Dead Media (2025) Film Review - Media's Not Dead!

Joseph Scrimshaw’s low-budget debut Dead Media (2025) has a whole lot of heart and serves as a love letter to horror films and physical media. In an age where streaming options proliferate across our screens, encouraging mindless watching and endless scrolling, physical media offers a small ray of hope to those who yearn for analogue days.

Scrimshaw taps into this growing cultural movement in Dead Media, following Maggie (Sammi-Jack Martincak) and her friends, Brenda (Jessica Fenton) and Daniel (Antonio Teodoro), as they settle in for a movie night. They lament the relentless cycle of doom-scrolling through film options and the choice paralysis it induces, until Maggie decides to veer off and invite her quirky, movie-loving Uncle Heppy (Sam Landman) over with his holy grail physical copy of Night of the Lurchers. As the night continues, they explore everything the DVD has to offer, including the behind-the-scenes clips. Eventually, one thing leads to another: Maggie’s exploration unleashes a curse, and their house is transformed into the film set, backstage scenes and lurchers included. Maggie and her friends must banish the lurchers and work with the director, Rita Nast, to escape the DVD for good.

Maggie and friends watching Night of the Lurchers in Dead Media (2026)

The 1990s B-movie feel creates an incredibly fun, nostalgic atmosphere. Maggie and her friends might be reminiscing about the decade’s cult classics, but so too are the audience, and this meta movie provides its fair share of fan service for that bygone era. This, paired with excellent chemistry among the cast, specifically between Maggie and Uncle Heppy, makes for an engaging watch. Martincak’s performance as Maggie has an exuberant quality and establishes her as a lovable lead, while her endearing connection with the zany Uncle Heppy is the film’s emotional anchor. Heppy’s advice for Maggie to ignore her responsibilities and have fun watching movies with him might be misguided, but it is clearly rooted in his affection for her.

Landman’s performance is the standout, as his humour cuts through the tension and his jokes continually land. Beyond Maggie and Heppy, the supporting cast bring their own idiosyncrasies to their roles: Fenton is the encouraging, if slightly overbearing, friend and love interest to Maggie, and Teodoro’s carefree attitude (helped along by his consumption of edibles) brings a lighter touch that completes the friendship trio.

Its meta streak extends to the visual style, which echoes the bonus features of a DVD. Grainy, vintage filters are layered over the behind-the-scenes footage, contrasting with the crisp 4K look of the ‘real world’ to enhance the immersive analogue texture. Even the lurchers’ stuttering movements recall a scratched DVD skipping.

Uncle Heppy with his dvd of Night of the Lurchers

However, Scrimshaw’s debut isn’t without its faults. Ironically, the 99-minute runtime feels too long and ignores the characters’ own wish for ’90-minute movies’. In the third act, the story becomes bogged down in lore, with Rita Nast (Anna Sundberg), the director of Night of the Lurchers, becoming the main focus at the expense of meaningful character development or compelling plot turns. Fight scenes against the lurchers grow predictable and fail to create any genuine tension.

That said, I really enjoyed this film. Its love for cinema is palpable, and the third act’s loss of momentum doesn’t dim the film’s best aspects. Its concept is unique, and the low-budget SFX lurcher makeup is impressive. It’s easy to see why it won the Let’s Get Physical Special Jury Prize at the 2026 Chattanooga Film Festival. Dead Media is a perfect reminder to support independent filmmakers and invest in some goddamn physical media! After all, you may be done with the DVD… but it’s not done with you!