Review: V/H/S (2012)

V/H/S (2012)

Rated R for bloody violence, strong sexuality, graphic nudity, pervasive language and some drug use

Score: 2 out of 5

In the words of a stereotypical '50s dad, I'm not mad at V/H/S, the found-footage anthology horror film that, back in 2012, struck gold among horror fans thanks to both its heavy promotion by the horror website Bloody-Disgusting (site founder Brad Miska produced it) and how it boasted a murderer's row of talented filmmakers behind the camera, including Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett, Ti West, Joe Swanberg, and the Radio Silence team. I'm just disappointed that I found it so loathsome. Over and over again, I was taken out of each segment by terrible characters whose deaths I was actively rooting for, starting with the "protagonists" of the wraparound, a gang who engage in petty vandalism, make and sell amateur "reality porn" where the subjects did not consent to being filmed (or, for that matter, being grabbed in a parking garage and having their shirts pulled up), and break into a home in order to steal a particular VHS tape that somebody will pay them for. It has a lot of cool ideas, from the deconstructionist premise of the "Tuesday the 17th" segment to the highly memorable monster from the "Amateur Night" segment to the basic idea behind the film (which is why I'm not writing this entire series off just yet), but overall, this was a two-hour parade of terrible things happening to terrible people. The "Eight Deadly Words" of storytelling kicked in quick, and by the end, I was just waiting for something gnarly to happen.

The basic idea behind this movie is sound. Finding a big stack of VHS tapes, each one of them containing some fucked-up shit on them, is an ingenious way to combine found footage with a horror anthology: have the wraparound be about the people who find the footage. And this anthology's better segments all have interesting ideas at their core. "Amateur Night" may be about a group of loutish fratbros, but it perks up considerably once the woman they pick up at the bar turns out to be a succubus-like monster who turns the tables on them, plunging the protagonists into a highly compromising situation as everything goes straight to hell. Both the makeup on the monster herself and her actress Hannah Fierman made this one quite memorable, to the point that I found myself rooting for her. (I'm not surprised that this one got turned into a feature film in its own right, 2016's Siren.) "Second Honeymoon" ends on a twist that elevates what's otherwise a pretty humdrum segment upon a rewatch. "Tuesday the 17th" takes a standard slasher movie plot and puts a twist on the final girl, exploring how she might react after having survived the massacre. "The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger" was probably the most complete segment of the five, coming across like a sci-fi version of Paranormal Activity that played to that series' strengths while boasting a genuinely compelling and tragic heroine, one of the few likable characters in the film. "10/31/98" has a ton of gnarly imagery throughout, an abbreviated haunted house story that features a ton of special effects. The lo-fi VHS tape aesthetic did a lot to help sell the effects in this movie, the film grain and standard-def visual fidelity covering up many of the seams in the visuals and making it all feel more real.

Shame about the characters, though. The villains often turned out to be the best parts of these segments, as the main characters just did not work for me at all. I already spoke at length about the characters from the wraparound, where the introduction they got immediately had me rooting for whatever force was trying to kill them, but after that, "Second Honeymoon" was mostly a dull home video of two lovers on vacation in Arizona that's entirely dependent on the twist to re-contextualize it, "Tuesday the 17th" did little to flesh out its spin on the summer camp slasher plot and left a lot of cool ideas that it did nothing with except for one chase scene, and all too often, the characters were either one-note stock archetypes or supremely terrible people who existed only to meet some grisly end. The film did undoubtedly deliver on that, with plenty of stabbings, slit throats, and guts for any gorehounds watching and nudity (both male and female) for those who want some B-movie sleaze, but it all felt hollow.

The problems extended to the shallow treatment that each segment gave its story, feeling like just the barest framework compressed into 15-20 minutes. A common thought I had watching this was "man, this was way too short, it really should've been a feature film", as with the exception of "Amateur Night" and "The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger", the segments each felt rushed, like they were ideas for movies that had over an hour cut from them. "10/31/98" was mostly a special effects showcase with the barest semblance of a plot attached, feeling more like a haunted house at Halloween Horror Nights than a movie (personally, I would've heavily preferred the alternate ending that just straight-up leans into that feeling), while with "Second Honeymoon" and "Tuesday the 17th", it felt like I was missing important information about the events going on, such that the former's twist came out of nowhere while I found myself lost watching the latter. The anthology format here felt like littler more than an excuse to get to the point and show us the deaths of people we won't miss, without having to spend time developing them as characters.

Also, minor nitpick, but the VHS format wasn't widescreen like this movie is.

The Bottom Line

V/H/S left me wanting more and feeling kind of cheated, especially given all the hype that's surrounded it. An anthology film is only as good as its weakest segments, and I only really liked two of the five that this film had, to say nothing of how I hated the wraparound. There are things worth watching here, but I don't recommend it as a whole.