Interstate 5 Productions [1987] 90′
country: United States
director: ROBERT SCOTT
cast: ROXANA AUGESEN, ROCKY DUVALL,
cast: VICKIE BASTEL, SAM DAVID McCLELLAND
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It was around nine years ago when I first heard of this film – I was running one of my early review sites at the time [either Flesheater or Tales From The Contaminated City, though which escapes me at present]. A reader, who said they had directed the picture, sent me an email letting me know that no horror film site was complete without coverage of it. Whether or not the sender was in fact director Robert Scott is quite beyond me, and the original message has long since been lost in the overstuffed inbox of an abandoned email address.

Whoever it was, be it Scott himself or some rabid fan masquerading as such, this review is for them.

THE VIDEO DEAD plays more as an ode to no-budget horror movies of the past than as the straight-up zombie film the title may suggest. The premise is a riff on the portal-to-hell scenario popularized by Fulci and the like, with a television set of mysterious origins serving as said portal [a la POLTERGEIST; 1982 and DEMONS 2; 1986]. DEAD begins with the delivery of that very television set to the unsuspecting Mr. Jordan by two bumbling delivery drivers – upon discovering what’s inside, and its annoying tendency to turn on and off on its own, Mr. Jordan quickly relocates it to the attic [unplugged]. The two delivery men return the next day, having realized that the package was delivered in error, only to find Mr. Jordan dead. More amusingly, he’s dressed as though he’s going to some kind of post-mortem birthday bash.

The chuckling zombies who escaped from the television venture off into the nearby woods and do very little for three months, at which time the Blair family children – Zoe and Jeff – move into ex-Mr. Jordan’s house. Jeff bonds with his cute neighbor, April, over her newly-dead dog just in time for the monsters from the television set to come out of hiding. Their first priority is to kill April’s dad, and the maid he’s sleeping around with, and drag an elderly woman into a washing machine.

Meanwhile, Jeff discovers the television set in the attic – after a blond woman pops out of it and seduces him, then returns to the set and reveals herself to be a monster [a la THE SHINING], he begins to suspect that something may be wrong. He follows the instructions of a weird guy in the set called The Garbageman [moving the television to the basement and strapping a mirror to its front] and invites a crazy zombie-chasing Texan into his home to help, but to no avail. The “video dead”, as the Texan calls them, return with a giggly vengeance, kidnapping April as she brushes her teeth. The Texan and Jeff go on the hunt the next morning, managing to take down a few of the invaders from T.V. land before the tides turn against them.

It’d be a pity to spoil too much more than the above, but rest assured – in this post-slasher no-budget epic, no one is safe and no one escapes unscathed.

Writer / producer / director Robert Scott took a decidedly comic approach when making THE VIDEO DEAD, perhaps in response to the popularity of RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD. The humor works better than the horror here, and the graphic violence [of which there isn't a whole lot] has a decidedly cartoonish flair. The effects are primitive but work well enough in context, even coming off as somewhat inspired from time to time. DEAD is a film that is fully aware of what and why it is, and its script is full of allusions to past works [THE EVIL DEAD, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, etc.]. Even when the drama is failing or performances lacking [which is often], Scott ensures that at least something of interest is going on in frame [like a zombie playing with an Osterizer blender, funnily enough the same make and model I own!]. Quick-footed editing by Bob Sarles really helps to make everything look better than we know it is.

THE VIDEO DEAD was shot on 16mm and blown up to 35mm for screening internationally, but never made it beyond the home video market here in the States. It was a staple of mom and pop video store shelves and late night cable networks alike before the straight-to-video market really exploded in the early 1990′s. Overlooked during the DVD boom, it has yet to see an official release. MGM recently made an HD master of the title, which received airtime on the defunct MonstersHD. Those interested in seeing it should keep their eyes on the MGMHD schedule, where it is bound to play eventually.

I was expecting something along the lines of FLESHEATER or HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD when I sat down to watch this and was pleasantly surprised. It’s certainly not groundbreaking stuff, but it’s safe to say that it was never intended as such. THE VIDEO DEAD is a reasonably harmless and, dare I say, fun exercise in low-rent exploitation and it beats the hell out of most of the straight-to-video product of today. If you’re bored some rainy afternoon then you could do far worse than giving this a spin.

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