V/H/S/2, 2013.
Directed by Simon Barrett, Jason Eisener, Gareth Evans, Gregg Hale, Eduardo Sánchez, Timo Tjahjanto and Adam Wingard.
Starring Lawrence Michael Levine, Kelsy Abbott, L.C. Holt, Simon Barrett, Mindy Robinson, Adam Wingard, Hannah Hughes, John T. Woods, Brian Udovich, Casey Adams, Jay Saunders and Bette Cassatt.
SYNOPSIS:
Searching for a missing student, two private investigators break into his house and find collection of VHS tapes. Viewing the horrific contents of each cassette, they realize there may be dark motives behind the student’s disappearance.
The first V/H/S received a lot of fan praise on the festival circuit and in its cinematic release earlier this year (well, from horror fans at least, we weren’t keen), but there was a lot of critique made about the movie in terms of the the quality of each short. However all the buzz about its sequel V/H/S/2 has been centred around, “it’s better than the first one”. The question is however – is it?
The movie is once again bookended and bridged with a found footage movie called Tape 49 as a couple break into the house the teens trashed in the first film (without any real explanation) and start to snoop around. While Larry starts to search for whatever it is he’s looking for, his girlfriend/business partner begins to watch some bizarre VHS tapes that are laying about the living room, with horrific consequences.
First off, V/H/S/2 falls for the same problem the first movie does in that all of the short movies are shot digitally by digital devices. Which begs the question – why are they on VHS tapes? There has been an argument that they were transferred to the once popular format, but we as an audience are never clued into why. It’s that age old tradition of ‘make up your own conclusion’ but you get the impression that creator Simon Barrett doesn’t care. He just took an easy route to take advantage of a gimmick without any rhyme or reason and while some might call that nitpicking, it’s this level of inconsistency that makes you question how this “franchise” has become so popular.
But of course, the point of V/H/S/2 is not the main plot thread stupidity but rather the short stories they bridge too. And in that sense, V/H/S/2 is a better movie than its predecessor by the simple fact it has two decent tales rather than zero.
The opening and closing segments, Phase I Clinical Trials and Slumber Party Alien Abduction are the weaker of the four with the first one playing to the ghost story ‘sort of see but don’t really see’ mentality and the latter going for all out terror.
In the case of Phase I Clinical Trials, it succeeds in the creepy factor stakes and it uses the found footage medium effectively with its “recording eye camera” gimmick, but fails at being genuinely scary and/or entertaining. Slumber Party Alien Abduction however completely flounders not only as a lazy short with hateful characters, but also coming off the back of the better produced and put together Safe Haven directed by The Raid helmer Gareth Evans and Timo Tjahjanto. It’s a really flat way to end the movie, especially after the hight of the previous segment.
By far the longest of the movie, Safe Haven is an incredibly visceral found footage experience and is the first segment in either movie to focus on character rather than simple jump scares. It of course rides into wacky gory territory as its plot moves towards a conclusion, but the intentions for a well-made short at very clear. Unlike Slumber Party Alien Abduction and Phase I Clinical Trials, Safe Haven feels like there was care and effort when putting together both the script (which was around 40-odd pages at first draft) and filmmaking capabilities.
However the stand out segment was A Ride in The Park, directed by The Blair Witch Project producer Gregg Hale. It starts off, as many good horrors do, innocently enough until our bike riding hero wearing a camera on his helmet is attacked by a zombie, giving us a first-person zombie perspective. While hardly groundbreaking, it leads to a lot of fun and entertaining moments and it really makes the most of the found footage gimmick. It may not be as well constructed as Safe Haven, but from a visual standpoint it really holds its own.
V/H/S/2 is just as much of a headache as the first movie, but it’s slightly less hateful with two of its segments succeeding. The hype surrounding is right – it is a better movie than V/H/S, but that doesn’t stop it from being an annoying assault on the eyes with idiocy riding through the gimmick it’s based around. Why this series is gaining so much popularity is baffling, but fans of the original are bound to get a kick out of this one.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Luke Owen is one of Flickering Myth’s co-editors and the host of Flickering Myth’s Podcast Network. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.
Originally published August 25, 2013. Updated November 7, 2019.
