(
note: this whole post is a mess. i wrote it during and after i watched each, and if a later thing brought an earlier thing to light or changed my opinion of something, i just went back and edited it without checking surrounding information, whatever, it's about vhs.)
I had to look up the names of these shorts. I wish they'd built the names into the movie itself as I kind of dig them.
As a great lover of TVTropes, having read the site cover to cover pretty regularly, I couldn't help myself here. Even though the vast majority of these shorts are pretty bad, they make great use of tropes. In fact, it's almost as if they scoured TVTropes to come up with the premises. Here are some of the obvious ones:
Found Footage Films (duh, along with Jitter Cam)
Body Horror
Death by Sex
Slashed Throat
See-Thru Specs
Badass Normal
Karmic Death
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero
Chekhov's Gun
Ghost Planet (let's assume all of these tapes come from the same multiverse, thus Ghost Planet. This one is a bit of a stretch, but I'm not sure of another trope that works here - as I assume this is not our Earth)
I Die Free
Idiot Hero
Bloody Horror
Better to Die than Be Killed
Pop Goes the Human
Suicide Pact
Body and Host
Drinking the Kool-Aid
Evil Sounds Deep
Camera Abuse
Psychic Nosebleed
(whatever the inverse of Sorting Algorithm of Mortality would be)
Satan
Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain
Cosmic Horror Story
Eldritch Location
Creepy Child (also, along with it, I suppose, Alien Abduction)
Snuff Film (literally all of them, except arguably part 5 of V/H/S)
But my favorite, and constantly reused in this anthology: Fan Disservice.
I am not linking TV Tropes because you'll never find your way back. As I said, they're the obvious ones. I went back and looked at the V/H/S entries after watching them, and they did a pretty good job of covering it. I should probably make an account and update the V/H/S entries with a few they missed.
Also, though I'm going to call it out in a few places, there's a strong Lovecraftian vibe squirming around under the surface. While this pleases me, unfortunately this is another set of movies that gets filed under "Lovecraft Movies are Bad." Which, unfortunately, isn't a trope.
This series does not contain a single original idea. Well, maybe it did, but it wasn't memorable enough to use again.
The scores below (out of 10) are ratings inside of the V/H/S universe. So a 10/10 here would be better than a 1/10 (to me, obviously), but a 10/10 here may be worse than say Ringu, even if it's the best V/H/S has to offer.
V/H/S:
Tape 56 - I had to come back and review this after watching the second one. Couldn't even decide whether I like it as a piece of framing. Turns out I didn't. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(1/10)
Amateur Night - Ending was terrible (and I mean TERRIBLE). Anyway, better than Tape 56. I don't even want to talk about this one as it's really terrible cinema. (1/10)
Second Honeymoon - AND SOMEHOW, something worse than Amateur Night. I suppose it was inevitable since it tried to be more cerebral than all the others (and it wasn't). Less entertainment value than a bottle of mercury and a boba straw. (0/10)
Tuesday the 17th - Genuinely enjoyed this, though it was effectively the meat of a Slash flick. Camerawork, like all the others, is fairly dreadful, but considering the "baddie" effect, it worked here. I liked the lead girl, could've done with different actors for the other characters. That said, this portion was very good. (8/10)
The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger - A super short version of any Paranormal Activity. If Paranormal Activity homes were really abduction sites? That said, I find the Paranormal Activity movies pretty watchable, even when they're terrible. (6/10)
10/31/98 - Didn't like the ending. Did neat things with the house. Approached Lovecraftian and proceeded to walk away from it and turn into pretty lame piece of cinema. Ultimately watchable though. (6/10 w/o ending, 3/10 w/ ending)
-
V/H/S/2: This installment has a higher quality of video for the shorts, which is nice. Also, it's far more stabilized. Yay.
