Alright I’m sure not many people here saw the fine film V/H/S when it came around last year (or so the box office tells me), but part 2 has just hit early release on iTunes and being that I like all things related to horror (whether good or…horrendous - I’m looking at you “ABCs of Death”) I downloaded it and watched it a few hours ago.
My overall impression was ‘meh’, a 4 out of 10. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying that this was an anthology, one that I found particularly uneven. That said, my specific complaints will go in the spoiler box below. Again, in general, I thought that this film ‘looked’ better than the first, but ultimately it wasn’t as entertaining - and that’s saying a lot since I didn’t find the first one all that entertaining (a 5 out of 10). I did like three of the shorts in the first one and only one in this new rendition. This one was a bit more gory than the first - but when I say that, I guess I just felt that it was unnecessary gore.
Now…On to the complaints (HEAVY SPOILERS IN THE SPOILER BOX):
The ‘wrap around’ story - the glue that connects all the VHS shorts together - was bad. It started out okay, in that it had a decent enough explanation why the characters went to the house and started watching the tapes. That said, it dropped like at the end when instead of helping his unconscious assistant he watched another video. Further, the zombification of his assistant, while creepy, just fell flat. The missing kid (who they were trying to find in the house) just looked silly to me.
Clinical Trials Phase 1: This short had an interesting catch - the main character had a bionic eye or something that the research company gave him on the condition that they got to record whatever he saw. He starts seeing ghosts and a person who got a similar device (only it enabled her to hear) came by his place to warn him of the impending ghosts. He starts seeing ghosts, they screw, and then they basically get attacked by ghosts. It looked nice and had an interesting premise, but was entirely too rushed and the ghosts were not scarey. In fact, they attempted to make up for this by having multiple ‘jump scares’ throughout the short.
A Ride in the Park: I liked this one. It’s about a guy on a mountain bike who goes on a stroll through a forest. He encounters zombies and becomes one. The reason I liked it was because it was a fresh take on what would have otherwise been a rather mundane (is that possible?) zombie attack.
Safe Haven: I read a few reviews after seeing the movie and, supposedly, this one was ‘the best’. I didn’t really feel the same way about it. It’s the ‘longest’ short of all of them and it had an interesting premise - a camera crew is set to expose a heavens gate style cult. The cult leader pulls off his day of reckoning and a whole bunch of disjointed weird shit happens. It had a good atmosphere (creepy) and I thought it was really good up until some of the weird shit happens. All of the good was dramatically sucked out of it by introducing zombies (the prior cult members who had committed suicide), the cult leader exploding (for no apparent reason) and a goat headed thing that chases after the last living person in the camera crew. The special effects on the goat thing were bad and laughable, IMO. When it called the last living guy ‘dad’ that was the final piece of lead that sunk the coffin.
Slumber Party Alien Abduction: This could have been good, but the execution was just bad. You have a bunch of kids spending the night filming their hi-jinx with one another and an older sister with a ‘bad boy’ boyfriend. The filming style was probably the worst of the ‘found footage’ films that I have seen and the aliens were not remotely scary, nor did they seem intelligent at all.