V/H/S chronicles
the lives of several jackasses who film things like grabbing woman and forcing
them to show their breasts. They decide to break into an old man's house,
looking for a specific tape to use against him for blackmail. When they get to
the house they find the old man dead, watching several static-y televisions.
They begin to search the house for the VHS tape in question, only to discover
other tapes documenting horrific tales of vampires, murder, stolen kidneys,
supernatural woodland killers, and houses that try to eat people.
I'm
afraid my eyes were closed for some of the film"”not that it was too scary to
watch"”I've just been cursed with wicked motion sickness, so the slightest bit
of running with a camera and my stomach typically opts to vacate it's contents.
The premise of most of the segments were interesting, but I really wish they'd
have stuck with supernatural stories and not tried to incorporate thrillers or
dastardly deeds.
There were one-too-many twists at
times that could have easily been explained if there was something supernatural
at work. But in a couple of the
segments the twists reveal an insane doctor or a psychopath girlfriend. Ooo.
Scary.
The mundane segments were totally
redeemed by the sweet-as-shit finale. I was very impressed to see how good the effects
were on such a low-budget film. There were objects flying through the air,
ghosts, doors opening and shutting on their own, hands reaching out of the
wall"”the whole shebang of a brilliantly formulaic haunted house. Not a film for the whole family, but
there are definitely enough jumps to provide for some cheap entertainment.
V/H/S is competing in the Park City at Midnight Competition.
