V/H/S/2 (Retrospective Review)

When the first V/H/S came out, I remember thinking that the movie was conceptually one of the greatest releases to come out at the time for horror fans. I praised the unique and fresh approach to its narrative direction and ideas and held it up as being ambitious and creative compared to its mainstream counterparts. 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 which really appealed to me especially remembering the late 90s to early 2000's where urban legends were a huge thing. 

With each tape cycled through, 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. And although I've done reviews for most of the V/H/S movies, I've never quite done a full short by short review for the first two entries hence why I've decided to look back and talk about them through the prism of a retrospective commentary of sorts. With that said, let's dive into each segment of what I'd easily consider as being the best film overall of the series and see whether or not a re-watch years later might actually change my overall ratings on this sequel.

Spoiler Alert...it did. Whereas the first time that I saw this movie I gave it a very high rating praising its direction altogether, years later now I can see that it's actually fairly close to the first in overall quality as a collection. It's interesting what years can do to a piece of art once you've left it for so long having countless of other artistic experiences since (in this case watching several horror films afterwards). V/H/S/2 came out back when the found footage genre was still booming, so anything remotely fresh or interesting was a cause for celebration. 

However now, we've kind of already swam through that wave and have moved onto other things which made me curious as to whether other not this movie would stand the test of time without its unique cinematic trend-era lenses from back then being put on now. I think my impression of this sequel is that it's still very impressive in a few areas which we'll get into, but as an anthology collection on its own, I can't really say that it's as celebration-worthy now as I once hyped it up to being.

1. Tape 49 - 5/10

Much like the overarching tape from the previous movie (called Tape 56), Tape 49 centers on some sketchy people breaking into someone’s home, finding a bunch of tapes, and ignorantly standing by while some walking corpse lurks around in the background eventually attacking them. Unlike Tape 56 however, our protagonists this time around are thankfully not as annoying to watch in their personalities. The acting isn’t exactly any better but the characters themselves are at the very least less frustrating to follow along as they go about engaging in whatever shady objectives that they have.

This time we have two private investigators looking into the disappearance of someone’s son which is far more interesting than what he had prior being some gang of criminals recording themselves sexually assaulting women and committing vandalism for the sake of a profit. Tape 49 actually tries to tell a story with a mystery hook at its center which is much appreciated although the manner in which it brings the anthology framing into the overarching story is hardly an improvement from the last attempt. Instead, they try to loosely tie the tapes together making them out to be cursed in some way, but as slightly intriguing as that may sound in concept, there’s really no sense of detail oriented thought put into the mythology of these different VHS tapes co-existing.

Honestly, the overarching stories for this franchise kinda just feels lazy at this point and should’ve been completely discarded from the beginning in favor of just playing the tapes back to back or finding a better framing narrative. The ending of Tape 49 also felt very abrupt in its conclusion with our characters dying from the zombified version of the person that they were originally trying to get information on and the supposed supernatural cause of it being the collection of the VHS tapes themselves. The whole thing just feels carelessly thrown together haphazardly which makes me question what on Earth the writers are actually trying to go for with this particular corner of the franchise.

Funny enough, I actually came up with an idea for an overarching framing narrative years back when I first saw this movie in 2013. Roughly, the concept involved a paranormal investigating team finding these controversial tapes from different sources questionably considered to be proof of the paranormal happening around the world and analyzing/investigating each one as a case. The audience gets to watch each tape alongside our group and we even have a cool suspenseful mystery component where the group goes out to try to debunk or find out the truth behind each tape. I think this would’ve made for a far better framing device to present the overall anthology element of V/H/S and could've even set the stage for a TV series if possible. ...Oh well. 

Side Note: I did catch the easter egg of Tape 49 from V/H/S being shown here very briefly. I see that they're really trying to push the idea of all of these movies connecting (which V/H/S Viral pushes further with one of their tapes entitled "Vicious Circles". But like I said, they really ought to go back to the drawing board and find a better way to present this idea.

2. Phase I Clinical Trials - 4/10

Outside of a somewhat promising idea to craft a found footage horror movie around (a clinical trial eye camera that starts picking up crazy stuff and ends up becoming dangerous), this is one of the weaker entries of the franchise. Funny enough, I was watching the 1993 horror anthology movie Body Bags not too long ago for the first time where one of the shorts, simply called Eye, starring Mark Hamil had a similar premise. A guy gets into a terrible car accident costing him his eye to which he gets a surgically implemented new eye resulting in him beginning to see freaky things. Sounds familiar? Yep, it would seem that V/H/S may have been directly borrowing from one of its pairs in the horror anthology genre...or perhaps it's just a fun coincidence. 

The problem that I had with Eye was that the budgetary limitations of the time did not allow for the filmmakers to really show off what easily could've been some pretty visually striking horror imagery. But what saved it as being "not too bad" overall was Hamil's performance. In the case of Phase I Clinical Trials however, not only are the horror visuals terribly lacking with generic looking ghosts that hilariously look as though the actors themselves were disinterested in what they were doing, but the acting was also distractingly awful. There's really hardly anything worth celebrating or re-watching here making this one of the worst entries of the series. Phase I Clinical Trials is a potential-filled concept that was unfortunately put into the wrong hands. 

