V/H/S

The found footage genre gets an anthology format, having a group of vandals (one of them knows a guy with a videotape that can be used to blackmail someone for some money)  enters the home of a supposed dead owner, his body sitting motionless in an easy chair, a series of monitors, tapes, and a VCR in his den. While scanning the videotapes in the dead man's possession, two go into the basement to try and secure a blackmail tape, instead encountering totally unexpected horrors. A twist involving the dead owner and "someone in the basement" along with footage on several videotapes (each making up a tale in this movie) are what we get to see, loosely compiled in a near 2 hour running time.

**½

After destroying some abandoned, unoccupied house, a group of obnoxious, constantly-swearing vandals who love to stop off, harass, pull up the shirts, and expose breasts of beautiful girls they record for their own amusement (and to watch later, plus sell the recordings to a “reality porn” site) decide to take the advice of one of their number—an older man will offer them some serious cash if they will provide him with their recordings. When they enter his home, the boys find him dead, in an easy chair, lots of television monitors and VCRs in his den. So one of the members is left in the dead man’s room to scan the videotapes available for future use.

One of the recordings (David Bruckner’s Amateur Night; he directed 2007’s The Signal) deals with a trio of numbskulls who want to use a pair of glasses with hidden camera and mic to record sex with some girls in a bar, barhopping for the right victims to exploit. I won’t like I was about 16 minutes in and already tired of the camera work shaking all over the place. I realize fans of found footage are sick of the same critique regarding skaky-cam. I watch these flicks to see potential in storytelling using the format, but it takes some effort to get through the anxiety caused by a camera that can’t stay still for even a manner of seconds. This first “tale” asks for us to endure drunken buffoons laughing and stammering around while one girl—pale-skinned, eyes wide-open, and frightfully alert—tells the kid with the camera glasses she likes him, following him and the boys into their vehicle (along with a girl they were able to convince, not too difficultly, to join them), soon the bunch arriving to a hotel. When their totally wasted chic passes out, the two along with the camera glasses guy proceed to bed the wide-eyed girl who turns out to be a ferocious, bloodthirsty vampire fiend. Yeah. The camera glasses dude tries to hide and eventually escape, but he’ll have to get past vampire chic in order to do so. He does, but while frantically rushing downstairs he slips, taking a tough landing, a bone sticking out of his hand, perhaps a broken leg, this poor kid’s practically immobilized. Barely fleeing out into the parking lot, trying to get someone to assist him, the vampire (or whatever creature she is) in winged form, carries him off into the sky!

  

“This is what we will be looking at for a long time…nothingness, cars.”

The second recordings (Ti West’s Second Honeymoon) concerns a trip for a young married couple where they’re touring the Midwest that ends in a graphic murder revealing not only an adulterous affair but possibly implying a burial. This is basically a tourist trip, recordings by Sam and Stephanie (Joe Swanberg and Sophia Tokal) of various road trip experiences before an awakening in the night through the use of a knife that literally severs a head from the neck while the victim is still alive leading to kissing and a cover up. Mentions of a girl asking to hitchhike and another young woman on a cell phone taking a picture of the couple, both these instances could be related to the final result of this tale. I get the point here in that what seems like a typical happy couple enjoying some time together on vacation will actually be turned inside out because one of them isn’t what he or she would have us believe.

“Joey, you’re all gonna fucking die up here.”

