1987
Starring: Roxanna Augesen, Rocky Duvall, Sam David McClelland and Victoria Bastel.
I liked the premise, zombies come out of a television and attack people, but it just didn't come together for me. The low budget is apparent and the acting is pretty bad. It begins with a man receiving a random delivery of a TV that he didn't order and doesn't want. He accepts it anyway, the TV turns itself on and out of it come killer zombies. The man is found dead wearing a party hat.
Sometime later the house is sold, while the TV remains in the attic. The couple that buys the house are out of the country, so they send their two teenaged kids to help unpack before they arrive. Zoe (Roxanna Augesen) arrives first, I guess she is supposed to be about 19 years old but she looks at least 30. She begins to unpack the boxes when her brother Jeff arrives. Jeff meets a neighbor April (Victoria Bastel) who is walking her parent's toy poodle. The poodle escapes into the woods and is killed by a zombie. Later that night, Jeff finds the TV in the attic, gets high and watches it. A women comes out of the TV, speaks directly to Jeff and makes out with him. Jeff thinks it's the drugs so he takes the TV down to the basement. He did get a warning from a weird guy on the TV to cover the TV screen with a mirror to stop the zombies from coming out. Jeff takes the advice and tries to cover the TV with a mirror, but the masking tape keeps tearing so he can't get a decent piece. It's a great advertising moment for tape dispensers. Jeff finally manages to get the mirror attached to the TV. Jeff doesn't stop the zombies that already got out and they proceed to kill many of the neighbors, including April's parents.
The weird guy on the TV, Joshua Daniels (Sam David McClelland) turns out to be real and shows up at the house. He tries to explain what the deal is with the zombies, but I still didn't totally get it. The zombies hate to look at themselves, so if you place mirrors all over they will run away. Zoe, Jeff and Joshua try to zombie-proof the house with lots of mirrors. Then Jeff and Joshua head into the woods to kill the zombies. They find a random old shack and inside is the ripped apart body of April. Joshua convinces Jeff to be zombie bait and create a rope swing to hang him from a tree. At the last minute he gives Jeff a bright red chainsaw to defend himself. The zombies show up, and Joshua has fallen asleep in the shack. He does wake up and shoot some arrows at the zombies, but that doesn't really kill them. There is lots of running around trying to destroy the zombies until both Jeff and Joshua are killed.
Back at the house, Zoe realizes something must be wrong because Jeff isn't home yet and it's getting dark. The zombies descend on the house and Zoe remembers that the zombies feed on fear. If you act nice to them, they won't try to kill you. Zoe makes them all some of her famous beans, then they all go down to the basement for a dance party. Zoe locks them in there, where they can't escape, and they eat each other. It ends with Zoe in a mental hospital and her deadbeat parents come to visit and give her the TV as a gift....oh no!
The motivation of the zombies is pretty unclear, they don't seem to be eating brains they just like to kill. It's also crazy that there is no way to kill them, they have to kill each other. It's not explained how they got into the TV and how they come out. There is no clue to who sends the TV either. The music is really intense, it tries to make every scene seem like something scary is going to happen. It just didn't come together for me, even though there were a couple good moments. My favorite part was when the bride zombie pops out of a washing machine to kill a lady.
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