Once Upon a Time in VHS Hell
Every decade produces its cinematic embarrassments. The ’50s gave us Plan 9 from Outer Space, the ’70s gave us Exorcist II: The Heretic, and the ’80s gave us The Video Dead—a straight-to-VHS clunker so devoid of logic it makes Troll 2 look like Citizen Kane. Written and directed by Robert Scott, this 1987 “horror” film is about a haunted television set that vomits zombies into suburbia. Yes, a haunted TV. That’s the entire pitch. Imagine if Poltergeist and Night of the Living Dead had a baby, and then immediately abandoned it in a Blockbuster bargain bin.
The Setup: Who Ordered This TV?
The film begins with a writer receiving a mysterious television set delivered by two movers who clearly raided the Dumb & Dumber casting call. The set only plays one program: a grainy black-and-white zombie movie called Zombie Blood Nightmare. Naturally, instead of returning the TV or smashing it with a hammer like any rational human, the writer watches it, and voilà—out come the zombies. He’s killed off-screen, bound up in party clothes, and stuffed into his own hallway like an overripe piñata.
And that, folks, is the high point.
Enter the Teenagers: Guaranteed IQ Drop
Months later, Jeff and his sister Zoe move into the house with the kind of cheery optimism that only characters in bad horror movies have. Jeff is the usual ’80s bland-boy protagonist—think “discount Corey Haim.” Zoe is the obligatory “final girl” with a haircut that screams mall employee of the month.
They meet April, a dog walker, who introduces them to her canine charge. Don’t get attached. The dog promptly finds the zombies in the woods and becomes chow. If you’re keeping track, the zombies are 2-for-2: one writer, one dog. Honestly, they peaked here.
The Zombies: Party City Rejects
The zombies themselves are a bizarre crew of Halloween leftovers. We’ve got:
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Jack: Leader zombie, looks like he lost a fight with a rotisserie chicken.
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The Bride: A zombie in a tattered wedding gown, because nothing says horror like Say Yes to the Dress gone wrong.
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Ironhead: A walking metaphor for the script.
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Jimmy D.: A lounge-lizard corpse.
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Half-Creeper: A zombie who is literally half a man, because the budget couldn’t cover pants.
They shuffle around, occasionally kill someone, but mostly stand there like extras waiting for lunch. The makeup looks like papier-mâché left in the rain.
Enter Joshua: The Exposition Fairy
Because even the filmmakers realized audiences might not understand what the hell is happening, a man named Joshua shows up. He claims he once owned the killer TV until it murdered his wife. Instead of burning it, he mailed it to a paranormal institute. (Pro tip: when your television murders your spouse, don’t ship it via UPS.)
Joshua explains zombie psychology: they kill out of envy, hate mirrors, and can be tricked into thinking they’re dead if you maim them. They also lose their minds in enclosed spaces and eat each other. In other words, they’re just like people at Walmart on Black Friday.
The Death Scenes: Low-Energy Carnage
The body count should be the fun part of a zombie flick. Here, it’s about as exciting as watching paint dry on a gravestone.
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April’s maid gets strangled by Ironhead. Nobody cares.
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April’s dad gets killed upstairs. Again, no one cares.
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Corey tries to kill the cat—sorry, wrong movie—tries to kill the zombies with food as bait, but instead steams himself to death in the engine room. It’s the first kill where you cheer, because at least something happened.
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Suzanne eats bread infected with zombie slime, and her veins explode. Yes, bread. Death by gluten intolerance.
By this point, you realize the zombies aren’t the real villains. The true monster is the runtime.
The Bride Gets a Chainsaw (Because Why Not)
The climax tries to spice things up by arming The Bride zombie with a chainsaw. Imagine Leatherface if he was left in a swimming pool for a month. She hacks up Jeff, who at least goes down swinging with a hatchet. But then she dies too, because the movie can’t even commit to its gimmick.
Zoe ends up tricking the zombies into the basement using a mirror, where they all turn on each other like contestants on Big Brother. It’s meant to be terrifying. It looks like a LARP gone wrong.
The Ending: TV Killed the Horror Star
The film closes with Zoe recovering in a hospital, clearly traumatized. Her well-meaning parents bring her a “familiar object” to comfort her: the same damn haunted TV. Parenting award of the year. The movie ends with the zombies staring out of the screen, Zoe screaming, and the audience already ejecting the VHS to demand a refund.
Why It Fails
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The monster concept is laughable. A TV that spits out zombies? Really? At least Videodrome had social commentary. This is just cable horror.
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The zombies look like papier-mâché mascots. Even Scooby-Doo villains had more menace.
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The acting is atrocious. Half the cast delivers their lines like they’re reading Ikea instructions. The other half overact like they’re auditioning for a haunted hayride.
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The pacing drags. Every scene feels twice as long as it should. By the midpoint, you start rooting for the zombies to eat you just to end the suffering.
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The kills are lazy. If your scariest death involves toast, you’ve failed at horror.
The Only Scary Thing
The scariest part of The Video Dead isn’t the zombies. It’s the thought that somewhere, in 1987, a group of investors watched this script and said, “Yes, let’s fund that.” The second scariest part is that people rented this tape thinking they were in for a fun zombie flick. Instead, they got what feels like an extended student film with a monster puppet problem.
Final Verdict: A Dead Channel
The Video Dead is the cinematic equivalent of static. No scares, no tension, no charm—just noise. It wants to be campy fun but settles for dull nonsense. At least other ’80s zombie schlock like Return of the Living Dead had wit and gore. This has bread poisoning and a chainsaw bride.
If you’re a masochist or a lover of “so-bad-it’s-good” VHS trash, fine—dig it up. For everyone else, consider it what it truly is: a cautionary tale. Next time your delivery guy drops off an unsolicited TV, don’t plug it in. Smash it, burn it, bury it. Or better yet—mail it back COD to Robert Scott.