The third “tale” (Glen McQuaid's Tuesday the 17th; he directed the excellent sleeper, I Sell the Dead) deals with four teenagers heading into the woods, three of the four believing they are on their way to a secluded cabin for some fun over a weekend not knowing that their driver, Wendy (Norma C Quinones) is using them as bait to lure out a forest-dwelling entity that can manifest form whenever it feels like it. This one has the video malfunctioning when the psychopathic supernatural figure shows up. I think slasher fans just might dig this one. While the killer is never fully seen on screen, we can glimpse a ski mask, and he uses your garden variety butcher knife to slaughter his prey. Wendy is about as psychotic as the killer she seeks to vanquish. The violence here is potent and quick but that one moment where Joey (Drew Moerlein) is moving around in the woods in just his trunks and slit throat, practically a dead man walking, lost to the world, as Wendy looks on through the camera, is definitely my favorite moment in this tale. Nicknamed "The Glitch", the killer pretty much causes that type of effect towards the video tape recording "it". There are these slight, momentary recording bits that show past victims of The Glitch, and they come real quick-like so you have to look fast for them. While rough (you don't see as much as you should), Tuesday the 17th is probably my second favorite tale of the anthology.

“The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger”, the fourth of the five recordings, has a series of back-and-forth computer chats between boyfriend and girlfriend (together since their youth) producing eerie results when she determines that there are specters haunting the apartment she lets. Something inserted under her skin also bothers Emily (Helen Rogers) while her studying-to-be-a-doctor beau, James (Daniel Kaufman) urges her to not do anything until he gets out of college in a week. Noises and a child *ghost* at night leave Emily a neurotic mess while James tries to keep her under control. What Emily doesn’t know is that James is closer than she thinks and has more to do with her current predicament than so realized. The result of this one, which includes the removal of a fetus and burrowing under the skin in an attempt to remove a chip from an arm (not knowing it was a chip…), and a “new victim” selected for a peculiar arrangement, give us something quite a bit warped and shocking. What Joe Swanberg’s (he directed Autoerotic and was Dan in the segment, “The Second Honeymoon”) The Sick Thing… does is what is consistent with most of the tales in this anthology: we are led to believe one thing and see that characters are not what they seem, revealing an evil side that is troubling. The darkness of the human soul is prevalent in V/H/S.

“10/31/98” is my favorite of the videotape recordings featuring a fun-loving group of male buddies on their way to what they perceive is quite a Halloween bash, taking a wrong exit, to the wrong house, finding a strange ceremony where men have congregated in an attic attempting to rid *something* from a bound woman, using violent methods (whipping, slapping…) in order to achieve what they’ve set out to do. The guys interrupt them and *the evil* is loose, in the form of poltergeists and what appears to be a type of “paranormal tantrum” that has objects levitating, arms reaching from walls, door knobs vanishing is puffs of smoke, and windows “closing into nothingness”. The guys are able to rescue the girl while the house begins to “envelope itself” (I promise you this is the only way I know how to explain it, it’s all so surreal!) but are not prepared for “what follows her”. The train approaching and the girl vanishing from the backseat, reappearing in front of their car with the ignition messed up and doors locked is a hair-raiser and yet again proves that characters are different than they appear.

I think the general sentiment of those that have been vocally supportive and enthusiastic about V/H/S love how you can’t see what’s coming next and that I have to agree with. Each installment yields turns in characters that are surprising, and the video format allows at least a fresh take on all things found footage. But I had an absolute migraine after this and preparing screen caps for my review was extremely difficult and rather burdensome. I can’t believe even the most amateur camera operator hasn’t the ability to hold their piece of equipment still for at least five seconds. When you have Jeannine Elizabeth Yoder right there in front of you and can’t keep the camera still so her whole sexy figure can be ogled by us for just twenty seconds, I have a hard time accepting this. Sure her cheerleader hottie, Stephanie, is the object of attention/lust by Spider (Jason Yachinin) and Joey with the camera, but I just have a hard time swallowing this idea that even those who aren’t trained in the art of cinematography can’t hold that camera somewhat (just a little) in focus for a small amount of time. I really admired the approach to how each tale starts with just regular folks from all parts of life heading into the great unknown without a clue of what is about to befall them. Each tale features characters with plans before them, but what lies in wait produces the effect that I think V/H/S hopes to successfully convey. But that fucking camera work left me unnerved and glad it was over so I could close my eyes and relax.