Dance of the Dead (Masters of Horror episode)

Infobox Television episode
Title = "Dance of the Dead"
Series = Masters of Horror


Caption = DVD cover for "Dance of the Dead"
Season = 1
Episode = 3
Airdate = November 11, 2005
Production = 103
Writer = Richard Christian Matheson
Director = Tobe Hooper
Guests = Erica Carroll Robert Englund Emily Graham Lucie Guest Jessica Lowndes Ryan McDonald Marilyn Norry Melena Ronnis Jonathan Tucker
Episode list =
Prev = H. P. Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch-House
Next = Jenifer

"Dance of the Dead" is the third episode of the first season of "Masters of Horror". It originally aired in North America on November 11, 2005.It is worth noting that Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan scored this episode. Richard Christian Matheson adapted the episode from a short story of the same name by his father, Richard Matheson.

Plot

In 2008, terrorists developed a bio-warfare weapon going by the name "Blizz". They used this weapon in local weather patterns in America. As it falls from the sky, it will instantly burn any living thing it touches. At her seventh birthday party, young Peggy (Emily Graham) watched as her friends were killed by Blizz.

Ten years later, America has been ravaged by the effects of World War III. The death count continues to rise in this dark and bleak future and some states simply no longer exist. Peggy (Jessica Lowndes) is now a naive young teenager, ignorant of the world outside of her mother's diner. She has lost both her father and her sister, Anna, and now depends on her mother, Kate (Marilyn Norry). One day, Peggy meets biker/drug addict Jak (Jonathan Tucker) and his two "friends", junkies Boxx (Ryan McDonald) and Celia (Lucie Guest). The three are into some shady dealings with a nightclub called The Doom Room, located in the town of Muskeet.

Kate warns Peggy that "everything the people of Muskeet do is a goddamn trick", and although she's afraid to disobey her mother, Peggy sneaks out with Jak in the middle of the night to the Doom Room with Boxx and Celia. Muskeet, as it appears, is completely ravaged and the home to nothing more but ravagers and sociopathic bikers and teenagers. The Doom Room is a heavy-metal bar run by a twisted MC (Robert Englund of "A Nightmare on Elm Street"). As Peggy and Celia watch the band Decree perform, Boxx and Jak go behind the stage to perform a business deal with the MC. They trade him packets of blood, for what has yet to be revealed. The MC promises that he will pay them if their product is good enough for the next "performance". If not, he'll make them eat it.

Back at Peggy's house, Kate awakes to find that she is not there, and instinctively knows that she's in Muskeet.At that point Peggy witnesses what the performance is. The MC has collected victims of Blizz who suffer from a medical abnormality where they still stand even after they've died. This condition was first discovered in the battlegrounds of the war. They are then pumped with blood and forced to dance, and those who don't move are shocked with electric prods. Peggy watches in horror as the MC brings out her own sister, Anna (Melena Ronnis).

When Anna falls off the stage, Peggy and Jak take her away from the Doom Room, to be followed by the MC and one of his goons. Peggy and Jak meet up with Kate where the MC sheds some light on how he came to "own" Anna. When she was still alive, Anna was just like the other teenagers in Muskeet, and Kate was sick of having to drag her out of the Doom Room every weekend. Then Anna overdosed on drugs, so Kate decided to sell her to the MC, and she was apparently still alive.

Kate is beaten down and tries to explain to Peggy that she sold Anna because they had nothing. Angered at what her mother did, Peggy trades her for Anna. In the end, Peggy becomes another Muskeet style teenager, and watches as Kate's corpse is beaten with electric rods and forced to dance in the Doom Room.

Trivia

*The Song "We Are One" by Buckethead featuring Serj Tankian from the album Enter the Chicken, is used in this episode when Peggy arrives at the Muskeet.

*In Richard Matheson original story of the same name, the condition is called L.U.P. (Lifeless Undead Phenomenon)—This freak of physiological abnormality was discovered during the war when, following certain germ-gas attacks, many of the dead troops were found erect and performing the spasmodic gyrations which, later, became known as the "loopy's" (L.U.P.'s) dance. The particular germ spray responsible was later distilled and is now used in carefully controlled experiments which are conducted only under the strictest of legal license and supervision.

External links

*imdb title|id=0643102|title=Dance of the Dead
*Review for [http://www.dreadcentral.com/index.php?name=Reviews&req=showcontent&id=636 "Dance of the Dead"] at [http://www.DreadCentral.com Dread Central]