By 2014, the V/H/S franchise seemed to have ran its course with the V/H/S: Viral entry. But unfortunately, the explosion of streaming services at the end of the 2010s along with the Covid pandemic made people want to sit at home with their big screen TVs.
And for the most part, these flicks work better when they’re viewed at home as you can skip through the dull stories in these anthologies. But the last two entries, V/H/S: Beyond and V/H/S: Halloween have run out of steam they’re actually ripping off stories from previous entries as well as other movies. At this point, it’s like watching a movie or TV show where a filmmaker has an actor showing full frontal male nudity thinking it’s provocative but it’s actually just tired. Take Barry Koeghan running around naked as a jaybird at the end of Saltburn. Who cares? We all walk around naked sometimes when no one else is home.
Almost all characters in modern-day horror flicks have become unlikeable, you seem to look forward to whatever fate happens to them. When he was working on Jaws, Steven Spielberg said after reading the first half of Peter Benchley’s novel, he started rooting for the shark. And that’s the problem with these movies. The segments aren’t really written well and feature no-name actors who seem only to be hired because they’re cheap and unknown. And they have the acting abilities of a small-town community playhouses who think screaming and yelling profanities is acting.
Of course, the frame stories in Beyond and Halloween are boring and redundant. In Beyond, it’s about an alleged alien abduction in Toronto, I guess. I’m not really sure. In Halloween, it’s a riff on the mad scientist trope in which test subjects for a new soft drink suffer gruesome fates but by the second time, you’re already tired of it only to realize the same is going to repeated again at least twice more. It’s basically the equivalent of a gag in a Jason Freidberg/Aaron Seltzer being over used just to ensure the movie runs about 80 minutes. And that’s become a good example of what these movies have become.
In Beyond, the first segment is “Stork” which is yet another POV segment in which cops go in blasting left and right at zombies or the undead as they investigating missing babies which leads to a creepy concept that only works in theory. Then, there’s “Dream Girl” which is the obligatory southeast Asian entry in which paparazzi in Mumbai learn a Bollywood sensation has a secret, which is similar to “The Gawkers” in V/H/S: 99.
“Live and Let Die” is another Go-Pro entry that does have some expressive work on skydiving but it’s an alien invasion story that lacks the thrill of the zombie outbreak “A Ride in the Park” from the second movie. “Fur Babies” co-written and co-directed by Justin Long is just a rip-off of Tusks, which Long starred in. This is another concept that seems creepy in theory but is silly in its execution with an over the top performance by Libby Letlow as a perky Annie Wilkes-rip-off.
And the final segment “Stowaway” which also focuses on aliens and UFOs is written by Mike Flanagan and directed by his wife Kate Siegel, and it’s completely dull because you know where’s headed. These segments and their movies have gotten so stale you tell what’s going to happen within the first 90 seconds.
At least Halloween has some fun segments despite many problems with the stories. The best one of the bunch “Fun Size” involves young 20-somethings being sucked through a huge plastic candy bowl when they take more than one candy per person. They find themselves in an abandoned factory where they are terrorize by a creepy character wearing a Jack-in-the-Box style smiley face as well as a creepy dwarf as its assistant. What happens here I won’t tell because it’s so outrageous in its execution, it’s worth seeing yourself.
The opening segment “Coochie Coochie Coo” starts out creepy but falls apart because the two main high school characters are so annoying. And then there’s the obligatory cult segment “Ut Supra, Sic Infra” which is translated to “As Above, So Below.” It’s directed and co-written by Paco Plaza famous for the REC movies and is about a police investigation into a brutal mass murder.
As I watched both movies, I felt that I was watching dry runs of what they hope will be feature films one day. Following the Grindhouse movies in 2007, Robert Rodriguez made Machete and its sequel. There was also the horrible Hobo With a Shotgun and Eli Roth finally got to make the impressive Thanksgiving. There’s so much going on in these segments the writers and directors never know how to self-contain them as much as the earlier anthology movies did.
The old Tales from the Crypt series on HBO could do it very well, but I think that had something to do with numerous professional producers, writers and directors making them. And I’m also growing tired of how they stick non-sequitur snippets implying that the segments are recording on old VHS camcorders and the footage is overlapping old footage.
Also, with any anthology, you’re getting pot luck. And it’s very long at 115 minutes one minute short of the first movie. The worst segment is “Kidprint” which is all over the place. It really feels like it should be a longer movie that has been given the Cliff Notes treatment as the filmmaker Alex Ross Perry seems to be more interested in the gruesome murders of children. The acting is so terrible and over the top and I never really understood a lot of what was happening.
The final segment, “Home Haunt” which feels like it should be longer. The only saving grace is a cameo by Rick Baker as a grouchy suburban dad. Baker is legendary in the movie and TV industry for his special effects and make-up work on numerous movies. He won an Oscar for his work on An American Werewolf in London, the first person to win in the category.
Aside from that, it’s another sloppy story about the shit hitting the fan as numerous extras get killed and butchered. It’s another horror story about some idiot playing a recording too loud unleashing evil spirits in this case it’s the Halloween decorations for a man’s haunted forest. Yet there’s a pointless melodrama that opens the segment as he fitting with his teenage son who no longer wants to help.
I know a lot of these filmmakers are trying to build character development, but there’s so little you can do in 20-25 minutes. But the writers have no incentive to give us believable characters so there’s really no need to care what happens to them. So, why should we watch them at all?
I feel this is going to be an annual event every October or so for the next few years until people grow more tired of them. I feel next year, it will focus on Christmas or Easter or even July 4.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 