Spoiler-Free Reviews: Dead Media and The Weird Kidz
Dead Media With Dead Media, writer/director Joseph Scrimshaw crafts both a love letter to and a cautionary fable about nostalgia, outdated media, and video store-era fright fare. Maggie (Sammi-Jack Martincak) and her stuck in the past, nineties-obsessed Uncle Heppy (Sam Landman) talk Maggie’s friends Daniel (Antonio Teodoro) and Brenda (Jessica Fenton) into watching a DVD copy of a 1999 horror movie reputed to be cursed if viewers find the correct Easter egg on the DVD. Guess which foursome does just that? Each door in Maggie’s house now becomes a time portal to the sound stage where the film was shot, and the creatures from the film manifest into reality. Dead Media obviously has a big heart behind it and it has good technical aspects, fine performances, and cool monster makeup, but it can feel a bit corny at times. It fared well as a potential film festival crowd pleaser, though, and should also find a good run with its current
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