Street film franchise.


 * Richard Christian Matheson is the son of author Richard Burton Matheson, famous for writing the novel I am Legend, which has been adapted into several feature films.