I watched V/H/S 1 and 2 just in time for Halloween, so I’m going to lump them together and talk about them in one post.

V/H/S is a anthology horror series that uses found footage as its hook. There are 5 stories that are linked together by the over arcing story that some lowly crooks are hired by someone to break into a house to steal a VHS tape. They walk into way more than they could have ever imagined. It’s basically a rip off of The Ring set up, but the real meat and potatoes of the movie is watching the VHS tapes that are found. The stuff in the house with the crooks is really paint by the numbers stuff, so it works out well as a whole. There’s only one story I didn’t like and that was the rip off of Friday the 13th. Much like why I don’t like the over arcing story bit, this run of the mill slasher tale does nothing new and has the worst SFX in the whole movie. That’s like the 4th story and thankfully the first one shown is much stronger so it doesn’t disappoint up front. I think my favorite one was the Halloween party that starts out innocent and descends into haunted madness in great ways. The ones I liked have interesting set ups and surprises and are generally well made. V/H/S is an fun movie that uses the old Tales From the Crypt ethos that was always fun to watch. It mixes in the found footage gimmick to make it more contemporary and cohesive as a package (found footage is really hard to do well too, so it’s a huge challenge). The only recent movie I can think of like this is Trick R Treat which came out a good 5 years ago (and is very good too).

V/H/S 2 runs with the baton that the first hands off. Two Private Eye’s hired to find a woman’s son go to his house and go in looking for clues to where he’s gone. The same set up of multiple TV’s with stacks of VHS tapes are found…

The sequel uses the same found footage presentation but the collection of stories are much stronger as a whole. There are 4 and I found the first one “Phase I Clinical Trials” to be the weakest. In it, the main character has an experimental eyeball surgically implanted after losing his natural eye in a car accident. It’s really predictable and rather cliché, but it was done well so it was fun to watch. There’s a cool zombie tale in here, that boasts some great make up work. Then “Safe Haven” which is directed by the great Gareth Evans (The Raid) which is a fantastic short horror piece…until the end. It’s so well done and crazy, but there is a creature that they overstepped in using. It’s introduction is great, you get a glimpse of it in action shortly after mixed in with an harrowing and intense chase scene and then the final time they show it, it looks TERRIBLE. So fake and goofy looking that it takes all the fear away. So much so, that those last 20 seconds almost ruins everything they worked to accomplish. Now the last story “Slumber Party Alien Abduction” might be my favorite short, in any genre, that I’ve ever seen. It takes place at a house on a lake where the kid’s parents go away for the night/weekend and the kids invite their friends over and have a good time. I can’t get over how much amazing stuff they pulled off. Huge props to director Jason Eisener and co-writer John Davies. It’s really well thought out and paced perfectly. The cast is great and believable and the audio and visual work completely sells the madness and horror the kids go through. I was blown away when it ended.

In addition to having better stories, even the P.I. set up I didn’t care about had a great pay off in its last segment. The final gore gag is crazy and looks amazing, a really great pay off. If they can keep the quality going up, I’d be totally down for a part 3. Don’t watch the trailer for this! It gives away way too much.