Odds are, if a film is a horror anthology, say comprised of six short films, one or two of them are better than the others. Our fellow blogger Bloody-Disgusting's first feature film V/H/S is the same deal, made by six entirely different filmmakers from seasoned Ti West (The Innkeepers, The House of the Devil) to debuting directors collectively known as Radio Silence. West, and his immensely slow build-up to a genuinely scary climactic signature, is to be found in the second episode of the anthology called Second Honeymoon - frankly the best part of the collection in the horror viewpoint. Radio Silence's 10/31/98 follows a group of friends who found something else as they arrive on an empty haunted house for Halloween. The particular short is the most inventive of the bunch, visually ambitious and entirely impressive.
The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger is the most original film out of the six - a troubled young woman makes long Skype conversations with long-distant beau about her self-purported haunted flat. Actor/director Joe Swanberg (who also appeared as Sam in West's episode) directs this short, which scares are gasping, and narrative twists are sick. The whole film runs on two hours and for a few moments feels draggy. Amateur Night, directed by David Bruckner (The Signal) follows a group of friends who installs a hidden camera on an eye-glass as they try to score a threesome night is tortured by a creepy-looking creature which hid under the flesh of an awkward young girl (winningly played by Hannah Fierman). The conventional narrative surprisingly throws in one immensely impressive filmmaking. Teusday the 17th, a fresh rip-off of the cult classic Friday the 13th is an ambitious attempt, but falls flat middled (it, being the third episode) by two superior short films. Much like with Swanberg's and Radio Silence's episodes, this Glenn McQuaid's short pushes the genre to a different level. The main antagonist figures a tad supernatural, giving room to some advancement in videotape filmmaking. If not for these two, V/H/S is an overlong and tedious work of found-footage.
These stories are connected with the main story arc Tape 56 by Adam Wingard, in which a group of thugs are hired to steal one particular VHS tape in an old house. They break into that house, to find many stacks of VHS tapes - they don't know which tape to take so they watch them one by one. This short is weakly written, frizzling with disposable characters and a throwaway narrative. Tape 56 is what makes the movie a fluctuating wave, dissipates the scares while swallowing it back now and again, then spits it out once more. The horror in V/H/S pushes forward and pushes back, making the film officially the scariest film of the year, and a candidate to the most uneven. A-
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