V/H/S (2012) | 31 Days of Horror: Oct 29

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Don’t change that channel. Don’t touch that dial. We got it all on VHS!

The found footage genre is here to stay as proven by V/H/S. Delving into the anthology aspect of horror, this film creates fun and scary short films that feel just like the experience of watching an unlabeled video cassette back in the day, but with much more horrific consequences.

Before Viewing

The trailer for this film imagines The Blair Witch Project as a collection of five video taped segments of horrific events. It’s impossible to say what the individual stories are, but there’s imagery of a person with a knife standing over a woman sleeping in bed, mysterious floating objects and handprints appearing on a wall, and dozens of screams, chills, and frights. All of this is being filmed on a video camera on the best VHS tapes money can buy.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

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After Viewing

A framing sequence features four men taking a video camera out in public as they target a woman in a parking garage. They pull up her shirt, exposing her breasts, all while laughing and encouraging each other. Footage also shows them vandalizing an old house; breaking windows, knocking holes in the wall, and smashing light fixtures. The footage changes to them entering an abandoned house where they are supposed to steal a video tape. They discover an old, dead man in the living room with several TVs playing static. Gary (Calvin Lee Reeder) and Zak (Lane Hughes) check out the basement while Rox (Kentucker Audley) looks in another room. Brad (Adam Wingard) stays behind and decides to check out a tape.

Tape 01 “Amateur Night”

A trio of guys test out a pair of glasses with a built-in camera. They plan to pick up a woman to record an amateur sex tape. At the local bar, Shane (Mike Donlan) picks up Lisa (Jasper Lewis). A woman with large eyes, Lily (Hannah Fierman), keeps staring at Clint (Drew Sawyer), who wears the video glasses. When he tries to talk to her, all she says is “I like you.” The two couples, along with their friend Patrick (Joe Sykes) head to a motel room where Lisa immediately passes out. Shane starts coming on to Lily, who begins taking off her clothes. Patrick joins in and she bites him on the arm. Clint hides in the bathroom when Lily begins attacking Shane, having grown bird-like features. Patrick tries to stop her but is killed. Clint runs out of the room, but falls down stairs fracturing his wrist. He runs into the parking lot, but Lily, now a human/bird hybrid caries him off into the sky. The glasses fall back to the ground.

Back in the frame story, Brad has gone missing. Gary and Zak see a naked man streak by in the basement. Rox decides to pop in a tape.

Tape 02 “Second Honeymoon”

Stephanie (Sophia Takal) and Sam (Joe Swanberg) are on a road trip in the American southwest. She gets a fortune from a carnival machine in an old mining town which tells her she will soon have a “happy reunion with a loved one.” They check into a motel, where Sam tries to instigate sex, but Stephanie denies him. A knock on the door startles them. The footage starts again with Sam explaining that it was a college-aged “girl” asking for a ride the following morning, and saying she was a little creepy. During the middle of the night, a stranger turns on the camera, recording a switchblade threatening Stephanie, stealing money from Sam’s wallet, and rinsing his toothbrush in the toilet. After visiting the Grand Canyon the next day, Sam accuses Stephanie of stealing money. In the motel room they plan a trip back home via Vegas. A mysterious intruder again turns the camera on again that night, this time stabbing Sam in the neck with the switchblade, killing him. Washing off their hands in the bathroom, Stephanie walks in and kisses this random woman, presumably her lover. The next day, during footage of the car driving, Stephanie asks if the tape was erased.

Rox doesn’t notice the dead body is missing and puts in another tape, while Gary and Zak head upstairs with a whole collection of tapes–not knowing which one is the one they were asked to get.

