A lot of ’80s films feel like they started with a pun for a title, and the story was just slapped on afterwards. Take the subject of this review: The Video Dead. The title not only tells you exactly what the film is about, but it’s also a cheeky nod to The Evil Dead and firmly roots it in the era of the videotape.
And really, what better name for a film about a magical TV that conjures the undead. Talk about brain rot. Yes, that’s actually the setup. A strange TV, originally owned by some occult research organisation, gets delivered to the wrong house. The only thing it can pick up is a black-and-white zombie flick called Zombie Blood Nightmare, and either it’s the best 3D film in the world, or the TV spews its zombie stars into existence.
The zombies proceed to murder the unfortunate sod who inherited the TV (an incredibly stereotypical depiction of a lazy, hack writer), before escaping into the nearby woods like Chief from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Oh well, I’m sure we’ll never see them again.
A few months later, our so-called “protagonists”, Jeff and Zoe (Rocky Duvall and Roxanna Augesen) rock up to the house, freshly purchased by their parents – who, in keeping with sacred ’80s horror law, will not be seen for roughly 90% of the runtime. The siblings are typical displaced teens, shipped back to the States after years abroad while Mum and Dad remain off-screen, presumably trapped in a subplot far less interesting.
And what utter charisma vacuums these two are. This is probably due in no small part to the dialogue, which sounds as though it was written by someone whose only exposure to human speech is the speaking clock.
Jeff is lured to the attic by a mysterious woman calling to him, where he finds the zombie-spawning TV. Despite the TV itself looking like it belongs in a crack den, Jeff decides to plug it in. And this is what happens when your average day consists entirely of eating Cheetos and yanking it. Fortunately, it seems that the TV is now tuned to some skin flick featuring a witchy woman (played by Jennifer Miro of The Nuns) who proceeds to get her tits out.
This feels like a holdover from a previous version of the script, as otherwise the film is entirely about conventional zombies. The witchy woman is promptly killed off by some dude who calls himself The Garbageman (Cliff Watts). Why? Because, in his words, he “takes care of human garbage”.
He’s great. He’s got the energy of a boomer uncle who constantly talks about going to fight in Ukraine, despite being fat, unfit, and twenty years too old. But he only gets two minutes of screen time – delivering exposition that won’t be relevant until it’s delivered by another character later.
That hardly matters, though, because Jeff – a shrill, over caffeinated chipmunk masquerading as a human – somehow already has another romantic prospect lined up. Enter April (Vickie Bastel), a preppy, faintly insufferable vision of country-club privilege, whom he meets while she’s out walking her dog.
Naturally, the dog wanders off into the nearby woods -the very same woods where our television-expelled corpses have been loitering since the hack writer’s sticky end. And in keeping with time-honoured horror tradition, the poor animal is dispatched with brisk, off-screen efficiency, existing solely to remind us that yes, the zombies are still here, and yes, they’re peckish.
Jeff and April track it, find the remains, and unwittingly lead the zombies back into the neighbourhood. From here, the Video Dead settles into a pattern that’s very familiar for this sort of film. If you’ve seen just about any zombie film from the 80s, then you’ll know what I mean. The film becomes a series of grisly set pieces as the zombies make their way through suburbia, before finally reaching the protagonists.
When a mysterious man named Joshua Daniels (Sam David McClelland) shows up claiming the set was supposed to go to a paranormal research institute (and that it’s already killed his wife), the kids mostly assume he’s nuts – until the undead show up at their door. Among the shambling gang are the Bride, Ironhead, Jack, Jimmy D, and Half-Creeper, each with enough necrotic charm to be memorable even when the rest of the movie isn’t.
The zombies are a mix between the George Romero “stick some blue paint on them” type and the more rancid Lucio Fulci zombies. But they’ve all got their own unique design, with Jimmy D being the most stand out…if only because he looks just like David Bowie.
From Joshua we learn more about how the undead work. Unlike your average brain-hungry ghouls, these undead have… quirks. They’re repulsed by mirrors (because apparently seeing their own rotting mug freaks them out) and hate the living, because they’re envious at once what they’ve lost.
It also seems that these zombies cannot be killed by conventional means, but they can be tricked into thinking they’re dead if you dismember them in a very specific way. Or you can trick them into eating each other. This becomes a major plot point as Jeff, Zoe, April, and Joshua desperately try to fortify the house and figure out how to stop them.
The final act is quite interesting, and ultimately saves what is otherwise a fairly bad film from being complete slop. Jeff, April, and Joshua all meet surprisingly grisly ends. While Zoe, left alone, is forced to outwit the undead by playing along with their bizarre whims and luring them into the basement with a strategically placed mirror. Chaos ensues: zombies devour each other, their remains are sucked back into the cursed TV, and the house finally achieves something approaching order.
The film closes with Zoe in hospital, PTSD in full swing, and her parents unwittingly bringing her the same possessed television. Naturally, Zombie Blood Nightmare starts playing again, Jack growling straight at her. Cue an intense breakdown from Zoe. It’s quite the bleak ending for what is otherwise a fairly light film with a humourous (intended or not) tone.
Overall, it’s quite difficult to review The Video Dead. For all of its many flaws, there’s something oddly charming about it. The effects are gloriously rubbery. The gore is enthusiastic if not entirely convincing. The performances feel like everyone was handed slightly different scripts and told to get on with it.
But there’s an energy here that you don’t often get anymore: a sense that someone had a daft idea (“What if the telly vomited zombies?”) and instead of focus-grouping it into oblivion, they just…made it.
It has a genuinely interesting and unique take on zombies – remember when that was even possible? But the real villain, though, isn’t the zombies. It’s the television itself, that wood-paneled monument to Reagan-era living rooms. There’s something weirdly prophetic about a film where mindless consumers are literally birthed from a glowing screen. Decades before doomscrolling, before algorithmic brain-mush, before we all carried tiny zombie portals in our pockets.
However. Despite the film’s interesting premise, almost everything else about this film is terrible and amateurish. From the acting to the music, there are very few things that anyone could say were good or even passable. The exception is probably the practical effects which, whilst not amazing, get the job done.
Honestly? This one of the worst films I’ve reviewed for this site. 10/10, would absolutely watch again.
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