V/H/S/99 Review

When the first V/H/S came out, I remember writing in my review for the movie that I thought the film was conceptual greatness praising its unique and fresh direction. Compared to many mainstream horror titles at the time, V/H/S 1 felt like an ambitious and creative independent step into the right direction for the genre. Each horror short in the anthology format felt like a creepy and crazy urban legend passed around that we get to now witness the actual archival footage source of. When each tape was played, my eyes were completely glued to the screen in high anticipation of what I was about to see whether or not the end result was as well produced as one would hope. Sequels later and the franchise has certainly seen its fair share of ups and downs in quality with each anthology segments released. Well, now we've reached the 5th entry in the series presumably centering around the year 1999. Let's dive into each segment and see which one stuck the landing and which ones simply fell flat on their face.

1. Shredding - 3/10

With this being our first major segment kicking off the anthology series' latest outing, I was very curious to see how "Shredding" would act as the audience's first impression of things to come. Unfortunately, about halfway through, I was already contemplating if it was even worth sitting through this movie while simultaneously pondering if the franchise officially lost its way after VHS 2. Yep, you read that right. It was that quick and very early on in this movie that I found myself having a retrospective look on the VHS series overall thinking about how much of a downhill trajectory it took. But why was my mind so distracted by this thought process and not fixated on the short itself? Well, that’s actually a pretty easy question to answer. Simply put, "The Shredding" was terrible. This segment centers around an obnoxious teenage rock band getting into some crazy, destructive hi-jinks (typical 90’s stuff which admittedly did feel slightly nostalgic). Eventually the band, in their glaring lack of logic, decides to break into some previously burnt down music venue where apparently a tragic death happened involving a large fire and another band that played in that location

Now, I will say this. On paper, the concept actually sounds like the perfect set up for one of these anthology tapes to dive into some really creepy paranormal situations taking full advantage of an effectively eerie setting while giving us fun characters to follow along. However, none of these promising components can be found in the execution of this segment as the majority of the time is spent showing how absolutely annoying these kids really are. You know that one character in a slasher movie that’s so frustrating to watch, you find yourself impatiently waiting for the killer or monster to take them out? Now hold that thought and imagine nearly the entire cast being like that one specific character the whole way through with irritating choppy editing to emphasize their chaotic edginess. I can’t even use the excuse “they’re teenagers, what do you expect?” as that mentality simply doesn’t apply to an entire generation and group.

It’s just hard to watch minutes upon minutes of irritating characters just acting wild and bombastic with nothing else being offered within the alluring found footage genre prism. Although once we start nearing the end of this atrocity to cinema, something finally happens. The previously deceased band from the historical tragedy shows up as zombies ant attacks our characters. Yep, I'm not even gonna try to subtly set things up as the film itself hardly puts any effort in its storytelling approach. Now I will admit, and this is something that I’ve also noticed in VHS '94, the practical FX work displayed is certainly impressive to look at. These "punk rock zombies" as I’ll call them looked absolutely frightening and equally awesome in design. 

So despite having terrible characters and a challenging to watch adventure to follow, the horror spectacle imagery is surprisingly pretty solid here. Unfortunately, and this is why I brought up VHS '94 as a reference point, the exceptional FX work and attention to gory detail just doesn’t make up for the severely flawed viewing experience surrounding it. Shredding might just be one of the worst entries in the entire franchise for me despite my genuine admiration for the prosthetics work and effectively freaky corpse puppeteering imagery at the end. My recommendation would be to either fast forward through it to the good stuff at the end or just find an image of the zombies and corpse possession scene online.

2. Suicide Bid - 7/10

The Set Up

So, in an unexpected turn of events, we transition to the second horror segment which ended up ironically getting an opposite reaction out of me from what the previous one did. Whereas “Shredding” presented unrelentingly obnoxious characters that made the experience a challenge to get through while slowly dragging itself to a lacking payoff, “Suicide Bid” gets the ball rolling rather quickly. From the first few minutes alone, I was relieved to see that, at the very least, we had a protagonist that wasn’t frustrating to follow along. As a matter of fact, I was genuinely curious with the set up taking place involving this girl (Lily) desperately trying to join a sorority group and, while intoxicated during a nighttime hang out, is being lured into a rite of passage. Now are the performances noticeably weak during certain spots within this short? Most certainly and this is especially noticeable during the first quarter of the movie. 

