Here's the situation as I see it. Time
is short, Halloween is around the corner, you have a film
company, you don't have a lot of money and you need a horror
movie. Found Footage! Hell yes. Shaky cam,
poor lighting, unknown actors and we're golden.
Dammit! Time is really
short. Found Footage… anthology! Double hell
yes! Thus we have today's horror anthology, which is all
found footage all the time and it's called V/H/S. We've
seen some gawdawful horror anthologies and found footage
movies but thankfully, V/H/S isn't one of these awful movies,
though as you might imagine some stories are better than
others.
Director Adam Wingard (Pop Skull) leads things
off with the wraparound, or the base story 'Tape 56' which
features some thugs driving around town with a VHS camera
filming themselves doing rotten things. Ultimately
these thugs are contracted to break into a house and retrieve
a VHS tape, but what they find is an old dude dead in his easy
chair surrounded by TV's and damn if these TV's aren't really
creepy. Personally, I'd have left but then I'd realize
I'm in a horror movie and I have to stay. Hey, let's sit
in front of the old dead guy and press 'PLAY' on his VCR.
Amateur Night: David Bruckner (The Signal). Some
crazy fratboys are partying and they put of pair of sexy specs
on the geeky one of the crew that doubles as a hidden
camera. Crazy... like a fox! It's wild
night, they find a couple of hotties including the super weird
looking Lily (Hannah Fierman) whose eyes look to be far too
large for her face, and damn if that's not a special effect
because that's just the way this young lady looks. The
party is going good, the ladies look ready to give it up, but
one passes out leaving just the quiet, demure but admittedly
weird Lily to service the fellas. I don't want to spoil
it for you, but that Lily really knows how to ruin a
party. We liked this story.
Second Honeymoon: Ti West (The Innkeepers).
Sam and Steph have been together for a while and are taking a
road trip to somewhere with Steph videotaping this trip.
Sam and Steph are boring me to death. At the motel an
unknown woman knocks on the door and Sam gets rid of
her. Sort of. Not really. Somehow she gets
in the motel room and messes with these guys shining the video
camera light in their face while they sleep. Sam and
Steph can obviously sleep through anything. Sam and
Steph do some more stuff that bores me until something really
strange happens that probably could've used a bit more
explanation, but that would mean spending more time with Sam
and Steph. We don't want that. We didn't care for
this one.
Tuesday the 17th: Glenn McQuaid (I Sell the Dead).
Some crazy kids are heading out to the backwoods for some fun
in the sun where I'm sure there's no cell phone
reception. We'll mainly concern ourselves with Wendy
(Norma C. Quinones) who is as hot as a firecracker, but tells
her friends during their walk in the woods that they are all
gonna die. That kind of puts a damper on the whole
hotness thing. Wendy wasn't lying about this, but what
is it that's killing these friends of hers? Beats the
hell out me. We kind of liked this little slasher styled
vignette, but the short format wasn't doing this sketchy story
any favors.
The Sick Thing that Happened to Emily when she was Younger:
Joe Swanberg (Alexander the Last).
Don't know what to tell you about this particular little story
other than it was arguably the best one all around,
considering the format. Swanberg used the short format
effectively, in the sense I can't imagine this being much
longer. The story was sketchy, of course, but the open
ended nature seemed to work because it left some room for the
viewers imagination to go wild. And Swanberg squeezed as
many large titties in his segment, and it wasn't gratuitous
either. I mean it was, like the story wouldn't have been
any less effective if there were no titties, but the inclusion
of titties flowed organically. Right? Regardless,
this story is difficult to describe so we're not going to even
try.
'10/31/98': Radio Silence. Hell if we know who they
are. This one is the most complete story of the
bunch. No muss, no fuss, straight forward, beginning,
middle and end. Just recognize that if you happen upon
some dudes flogging some chick and they yell at you to leave,
but they don't attack you for witnessing what they are
doing. Casually ignoring the fact that people are
occasionally involuntarily flying around the room during this
flogging and the floor often comes alive sucking these people
in, chances are this chick is probably deserving of this
flogging and rescue should be out of the question. I'm
just saying. Very enjoyable, if not a predictable little
story.
Wingard's story is always in between the other stories,
stitching them all together, as one by one these thugs are
disappearing in the process. Personally I wouldn't watch
TV in the dark with my back turned to a guy that's allegedly
dead. But again… that's just crazy old me. 'V/H/S'
was pretty solid all things considered. 100 minutes
worth of shaky cam, bad lighting and suspect acting in spots
does tend to grate on a nerve a little bit, but it was still a
pretty good watch.
