VideoDead

Video Dead (1987)

This is an interesting and fun little horror flick from the 80s. Basically the story is that an evil T.V. is accidentally delivered to a man in the suburbs. When turned on a zombie movie is playing and before you know it they are crawling out of the set and killing the man. Later his house has been sold to a new family, who discover the set. With the help of the Garbage man, who appears on the set, they figure out how to keep any more of the Video Dead from escaping, but they will still have to deal with those that are already loose. With the help of a man who has already lost his wife to the Video Dead they head off to the nearby woods to destroy them.

This is a goofy low budget movie from the 80s that can be a good time if you don’t try and think too hard. The story is full of holes, but is well paced and never boring. Sure thoughts like why did the Video Dead wait until Jeff and his sister move in to start their killing spree? I mean it isn’t like the house was sold from the man’s estate a couple of days after he died. How the heck do the Video Dead wander around the residential neighborhood without anyone seeing them? Oh and what kind of logic is it that you can kill them if you make them believe they are human and they should be killed with arrows and bullets? But then the zombies look cool and the kills are fun so I’m all for turning off the critical part of my brain for this one. The one thing that I really couldn’t ignore is how long the movie goes on. There comes a point in the woods that it seems like the movie was supposed to end, or maybe just should have. But there are a few more minutes tacked on at the end that lack the energy and aren’t as fun as the rest of the movie. I could talk about the performances, but that would be like talking about the plot. Lets just say they are every bit as silly and goofy as the material and leave it at that.

The special effects are really the best part of the movie. You don’t get gory kills really, but the makeup jobs on the Video Dead are all really good. Each of the zombies has a distinct look and personality to them, which is way better than so many of the generic low budget zombie flicks I’ve seen. Other than that there isn’t much else to be said about the effects. Camera work, lightning, and sound are all adequate, though nothing special.

The Video Dead is an average movie that I think is more popular because of nostalgia from the days of the small independent video store. This movie had a great VHS cover (check above) that really jumped out on the shelves. That and the fact that it hasn’t had a DVD release and the VHS is very popular with collectors has more to do with the movie’s reputation than the what you will actually see on screen. But if you do get the chance to see it then I recommend you do, just don’t spend a lot of money on it.

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer