Video Dead

There are some positives. The practical effects involving televisions sets are pretty cool. They put serious time and effort into the zombies - they look great for a no budget movie!

However, the movie itself is driven by some absolutely absurd logic and ridiculous decision-making on the part of its characters. I'm at a loss for how it didn't get the MST3K treatment and hasn't gotten the Rifftrax treatment.

It's fun, but in a you're laughing at it, not with it, sort of way.

A television set from who knows where allows zombies to enter into the real world. A brother and sister are readying the new family home while their parents are on a trip. The former discovers the set in the attic and mayhem ensues.

For some reason, this has garnered a cult following over the years. There are scenes that try for stupid humor but fall flat, while other scenes are unintentionally stupid. For example, the cowboy sets up a plan to have the brother hang helplessly as bait while he hides in a shed and picks off the zombies. So, what does he do as soon as he's in the shed? He sits down and goes to sleep. Brilliant move. Speaking of the brother, his acting is atrocious. Just watch the scene where he's talking to the guy on the TV and try not to laugh. None of the acting is good here, but wow. That whole scene is really bad though, not just the acting. Another poor scene is when a maid is killed. It's done in a ridiculous manner and seems to go on forever.

The effects are okay for the most part, though one sequence with a severed zombie hand is pretty bad. I did like the way the sister deals with the zombies in the climax. That made for some hearty amusement. The ending was good too, but as a whole, there's nothing I can see here to warrant such popularity. The charm of something like Night of the Comet just isn't there.

I wish all movies were this great. It's a movie where zombies come out of a television and it's up to 2 goofy teenagers and some sort of zombie hunter to stop them. The acting was horrible, it's set in the mid-80's and has all the big hair and cheesy music you could ask for. The plot has millions of holes in it that are explained with brief statements by the supporting cast, and there is plenty of blood in it. The only disappointing thing about this movie is that there were a few spots that could have been gory as hell but just weren't taken advantage of. For one, the part where the zombie's hand gets thrown in the garbage disposal. And then the part where some lady was stuffed in a washer; blood could have been everywhere, but no blood. Other than that, the movie was cool. The best line was after the dog got lost and April saying in one run-on sentence "You don't understand he likes to go into the woods and try to mate with skunks only skunks don't like to mate with poodles so they spray him and then he really gets turned on!". Solid!

Robert Scotts' low budget shocker "The Video Dead" wasn't quite as much fun as this viewer would have liked. Sometimes it's just too silly and inane for its own good. Still, there's always something to be said for endearingly tacky cheap cheese fests like it; it's got its heart in the right place and there are some very entertaining sequences.

A mysterious package arrives at the home of a reclusive writer. It turns out to be a TV set, but this ain't your typical TV set. It only features one program, a movie titled "Zombie Nightmare", and soon the zombies in this movie-within-the-movie manifest themselves in reality. Fast forward a few months, and a new family is moving into the writers' house. They come to realize that the zombies are attacking the living, and with the help of a Texas character named Joshua Daniels (Sam David McClelland), they try to take care of the problem.

The makeup effects are a highlight, and the zombie performers are certainly enthusiastic. They're all fun to watch, especially one that is dubbed The Bride. There are some irresistible splatter moments, with extremities and other body parts being lopped off and some healthy nods to "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre". Best of all is a showdown between Jeff Blair (Rocky Duvall) and The Bride (Diane Hadley). The sense of humour really helps; writer / director Scott refuses to ever take this stuff very seriously.

The acting is frequently quite amateurish, but this merely adds to the amusement factor. Roxanna Augesen is appealing as our heroine, Zoe Blair, and Victoria Bastel is a hoot as local rich gal April. McClelland is very sincere as the guy who knows the answers to the zombie problem, and Jennifer Miro adds sex appeal as the mystery woman from "Zombie Nightmare".

Overall, "The Video Dead" is agreeable enough entertainment for lovers of B movies, getting off to a good start and working its way towards a fun finish.

Seven out of 10.

To say The Video Dead is not the best movie is somewhat obvious. But this ultra cheap and ridiculous horror flick is a decent timekiller at the very least. The plot is a television that constantly plays a low budget zombie movie that comes out of the television and attacks the viewer. To contemplate,"who thinks of this crap"? The greater question is who thought this was a good idea to fund and actually make this. Funds are tight here and it shows, I would guess most of the money for this project would go to the special f/x, which are pretty decent actually with some nice gore. The overnight quality of this is quite low and has some awesomely bad acting, that has the bar set even lower for low budget horror. Like I said previously, The Video Dead is not a good movie, but is so blatantly 80's and ultra cheesy and ludicrous, it is hard not to enjoy it a little .