Last year
the film “V/H/S” successfully blended the found footage genre with the horror
anthology. In no time at all the
follow-up “V/H/S 2” has picked up the bloody ball, and ran with it, giving us a
worthy sequel filled with gore, humor, and in the case of one short, sheer and
utter insanity.
Tying the
shorts together this time is a couple of young P.I.’s that work on catching
unfaithful husbands ‘Cheaters’ style.
They go looking for a missing college kid and stumble across his crazy
set up with TV’s a laptop and a bunch of V/H/S tapes. This story that bookends the other
caught-on-tape terror is better and more mysterious than the first “V/H/S” film
of vandals going into a creepy house and filming it ‘set-up’. It works better here, even if it is a little
predictable. What stand out this time
though is the impressiveness of the four short films we get to see and the
clarity of the footage. Yeah it’s
supposed to be video footage and it looks more like digital HD, but I can
suspend disbelief if what they are showing me is worth it. And they are.
The first
involves a guy with a cyber-eye, who gets the Haley Joel Osment disease of
“seeing dead people”. It’s clever enough
and you get some decent scares. The
second done by a couple of “The Blair Witch” guys utilizes a Go Pro camera
mounted on a cyclist helmet whose ride in the woods turns into a zombie
nightmare. Again this is pretty well
crafted, though the shakiness of the camera gave me bit of motion
sickness. The third and by far the best
of film’s series so far was co-directed by Timo Tjahjanto and Gareth Evans (The
Raid: Redemption) about a group of reporters who get access to a compound where
the secretive Safe Haven cult is planning something completely unforeseen. This one goes from creepy, intense, to
horrifically awesome, to hilariously bat-shit insane. All the stops are pulled out on this one, and
made it impossible to top. Which is why
the last one, a sleep-over that turns into an abduction, though is a good idea
and executed well enough loses some of its scariness and falls a little short.
Making a
horror short can be difficult where you have very little time to give as much
information as you can in order to be immersed in the world you are creating
and still manage to scare the pants off of your audience. “V/H/S 2” does a pretty admirable job of both
and compared to the countless throw-away B-movie horror found on the Redbox on
a weekly basis, these great tales of terror that are worth seeking out. And as I said as long as you can get over the
“How did they get this footage, and why is it being filmed for so long?” these
are really enjoyable bits of horror that left me craving a third and hopefully
a fourth helping.
--Robert L.
Castillo
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