Tape 03 “Tuesday the 17th”

Four young people are driving to a secluded lake in the middle of nowhere. Wendy (Norma C. Quinones) leads them a long a trail, pointing out a wall. Joey (Drew Moerlein), who is filming sees a weird glitch in the camera showing what appears to be a dead body, but only for a split-second. They pass by a dead and mutilated pig, which grosses Samantha (Jeannine Yoder) out. At the lake, another glitch quickly shows a body in the water. Wendy tells Joey that they’re all going to die. She pulls out a joint for them to smoke, which causes Spider (Jason Yachanin) to freak out. Spider and Samantha wander off into the woods with the camera and are killed by something obscured by a video glitch. Wendy finds the camera and begins coming on to Joey. She then confesses she was the sole survivor of of a killer in these woods who was never caught. The glitch kills Joey and chases Wendy, who manages to evade it. She leads it through the woods trapping it on a pallet covered with spikes. She celebrates but then notices that it’s no longer stuck on the spikes. The glitch kills and disembowels her as the camera continues to roll.

The dead body is back, but Rox is now missing. Gary goes off to investigate as Zak puts in another tape.

Tape 04 “The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger”

A series of conversations between Emily (Helen Rogers) and her boyfriend, James (Daniel Kaufman), take place on a video app on a computer. She claims to be hearing strange noises and also has a weird bump on her left forearm. Later, Emily opens the door to her room so James can hear what she hears. A small creature startles her and slams the door. James tries to convince her that it’s nothing, but she thinks there may be a dead boy haunting the apartment. She walks her computer through the apartment one night, along with a flashlight, and sees a small being by her coffee table. In another chat she has dug open the spot on her arm, leaving a big open sore. James tells her she needs to leave it alone. Believing that she needs to communicate with the ghost, she closes her eyes (so she won’t get scared), using James to direct her where to walk by watching her screen. They are both startled by seeing three small entities in living room just before Emily passes out. James, who has said consistently that he’s out of town, walks into the apartment and cuts Emily’s abdomen open removing a small fetus. He speaks to the creatures (revealed as aliens in the credits), stating that she won’t put up with much more of this treatment, also stating she found the tracking device in her arm. James speaks with Emily the next day having convinced her to visit a doctor who diagnoses her with a form of schizophrenia. Her injuries are explained by a story that she had an episode and stepped out into traffic. James starts a new chat with a nother woman claiming to also be his girlfriend.

Gary returns, finding the decapitated body of Zak. The old man’s body is missing again. As Gary attempts to leave, he falls down the stairs, twisting his ankle. The zombie-like man comes for him. Another tape begins to play in the machine.

Tape 05 “10/31/98”

Four friends head out to a Halloween party, driving to what they believe to be a haunted house. Tyler (Tyler Gillett) is recording the events dressed as a nanny-cam. He follows Chad (Chad Villella), Matt (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin), and Paul (Paul Natonek) into the house. They encounter some strange flickering lights and other weird phenomena. Making their way to the attic they find four men chanting around a woman who is tied to the posts. The friends are noticed and told to leave when two of the men are lifted by unseen forces and thrown into the ceiling. The partiers start to leave, but Tyler realizes they need to save the woman. They take her and head back through the rooms, which all experience poltergeist activity. Arms appear to reach out of the walls, objects fly around them, and the lights flicker. They exit through the basement, getting back in their car with the woman. Chad heads for the local hospital when the car begins having electrical issues. The woman in the back seat disappears freaking the men out. She appears outside the car just a few feet away, turns, and begins walking away. All four men realize that the doors are locked and the car has stopped on a railroad track with the train coming.

“I’m…scared of getting the fear.” – Spider

V/H/S (referred to simply as VHS from here on) proves that the found footage horror genre is here to stay. Out of all the various found footage franchise created in the 21st Century, the VHS series is the one still going strong, having just released its eighth film just a few weeks ago. VHS is named for the Video Home System (VHS) style of videotapes that were the dominant medium for home film distribution and personal recording during the 1980s and 90s. The film uses the narrative structure known as “found footage,” which is a conceit that makes the movie appear like everything that the viewer is watching was captured documentary-style and is raw or unscripted. It often emphasizes horror or violence (though pornography can also have aspects of found footage, as with the Girls Gone Wild series), blurring the lines between fiction and non-fiction. The difference between found footage and documentary is the inclusion of an actual narrative during the production process. Documentary films are created by filming everything that happens during a time period and creating the narrative of the film after the fact, via editing and voiceover. The telling of a soccer season in Welcome to Wrexham has no set outcome, and is dictated by the events that eventually occur. Whereas found footage films have an idea or script created about what needs to happen, allowing the actors to improvise around that central story.

