V/H/S

V/H/S, 9/10. Gory, fun and inventive - if flawed - portmanteau horror pic shot in the cinéma vérité (Cloverfield, [REC], The Blair Witch Project) style.

Like all anthology pieces, some ideas work better than others but V/H/S is packed with good stuff, containing as it does six "stories" (including the wraparound segment that tenuously links them all), each directed by a different up-and-coming bright young thing in horror movies. The wraparound story is by far the worst, and bizarrely it wraps up second-to-last, but still: a bunch of petty-criminal ****ers, presently making small-but-quick bucks from a streaming porn site by attacking innocent women in the street and exposing their breasts for the camera (charming) are hired by a "fan" of the site to carry out a reasonably simple task: break into a house, sneak in, steal a specific VHS videotape (apparently they'll know it when they see it, though this is far from the case), and get out of there. What they find is a largely empty house save for a cellar area chock-full of tapes and one room containing an expired tenant sat in front of a bank of old TVs and video players. They randomly play through a few of the many tapes in order to try and ascertain what they're supposed to be nicking, and that's where the five anthology tales come in; they're what these bellends see on the videotapes.

The stories, then (I'll buzz through these, they're only twenty minutes or so long each, so too much info will be to give the story up):

1. Amateur Night - A trio of lads go out on the razzle armed with some cool camera-glasses, so one of the guys can happily film their evening's debauchery without anyone being any the wiser; superb if you're planning to get a couple of lasses back to your motel room for some gangbang action and film the results. They... well, they probably pick the wrong gal to bring back. I liked this one, despite my nagging fear (placed by this segment in tandem with the wraparound skit and even borne out...

Creeper Compendium.

The horror anthology has a chequered history, some are bad but saved by one great segment, others boast a couple of genuine creepers but are undone by one instalment so bad it tarnishes the film forever. And on it goes. V/H/S brings the format into the new age by unfolding its tales by wrapping around the latest craze of found footage.

Six indie directors have produced a picture that was well received at Sundance but has proved to be most divisive with critics and horror fans on internet forums. This will come as no surprise to anyone who knows their horror anthology onions. The usual problems are evident here, a couple of great stories are surrounded by mediocre ones, but at least there is something for everyone, with most bases covered, but that in itself is a problem, all horror fans have preferences, it's a big ask to expect a fan of stalk and slash to love a story about a winged harpy!

Then there is the issue of the found footage format, here recorded on actual VHS. Not everyone is a fan (myself for instance), and much of V/H/S is dizzying and often hard to follow, especially as regards the Tape 56/frame narrative story that cloaks the other five stories as a bunch of no-mark young crims burgle a grotty house and sift through the tapes. It's a format loved by many for its supposed realism factors, I don't get that myself, but for those people this really is up their trees!

Amateur Night (David Bruckner) and The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger (Joe Swanberg) are the standouts. The former is a cautionary tale of frat boys out for sex who get more than they bargained for when they take home the mysterious Lily, the latter an eerie tale unfolded via Skype communication as Emily appears to be a victim of a haunting whilst chatting to her doctor boyfriend.

However, if you ask another fan of the film what stories they feel standout, you may just get two different answers. So as with any other anthology horror,...

Anthologies are, by their very nature, pretty mixed. And found footage horror is not my kettle o' fish. So a found footage horror anthology did not have me ecstatic. I actually didn't mind V/H/S though, this was actually better than a loot of the found footage stuff I've seen, even if they do lean hard into the most annoying things about it, say for instance, video quality, which is (intentionally) abysmal. The framing device didn't work for me though, like, at all. I was very confused, and even if I hadn't been, I wasn't engaged by it at all. Which is a real shame, because I am particularly fond of the director of that part of the film, Adam Wingard. The entries over all weren't amazing, but, almost every segment of V/H/S had a real good "oh shit" sort of a moment in it that was real intense, and I'm into that.

Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn’t quite work as a whole.

77/100

This anthology centers around a gang of thugs breaking into a home to steal a specific VHS tape. What they find is a lot of tapes and when they start viewing them, things fall apart. The five stories, plus the wrap-around story are intriguing, frightening and disturbing. All made with hand held (or similar) cameras (including one made entirely from webcams), the stories feature a different director and writer for each providing us with some very unique and disturbing visions. This is good stuff! -- DrNostromo.com