V/H/S (2012)

Released early on demand, after it's premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, "V/H/S" is a horror movie told through the "already tired" aspect of found-footage material, shown from the perspective of a hand-held camera. A group of hoodlums has been strangely assigned to break into an abandoned haunted house, and steal a particular V/H/S tape. But once making it to the house, they start to find a wide collection of plenty of V/H/S tapes, and we are introduced to a series of "found-footage" shorts, as the group starts to watch each tape at a time, as if the audience is in the room, with these guys, watching the tapes. Each tape has a different particular horror story, some work, and some doesn't. Let's recap each one! 1. A group of guys start to become haunted by a strange woman during a "guys night out" (Works), 2. A married couple on their second honeymoon, whom doesn't realize that a certain someone has been sneaking on them (Kind of works), 3. A group of friends being hunted down while on a trip to the lake (Hardly works), 4. A young girl communicates with her "doctor-to-be" boyfriend over the Internet, believing that her apartment is being haunted (Doesn't work), and 5. A group of guys awaiting an awesome Halloween party, but they got more than what they bargained for (Perfectly works). "V/H/S" is probably one of the most scariest, and one of the most disturbing movies I've ever laid eyes on. Filled with plenty of great scares, some disgustingly grotesque moments, and tons of scenes that will leave you speechless. Now, there are times when this movie follows almost every horror cliché in the book, and although this movie is supposed to be portrayed as a "found-footage" feature, the camera movements are a little too shaky. But, this movie does stay true to it's promise by giving such scares that won't let audiences sleep later at night. Although I prefer "The Cabin in the Woods" as the better horror movie this year, I prefer "V/H/S" as the better horror movie in the terms of scaring me, grossing me out, and leaving me awake at night! In ordinary horror movie fashion, there is plenty of great fun to be found in "V/H/S". I'm just saying you've been warned, because if you're somewhat interested in seeing it, I must warn you that this movie is sick and grotesque, leaving audiences in a stage of vomiting and sleeping with the lights on. "V/H/S", in my review, "A freaky, original, and grotesque scare-fest".

Fmovies: I love found-footage films, especially when they are done well. I also love horror anthologies withe some of my favourite TV shows being The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and Tales From The Darkside. The two joining together for V/H/S was a very exciting idea and gave me very lofty expectations. I was amazed to find that for the most part they were met. V/H/S sees a gang of guys break into a house in order to steal a video cassette for blackmailing purposes. Once in he house they find a huge collection of videos, each one showing a different tale of horror. The first is the story about a couple of girls picked up from a bar and recorded secretly on camera glasses. This is probably the scariest tale with some very disturbing imagery. I still can't get the look of a certain character out of my head. In it's short running time it also hits upon some emotional notes that I wasn't expecting. Perfect effects and nailbiting tension make this a great start. Video number two sees a couple on a road trip who are secretly filmed at night. The idea of an intruder watching you at your most vulnerable is nerve-racking. Story number three was my least favourite but was still mostly effective. It was let down by cheesy dialogue that over explained the details of the plot. The effects here were again very well done with a sickening look at an eyeball sliding out of a socket. Story number 4 is shot through Skype and has the biggest ambitions in terms of plot. I would like to see this again as I didn't enjoy it at first because of a terrible performance from the male lead, but there is a reason for this which makes sense after viewing. The final tale is a haunted house film that builds up incredibly well. It starts with an empty house and moves towards all hell breaking loose with some of the most flawless effects I have ever seen. Each story was interesting and most importantly it kept to the rules of found-footage. Everything appears as though it was done in-camera. It's left me thinking about the stories and getting my imagination to work overtime as not a lot is explained. The only real let down was the wrap-around that tried to connect these stories. It really didn't work and just made the film a bit too long. When I buy this on DVD I am pretty certain I will be skipping those parts. Hope we see a V/H/S 2.

Really a massive disappointment. I had read over on a blog that this film would "restore my faith in horror films". I read all over the internet about just how great this film was. So I spent ten dollars to view it last night.

The found footage idea isn't wholly a terrible idea, the problem is that it just doesn't usually work. By usually, I mean ever. Horror as a genre has been falling apart at the seams for years, and the advent of "found- footage" certainly hasn't helped. In fact, it feels like it's making a mockery out of horror rather than restoring it to glory.

Enough about that. Regarding the film: The first problem we get here is that the writers/directors have two hours to piece together six cohesive stories. That's fine, but if that's the case, we need to only focus on the important stuff here. Half the time, you'll feel like you're watching some stranger's home movie collection. It's drab, it's boring, it doesn't serve to build suspense, it just drags. You see, when we only get twenty minutes with characters, we don't give a hoot about what they're like. All footage should serve the story, and it just doesn't here. So yes, a lot of the film dragged and a lot of the film was boring.