But hey, I’ll take a weak performance or two over constant screaming wild teenage angst any day (sorry I’m still getting over the previous short). Getting into the story, the sorority sisters dare Lily into spending the night buried in a graveyard with only a camera to record herself, a mysterious box, and a string tied to a bell on the surface to ring if she's too scared to continue. This section alone was a great set up for what I can only imagine would be an excellent tension driven cinematic experience similar to that of the Ryan Reynold’s criminally underrated Buried movie. The sisters then tell her about an urban legend where a previous person who went through the same initiation process was forgotten in the coffin for weeks only to be found missing when the grave was dug up. 

This mysterious girl is said to have passed on to the underworld and occasionally rises up to knock on coffins searching for new candidates to join her. So, there you have it. You have your supernatural horror angle being seeded in as something to look forward to (albeit one that sounds a bit silly and downright absurd…but that’s VHS for ya).

Once Lily hesitantly decides to go through with it, I was already finding myself gradually becoming more curious as to what was about to take place. The nighttime setting of the graveyard, the targeted coffin being designed with a glass cross so that our character can see the dirt piling onto the coffin, the sorority sisters acting glaringly suspicious, and of course the supernatural horror undertones being planted. What on Earth was I about to witness? This is the type of fun curiosity driven question that I should always ponder to myself in some fashion with these found footage horror segments. So in that, Suicide Bid was already succeeding in some respect. The perspective begins to shift from the girls outside shoveling dirt onto the coffin where you can see Lily’s scared face through the glass to then Lily’s perspective inside the coffin. This is where Suicide Bid starts to really show off its spotlight attribute that makes it one of the better VHS entries. This being its attention to audio and visual direction to enhance the visceral element of the story.

An Excellent Sense of Grounded Tension

As Lily lays in the coffin (the camera to her side so we can see her face), you can both feel and hear the sense of claustrophobia increasing as the sound of the dirt piles heavier and heavier on top of the coffin. There’s a strong sense of weight to the coffin being buried from Lily’s perspective that really shines a light on the tension racking suffocation and isolation of her predicament. You can vaguely hear the girls voices getting more and more faint as the soundscape eventually becomes primarily Lily’s heavy breathing, body movements, and the coffin’s dead silence. It really does sound and feel like I’m watching someone who just got buried alive recording themselves on a camera even if the central performance isn’t entirely believable...yet. 

Lily starts to hear scratching and knocking noises around her and immediately I started to sigh in disappointment at how cheesy it was for things to just supernaturally escalate to this point already. But to my surprise, the perspective shifts back to the surface where the girls are clearly messing with the coffin to scare her. I was both relieved and shocked to see that we were still keeping things relatively grounded (no pun intended) as the perspective shifts back and forth from Lily being scared in the coffin trying not to pull the string and the sisters above just messing around. 

And then…things start to get interesting. This is where the movie completely shifts into a direction that I simply was not expecting and VHS 99 started to finally show its value. Lily finally decides to open the mysterious little box given to her out of fear revealing several spiders crawling out and around her body. In a fit of sheer panic, she flails around trying to swat them away accidentally splattering one right beside her in a disgusting gory smear. This is the moment that causes her to start frantically ringing the bell wanting to get out. It’s a great bit of visual direction showing Lily’s limited maneuverability in the coffin not being able to comfortably evade these creepy little critters. Thinking about it now, I can imagine this scene having a large effect on people with arachnophobia (a nice helping of nightmare fuel for those poor souls). But guys, this isn’t the peak of the horror aspect at all. 

This is merely an appetizer for what comes next in what I can only describe as being a found footage version of what 2005’s The Descent was for me (I’ll get to that reference in a bit).  A rain storm starts coming down on the surface while Lily’s bell ringing is heard resulting in the sisters just continuously laughing and messing around. But what I especially loved about this scene is that, as easy as it is to just write them off as obvious villains up to no good with Lily, there’s still a slight chance that all of this is really just a stupid prank that has dragged on. It’s right on the border line of possibilities ranging from bullies, psychotic killers, witches of some kind doing some supernatural ritual, or just ignorant young adults with an absurdly dangerous sorority initiation process. The movie keeps it pretty loose up until this point which is what makes the next few minutes all the more engaging to watch.

