Year released: 1987
THE CHARGE: Video killed the living dead star? Meh, I got nothing.
THE EVIDENCE: In this piece of 80’s fromage, Zoe and Jeff are a couple of teenagers moving into a new home their parents just bought, though their folks are out of the country. Because after purchasing a home, it’s perfectly natural to want to be several thousand miles away from it. Yep, thirty seconds into the movie and we already have our first plot hole.
Anyway, the kids have no idea that the last homeowner was killed by zombies who emerged from a TV set, or that the killer TV is still in the attic. They find out, though, because there wouldn’t be a movie if they didn’t. Eventually, someone who knows a bit about the history of the offending boob tube shows up to help them, but can he save the kids from endless reruns of gut-munching terror?
The premise is silly and not even that original; the evil TV shtick was already done in Poltergeist five years before this flick was made. But the movie does contain a number of elements that, if properly executed, could have infused the story with a dose of creativity and raised it from "bad bad movie" to "good bad movie".
It's Night of the Living Dead with 100% less night and 75% less dead.
The zombies, for instance, aren't your typical brain eaters. They just want to kill because they're jealous of the living. Mirrors provide a temporary reprieve from zombie attacks because the zombies are ugly and don't like seeing their reflections. They also won’t attack if you don’t show fear, which leads one heroine to survive a zombie horde by throwing them a dinner party. With dancing.
But wait! There are even more completely out-of-left-field moments, like death by washing machine and a discussion about a skunk-humping poodle. And I haven’t even mentioned the zombie who, upon being cut in half, suddenly has mice crawling out of its torso. With all this craziness going on, there’s certainly enough happening to provide some surreal entertainment value.
But if you have to watch this movie, this is the way to do it.
Under such circumstances, things like cheap special effects, shoddy camerawork and bad acting can usually be forgiven because they all just add to the insanity. And this flick certainly offers all of those in spades. But there’s bad acting and then there’s acting that makes you want to impale your brain with rusty knitting needles, and The Video Dead offers more than its fair share of the latter. It’s so terrible, it makes Troma’s Toxic Avenger films look like The Godfather series in comparison.
It’s a shame, because The Video Dead had a lot of potential to be a classic horror cheesefest. It has some nicely weird ideas and crazy gags, but there just isn’t enough talent in front of the camera to pull it off. The oddities the film offers aren’t enough to counter the incompetence, so you might as well skip this one unless you need to complete your collection of 80’s fright flicks.
THE VERDICT: The Video Dead is GUILTY of murder: the murder of good ideas by lethal incompetence, and is sentenced to be returned to ye olde VHS rental store. WITHOUT REWINDING!
