THE VIDEO DEAD
A work of sublime genius that will not be forgotten
Though The Video Dead looks on the surface to be your typical cheapo zombie flick, underneath lurks one of the most thoughtful and frightening films I've ever seen, loaded with subtext and chock-full of atmosphere and fright.
The movie opens with two moving-men shipping a mysterious-looking crate to a suburban house. What's in it? We don't know yet. Very eerie.
The next thing we see is the tenant of the house, getting rousted out of bed by the knocking on his door. The camera moves to his pet goldfish, floating dead at the surface of the filthy water in its bowl. A sly observation of the consequences of sloth.
What's in the box is a television set - but it's an evil television set, that issues forth zombies like it was a cornucopia of the undead. The tenant of the house is killed, and three months later, two teenagers move in whilst the zombie still wanders outside.
Where's it been for three months, you might ask. Didn't people notice this thing, and call the police or something? Such a question misses the point entirely - it's here now. This movie doesn't follow traditional logic, per say, more like the twisted, perverse anti-logic of a nightmare from which there is no escape. It is the unravelling of reality, the most frightening thing of all.
These zombies have two weaknesses. One, is that they are repelled by mirrors, because they cannot bear to see themselves. This is obviously a commentary on human vanity - the zombies cannot bear to see themselves as they really are, and so we (for truly, the zombies are us) cannot see truths about ourselves and prefer to live a waking sleep upon a cushion of lies. Absolutely brilliant.
The other weakness is, in turn, the film's only weakness. The power of the zombies is reduced when their victim refuses to fear them. So, how can the audience share in the triumph, when they are obviously in the grip of terror? (I mean, watch the movie, and you'll know what I mean by terror) But this may well be the greatest and most subtle irony of them all, given theending...
...yes, the ending. Just blew me...away. Far too many horror movies end with the complete defeat of the villain(s) and the triumph of the hero(s). But The Video Dead takes the gutsy, original step of having the ending a little less cut-and-dried. Even after the climax, the nightmare isn't over! And the terror lives on, for the heroine, and inside the viewers' minds...I was so terrified, I couldn't leave my chair for half an hour after the film was over.
Special credit must be given to wunderkind Robert Scott, who wrote, produced, and directed the film, for his attention to detail. Take note of the witty, insightful dialogue about poodles trying to mate with skunks. Or the upbeat pop songs that serve to mock our suburban placidity. Or how about one moment, that seems on the surface, pointless: where our "hero" hawks up two big loogies onto a leaf in the woods. This is obviously a commentary on how man defiles his environment with his own filth.
The Video Dead is a monumental achievement and not a film I will soon forget. Ever since I had the good fortune of watching it, one thought has persistently whirled around in my mind:
"Fuck, was this movie terrible! Jesus!"