The V/H/S series is a mixed bag of decent and dogshit. In my review of V/H/S/Halloween, I said that even though the franchise has plenty of misses, there are enough hits to make it worth coming back to (paraphrasing). So, I came back to it for this year’s attempt at watching and reviewing at least 31 new-to-me horror films. And I will be reviewing each segment as I’ve done in the past with anthology films. Let’s get into it, shall we?
Gwar (loose wraparound for the entire thing) – I’ve never gotten into Gwar. As far as I know, their schtick is that they are aliens or something and they do a lot of gushing fluids and mock dismemberment of pop culture and political figures at their shows. That’s it. So, when I saw that they have several segments in this collection I figured it would be gross. It is but it’s also corny as hell and the “jokes” are super cringy edgelord bullshit. Like a character having a jackoff battle in his mom’s bedroom only for her to walk in, yell at him, and then shoot herself in the head. If you’re super into Gwar and you think that I’m just a square that doesn’t “get it”, then that’s fine with me. I don’t particularly need to. But what I do “get” is good horror and good humor. These segments have neither.
Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance – Barbara Crampton plays a hateable studio exec reviving and old puppet show but the puppets aren’t cooperating. Apparently, Jim Henson’s Creature Shop did the puppets (and maybe the puppeteering) for this segment. I’m surprised because it is explicitly violent! I love puppets in horror from Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare to Deadly Spawn and these puppets look cloying and harmless but they certainly aren’t. Sure, the subject has been done before – killer children’s show characters – but this one was a lot of fun!
Another Cabin (not found footage) – A boy takes care of his grumpy grandmother in a cabin until an unwelcome guests comes knocking. I really liked this one! The animation style is reminiscent of “The PJs” and Wendell & Wild or Laika Studios films. And the creature design is intense! My only tiny complaint is that this is the shortest entry into this installment of V/H/S.
Heartbeat – A couple making a social media video break into an abandoned Russian bunker that houses an anechoic chamber (zero echo, zero background noise) that they get stuck in. That synopsis sentence sounds like it would make for a pretty lame short film, but this one is drenched in dread. Not only is it claustrophobic but it truly would be maddening to “lose” the aural world that you have experienced since the day you were born to be replaced with hearing your own heartbeat and awful mouth noises. I’d definitely stab my eardrums in that situation. When the woman starts hearing something unexpected, the desperation ratchets up by orders of magnitude.
The Music of Mr. Sze – A man decides to document his quirky neighbors in his quirky boarding house with his new Meta glasses. This one is good*! (the asterisk will be explained) The neighbors are weird enough and one plays strange music that the POV guy (protagonist, I guess) becomes enthralled by. When the reason for the strange music is revealed we see some cool cosmic horror visuals. Those visuals are the reason for the asterisk. I hope they are CGI and not generative AI. I would hope that a creator would recognize the creative bankruptcy of using AI where an artist should have been employed instead. So, if it turns out that AI was used (i could only find speculation online), I amend my “this one is good” statement to read “this is an affront”.
Premature Burial (not found footage) – This is just a generic metal video that features generic band performance shots and a bit of a “story” of a woman getting revenge on a creep. I guess it was directed by a guy from the band Ghost. Maybe the producers were so excited to get him to sign on that they let him contribute this unexciting music video. It’s definitely not my thing but it also just doesn’t belong in the franchise at all.
Death Tone – Woman inherits her father’s music studio and turns to graphic violence to find new sounds. Wholly unoriginal idea made boring by being repetitive and overlong. At least it has some good gore.
The Final Cut: V/H/S/Mixtape continues the franchise’s tradition of mixing good and bad shorts. A couple of very good standouts drag this one to the “decent” end of the spectrum.