Escalating Claustrophobia Horror At Its Finest

As the rainstorm starts to pick up harder, a police car is heard in the distance with its headlights shining in the girl’s direction. At this point honestly, anything can go down narratively or conceptually speaking.  Whereas I was increasingly curious before, now I’m fully engaged in what’s happening highly anticipating the next course of events. This is due to the sorority group looking legitimately concerned with the cop’s arrival and panicking about getting caught and expelled from school. Seeing how fearful their responses were and being worried about leaving Lily alone till they got back officially crossed off any true “evil intent” from their characters. 

I absolutely loved this twist as it showed them to be simply…well…stupid as opposed to sinister. This new context gives the whole scenario more of a refreshingly grounded tragic tone as opposed to a typical supernatural horror take. As the girls went off hiding from the police, we see the officers eventually show up investigating the area but deciding to leave due to the heavy storm picking up. Now remember earlier when I said that the spiders was just an appetizer for what’s to come? Here’s where things really begin to escalate into sheer terror.

The camera on the surface remains static as the heavy downpour of rain completely engulfs the area. What’s brilliant here is the fact that they keep this exterior shot lingering just for a brief moment but long enough so that the audience can really sink in what’s taking place. I remember actually saying out loud “Oh wait a minute. Wait a minute! Oh crap! No no no no no!” The realization started to hit me that the coffin with Lily was about to be completely buried in a mound of wet mud due to the storm and no one’s there to stop it from happening. My reaction was one of genuine concern and heart racing fear. We shift back to Lily’s perspective and the movie’s effective sound design and visual direction start to really elevate the experience. Lily, after pounding on the ceiling of the coffin to get out starts to speak into the camera as a final last words message to her best friend. 

While she’s delivering this apology message, a drop of water hits her face interrupting her followed by the sound of heavy, loud creaking surrounding the coffin. This is where I started cursing out at the screen in sheer panic as muddy water is shown sliding down the sides of the coffin wall and large cracks begin to appear. The fact that I’m literally yelling at the screen (something that rarely ever happens when I watch horror) made me realize just how successfully immersive the cinematography and audio engineering work was. Lily’s screaming for her life while water starts progressively trickling inside had me at the edge of my seat. This wasn’t some crazy zombie, demon, alien, serial killer, or whatever other monsters of varying special FX quality attacking her. This was something tapping into a very relatable fear of worse case scenario survival and damn if they didn’t do an exception job at conveying it.

A Creative Decision That Ruins The Movie

Coming close to the end is where my previous reference to The Descent comes in with my feelings on this segment overall. To give a bit of context, back in 2006 when The Descent was playing on TV after its theatrical run the year prior, I remembered watching it and feeling impacted by the movie’s earlier claustrophobic scenes. It’s a story about a group of explorers getting trapped in a cave system only to find creatures dwelling there that's trying to kill them. The “getting trapped in a cave system” part of the movie was really well done exploiting the aforementioned claustrophobia aspect of the scenario to great effect. And once the creatures appear, the initial shock of seeing one of them for the first time before it attacks the group has since become one of cinema’s most celebrated jump scares. Unfortunately, what followed after the big reveal for me became a bloody action-horror creature feature that didn’t offer nearly the level of fear of its more grounded terror prior.

The same can be said for Suicide Bid as the tension of the piled on rain water and mud smothering over the collapsing coffin was genuinely getting a strong reaction out of me. Following this however comes the sound of some ghostly growling being inserted into the scene which felt more jarring to me as opposed to scary. I immediately thought to myself “Oh come on now! This situation is actually really terrifying. Don’t ruin this with something lame!”. But then Lily starts screaming at something that she’s seeing in the direction of the glass window which the camera pans over to reveal this freaky looking corpse face pressing down on it. It’s a great piece of horror imagery seeing this thing come out of nowhere during an already tensed situation and the performance behind Lily’s spine tingling reaction does legitimately land pretty hard. 

