Director/Screenplay/Producer – Robert Scott, Photography – Greg Becker, Music – Leonard Marcel, Kevin McMahon & Stuart Rabinowitsh, Visual Effects – Dale Hall Jr., Photographic Effects Supervisor – Wes Takahashi, Production Design – Katalin Rogers. Production Company – Interstate 5 Productions/Highlight Productions/Video Dead.
Cast
Roxanna Augesen (Zoe Blair), Rocky Duvall (Jeff Blair), Sam David McClelland (Joshua Daniels), Vickie Bastel (April Ellison), Michael St. Michaels (Henry Jordan), Jennifer Miro (The Woman), Thaddeus Golas (David), Douglas Bell (Donald), Cliff Watts (The Garbageman), Muffie Greco (Beverly Turchow), Walter Garrett (Abe Turchow), Garrett Dressler (Mr Ellison), Libby Russler (Maria), Jack Stellman (Jack), Diane Hadley (The Bride), Patrick Tredway (Jimmy D.), Al Millan (Ironhead)
Plot
A tv set is delivered to the home of Henry Jordan in Sausalito. The tv then comes on and plays a zombie film and continues to do so even after Henry switches the tv off and pulls the plug out. Zombies then emerge from the tv to attack and kill Henry. Some time later, the Blair family move into the house. The teenage children Zoe and Jeff arrive ahead of their parents to unpack. Jeff finds the tv and turns it on and is soon experiencing apparitions. They receive a visit from the Texan paranormal expert Joshua Daniels who warns that the tv is an occult portal. However, it is too late and zombies spill out and begin killing around the neighbourhood.
The Video Dead came out in the 1980s amid the second wave of the modern Zombie Film. The modern zombie film had begun with George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968), which inspired a few imitators. Most of what we think of as the classic zombie films emerged in the wave that came following Romero’s sequel Dawn of the Dead (1978). The Video Dead was one of these made for the 1980s video market.
The Video Dead also taps a minor fad of films about horrors emerged from the tv set that came out after Poltergeist (1982). Amid this mini-fad, there was the sophisticated treatment of David Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983) and at the other end of the spectrum the likes of TerrorVision (1986) and Remote Control (1988). The major issue might be that the film never does much to make the idea of the occult tv portal particularly believable or even explain where the tv comes from – it is just a Cursed Object from which the zombies emerge and once they do so it is largely forgotten.
There are some not too bad makeups on the zombies and some gore, including a nasty scene where one zombie is cut open with a chainsaw and rats run out from its innards. Director Robert Scott doesn’t appear to be taking proceedings too seriously – as witness the scenes where the old woman zombie emerges from inside a washing machine and then shoves the wife inside, her left feet protruding upwards as the machine is placed on spin.
Zombies emerge from a tv set
One of the more ridiculous things is when teenager Rocky Duvall and monster hunter Sam David McClelland go into action against the zombies and how absurdly underpowered they are where their weaponry consists of a toy bow and arrow and a stubby chainsaw. Although McClelland does have the amusing idea of stringing Rocky up from a tree as zombie bait – only to then go to sleep while they are waiting and the zombies start to approach.
The Video Dead was the only film ever made by Robert Scott, although he has gone on to become a regular assistant director. None of the rest of the cast have been heard from again – Michael St. Michaels starred in The Greasy Strangler (2016) and that is it. This is not too surprising given how ropey some of the performances are.
