Directed by
Tobe Hooper and based
In Name Only on a short story by
Richard Matheson. Peggy (
Jessica Lowndes) is a 17-year-old girl who lives with her overprotective mother Kate (Marylyn Norry) in a
post-apocalyptic US
20 Minutes into the Future. Her father died in
World War III and her older sister Anna went missing some years after that. Shortly after meeting a teenage punk named Jak (
Jonathan Tucker), Peggy ignores the advice of her mother and accompanies him to The Doom Room, a nightclub in the nearby town of Muskeet run by an eccentric manager known only as "the MC" (
Robert Englund), where the main attraction is the so-called
Dance of the Dead.
Tropes:
- After the End: Downplayed Trope. The United States still exist, but lawlessness is rampant and chemical warfare has caused untold damage. New York, Los Angeles, and California are said to have been destroyed.
- The Dead Can Dance: A group of young people in a post-World War III future visit a nightclub where corpses are made to "dance" through the use of a nerve-gas spray.
- Death by Pragmatism: Used, although the victim's pragmatic decision was unquestionably one of the coldest things on the list. Kate sold her older daughter, who was a strung-out junkie in the process of overdosing to a man who would reanimate her lifeless body to dance in his freak show so that she could support her younger daughter. In the end, she is killed and the surviving daughter trades her mother's body for the sister's so that the sister can be buried.
- Death from Above: "Blitz" is weaponized acid rain, burning anything organic on the outside but harmless while under a roof.
- Den of Iniquity: The Doom Room, were people basically get drugged and watch corpses dance.
- Due to the Dead: Peggy recovers the body of Anna so it can be buried properly.
- Fanservice: Many of the workers in The Doom Room are topless females.
- For Science!: Used as an apparent legal cover by the MC, as he claims before the audience that the reanimated cadavers dancing is supposed to be an educational and scientific spectacle. This is present in the short story, as well, where it is legal, so long as it's preceded with the "educational" disclaimer.
- Heel–Face Turn: Jak joins Peggy against the MC and helps her "rescue" her zombified sister, Anna. Ironically, this act sets off the chain of events that ends with Peggy becoming a regular at The Doom Room, and her dead mother the Room's newest "dancer".
- Human Resources: Jak and his friends are blood harvesters, who steal fresh blood from hospitals (and occasionally living people) and sell it to the MC.
- I Love the Dead: The MC performs oral sex on an animated female cadaver, then receives oral sex from a different one.
- Jerkass: Kate has an abrassive personality and causes preventable damage to people (closing the door on a woman and her daughters during a blitz attack, abandoning Anna to the MC), despite her main motivation being her own protection and of her daughters.
- Karmic Death: Kate is allowed to die by her favorite child Peggy, in punishment for her treatment of her unfavorite Anna, and her body turned into a dancer in exchange for the former's.
- Large Ham: Who else but Robert Englund, a master of the trope, as the MC.
- Last Disrespects: The MC's "dancers" are dead, kept in cold storage and animated with chemicals and electric shocks for amusement and profit, until he decides to burn them with the trash.
- Little People Are Surreal: A go-go dancer at the Doom Room has achondroplasia.
- My Beloved Smother: Kate keeps Peggy isolated after Anna's disappearance and presumed death.
- My Nayme Is: Jak spells his name with no C.
- Our Zombies Are Different: In this case, they are only vaguely reanimated corpses.
- Phlebotinum Dependence: To "dance", the Doom Room's zombie dancers need to be regularly injected with fresh blood — preferably from older people who have never done drugs or have an STD. Additionally, the MC keeps a private stash of blood for his own purpose.
- Shout-Out:
- The bouncers at the Doom Room are dressed in the "droog" style (derby hats, white jumpsuits, etc.) featured in the film A Clockwork Orange.
- The girls singing in the blitz scene are eerily similar to the famous ones in A Nightmare On Elm Street, doubling as an Actor Allusion for Englund.
- Sissy Villain: The MC wears makeup and is pretty flamboyant.
- Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: The "dancers" are female, with long unkempt hair, and wearing white nightgowns.
- The Reveal: Kate, fed up with Anna's hard-partying lifestyle, allowed her to die of a drug overdose and sold her corpse to the MC. Trouble was, she wasn't quite dead when her mother sold her.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: It is not said when the story is set but seems to be an unspecified moment in the near future (for 2005).
- The Unfavorite: Anna the older daughter to her mother, Kate.
- World War III: Happened in the backstory and saw repeated chemical attacks on the US, called "blitz".
- Wretched Hive: Cruising down the main drag of Muskeet at night makes Dodge City look like Disneyland.
