3 out of 5

Director: Robert Scott

I feel like this defines 80s VHS horror. It’s not a classic of the genre by any means, nor is it an example of any kind of absolute – it’s not super cheesy, or super original, or overly gory, etc. It’s just a cheap horror movie with some gore, some good ideas, and a couple “we know ya’ like horror” winks to viewers. But there’s also a type of eagerness to the film that makes it very watchable and makes it something that really couldn’t be made – to illicit similar feelings – today. The Video Dead is essentially a zombie film, just taking the cue from a glut of DTV VHS horror as its sorta starting point – that there’s a haunted TV that only shows one zombie movie, and that this TV has a tendency to release these ‘video dead’ into the real world. Whoops, TV ends up at the house that a reunited brother and sister are moving into with their parents, and horror hijinks ensue. There’s enough strange tangents that don’t go ANYWHERE (the garbage man?) that it’s too bad there wasn’t some kind of fully realized sequel to this movie, and it’s apparent that director Robert Scott was trying for something new with the rules he came up with for his zombies (they don’t realize they’re dead, so if you show them a mirror that should make them realize the truth and ward them off…), but the film plays with said rules loosely to get us from plot point to plot point. Never really threatening, and not super notable in any one category, Video Dead is nonetheless is pleasant relic to view, and by being average across the board makes it better than 99% of many DTV films from the same era.