V/H/S (2012)

NIGHT 13

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

       "He said I'd know which tape it was..."

V/H/S (2012) is the first in a new series of anthology horror film made up of five found footage stories all from different up and coming horror directors.

The framing story involves some very shady teens who are sneaking into a house to try and find a specific VHS tape, when they get inside what they find is a corpse and a whole collection of weird VHS tapes.

Over all I liked each of the stories in V/H/S, though they're filled with what I affectionately call "logic holes," they're all very enjoyable, and clever in their own right.

The bad thing about this film is most of the stories are trying so hard to be clever that they don't make sense if you step back and think about the story. This ties into the problem I have with most found footage films, that they don't make a lot of logical sense as far as why someone would record each instance. I think the second story "Second Honey" is a perfect example of this, there's no reason the girl would record any of the events of the story especially since (SPOILER FOLLOWS) she's the one doing all the weird stuff. And they try to make up for it with one line at the end, "did you erase the tape?" but that doesn't explain why she would record it in the first place. This is a fine example of what most of these stories do is put the clever twist above the actual story in the films.


And I really dislike the framing story, its simple sure but it's poorly shot (on purpose) it makes the mistakes mentioned above (suddenly switching to multiple camera's with no explanation?), it's uncomfortable (the amateur porn angle) and it's just kind of bland and super horror movie-esque, it's not creepy and it's not new or interesting. So it basically steps in all of the wholes the film was trying to avoid.

I absolutely love the first short. I'm sad it's the first one, cause then everything else seems downhill from there, but at least the whole thing starts with a bang. It's a new spin on horror, something you don't see hardly ever and it's sexy, it's scary and it's just really cool too!

Also throughout this whole film the effects are great, it's mostly old school (practical/don't show too much) with only the slightest amount of CG for little things and touch-ups.

V/H/S (2012), is a return to the anthology horror format. I like how it's success suddenly has more people talking about the older films, and while I don't exactly love this one, its really not bad at all!


3.5/5 Stars.

 Happy watching!




This is the last review of my 2014 run of 13 Nights of Macabre Movies! Be safe out there tonight, and see you next year!

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