This week in the corner, the first movie that I will "critique" on this blog is a movie called V/H/S. I put critique in quotes because I am not writing this to give it a thumbs up or a go see it! I am writing about movies that might be a bit polarizing in terms of how well they are received. V/H/S is a movie that fits that bill. I think there are some clever moments as well as some misses in this movie. But part of the fun about horror is discussing those hits and misses. V/H/S is a horror movie that follows an old genre trope known as the anthology. The anthology horror movie is a standard 90 minute movie that is comprised of a series of short segments that are generally tied up somehow or someway by the finale. George Romero probably made the most famous horror anthology with Creepshow over 30 years ago. Trick 'R Treat is a fabulous representation of the anthology which came out around 2007 and does pretty much everything right. V/H/S consists of 5 individual segments and a 6th segment that runs throughout the entirety of the movie. Generally we call this segment the wrap-around. The wrap-around is the glue that holds the anthology together. In this film the wrap-around consists of a group of derelict boys who are hired to go to a house to recover a mysterious VHS tape. When the boys get to the house they uncover a mountain of tapes without labels. They begin to pop a few of them into the VCR and end up watching various found footage segments that lead to the rest of the movie. Each of the 5 segments clock in at around 15 minutes and each have a different director. For my money the strongest segments of the movie are the first and the last. What makes these segments the best are the way the directors are able to jump right into their respective stories. When you only have 15 minutes to work with, character development and backstory cannot be an important part of the short. Otherwise we the viewers spend so much time trying get to know the characters and scenarios, that the payoff is generally always anti-climacitc. In each of the bookend segments we follow a group of guys out for a party. The motives of each of these groups end up being very different with equally different outcomes, but we know what we are doing and where we are going with these stories right from the beginning. Because of this we can spend more time with the spooks and scares. The segments that fall flat are the ones that rely too much on backstory. One of these segments has a young lady taking her friends to a cabin in the woods for a weekend. What her friends don't know is that she is actually using them as bait for a supernatural killer. That is all well and good, but why is she using them as bait? What are her ties to this supernatural killer? These ideas are never really fleshed out so the viewer is left confused and unsure of what exactly just happened at the end of the 15 minutes. Which leads me back to the wrap-around. Anthology movies are usually measured on how well all of the individual segments are tied together. This was my biggest problem with the movie. I kept waiting for some big reveal on what this particular VHS tape had in store, or why were these kids sent to look for it in the first place? These questions were never really answered and left me wanting a little bit more from the final product. There were parts of this movie that I really liked and each segment and some pretty cool moments. If you have ever had a fear of someone watching you sleep late at night, one of the segments will not do anything to make you feel better about your fear. Anthology movies seems to be making a surge in the here and now. Later this month The ABC's of Death is set to hit theaters. The movie is set to contain 26 shorts where the title of each begins with...you guessed it!...each letter of the alphabet. I have also heard that there is already a V/H/S 2 in the works and with a little tweaking to the first film, the second could be a force in the horror anthology catalogue for years to come. I think this type of horror continues to be made because of what it represents at some base level. Almost everyone has sat around a campfire, a dinner table, or in your backyard and exchanged spooky ghost stories. V/H/S and movies like it are the cinema version of the campfire ghost story. Those short bite sized bits that leave you with a chill. I say get the marshmallows ready! V/H/S can currently be instantly streamed on Netflix or rented at a local RedBox. Ultimately you should check out V/H/S on your own and leave comments below on the segments that you liked and the ones you didn't! If you find yourself loving every minute of the movie, you should check out some of the other movies I mentioned above. (if you haven't already...)
Thanks for reading this week. Again, leave comments below on your thoughts! I would love to read them.
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