This genre has been around in storytelling for centuries, dating back to the original epistolary novels (written as a series of letters) for Dracula and Frankenstein, and some of HP Lovecraft’s work including The Call of Cthulhu. In filmmaking, the movie Cannibal Holocaust, from 1980, is considered the first in the horror genre. The found footage genre works so well for horror because of its low budget entry for the filmmakers (really just the price of a camera and tapes) and the first person perspective of the camera, which gives the audience a feeling as if they’re actually experiencing the events. The film style was popularized by The Blair Witch Project (1999), which blurred the lines of fact and fiction by marketing the film as actual found documentary created by three missing filmmakers. The genre took off in the 2000s with Paranormal Activity and REC (both 2007), anchoring the horror side and Cloverfield (2008) and Chronicle (2012) proving popular with the sci-fi crowd. Franchises have been successfully built on several of these long running series, including REC, Hell House LLC, Paranormal Activity, and, of course, VHS.

Apart from the filmic style of VHS, it’s also organized as an anthology film, being made up of five smaller short films which fit into the overall narrative of video tapes containing horrific or scary footage, collected in the house. This allows for a “more bang for your buck” type of film, as some stories may not appeal to all audiences, but with their short 15-20 minute running time, viewers will most likely sit through a segment they dislike. This month has already reviewed the original horror anthology film, Dead of Night, so checking out one of the more recent entries has proved interesting. Since each segment is presented by a different director and creative team, each with their own styles of working in the format, I found myself asking multiple times if what I was watching was real. The randomness of the filming becomes apparent in a way that is not standard to a normal film. Sometimes the video glitches and shows a scene that was pre-recorded on the tape and is now being taped over for the new sequence. This adds authenticity to the conceit of being found footage. The ability to have a first person POV without a character having to carry around a camera adds to some of the realism. Now that there are video camera glasses and the nanny-cam costume, which allows for uninterrupted footage that is hands free by the user, this becomes a much invisible type of filmmaking process. Many moments play like the SQUID device used to record brain waves in Strange Days; the filmmakers create realistic moments within this narrative making it extremely powerful. The opening of the film with the men attacking the woman and committing vandalism feels all too real. The fact that it’s being shot in a documentary style can lead to much discomfort with the audience as the action creates a frightening reality.

All the short were enjoyable for various reasons. The character of Lily in “Amateur Night” is reminiscent of the creature in Mimic. Her face splits open in a similar way and her human skin and act appears to be a complex camouflage to allow her to attract young men. The few words, “I like you,” appears to be the limit of her mimicry. The same actress would return as the same character in a longer-form remake of the short, called Siren (2016). Both “Second Honeymoon” and “The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger” both contain scary moments that remain initially unexplained, though answers can be found upon further watching. Emily’s story has a certain X-Files vibe to it, though the child-like characters seem far from aliens (even though the credits identify them as such). “Tuesday the 17th” is a great next chapter in the slasher-in-the-woods mythology. Being a date that would logically follow Friday the 13th (4 days later), the short uses a clever appropriation of the video glitch to disguise the killer (or perhaps it is actually the killer). Finally, “10/31/98” is a no holds barred exploration into poltergeists and paranormal activity shot in what appears to be a oner; a single long take in a film. The grainy video offerings in the film add to the terror. It forces the audience to pay closer attention which pulls them deeper into the anxiety and jump scares the film produces. Even without anything that amounts to an explanation of what’s happening, VHS has some excellent moments of terror amounting to a memorable film.

Assorted Musings

• There was a different planned ending to the last segment, where the men were able to get out of the car before the train struck it, but that was dropped in favor of the one currently there.
• Ti West, director of “Second Honeymoon,” would go on to create another new horror series with X, Pearl, and MaXXXine.
• Adam Wingard, director of the frame story, directed a 2016 remake of Blair Witch, as well as the two most recent entries in the Monsterverse, Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024).
• Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett of Radio Silence, directors of “10/31/98” are responsible for Ready or Not (and its upcoming sequel), and the two most recent entries in the Scream franchise, Scream (2022) and Scream VI.