Dead Things (1986 Video) User Reviews

SOV wildness

[BandSAboutMovies · 3/10 · 27 September 2021]

Todd Sheets, who made Clownado, Dreaming Purple Neon and Ouija Death Trap, amongst many other movies, made this video short very early in his career. It tells the story of a bunch of drug dealers who escape into the woods, only to find that they've ended up dealing with a Satantic cult who has way worse plans for them than jail.

This was remade in 2009 by the director, but this grainy cheapy has plenty of energy and an ending that made me stand up and cheer. I mean, when Satan himself gets conjured and brings some zombies with him, that's really something for me.

In a weird way - as you'll learn all week long - I cut Shot On Video breaks that I would never give to streaming video horror that gets released today. Maybe I'm just longing for the scuzzier look of camcorders. I don't have any answers for you.

That said - I haven't seen the remake, but here's betting that I'd like this one a lot more, particularly because it's like 25 minutes long.

An enjoyably atrocious horror splatter short

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 26 January 2009]

Todd Sheets rates highly as one of my favorite directors of extremely awful and amateurish, yet enthusiastic and hence oddly entertaining micro-budget Do-It-Yourself out-of-the-mainstream indie horror schlock. Well, this is one of Todd's early shorts and, of course, it's quite terrible, but still really funny and enjoyable just the same. A deranged hillbilly father and his equally demented hick son brutally butcher any folks who are unfortunate enough to venture into their remote neck of the woods. This baby possesses all the right wrong stuff to qualify as an endearingly abysmal piece of nickel'n'dime horror splatter junk: we've got pathetic acting from a lame no-name cast, fumbling (mis)direction, laughably lousy gore (grisly highlights include an axe dismemberment, a throat being ripped out with a claw hammer, and a baseball bat bludgeoning), tinny sound, cruddy eye-straining shot-on-video photography, cardboard characters (the wacko rednecks in particular are incredibly broad caricatures), a wafer thin story, a paltry clichéd script, and no suspense to speak of. Only the inspired use of catchy and spirited bluegrass music manages to impress, with bonus points added for including the catchy ditty "Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms" on the soundtrack. A hilariously horrendous hoot and a half.

Brutal horror flick.

[bfan83 · 27 December 2003]

What started out as sort of a "Pulp Fiction" type of movie quickly turned into one of the most brutal and shocking Todd Sheets movie I've ever seen. There were alot of moments where the gore was too much for me. I think I turned away from the screen a couple of times. Anyway, I thought the family of cannibals were hilarious! They are the only ones who seemed to be enjoying themselves. The criminals and the lawmen were a bit less established. But they still did a good job. The film was a bit uneven and a little dark. But it's a small price to pay for good low budget entertainment. All in all, a bit uneven and a little dark but still entertaining nontheless. 7 out of 10.