After a seven-year hiatus, the V/H/S found-footage horror anthology collection returned with final 12 months’s V/H/S/94, that includes one of many franchise’s strongest lineups of shorts. It was Shudder’s biggest-ever unique film premiere, so it is sensible that V/H/S is again for an additional spherical this 12 months, sticking with the Nineteen Nineties setting for V/H/S/99. Perhaps such a fast turnaround wasn’t the very best concept since V/H/S/99 is a step down from V/H/S/94, though, like each film on this collection, it is a combined bag, and horror followers are more likely to discover not less than one section to get pleasure from.
There are 5 segments on this installment, which does not embrace an equal of the wraparound tales from earlier V/H/S films that present some framework for the presentation of the person shorts. At this level, viewers perceive the format, so it isn’t obligatory to clarify what’s being offered. As a substitute, director Tyler MacIntyre’s section “The Gawkers” serves as a bridge between earlier chapters by way of stop-motion films made by one of many characters and starring his toys. These amusing, deadpan interstitials haven’t any substantial bearing on the plot of “The Gawkers,” however they result in the digicam being taken over by the primary character’s older brother to spy on the siblings’ enticing new neighbor.
The stop-motion shorts are cute, refreshing little jokes, however “The Gawkers” itself is the weakest section in V/H/S/99, as the attractive teenage boys get some apparent comeuppance from the beautiful girl whose privateness they’ve invaded. Poisonous, entitled males getting what’s coming to them is a standard theme in V/H/S segments, however MacIntyre does not do something new or attention-grabbing with it. He would have been higher off sticking with the toys.
Earlier than attending to “The Gawkers,” V/H/S/99 runs by means of some stronger segments, together with a concise Tales From the Crypt-style story from writer-director Johannes Roberts (The Strangers: Prey at Night time, the 47 Meters Down films). “Suicide Bid” is a narrative of sorority hazing, because the imply ladies of some of the well-liked sororities at a big college play a prank on an ungainly new pledge. They bury her alive in a coffin, telling her a campus legend a few earlier scholar who was left to die in the identical spot. Roberts turns the tables on the protagonist’s tormentors in a predictable however satisfying manner, and he does not waste time attending to the scares.
Each Maggie Levin’s “Shredding” and Flying Lotus’ “Ozzy’s Dungeon” reap the benefits of the 1999 setting, placing collectively spectacular recreations of era-specific popular culture. “Shredding” resembles an underground skate video that includes a gaggle of pals who movie themselves skating and enjoying pranks on one another and are additionally in a pop-punk band. Their newest video entails investigating a defunct music venue that burned down throughout a present by riot grrrl grunge band Bitch Cat, killing all of the band members. Levin expertly mimics the mall punk of the time, particularly in a promotional video for Bitch Cat’s disingenuously anti-establishment music. It is too unhealthy that the horror a part of the story devolves into incoherent working and screaming.
“Ozzy’s Dungeon” additionally finally devolves into incoherence, though it begins with a surreal, nightmarish model of a ’90s youngsters’ sport present like Legends of the Hidden Temple. The smarmy, toupee-clad host guarantees that winners who crawl by means of a Double Dare-like impediment course can be rewarded with a “want,” even if nobody has truly ever received. That seems to be a literal promise, though the journey towards discovering the true eldritch nature of Ozzy loses the intelligent game-show pastiche and turns into grim torture porn.
Each of these segments get factors for ambition, not less than, and the finale of V/H/S/99 will be the most formidable story within the franchise, sending its protagonists into literal hell. Apparently, video cameras nonetheless work within the netherworld as a result of that is the place a pair of videographers find yourself after a witches’ ritual that they have been employed to doc goes awry. Deadstream Author-directors Joseph and Vanessa Winter sustain a humorousness because the bickering buddies proceed to gripe over petty issues as they traverse the tough panorama of hell, making an attempt to return to Earth when the witches full their ritual. The Winters made way more refined use of discovered footage in Deadstream, however “To Hell and Again” is one other indication that they are main horror abilities to observe.
Even so, it ends with a little bit of an anticlimax, and and not using a wraparound section to return to, that signifies that V/H/S/99 itself ends on the identical plateau. None of those segments will rank alongside the franchise’s most memorable, however the total package deal is entertaining sufficient to justify the continuing V/H/S revival. There’s already one other installment deliberate for subsequent 12 months, and regardless of the slight disappointment of V/H/S/99, there isn’t any cause to doubt the chances the collection nonetheless has to supply.
V/H/S/99 premieres Thursday, Oct. 20 on Shudder and AMC+.