Reel Splatter Productions has released a brand new teaser trailer for Dead Format, an indie dramatic horror feature set during the final years of the 1990s video rental era, which follows a grieving VHS collector still dealing with the death of his father, and during a visit to his local rental shop, he discovers a mysterious videotape among the store's collection.
He takes the tape home and watches it, but his interest quickly turns into an obsession, AND As he digs deeper into the recording, the discovery begins to have increasingly horrific consequences.
The 1990s video store era
Dead Format uses the decline of physical video rental as the backdrop for its horror - the film is set during the period when VHS stores were becoming a fading part of everyday life, and that period also puts the collector's obsession in a very specific context, because amysterious VHS could be difficult to identify, trace or replace, while rental shops provided access to thousands of films and recordings that were otherwise difficult to find.
The new teaser introduces the collector, the rental store and the mysterious tape while keeping much of the horror hidden, and Reel Splatter Productions is presenting Dead Format as a dramatic horror film built around grief, obsession and physical media, with the VHS discovery providing the route into its darker elements.
The film is set to hit the festival circuit soon before releasing in 2027.
