The Video Dead - Actually better than I remember

Believe it or not, back in the late eighties, there was actually a lack of zombie movies (let alone good ones!).  I so enjoyed George A Romero's 'Day of the Dead' that I would then watch pretty much everything with a rotting corpse trying to eat people's brains.  Therefore, I found myself watching 'The Video Dead' way more than it probably deserved back then.  I happened to come across it over thirty years later and remembered that even when I watched it back then, deep down, I knew it wasn't very good.  Perhaps it was because I was in such a 'forgiving' mood that I found I actually enjoyed it more now than I think I did back then!

Apparently, according to what I read online, the film took about a year to make because it could only be shot at the weekends, due to the 'actors' having day-jobs and only being available then.  That should tell you that what you're going to get isn't of a high caliber, so - be warned!

You've probably seen zombies rise due to voodoo, enraged monkeys and toxic waste.  Here, they simply pop out of a cursed TV whenever they fancy a bite of human flesh.  In fact, the film should probably have been called 'The TV Dead,' as there isn't a VCR or cassette tape in sight!

So, a small gaggle of ghouls stalks and kills a street of people (none of which are really that well-trained in the ways of acting!), but who cares.  This is a cheap, straight to video (nasty) which definitely comes under the term 'so-bad-it's-good.' It will never be up to the likes of Romero's output and doesn't have the budget to come close to the 'Resident Evil' franchise.  But, what it does have is a slight sense of knowing its limits and doing its best to never try and be anything it isn't.

I know you've probably seen every type of zombie movie by now, so there's not an awful lot here that's particularly original, but it's nice to see the sort of gore that can be achieved on a real shoestring budget.  It's daft and cheesy and doesn't really take itself too seriously, so if you're in the mood for some real eighties horror-cheese, then definitely give this one a go.  I also read online about the proposed idea for a sequel - sounded pretty good - shame it never got made!

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that