It doesn’t get much more cheesy and 80s than this sucker. With goofy acting, pipe organ-style music, and low budget gore, The Video Dead is the epitome of what teenage boys searched for on the horror aisle of their local VHS stores. The only thing missing is titties.
It’s a basic zombie tale, except that in this film the zombies aren’t a worldwide epidemic or a quick-spreading wave of the walking dead in a small town. Rather, these zombies have emerged from an old television that’s been mistakenly delivered to the wrong address. The zombies don’t spread their zombieness nor appear to have the thirst for flesh typical of most zombie movies. But they do want to kill people.
Look, The Video Dead is not a very good movie. Though I quite like the idea of zombies coming out of a TV (probably not an original idea even for 1987), the plot has zero complexity to it. With a bunch of actors you’ve probably never heard of, it’s not surprising that their performances are at times so bad they seem intentionally so. But this flick has charm.
The gore and makeup, though not of Tom Savini quality (not even close), is fun. There’s blood spraying all over the place in parts, with live mice running through the guts of the zombies. The zombie makeup is done just well enough to be kinda creepy, but poorly enough to also make you laugh. There is a great chainsaw-wielding zombie scene. And while I doubt the acting was intentionally bad, I do think much of the script is. That’s surely the only way to explain one character’s reaction when he comes across a dead dog in the woods: “Looks like he had a heart attack!”
Of all the issues The Video Dead has, the biggest one for me is lack of nudity. Because of gore, language, and drug use, it’s already an R-rated film. So why skip out on showing some tits like every other cheesy 80s horror flick? There was even a perfect opportunity for it when a mostly naked woman emerges from the TV to seduce a boy, for a reason that’s never explained. So, yeah, I don’t get the absence of nudity in a film from an era when it was gospel.
PC3’s Horror and Exploitation Movie Scale of Awesomeness!
Gore - 8
Special Effects - 6
Nudity/Sexuality - 2
Wow Factor - 4
Acting - 2
Fear Factor - 3
Story/Plot/Originality - 5
Cinematography/Atmosphere - 3
Sound/Music - 3
Fun Factor - 8
Despite the many flaws, The Video Dead still came out with a 44 total PHEMSA. If they had just shown some titties it would have come out with an almost respectable score. But, hey, I had fun watching it. Never even hit pause. You can watch on Tubi!