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When an excavation team led by Dr. Kay Foster unearths a burial site on an American Indian reservation, the tribal elders caution them that they are bringing about great danger – for they have disturbed the resting place of Nahalla, who, legend has it, was a sadistic and feared cult leader. Ignoring these warnings, however, the team transports the body back to the museum in hopes of identifying it. Sure enough, the grim predictions soon come to pass when a young couple are found gruesomely slaughtered after a late-night lovemaking session at the museum. Unbeknownst to Dr. Kay and her team, a local medicine man has managed to summon Nahalla. Now, possessed by his evil spirit, he is stalking the shadows, intent on meting out bloody vengeance to those who have disturbed his slumber.
Arriving in 1982 just as the slasher boom was waning, director Peter F. Buffa’s The Ghost Dance offered a novel spin on the already then-tired slice-and-dice formula by weaving American Indian folklore into its story whilst still offering up all the requisite hacking and slashing dictated by the genre. Criminally underseen and hitherto languishing in a notoriously murky VHS transfer, Vinegar Syndrome has at long last summoned up The Ghost Dance for its Blu-ray world premiere, newly restored in 4K from original 35mm film elements – which finally affords viewers the chance to properly savor Fred Murphy’s (Stir of Echoes, The Mothman Prophecies) sumptuous desert photography – and offered up with a treasure trove of illuminating newly-produced special features.
STARRING: Julie Amato, Victor Mohica, Henry Bal, Frank Salsedo