With physical media having a moment these days, there was bound to be at least one movie about the resurgence. Although Joseph Scrimshaw is well ahead of the curve, his feature debut uses physical media as more of an entry point, rather than a motif. Because once the setup is realized—a cursed DVD brings chaos to one movie night—Dead Media gradually drifts away from its potential physical-versus-streaming rant. Viewers may be relieved by that decision, but even still, the movie we’re left with is not without its problems.
Dead Media offers a winking poke at ourselves. “Ourselves” being those of us who live and breathe movies, of course. In the first act, Sammi-Jack Martincak’s character, Maggie, is faced with a universal dilemma for all cineastes; she and her two friends, Brenda (Jessica Fenton) and Daniel (Antonio Teodoro), can’t agree on a movie to watch.
They go through that eerily familiar routine of scrolling through titles on a streaming service, and wasting time that could’ve been used to actually watch something. It’s only once Maggie picks a certain older horror movie, one that her uncle gushes about, does the evening finally begin.
The trio has barely dug into the movie—the fictional “Night of the Lurchers”—when Maggie’s aforementioned uncle crashes the party. Heppy (Sam Landman) got word of his niece streaming this in-story cult classic, and true to his Gen X nature, he then heads over with the DVD copy in hand. Some friction between Brenda and Heppy is soon established amidst the viewing party fun; she wants Maggie to be well-rested for an important interview that next morning, whereas Heppy insists that they stay up and watch the DVD extras. That tension only continues as all hell breaks loose.
Dead Media was off to a mildly amusing start, but its initial plot eventually gets overshadowed by something much bigger and more lore-heavy. On top of the zombie-like Lurchers now inside Maggie’s house, there are those other characters summoned from the diegetic movie. The most prominent of them is the director (Anna Sundberg), who herself popped out of the supplemental material. She indeed raises the story’s stakes from low to medium, but you can also feel Dead Media slowing down as it tries to fit in, and explain, the director character’s origins and motivations.
What could have easily been a repeat of Demons or The Video Dead turns into something more singular, as well as unduly convoluted. It also struggles to balance its own tones; that early sense of humor was in already distress before it was dropped in favor of a somber energy. In addition, not keeping the runtime to ninety minutes or less is a missed opportunity, seeing as how the characters were complaining about modern movies being too long.
Dead Media is high-concept filmmaking done on a very low budget; its actors are never lacking in spirit, either. Ultimately, though, this came across as two or three different movies crammed into one. That feeling of disarray is hard to miss, yet so is the filmmaker’s sincerity.
Whenever the story becomes unfocused, or a little too bogged down by its own rules, Scrimshaw’s love for his movie is easily understood. That clear affection goes a long way in this scrappy love letter to 480p media.
Dead Media is currently screening on a theatrical tour via Antenna Releasing.
