An unsolicited television is delivered to the writer, Henry Jordan, at his house. The single program the set can pull in is a seemingly endless, plotless, black-and-white zombie horror film titled Zombie Blood Nightmare. Despite being unplugged, the screen flickers back to life and spawns the film’s creatures—the undead named Jack, The Bride, Ironhead, Jimmy D., and Half-Creeper—who descend on the writer and end his life in a stark, chilling moment. The very next day, delivery men arrive to claim the set, revealing it was meant for the Institute for Paranormal Research; they discover only the writer’s body in the front hallway, dressed strangely in party clothes, a grisly reminder of the danger that lies inside that box.
Three months pass, and the narrative shifts to a new unsettled family dynamic. Teenagers Zoe Blair and Jeff Blair arrive at the haunted house ahead of their parents, who are moving back to the United States after years abroad. Jeff forms a connection with dog walker April Ellison, who accompanies him home, and the dog she’s watching bolts off into the woods. Soon the couple’s fear deepens as the dog—and then the woods themselves—become a grim nursery for the living dead. The zombies, having escaped the television’s confines, lurk in the trees and prey on anything that crosses their path, and they cruelly kill the dog before the remains are found by Jeff and Zoe, who realize the danger has crept beyond the screen and into the neighborhood.
Into this fragile moment steps a man named Joshua Daniels, who arrives claiming he bought the cursed TV at a yard sale and mailed it to the Paranormal Institute after it killed his wife. Jeff initially turns him away, but later that night the attic’s telecast reveals a pale, passing figure and a zombie woman who is promptly dispatched, exposing the unsettling truth that the set can birth additional terrors. The man who calls himself “The Garbage Man” appears, insisting that the only way to stop further outbreaks is to tape a mirror to the television—a counterintuitive and unnerving piece of advice that will prove pivotal.
The danger expands when the zombies break into April Ellison’s home. Ironhead strangles their maid, and the zombies move on to kill April’s father, while their neighbors also fall to the relentless onslaught. Jeff, Zoe, and April fortify their home, and Joshua returns, determined to reclaim the hazardous television. He explains the zombies’ disturbing psychology: they inhabit a liminal space between life and death, driven to kill out of envy and repulsion for their own decayed appearances; mirrors repulse them because they remind them of their grotesque state, and they attack the living when they sense fear. The creatures can be tricked into thinking they are dead by wounding and dismembering them, though they must remain unburied; they can also be corralled into an enclosed space, which drives them to turn on one another in a frenzied, cannibalistic state.
Despite their precautions, Jimmy D. bursts in and incapacitates April, and Zoe and Jeff manage to barricade the invader outside as the zombie leaves with April’s body. At dawn, Joshua and Jeff head into the woods with a plan: Joshua lays traps, takes up a sniper position, and uses Jeff as bait. With a bow and arrows, they manage to incapacitate all the zombies except The Bride, who pursues them in a deadly chase. Joshua is killed in the pursuit, and Jeff finds himself trapped in a shed, discovering April’s corpse inside. The Bride, arming herself with a chainsaw, closes in and decapitates Jeff just as the other zombies wake and shake off their deathly illusions, returning to the neighborhood with renewed hunger.
They storm back to the house where Zoe remains alone. Remembering the rule that the zombies strike only when fear is present, Zoe dares them in and, through a calculated calm, they become docile. She finds a mirror affixed to the basement door, luring the zombies into the basement, where they lose themselves in a frenzy and begin to consume one another. In the end, the grotesque remains are drawn back into the television, and the nightmare of Zombie Blood Nightmare appears finally to be over.
Sometime later, Zoe’s parents visit her in the hospital, unaware of the full gravity of what happened, bringing the possessed TV with them in hopes of comforting her. After everyone leaves, the screen flickers to life once more and the film plays again. In the final, chilling moment, Zoe stares at the screen as Jack, still trapped within the TV, growls directly at her, leaving the room in a suspenseful, unresolved scream.