It kinda reminds me of one of my favorite horror scenes on television from a series called Legion where one of the main characters (Syd) is shown screaming in absolute terror at something offscreen leading to the camera panning around to reveal the show’s grotesque looking villain creepily walking towards her. So yes, the initial reveal of the monster, much like The Descent, is effectively shocking in Suicide Bid. However, also like The Descent, things start to escalate in all the wrong ways as this corpse starts to eventually look like some cheap zombie costume out of a lower budgeted movie (even for this series) just growling and trying to attack her through the glass. All of that incredible tension successfully built up prior has just completely deflated and now I felt as though I was suddenly watching a lesser quality horror movie. But wait, maybe there’s hope.

An Ending That Fails Both The Beginning & Middle

The movie then cuts to the next day with the group of girls standing over the grave freaking out at the sight of what has now become a giant pit of muddy water. I actually liked this bit a lot because we’re now switching back to the more effective horror angle set up prior with the grounded scenario of a prank gone terribly wrong. It also helps that the imagery of the flooded over grave and overcast backdrop surrounding the sisters made everything feel convincingly bleak. The fact that two of them try jumping in to rescue Lily only to come out empty handed was a nice eerie twist on the urban legend told earlier. Now, an ideal version of this movie would’ve cut down Lily’s encounter with the zombie to just the initial shock image of the face and then transition to the girls panicking the next day at the empty watery grave. The end.

Instead, the segment gets worst by cutting to each girl now being trapped in a coffin with their own individual cameras. Lily (who is now a zombie herself) shows up in their coffins, tells them that she made a deal with the ghost girl from the urban legend and then takes them hostage. That's it. That's how it ends people. It’s honestly atrocious and the absolute worst way that they could’ve concluded this segment. You had one of the franchise’s best entries turn into one of its most disappointing due to them simply not knowing when and how to end things. But hey, I gotta give credit where credit is due I suppose. The trapped in a coffin element was pretty effective to such an extent that I’d be looking out to see who filmed this particular segment in order to check out their future movies. Overall, I’d say the Suicide Bid short is worth checking out, but the ending most certainly doesn’t do its set up and climactic moments any justice.

3. Ozzy’s Dungeon - 3/10

This one was…just crazy. Now wait! I'm very well aware that seeing the word “crazy” in a description for a horror movie may peak the curiosity of some horror fans to immediately wanting to check it out. However, when I say “crazy”, I don’t mean “fun entertaining crazy”. I just mean weird and chaotically absurd in a manner that doesn't really encourage excitement. What starts off as a bizarre children’s game show in the vein of classic Nickelodeon shows (only this time involving hellish undertones), ends in a supernatural horror creature spectacle.

If that sounds fun to you, trust me, I can completely understand the allure of such a wild premise. However, what I didn’t mention is what happens in between those two points. The game show component is hosted by Steven Ogg who many would know as Trevor from GTA V or Simon from The Walking Dead. Steven completely owns this entire section of the short with the entertaining and expected high levels of charisma and off kilter characteristics that he’s known to have with previous roles.

That’s not to say that the game show section is necessarily fun, but it does get by primarily on his vibrant performance as well as some of the eerie undertones from the game’s concept. However, where things take a turn down a particular direction that I myself admittedly was never a fan of is where his character gets kidnapped by upset parents who witnessed their child get injured on the show. Not only does the family kidnap him, but they essentially torture him with a disgusting and unrelenting makeshift version of the game show for him to painfully endure. Now I’ve always called myself a massive horror nerd, but there is one particular sub genre that I’ve never been too fond of and that’s the category of “torture porn”. This whole second act is one long extensive torture act by this family doing unsanitary and terrible things to the game show host…and it’s not entertaining.

Torture scenes are supposed to be uneasy to sit through just by their very nature and, when executed in a certain manner, they can make for an unforgettably engaging experience. With this part of Ozzy’s Dungeon unfortunately, I just found the whole thing to be utterly disgusting to watch. I won’t get into any details but you have this crazy angry mother doing all sorts of twisted things to punish the game show host out of revenge for her daughter’s injury. And as I've stated, none of it is by any means entertaining regarding the fear factor element. 

Even if it’s supposed to be dark comedy due to its absurdity, it’s certainly not funny enough to lean in on that direction making this just uncomfortable. 

