The Unbelievable Case of The Video Dead (1987)
Taken (well, almost) from the case files of the League of Reluctant Reviewers comes this sordid expose on events that transpired many years ago, but have only now come to light. We bring you the unsealed transcript for the first time so that you can decide for yourself. Was it dumb luck that no LORR agent was harmed in the sad but questionable events that transpired or was it divine intervention? More importantly, will you learn a lesson from all this for the future? Just remember, as Criswell so astutely observed, we are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.
“Slow down a minute and let me get this straight,” said Detective Web. He paged through his notebook. “You say this Paul Hasselhoff—”
“Paul Hollstenwall,” I corrected him.
“You say this Paul Hollstenwall is to blame for Zombos’s death?”
“Yes. It’s all his fault. He insisted we watch another one of his inane travesties of straight to video horror called The Video Dead. Zombos keeled over straight away toward the end. It was horrible. I told him to take it to the League of Reluctant Reviewers but even they decided not to view it, citing ethical concerns. Damn the lot of them.”
I held back the tears. Glenor Glenda, our housekeeper, stood in shock over Zombos’s lifeless body. She kept dabbing her tears with her blue lace handkerchief while bending to arrange his clothes and dusting his shoes so they looked good for the photographer. Thank God Zimba and Zombos Junior were at the theater to see the livelier Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. I dreaded telling them the news.
“I told him, I did, I told him to go with his son and get away from all this nasty 80s horror,” said Glenor. “The missus will be so upset!” She tidied up his limp arms across his chest one way, then tried another.
“Hey, has this been dusted for prints yet?” asked Detective Web as he reached for The Video Dead cassette tape.
“Yeah, done,” said a voice from the other side of the room.
“Haven’t seen one of these in a while,” he said, looking at the clamshell wraparound cover. “So tell me about this movie. I find it hard to believe the guy croaked just from watching it.”
“I…I don’t know where to begin,” I said.
“Start with the facts. Just the facts. That will do fine.” …