Tape 49 - The framing for this movie was more successful than the first one. But it was still the weakest part of it. This one, in particular was just an excuse for gorn (gore porn). (2/10, solely because it was better than the first)
Phase I Clinical Trials - Ayyyyyy. Eye Scream. Creepy Kids. Ghost Story. Hazardous Water. I Have Boobs, You Must Obey. This would be higher if the two main actors weren't super shitty. It's like they just picked a random pair of people from a comic book store. The dude was browsing indie garbage and the girl was picking up some Dr. Who memorabilia. (5/10)
A Ride in the Park - But! But! But! Our Zombies are Different! I actually really enjoyed this one. It was basically a zombie movie that cut straight to it. Also, "GoPro on the Villain" should be a trope. I think it goes as far back as Friday the 13th (the first installment). It's possible there is a trope for that. Anyway. Worst name for a short in the entire series. (7/10)
Safe Haven - This one felt the most like an actual movie. A very short movie, but still a movie. Cinematography was excellent. It was cohesive. Also, it was the most original take on one of the most unoriginal ideas (doomsday cult). Also, Indonesian. Whoa, don't see that much. Don't see much
actual Satan either. Ending was cute. This is the one that I *wish* had been purely Lovecraftian. (9/10)
Slumber Party Alien Abduction - So uh. Literally what it says. I believe the trope is "Exactly What it Says on the Tin." Wasn't very well done either. Of all the shorts WITH nudity, this is the one that needed it most and didn't have any. Instead they decided to kill (abduct, whatever) kids. Oh, and a dog. Full camp, topless girls should've been the route they chose. Particularly with a name like "Slumber Party Alien Abduction." Anyway, it was boring. (3/10)
-
V/H/S VIRAL: This one ditches the normal framing narrative for an idiot that wants to make a viral video. By getting rid of the concept the actors in the frame are watching the videos themselves, the frame loses basically all of its power of providing structure for the story. And yes, that means the entire "found footage" part of the series is dead here.
Anyway, the basic premise is an ice cream truck is driving around a small city area driving everyone insane. Not even joking.
IMO, they should've gotten rid of the wrap-around altogether. Anyway, It only has 3 parts + wraparound. Apparently there's a 4th that got cut, but it's not part of the netflix release.
By gutting the number of shorts, they gave the directors more time for backstory. These movies are about getting rid of all the pretense and getting to the horror ASAP, so I don't appreciate the added volume of horseshit. They should've kept the shorts the same length, and just made the overall movie shorter. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Vicious Circles - This is the aforementioned framing narrative. I'm not even sure what to say about this short. It completely fails as a frame, and easily could've been a short. I think they were compelled by the previous installments to structure it this way. Also, all the VHS effects when everyone has cell phones and digital recorders hurt it a bit. (2/10)
Dante the Great - Structured as a mockumentary. Premise is crap. Cloak gives him magical power. Cloak requires sacrifice. I suppose the premise wouldn't be crap if the story matched the title of the movie (Viral) or was even a tiny bit compelling. I guess there was a tiny bit of body horror. Anyway, mostly what came out of this is I'd like to see a real movie about a magician serial killer. Oh, a final note, Kevin Smith really ruined a cool fucking name (Dante). (3/10)
Parallel Monsters - Now this here is some eldritch shit. Dude opens portal to another plane/universe/dimension. It quickly becomes apparent the worlds are substantially different. Premise-wise, I really like this. Execution-wise, it nearly put me to sleep. Which is a shame. I did like the zeppelin with the giant upside down neon cross though. Also, the worst fan disservice. (4/10, solely on premise)
Bonestorm - I'm not writing any description for this. It'll sound stupid. It's got body horror, bloodbaths, gorn, everything. Just watch it. It was awesome. I want a friend named "gas money kid." I want a full length movie of this shit. (10/10)]
A short note on the final installment: This particular one was more self-referential than the others. For some reason that annoyed me.
ANYWAY - SHOULD YOU WATCH V/H/S
ABSOLUTELY NOT, except for Safe Haven and Bonestorm. Bonestorm was especially stellar. It felt like Matthew Barney and David Lynch got together and wanted to show Eli Roth how to do it.
Author
