Director: Robert Scott
Year: 1987
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Zombie
Plot:
After moving into a new house, a man and his sister finds that a strange series of events begins shortly after receiving a strange gift where a group of zombies emerge out of a TV set and begin killing people, forcing them to turn to a former owner for help in battling the strange creatures.
Review:
There was quite a lot to like with this one. One of the more engaging elements here is the overall cheesy action on display, which is a very apparent aspect that plays out during the majority of the film. The concept of the cursed TV set bringing the creatures into our world is a crazy enough idea and that brings out some enjoyable moments here from the opening attack with the unwanted TV set bringing the zombies out for their attack which gets this going nicely. A later scene showing the creatures attempting to seduce him in the bedroom where he gets saved and instructed on how to stop them is rather fun, and a swarming ambush on the family sleeping in the house gives this plenty of goofy moments as they attempt to behave like a family just getting up in the morning sitting around a kitchen table, putting wigs on or utilizing appliances around the house. That this never rouses them until later on makes this such a nominally fun sequence when they're finally confronted by the creatures and getting in some really fun attacks as they are shown escaping the house and rampaging through the community.
That cheesiness also extends out to the rather fun effects that are rampant throughout the film as this utilizes plenty of fine work to tell this particular setup. The zombie make-up here is simply incredible, as the creatures here are quite grotesque and chilling. Taking a page from the European scene, they're portrayed as rotting and mostly skinless, filled with sores and rotting-out body parts of greyed coloring and rotting clothes that look incredibly effective in their scenes. The later scenes in the basement with the fog emerging from the TV set and all the colored lighting is taken straight-out of the cheesy time-period, as well as the idea of many of the attacks featured throughout here. That especially holds true of the final half where it gives off the reasoning for the creatures to appear in the first place and leads into the major assault on their hideout which has some rather fun action as the zombies converge on them. With a decidedly clever and unconventional finale that manages to defeat them in a completely original if unsatisfying manner, these are the film's positive points.
There are a few flaws with the film, starting with the film's cheesy and somewhat goofy tone that this employs. The zombies are rarely treated with any kind of seriousness intended to evoke fear as beyond their nature of killing people they're decidedly unzombie-like. With so many of the kills here completely bloodless or even characteristically non-zombie with their move toward slasher-style kills of strangling people or even stuffing them into a washing machine that don't really provide this one with all that much blood and gore which is restricted only to aftermath dissections for the most part. This far more realistic and human-like behavior that never is shown much in these kinds of films stands out quite obviously and when coupled with the silly methods used to dispatch them really ramps up the cheesy nature of this one past some viewer's breaking point. As well, there's also the fact that this one doesn't really explain anything at all, leaving nothing for why they've come back, what the helper is helping them for or how their battle tactics are supposed to work, being rather obvious and making this feel wholly underwhelming. These issues manage to hold this one back overall.
Overview: ***/5
While there are a few minor issues to be had with this one, the fact that these stem mainly from the cheesiness manage to give this one a fun if somewhat unsatisfying feeling overall. Give this a chance if you're a fan of these low-budget genre efforts or cheesy features, while those who aren't willing to go through this one for it's negative qualities should heed caution.
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