3. A Ride in the Park - 6/10

A Ride in the Park is a great example of a short that pretty much knows how to utilize its limited time window efficiently by establishing its premise and getting to its hook factor at a solid quick pace. Not only is this a decent enough entry for a horror anthology in general, it's also a pretty thoughtful and refreshing zombie film in its own right. The way in which the audience is forced to look through the eyes of a victim of a zombie attack who, himself, then becomes a zombie attacking others in gruesome fashion is something we rarely get to see for the genre.

That of course isn't to say that the visuals themselves are easy and welcoming to watch (the devouring and tearing of guts at a close ranged perspective isn't exactly a delightful sight). But I do like how the visual storytelling through the POV of the protagonist introduces rules to its zombie lore such as the distaste for their own zombified flesh in favor of a fresh victim as well as the little occasional glimpses of humanity pushing through. The conclusion is actually a surprising twist where our lead zombie shoots himself after a short sequence of implied human centered revelations.

From seeing his grotesque reflection in a mirror, picking up a teddy bear, hearing his girlfriend on the phone from accidentally dialing, then reaching for the gun of a recently slaughtered victim to end his reign of terror, it's a pretty surprisingly thought out journey that we follow here. For this, I do have to give props to the filmmakers going slightly above expectations here. This really could've just been a short GoPro zombie horror with shock value and nothing more, but instead they decided to take the time to insert little nuances of lore and storytelling through a rarely seen point of view.

Overall, I'd say Ride In The Park isn't exactly a flawless and easy to watch short due to some of the excessive disgusting visuals and brief questionably goofy moments of zombie acting. That being said, the overall framing of the event going from a simple biker camera footage to an all out zombie attack on a family birthday party with bits of zombie rule establishing was an interesting experience to have.

4. Safe Haven - 8/10

Safe Haven is still to this very day one of the most entertaining horror shorts and found footage horror releases in general that I have ever seen and still holds up after all of these years. This is primarily due to one specific element being the concept of cinematic escalation and variety. Safe Haven starts off as a curious-inducing cult investigation mystery which then builds up to a straight forward up cult horror thriller flick with all of the expected tropes (mass suicides and a twisted cult leader justifying his actions with religious jargon). However, things don’t simply end there as the movie begins to start interweaving other genres into the mix as it drastically increases in narrative scope.

Not only do we have this freakish cult killing each other and attacking our protagonists, we also have what appears to be some untold combination of zombie and possession horror taking place with the dead members being reanimated somehow. But wait…it gets even crazier. Not only are the reanimated cult members chasing after our characters making for some entertaining zombie horror-like sequences, we also have occult horror elements weaving in with demonic creatures being birthed and people supernaturally exploding with symbols on their body after mysterious incantations are being performed. All of this happens in an insane sequence of events following an interrupted documentary interview with an already sketchy cult leader and we get to witness the entire hellscape of an event.

The visual spectacle surrounding the different genres being played with here is done surprisingly well with a great show of high production values (with the exception of the creature feature bits which did glaringly come across as being much lower budgeted in comparison). The pacing of the narrative is also astonishingly well thought out as the story, despite having every reason to feel rushed for the sake of getting to the entertaining shock and awe segments, actually felt rather fluid in the manner in which it sailed through the entire scenario. Instead of coming across as being jarring and over the top in its randomness, Safe Haven’s cult spectacle ends up coming across as more of an unfortunate day for a documentary crew to film a secretive religious faction at its most dangerous peak of insanity. 

With thrilling action sections of appropriate gore and supernatural horror, this is certainly one of the rare few instances where I’d say V/H/S presented something worth admiring for its filmmaking and re-watching for its fun factor. Also, on a side note, the characters aren’t annoying to watch and the performances are pretty serviceable enough overall (a rare combination with this franchise).

5. Slumber Party Alien Abduction - 6/10

Slumber Party Alien Abduction is one of those classic situations of a short being held back by its budget but the larger potential can still be observed in little isolated parts. One of the things that I’ll always remember about this particular entry is the exceptional use of sound design and lighting whenever the monsters (in this case aliens) appeared in pursue our main cast. However, the aliens themselves, when we do get to see them fully, look like something out of a Party City costume commercial. Honestly, at any given moment I wouldn't have been too surprised if the whole thing was revealed to have been an elaborate prank with actual people in costumes. 

It's such a shame because there’s some admirable artistic sensibilities being put on display such as the aforementioned sound design and lighting with the aliens’ arrival sounding like an incoming train that’s about to smash through the screen being followed by a huge blinding light appearing out of nowhere. This particular combination of sensory overload was such an effective way to keep the audience on edge and fully alert towards whatever horrors were about to make their presence known to our characters. Unfortunately, said horrors are as disappointingly cheap looking as an alien costume that you'd find in a big retail store simply labeled "Alien costume".

I will say that I did like the dog cam perspective being utilized which, similar to the Ride in the Park segment, is a nice refreshing take on what found footage horror can be when being creatively experimented on. So with signs of great sci-fi horror filmmaking merely being blocked by cheap looking costumed monsters alongside a decent enough cast of characters, this one’s actually a pretty okay watch. It just needed that extra boost in production values to really take it to the lengths that its simplistic narrative structure has the potential for. 

Original Rating: 8/10

Retrospective Rating: 6/10