The Past Refuses to Stay Paused

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MOVIE REVIEW
Dead Media
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Genre: Horror, Comedy
Year Released: 2025, 2026
Runtime: 1h 39m
Director: Joseph Scrimshaw
Writer: Joseph Scrimshaw
Cast: Sammi-Jack Martincak, Sam Landman, James Urbaniak, Jessica Fenton, Anna Sundberg, Antonio Teodoro
Where to Watch: available on VOD July 28, 2026

RAVING REVIEW: DVD menus once made a movie feel larger than the movie itself. Commentary tracks, deleted scenes, production diaries, hidden Easter eggs, and animated menus offered several more hours inside a world that could’ve ended with the credits (it's irritating, because Blu-ray did away with a lot of this, then 4K really put the nail in the coffin, which is wild since those formats have more space.) DEAD MEDIA remembers that experience with affection, although writer and director Joseph Scrimshaw is just as interested in the people who never learned when to eject the disc.

Maggie Sloke (Sammi-Jack Martincak) is already caught between choices when she sits down for a movie night with her housemates, Daniel (Antonio Teodoro) and Brenda (Jessica Fenton). The group scrolls through an endless collection of streaming options until Maggie suggests NIGHT OF THE LURCHERS, a forgotten piece of late-1990s horror that she associates with her uncle Heppy (Sam Landman). In a happy coincidence, Heppy soon arrives with a DVD copy and insists that streaming the movie isn’t enough. The disc, the menus, and the bonus material are all part of the experience.

Heppy’s enthusiasm initially makes him an exaggerated version of every collector who has explained aspect ratios, packaging, or restoration work to someone who only wanted to watch the movie. Landman gives those vibes a warmth, though, and prevents the character from becoming a joke about aging horror fans. Heppy is funny because he’s overeager and exhausting.

Scrimshaw understands that collecting can become a way of preserving parts of ourselves that no longer fit into the present. Heppy isn’t only holding on to discs. He’s holding on to an era in which he understood his place, knew what excited him, and shared a meaningful connection with his niece. Maggie has moved forward without finding much direction, while Heppy has remained in place and convinced himself that repetition is the same thing as contentment.

The haunted DVD turns that emotional disagreement into a literal trap. After Maggie uncovers a hidden feature, NIGHT OF THE LURCHERS begins bleeding into the house, and its menus become gateways to different portions of the production. Characters move through scenes, auditions, interviews, commentary material, and other fragments that would ordinarily remain separated from the main feature. The idea allows DEAD MEDIA to build its horror around the specific mechanics of DVD navigation rather than merely placing a generic curse on an old object.

Scrimshaw finds a lot of depth in chapter selections, menu loops, alternate audio, and supplementary material that keep pulling the characters farther from anything resembling reality. James Urbaniak is especially well-suited to the shifting presentation, playing figures connected to the film within the film with the controlled strangeness of someone who could calmly explain an impossible situation while making it even less understandable.

The concept goes in so many directions that DEAD MEDIA occasionally loses track of which ones deserve attention. Its middle section moves from one DVD-related idea to another without creating much urgency between them, and some scenes continue after the underlying joke has already hit. The movie is only 99 minutes, but its loose progression makes portions feel longer as the characters search for rules inside a world designed to keep changing them.

The Lurchers have an unusual method of attacking their victims, and the production makes resourceful use of makeup, blood, and confined spaces, but the danger seldom develops into sustained fear. DEAD MEDIA is more comfortable being playful than threatening, leaving several confrontations suspended somewhere between an affectionate genre imitation and a comedy sketch. The homemade quality suits NIGHT OF THE LURCHERS and its deliberately inexpensive mythology. Scrimshaw’s ideas consistently extend beyond the production’s resources, and the ambition is easy to appreciate even when the illusion becomes thin.

Martincak and Landman keep the film from being swallowed by its own gimmicks. Maggie’s frustration with Heppy reflects the impatience of someone who loves a relative while resenting the emotional responsibility that has been quietly placed on her. Heppy can be generous, enthusiastic, and caring. Still, those qualities don’t erase how often he expects Maggie to step back into a shared past because he’s afraid of facing the present alone.

Fenton gives Brenda a welcome stability that pushes Maggie toward choices unrelated to her uncle or his collection. Daniel could’ve been reduced to another person trapped in the room. Teodoro gives his highly organized behavior enough personality to make him part of the group. Their relationships don’t receive equal development, although the effort to make the people matter separates DEAD MEDIA from the disposable movie it pretends to contain.

The physical-media references will naturally connect most strongly with viewers who remember studying DVD cases in stores, sitting through elaborate menu introductions, and searching online for codes that unlocked hidden material. The disc provides access to something streaming can’t offer, but it also becomes an enclosed system designed to return its users to the same images, conversations, and memories. That tension is considerably more interesting than an argument about whether discs or streaming services are superior. DEAD MEDIA recognizes the comfort of owning a movie and the satisfaction of exploring everything that comes with it. It also recognizes how easily enthusiasm can harden into an identity that leaves little room for change.

A haunted DVD offers the hook, but the harder thing to escape is the expectation that people can return to an earlier chapter and find everything waiting exactly where they left it. DEAD MEDIA knows that preservation has value. It also knows that pressing play again won’t stop time from moving.

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[photo courtesy of STRANGE PATH PRODUCTIONS, ANTENNA RELEASING]

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