Movie Review: V/H/S

Synopsis: When a group of misfits is hired by an unknown third party to burglarize a desolate house and acquire a rare VHS tape, they discover more found footage than they bargained for.

This is a collection of short "found footage" horror films produced by Brad Miska, the man behind one of my favorite websites bloody-disgusting.com, and it features the directing talents of several Indy filmmakers that I am a fan of like David Bruckner (The Signal), Ti West (The Innkeepers)and Glenn McQuaid (Stake Land). The stories are all sort of loosely held together by the main story, which focuses on the a VHS tape (VHS? Really? No way some of this found stuff wouldn't have been digital). I found that whole bit to not really work for me, but as any good anthology watcher will tell you the strength lies in the stores more than the framing (but don't tell that to the Cryptkeeper).

Fortunately the stories here are pretty good I thought. I won't break down every segment but I found something to like in each one. Some were much stronger than others but all were interesting and for the most part unique. The overall quality is consistent as each had some genuine ideas.

A few leaned more towards just being a thriller but some are definitely balls-out brutal horror tales. Personally I thought "Amateur Night" by David Bruckner is the strongest horror section. It start with a spooky wild-eyed girl being picked up by some dudes to go to a hotel room and ends in a wild, freaky, unexpected twist. Great stuff.

"Tuesday the 17th" heads straight into slasher territory and is part Friday the 13th and part Predator.

"10/31/98" is a cool spooky-house scenario that has a Halloween theme to it.

Ti West directed the section called "Second Honeymoon," which I was really looking forward to, but just found it to be OK. More of a drama/thriller than horror and a bit disappointing.

All-in-all I think the differences kept this from getting too predictable or monotonous but it still sort of felt like it ran a bit long to me. I don't think I'd drop any of the stories though as I liked them all. It's a nice bloody bag of fun for horror fans only I'd say. Casual fans probably won't like this. Personally I'm sort of sick of the "found footage" type stuff but damned if this isn't pretty cool, although the shaky cameras gets tiresome by the end.


7.5/10