The Video Dead

The Video Dead, another magnificent ode to the magic of the absolute frame (what is not seen in a shot doesn’t seem to exist, and not even the characters in the film can see it or they only notice it when it enters the shot), unexpectedly captivates with both a premise and a concept of zombies that are entirely original. The idea of a television from which anything appearing on its screen enters the real world (it’s a shame that it only has two channels, on which a talking head occasionally pops up) is great. With his bizarre trash flick, amateur director Robert Scott was actually ahead of his time, getting a jump on the Japanese cult movie Ring by a number of years. What’s even better is the film’s insight into the mental state of zombies, which apparently attack people because people’s fear reminds the zombies that they are dead. This absolutely unpredictable movie offers sufficiently openminded and slightly drunk viewers entertainment that is spectacular and nonsensical, though we can only guess the extent to which that nonsense was intentional. (03.12.2013)

Dieser Amateur-Trash zeigt, welch Übel noch vor Samara aus den Fernsehern rauskam - komödiantische Zombies. Das sind echt sympathische Typen, das muss man zugeben! Einige Masken sind gelungen und ihr Verhalten zaubert einem ein unbeschwertes Lachen ins Gesicht. Schlimmer ist es jedoch bei den menschlichen Charakteren, deren schauspielerisches Talent mich an ein Amateurtheater erinnert. Doch all das gehört einfach zu einem echten trashigen Horrorfilm dazu. Und wenn er sich über die Genre-Regeln und ungeschriebenen Gesetze lustig macht, ist es umso unterhaltsamer. (03.11.2010)

You'll probably only see grinning zombies with wigs and chainsaws crawling out of the TV in this film, which tries to differentiate itself from the classic Romero zombie films as much as possible. The zombies here do everything but the traditional brain-eating. And it's good to see something unorthodox in this subgenre. However, there aren't enough ideas here to keep you from being gradually put to sleep by boring dialogue filler. A much more entertaining horror freakout about a TV monster is TerrorVision, which came out a year earlier. (14.07.2017)