It becomes a chore to sit through resulting in me just waiting for the big horror punch line to hurry up and present itself. And well…it finally does. The final act approaches and the host pleas to spare his life if he gives them what they initially wanted (some promised wish that the game rewards these children if they win). The host takes them behind the scenes of the show stage and into some mysterious cave where things transition to becoming a crazy cosmic supernatural horror movie. A blob-like person lays on top of a table in a room surrounded by people bowing down to them. The girl is then told to make her wish to this thing, but the big twist(?) comes when she whispers her wish to said person in the room. A creature with questionable special FX bursts out of the centered individual in the room like the alien from John Carpenter’s The Thing and the family’s faces start to burn off as of acid is poured onto it. 

The kid however is unaffected and is seen smiling at the camera…the end. That’s it. It just ends there. At that point, I’d already mentally checked out and was just trying to enjoy the creature design as I always do with even the worst of the VHS shorts. However, this time, I simply didn’t care anymore. Guys, this one was awful. Awful characters (Simon Ogg being the fun exception due to his performance), a messy premise that doesn’t fully land in its execution, and a payoff that just feels random and nonsensical even if there is a narrative purpose for it. I say skip this one like the plague.

4. Gawkers - 4/10

One thing that I’ll say about this one is that the immature kids featured here aren’t as obnoxious to watch as the first short. They’re not necessarily “the cool fun kids” either as one would find in titles like The Goonies or Stranger Things, but at least I wasn’t as frustrated witnessing them enact their ignorant youthful hi-jinks. Another positive that I can highlight is that the 90’s early era setting of older computer models, usage of webcams, and talks of Y2K conspiracy definitely poked at my nostalgia a bit. That being said, the actual horror component was rather weak here. Production-wise, Gawkers looked like a short that should’ve been on one of the other horror anthology movies out there with cheaper B-movie quality. 

Just to get the big spoilery aspect out of the way, we follow a group of kids that are attempting to spy on their attractive female neighbor through webcam spyware only to tragically discover that she’s essentially a modern day Medusa that kills them. Sounds interesting? Well…not really, but I suppose depending on how you execute such a crazy idea, there is certainly room for a great creature feature spectacle. Unfortunately, we spend most of the time just watching these kids essentially stalk their neighbors gawking at her (hence the title) until the very last minute when she reveals her monstrous form and kills them. The CGI FX are noticeably cheap during this entire scene (one of the kids even makes a comment about CGI funny enough) and the direction is extremely lackluster and generic for the genre.

I'd say to skip this one entirely as there’s really nothing worth checking out here whether it's the build up or payoff. If you wanna watch a found footage horror movie involving a woman revealing herself to be something sinister after men tries to take advantage of her, check out the first VHS movie’s short entitled "Amateur Night". And on a side note, there's a series of stop motion shorts that play throughout the entire movie connecting to this one. Those shorts are probably the most memorable part of this narrative but even they're not really worth checking out. 

5. To Hell and Back - 6/10

Let's get right to it. The segment is called "To Hell and Back" which definitely sparks up a certain level of expectations considering the genre that we're playing with here. And you know what? Once our central characters end up in literal Hell, there are a few instances of impressively displayed horror imagery to soak in. My favorite being, in the beginning portion of their supernatural venture, where the only thing that can be seen by the audience is complete and utter darkness with red lightning flashes illuminating the area and silhouetting giant demons. There’s also some cool Hills Have Eyes-like elements with grotesque looking creatures eating people on top of high rocky terrains. So from a visual standpoint delivering on a premise's potential, there is something to enjoy and admire here to an extent.

That being said, the tone is not at all what I expected as things take a turn from disturbing horror with intriguing world building elements to a twisted "fun action-adventure fantasy". It’s all in the feeling of the dialogue from the characters being inserted with moments of comedic exchanges in addition to them meeting an escort who is basically a ripoff of Gollum from Lord of the Rings. To Hell and Back becomes less scary and more “crazy fun and quirky” as you’d find in something like an MCU movie or other blockbuster adventure titles. It’s not necessarily a bad thing that they took this approach, but admittedly, I was much more engaged with what I was watching when things were seemingly taken more seriously with this terrifying shift in setting. 

But at the end of the day, I did kinda have fun watching this segment at the very least for some of its stronger visual direction and world exploration. Overall, I’d say this one isn’t really worth rushing out to see per se but I do think there are some genuinely enjoyable elements to experience as a fantasy-horror fan.

Rating: 5/10