The second huge problem: the scary stuff. There isn't enough of it. There isn't enough that was supposed to be there in the first place, and most of what you get is just goofy. There were a few jump scares that weren't done all that effectively due to some of the worst camera work the world has ever seen. We understand that this is supposed to be amateur shot footage. That doesn't mean people film themselves walking around with friends while wildly waving their arms around like a complete lunatic. So when you aren't sure what you're looking at and your eyes are constantly struggling to adjust, the few jump scares that were put in the film no longer serve a purpose.

I'm not sure if my next complaint should be lodged against the actors or the writers. Maybe both? All of the characters, I mean ALL of the characters, are incredibly unlikable or plain bothersome. There's a character that basically just cackles through an entire story. There's a character that has no personality aside from leaving her mouth agape at all times. So yeah, the acting was pretty bad, but the writing was probably the worst part of the whole thing. One story in particular was such a joke on the writing front, we couldn't contain our laughter watching it. Not because it was supposed to be funny either.

So here we have six basically nonsensical and incomprehensible stories that lack direction, character, motivations or scares and we throw it all together to create one low-res pile of crap. We have scenes that make NO SENSE in regards to how it ended up on a VHS tape, uninspired concepts, terrible camera work, and just terrible writing.

Here is another Paranormal Activity: TONS of hype, great press and reviews, but underneath all of that is a really uniquely awful film. I'm serious; I thought it was really that bad. Uniquely awful in just how inept and uninspired it is.

Want a compilation horror film that tries to tackle a few sub-genres of horror? Try Trick-R-Treat. It wasn't anything spectacular, but it was enjoyable and well written. V/H/S is something I hope dies and people forget about by Christmas. What an awful, awful film.

V/H/S fmovies. I'm a big fan of anthology horror movies, and horror in general and I'm willing to accept found footage movies if they're done well enough. That being said this is not done well at all. They use every found footage cliché except night vision. Constant "glitch cuts", people carrying the camera around while in danger for no reason, disoriented confusing action sequences. The found footage aspects are the main weakness in this movie, but I'll put that aside for now and review this movie on its other aspects.

First of all every character in this movie is terrible. They're either perverted frat boy assholes or completely void of personality. They're not the kind of characters you can't wait to be killed, they're the kind of characters you can't wait to stop listening to. I know there's no time to really flesh out any characters in an anthology, but you can at least give them a personality, these guys are just boring, boring, boring.

The plot of most of these shorts are only possible through monumentally stupid decisions from the characters. They never call the call the cops, are constantly tripping while running away (maybe if you dropped the camera...), and the overarching plot characters are the stupidest of them all.

There's no bow-tie at the end connecting all these stories, and therefore no need for the very bland overarching story itself. However in a few of the tapes the mystery is strong enough to keep you interested and some of the tension is pretty thrilling, although it never really pays off.

I would be more forgiving of the cliché story and characters if it was easier to watch, and I'd be more forgiving of the found footage faux-pas if it had better stories. But this is the worst of both worlds, I would give this a 4/10 but I'm bumping it up 1 for the tits.

What we have in V/H/S are a bunch of prolonged horror moments that in usual cases would be the climax to any average horror movie. The movie manages to throw 5 of these 'money shots' at the viewer without the need to tell any real story, build any of the characters or introduce their personality's to the audience. Whether this is a stroke of genius originality or just laziness is the question. You'd be forgiven for thinking that V/H/S is the result a brain storming session where five writers pitched five stories, with one 'Eureka' moment of making a movie of the ending of all five. What they seemingly failed to spend any real time on though was the glue to bind the five stories together. It is completely irrelevant, in fact I would go as far as to say the movie would be better without it, a "Here are five tapes that were found, now watch them" instead. I have to say I am a fan of 'found footage movies'. To me they achieve the desired effect and can, at times, create some truly chilling moments. This movie does have it's moments but after a while it all gets too much, the 'found footage' angle is somehow lost with the constant change of story. You are never really allowed to reach the same level of suspense as with other films in this genre. 6/10. It passed the time but I eventually found myself wanting it to end and asking myself "How many stories to go?"

Arranged around and within a tenuous wraparound home invasion scenario, the vignettes that comprise this shakycam shocker prove memorably effective, each lulling the viewer into a false sense of security via meanderingly mundane set-ups that abruptly shift to more unnerving, visceral territory. Old tropes such as alien interference, haunted houses, serial killers, and femmes fatales find themselves fed through the lens of the hand-held camera to rather impressive effect. The overall picture painted by these series of snuff flicks-within-a-flick is one of a world sporadically at the mercy of an otherworldly array of entities, with the glaring unremarkability of its setting serving to amplify, rather than undermine, the atmosphere of cosmic malevolence. All these elements amount to a punchy anthology which succeeds in overriding my antipathy toward the dreaded jittercam technique - no mean feat!