by: -RoG-

...CONTINUED

Now when I was a kid and first saw this movie I swore to every person I knew that David Bowie had a role in this movie as a zombie. And there he is! Ok, so it turned out that it wasn't really David Bowie, but damned if it didn't look like him to me when I was a kid. Well anyway, he sneaks into the house while the others are having a discussion, makes April faint in the bathroom, and carries her off into the woods. Shortly after, the sister wakes up to find the David Bowie zombie snacking on her hand.

And when I get excited, my little China Girl says oh baby just you shut your mouth. She says... sh-sh-shhh. Relax, it was only a dream......................... my little China Girl.

The next day, Joshua and Jeff head out into the woods to kill themselves some zombies and to hopefully find April. The these zombies apparently think they're alive, so when you shoot them they actually believe they've been hurt. And that's when you can really kill them, while they're on the ground thinking they've been mortally wounded.

Well, Jeff spots a zombie and shoots it in the chest with a few arrows, and sure enough, it drops to the ground in a panic, thinking it's dying. Ha ha ha... stupid zombie. Then they bust out a chainsaw and go to town on the zombie's stomach with it. I know this is supposed to be really gory, but goddamn if it isn't one of the cutest things I've ever seen.

Fuzzy lil' rodents living in the zombie's guts?
AWWWWWWWWWWW!

Joshua goes into an abandoned shed and discovers April's corpse on the ground. I guess when you get partially devoured by these zombies, you don't come back to life as one. Well, rather than upset Jeff, Joshua doesn't tell him about how he found April's dead body. Joshua then devises a brilliant plan of dangling Jeff by some ropes as "bait" for the zombies. He then hides in the shed and shoots the zombies whenever they come close to Jeff. Problem is, Jeff drops his only weapon, the chainsaw, and the bride zombie picks it up. She tries cutting Jeff up with it, but Joshua saves the day by holding a mirror up to her face. Zombies must have really low self-esteem, because whenever they see themselves in the mirror, they get all sad and walk away. But the bride zombie isn't really gone just yet...

Soon Joshua and Jeff go chasing after the bride zombie and listen for the chainsaw she took. They come to an opening and find the chainsaw on the ground still turned on. The bride zombie then jumps out from the bushes and stabs Joshua from behind with an arrow through his chest. Wait a minute! A zombie setting a trap!? Clearly, these aren't your average mindless zombies. And they say too much TV is bad for the brain... tell that to these zombies!

Jeff runs from the chainsaw-wielding zombie bride into the old shed from before and discovers April's body on the ground. Realizing that the primary object of his raging hormones is now dead, he becomes the fool he was born to be...

In one of the all-time stupidest actions I've ever seen in film, he grabs a nearby machete and runs straight up to the zombie lady and chops her head off. Problem is, he didn't side-step or anything... he literally ran directly into her chainsaw. So even though he chopped her head off, her torso was able to kill him off. I admit, I didn't think they'd kill him off either since he was one of the lead characters... but the Video Dead is obviously a zombie flick that breaks itself from horror movie stereotypes.

Back at home, Zoe is being overdramatic as hell while she cries her head off. The zombies try making their way into her home, but the mirrors are keeping them at bay. Still, she's trapped inside with no way out, so she has to do something. She recalls some earlier talks about how the zombies want to kill any living person who shows fear. But what if a person didn't show fear? How would the zombies react? Well, in any other movie, they'd start munching on that person regardless, but not in The Video Dead!

Zoe smiles and invites all the zombies into her happily little home for some good times!

She fixes the zombies some supper, as they all sit patiently at the table waiting for their meals. It makes me think of something out of "Dead Alive / Braindead" but this movie was made roughly 5 years earlier, so it's like not like they're ripping it off or anything. The zombies then start flipping through a magazine and stumble onto a picture of a man and a woman dancing. So, this of course makes the zombies want to dance with Zoe. Fantastic!

I'm sorry to say that we don't get to see the zombies dance with Zoe, a major bumble by the writer if you ask me. That would've been a great sight gag. Well anyway, Zoe remembers Joshua talking about how if you can trap the zombies in a place where there's no escape, they'll go crazy and eat themselves. A place like THE BASEMENT! So she tells the zombies that there's more room for dancing downstairs in the basement along with a record player. So they all head downstairs expecting a nice waltz.

Instead, Zoe runs upstairs and locks the door on them. Then she has another one of her crying fits that nobody gives a damn about. Point is, the zombies are trapped. And what do zombies do when they're trapped? They go crazy and eat each other.

I guess when you're a zombie going crazy, sometimes your face will puff up and blow bubbles from the cheeks. Hey, don't look at me, I didn't write the damned script...

Funny thing is, the zombies don't go crazy after hours and hours of being stuck in the basement. They literally go crazy SECONDS after they're locked in it! For a bunch of undead creatures who walk slower than my grandma, they sure are impatient as hell eh? Well, as expected, they all go insane and start to eat each other. Then the TV which had a mirror taped to it earlier on, is mysteriously turned on again with no mirror in sight. Hooray for continuity! It begins to smoke like crazy and then sucks all the zombies back into the screen in a flashy white haze. And yes, to add some more cheese on top of this mountain of cheese... the words "THE END" actually appear on the TV set screen.

Cut to weeks later where Zoe is in the hospital, completely traumatized by the recent events. Her parents finally arrive from out of town, and knowing that she'll be bored sitting in that hospital room until she gets better, they bring her a gift. They bring her that same rickety old TV from home! And so The Video Dead movie begins to play on the screen once again as she screams. Don't worry Zoe, I'd be screaming too if I had to watch it again.

I guess it just goes to show you - it really is worth paying the extra cash for cable TV.

Have any questions or comments about this piece?
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS IN THE READER COMMENTS SECTION BELOW!