Had The Video Dead been made at any time other than the VHS heyday in which it was, I feel like we wouldn’t care. But because it celebrated those days of browsing big boxes at your mom-and-pop video store as those days were happening, it possesses an admirable, of-its-time innocence that offsets obvious deficiencies. If released today, in our post-Ringu world where cursed videos have become de rigueur, it’d be nostalgic, sure, but unable to replicate properly that very ’80s look.
As the writer, director and producer, Robert Scott is not just a triple threat, but a triple treat. In the prologue, he establishes everything the viewer needs to know about the next 90 minutes: A TV set mysteriously delivered to a suburban house plays only the George A. Romero-esque movie Zombie Blood Nightmare; said movie serves as a doorway into our world through which these single-shoe shufflers can shamble.
Shortly thereafter, aerobics major Zoe Blair (Roxanna Augesen, in her only screen credit) and her little brother, Jeff (Rocky Duvall, ditto), move into the house while their parents are away in Saudi Arabia. It takes them a while to grasp the televised danger, partly because Jeff (who sports some gray hair) is too busy enjoying being visited by the tube’s blonde woman (Jennifer Miro, 1989’s Dr. Caligari) who embodies all his teenage sexual fantasies.
Surprisingly, The Video Dead‘s members of the undead stand out from the zombie-tape fray by actually having personality; one of them looks like singer David Bowie under a face mask of Noxzema that has dried to the point of cracking. Obviously, Scott’s little meta movie wouldn’t exist without Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, but its blend of horror and humor bring the related Return of the Living Dead franchise to mind (although Scott’s scattershot skills puts it more in line with the second chapter than the first). —Rod Lott