The Video Dead (1987)

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nTitle: The Video Dead (1987)

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nDirector: Robert Scott

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nCast: Rocky Duvall, Roxanna Augussen, Sam David Mac Clelland

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nReview:

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nThe Video Dead is one of those movies from the 80’s that isnheavy on cheesiness and charm and as some of you might know, I enjoy that anwhole lot. The cheese factor makes watching horror films that much more fun andnthat’s all I care about sometimes; fun! High levels of cheese usually assuresnus a couple of things in a horror film: bad acting, bad dialog, low productionnvalues and extremely silly, nonsensical situations. The Video Dead has a lot ofnall of that, plus zombies coming out of television sets! That right there wasnthe grabber for me. I remember walking down the aisle at my local video clubn(back when we had those) and loving the cover art for this film but nevernhaving the guts to actually rent it. I was about twelve back then and my youngnmind was not yet ready for the onslaught of nastiness that horror movies had tonoffer. Of course, I’d eventually discover the wonders of horror films, but backnin 1987, I was just a tad too innocent. Little did I know that judging by hownsilly this movie is, I could have seen it when I was freaking 8!

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nJeff and Zoe are a brother and a sister that are moving intona new household. Their parents are busy on a trip to Saudi Arabia so they go ahead and moveninto the house first then their parents, brother and sister have the house allnto themselves. In the houses attic Jeff finds an old television set, so hentakes it to his room. This was way before the day of HD plasma tv’s, so this isnone of those big ass television sets where you switched the channels by turningna button, basically a really old fashioned television. One night when Jeff isnparticularly bored he takes out a big ass bag of weed, rolls a joint and sitsnback to enjoy a zombie film that’s playing on the magical television. The filmnis called ‘Zombie Blood Nightmare’; by the way, the film that’s playing on thent.v. looks pretty awesome!  Suddenly, thenfilm is interrupted by a character called ‘The Garbage Man’ who warns Jeff allnabout the zombies that have the ability to escape from t.v. world. He tells Jeff that theynare very real, and that they are vile creatures with no soul. But even though Jeff’snbeen warned and told how to stop these creatures from coming out of thentelevision, he still let’s the zombies escape from the mystical television set!nSoon the zombies start terrorizing Jeff’s neighbors and killing them off innstrange ways. Will Jeff and Zoe find a way to stop these zombies and send themnback from the television hell they came out of?

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nSo basically this is one of these horror movies that’s so STUPIDnin nature that it will have you rolling in laughter. I mean, how stupid is thisnmovie? Let me count the ways…first off, the brother and the sister have some ofnthe dumbest dialogs ever. For example, in one scene Zoe -the older sister- tellsnher brother that she’s starting in college soon and that she’s majoring in getnthis: aerobics and music videos! Ha ha ha…okay, see what I mean about thisnmovie making you laugh? Jeff is a pothead, and normally potheads will enjoyngoing on a head trip when they smoke weed, but not Jeff! When Jeff startsnseeing characters talking to him from the television (something a pothead wouldnlaugh at while high) he ends up flushing his weed down the toilet as he says “Nonmore for me!” Trust me, there’s so much dumb dialog on this one and told innsuch an unnatural fashion, that you will have no option but to laugh.

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nThen, we gotta deal with the notion that there’s such anthing as a mystical television that allows fictional characters from a film materializenin the real world. Normally, I’d accept such a notion in a cheesy movie likenthis one, but only if it comes with some sort of explanation, however incredulousnit may be. On The Video Dead nobody explains why this television set does anynof this, we simply gotta take for granted that it does. Then there’s thisncharacter called Joshua Daniels, a Texasncowboy type of guy who seems to know everything about killing these television zombies.nWho the hell made him such an expert? Why does he know exactly what to do tonkill these zombies? Who is this guy? No explanation is given, he simply KNOWS. Itsnfunny hearing him talk about ‘The Video Dead’ so nonchalantly. But what thenhell, this isn’t the kind of movie where we need things explained. Thenfilmmakers are contempt with simply playing with this premise of a magicalntelevision set; which I have to admit is a cool idea. I would have loved an explanation,nit would have made it easier to swallow the concept.

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nThe idea of monsters coming out of our television sets is notna new one; it has been used before in films like Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983),nwhich seems to be the film that inspired this one, at least partially. At leastnin Videodrome we know why James Woods can stick his head through his televisionnset. There’s also Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist (1982) which has ghostsncommunicating through a television with little Caroline, and that happensnbecause supposedly ghosts have a way with electricity; an idea that was also explorednin The Ring (2002). We also have Terrorvision (1986) which has an alien comingnout of a television, because it traveled through space in a bolt of lightning. Anothernfilm that comes to mind is Wes Craven’s Shocker (1989), where the villainnHorrace Pinker is a killer on deathrow, who makes a pact with some sort of t.v.ndemon, minutes before he is electrocuted. This later gives him the ability tonjump from television show to television show. Still, in The Video Dead’s defensenI have to say that the idea of zombies coming out television sets is a novelnone, and this is what sets The Video Dead apart.

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nEven though The Video Dead hadnan interesting premise, the characters and situations develop in the mostnboring fashion possible. No one gets overtly excited even in the face of true horror.nEverybody seems to be on a strange sort of high where nothing much fazes them.nThere’s a moment that goes something like this: “Sis, I’m going to go to thenwoods to hack some zombies with a chainsaw, with a strange man we just met, is that okay?” “SurenJeff, just promise me you will return okay?” “Sure sis, I promise, bye!” It’snthe kind of acting where you know the actors are acting, which of course is thenworst sort of acting; I call it Troll 2 (1990) acting. This is a harmlessnhorror film every step of the way, not too scary, not too childish either. It’snsomewhere in between. In fact, this movie was so harmless that the producersnactually gave extra money to the filmmakers to shoot more gore scenes and even then, the film is mild on the gore! It does have one cool scene where they chop a zombie in half with a chainsaw though. The Video Dead is a goofy horror film in the way that only a horror film from the 80’s could be, itnhas that feeling you get when you watch films like Black Roses (1988) or Tricknor Treat (1986), you know, silly characters and situations, but ultimatelynentertaining. At the end of the day we are left with a ‘light’ sort of zombienflick, that has  a couple of funny deathsn(death by washing machine!) and some unrealistic, totally laughable dialog. Inactually saw it because I knew it would get me all nostalgic about the waynhorror films where in the 80’s, which it achieved to perfection.

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nRating: 2 out of 5