Masters of Horror/Dance of the Dead

Dance of the Dead
Season 1, Episode 3
Airdate	November 11, 2005
Written by	teleplay Richard Christian Matheson story Richard Matheson
Directed by	Tobe Hooper
← 1x02 Dreams in the Witch House	1x04 → Jenifer
Masters of Horror — Season One

Dance of the Dead is the third episode of the first season of Masters of Horror.

In a post-apocalyptic world Peggy lives a sheltered life. When she meets a wild guy he opens her up to the outer world where reanimated corpses dance for entertainment, and Peggy learns that she is more connected with this world than she realizes.

Cast: Robert Englund (The M.C.), Jessica Lowndes (Peggy), Jonathan Tucker (Jak), Marilyn Norry (Kate), Ryan McDonald (Boxx), Lucie Guest (Celia), Karen Austin (Quinn), Sharon Heath (Gerri), Melena Ronnis (Anna), Emily Graham (Young Peggy), Genevieve Buechner (Young Anna), Margot Berner (Marie), Don MacKay (Steven), Erica Carroll (Mia), Darren Aitcheson (Giant Door Guy), Julia Taffe (Loopy Girl 1), Leah Wagner (Loopy Girl 2), Kylie Furneaux (Loopy Girl 3), Virginia Dee Mayne (Woman 1), Darren Moore (Creep in Muskeet), Misty Dawn Meeler (Woman 2), Brock Johnson (Pomade Creep), Clay Virtue (Creep in Doom Room)

Plot Overview

In the wake of devastating World War 3, major locations like New York and Los Angeles don't exist anymore. What remains of the United States is a far more lawless urban blight covered under some unspoken new government which makes no effort to keep the peace. Living a sheltered life, Peggy works in a local coffee shop under the protective care of her mother Kate. Kate is wracked with torturous dreams of the day that World War 3 started, which was heralded by a terror weapon called Blizz which clouded the skies on Peggy's seventh birthday. Even ten years later, she still has nightmares where she holds both Peggy and her older sister Anna safe inside their homes while watching her friend Gerri clutch her dying daughter. Her father is dead from the war and the chaos afterwards has claimed her sister Anna.

Her protective bubble is burst when Jak enters the coffee shop. Jak is from Muskeet, a lawless town that Peggy's mother had long warned her about. Although accompanied by his sociopathic loudmouth parter Boxx and two groupies, Jak notices Peggy's unusual nature and she reacts quickly to his charms. Talking with her to the side while his partner entertains the two women, Jak suggests that he'll be around after dark if she's interested in some fun. Her mother comes into the coffee shop and quickly kicks the bad influences out. Although Boxx would normally have caused trouble, Jak calms him down and they leave quietly.

Jak and Boxx are involved in strange things during the daytime. They accost an elderly couple on the street in broad daylight. It becomes clear that a normal robbery isn't their intention when they demand to know which of them is older, and extract blood from the old woman. Curious loot in hand, the 'new youth of America' leave the old couple in the dust. Elsewhere, a van pulls into a deserted alley while two men pull three zombie-like corpses of nude women and throw them into a dumpster. Still twitching with no indication of humanity, the two set them on fire.

Her mother in the middle of another nightmare-filled night, Peggy sneaks out at night to the coffee shop. Jak is there waiting for her. Talking around the dangers of the world, it is clear that Peggy trusts him. Boxx and one of the groupies pull up in a convertible and the four of them head off into the night. On the way, Peggy is introduced to all manner of vice, from strange inhaled drugs and injected drugs. Before she realizes it, they're driving into Muskeet. In Muskeet, every form of vice is right out in the open, with sex in the streets, drugs from street vendors, and violence at every turn. Wanting to go back home, her interest in Jak and his protective gestures keeps her with them. Back at home, her mother wakes and realizes exactly where her daughter has gone and heads to Muskeet with a switchblade in hand.

Standing out in Muskeet is The Doom Room, a loud and dangerous club filled with loud music, sex, and all kinds of substances. The main attraction, as introduced by the very popular MC, is the display of LUPs. Lifeless Undeath Phenomenon is a condition where a wartime chemical agent causes corpses to assume a zombie-like state, twitching uncontrollably. The core of the event is the Dance of the Dead, where cattle prods are used to make the Loopies perform a twisted kind of dance for the enjoyment of the crowd. The MC has concocted more private uses for the LUPs, leaning towards the necrophiliac persuasion.

The MC has contracted Jak and Boxx to collect blood plasma from the old in order to create his very popular LUPs. While conducting business, Anna watches with morbid fascination when she realizes that one of the 'dancers' is the animated corpse of her sister Anna. Dragging her off stage, Jak comes to her side with a gun and they leave the club under cover of his gun. They are stopped in the street by Peggy's mother while the MC and a hired thug follow them. Confronted in the street, Jak shoots the thug and then the MC, clearly unafraid, demands the corpse back for his show. Claiming that he 'owns' the corpse, Peggy's mother becomes hysterical and attacks the MC with a knife but is quickly pistol whipped to the ground. Peggy's mother begging Jak to shoot him, Peggy instead insists that the MC explain what he means. Peggy's sister Anna was a frequent visitor of The Doom Room and Peggy's mother had often had to come to Muskeet to collect her drug addicted daughter. On the occasion of one of her overdoses, Peggy's mother instead sold the still alive Anna to the MC for a sum of money. Using that money, she set up the coffee shop and protected Peggy from all the dangers that had consumed her other daughter.

Demanding his corpse back, Peggy instead offers to make it right. Peggy and Jak bury Anna in the hills overlooking the ruined city and then return to The Doom Room to watch the latest addition to the MCs dancers, the animated corpse of Peggy's mother.

Notes

• Deaths and Gore: Several LUPs go through a lot, including electrocution and being set on fire. A birthday party full of adults and kids suffer a terrible skin burning chemical attack.

Trivia

Behind the Scenes

• Tobe Hooper has a long history in notable horror films, including the groundbreaking Texas Chainsaw Massacre and popular modern ghost story Poltergeist.
• Robert Englund is the actor behind one of the most iconic horror figures in the 1980s, Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy Krueger. His long career has also included The Mangler, a previous collaboration with Tobe Hooper.
• Novelist and screenwriter Richard Matheson has a 50-year long career of books and movie projects including Roger Corman's Pit and the Pendulum, The Omega Man, The Legend of Hell House, Twilight Zone: The Movie's segment 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet', and Stir of Echoes. His son wrote the screenplay for this entry.

Quotes

• MC: The act you will see in a few moments is not an offering of mere sensation but a bona-fide scientific demon-stration. Not for the faint of heart nor the weak of will. Let me caution those of you whose nerves are not what they used to be - Get the fuck out now!

• Celia: If you stay, this is totally sick.
  Peggy: What? What is it?
  Celia: It's what happens to people like me.

• MC: This freak of physiological abnormality was first discovered during the war. When put under certain chemical attacks, many of the dead troops were found standing, erect, performing spasmodic gyrations which later became affectionately known as the Loopy stance. Some of them even continued to fight. And that, my friends, is fucking patriotism.