V/H/S: Viral

While a viral virus outbreak seems to be spreading across the internet superhighway, as the film follows a teenage young man biking through a city searching for his love who seems to have been kidnapped in an ice cream van (that has seen better days), we are privy to a series of recorded episodes where characters face incredible, supernatural events.

Dante the Great

The first tale doesn’t follow the found footage format religiously as the fourth wall of the popular subgenre is broken as pieces of it are shot by a “cinematic camera”. It involves a trailer park magician-wannabe named Dante (Justin Welborn) who finds a demonic black cape (supposedly discarded by a frightened Houdini!) and exploits what it can do for great success. He records his cape’s magic tricks and what the cape allows him to do with his hands and mind when wearing it. 

However, the cape is a carnivore (I can’t make this stuff up!) and demands human nourishment (!) in order for Dante to be given access to perform with its magic. So a number of magician assistants wind up missing, and Dante records (why?) the process of the cape’s feeding from them! In found footage, the obviousness of recording events which defy common sense, reeking of implausibility, finds its way into another example of the genre. You just kind of have to accept that what we mostly *wouldn’t* record will be in order for us to experience what the characters do. This tale is a special effects showcase where the cape does some amazing things.

 Arial stunt work (climbing walls, the cape teleporting a person from one place to another and a rabbit from one place to another), bodies of a police task force suffering crushed bones without actually being touched by Dante, a rabbit being split open by Dante with him just moving hands right above it, the cape “eating” victims, and Dante performing fireball maneuvers that develop and fly from just his hands and mind making them appear; the tale has plenty of effects work to dazzle. The stunning red head, Emmy Argo, is the assistant who might just get the upper hand on Dante due to how much he likes her. Her boyfriend’s fate is particularly ghoulish. Irony of the cape’s feeding habits doesn’t stop at just Dante’s victims…he had better watch out as well!

Parallel Monsters

The second tale deals with parallel alternate universes *meeting* as two scientist Alfonsos (Gustavo Salmerón) discover each other after building successful dimensional machines in their basements. Exhilarated by their mutual encounter, the two Alfonsos decide to cross over into each other’s worlds for a fifteen minute visit. One of the Alfonsos realizes that the alternate universe he crossed over into isn’t necessarily to his liking…it seems the people in this universe are a bit biologically different (that is an understatement!). The horrifying addition to this is the alternate Alfonso has a particularly unique penile difference from his counterpart which might have bit of an overbite! Alfonso’s alternate wife, Marta (Marian Álvarez), might just also have a biological, anatomical overbite all her own! Just its premise is creepy and unsettling enough to leave quite a Cronenbergian impression hard to forget (even if you *want* to unsee it!). The creation of the basement teleport machines certainly cause more harm than good to their creators!

Bonestorm

The third tale features skateboarders traveling to Tijuana for the ultimate experience, but the perfect location to vert presents more than they bargained for: true Mexican occultists in Day of the Dead skull makeup and attire arrive to attack them! An arm pulled from one of the boarders causes blood to leak on this chalk symbol which seems to awaken something evil. Eventually the occultists who die at the hands of the boarders awaken as ghouls! Even a monster seems to emerge thanks to the black magic that responds to the blood of the boarders! Mostly seen through the cameras hooked onto the helmets, with one boarder shooting from a hand-held, this features gruesome violence from skateboards, animal bones, and even a sword! The most virtuoso and exciting use of the POV approach of found footage. The stoner characters aren’t exactly ingratiating, but they sure defend themselves well (well, two of them do!).

Other found footage additions include a woman whose nude recording was posted on a website getting revenge on the blogger in a taxi and a Spanish harlem gangster soiree erupting into chaos when the lead hood gets enraged by the fork-stabbing of his pet dog! The wraparound story isn’t anything to write home about. It has a young man chasing after a van (a van dragging a biker across a paved road is nuts!), eventually finding it with no one inside, perhaps left with a decision to make which could affect the entire city, maybe even the world!

Emilia Zoryan, "Iris" in Vicious Circles

I think the wraparound and the tales involved are just not cohesive even though those who made this 2014 V/H/S installment give it their best shot. They try, so help them, but the glue doesn't stick. Emilia Zoryan (in the wraparound Patrick Lawrie is pursuing) is beautiful, particularly when the sun hits her face just right. Her being easy on the eyes helps when in Lawrie's grandma's home, but absent her, "Vicious Circles" is much ado about nothing except a street pursuit. Even the viral outbreak (virtually) doesn't get enough elaboration to make the impact it so desires.

The visit inside the taxi cab is included as a kind of aside as is the Spanish hood party, both of which do little to increase the quality of the whole. The girl gradually stripping in the taxi cab is hot, but it turns ugly for the blogger with the camera quickly, defusing the seductive quality that was on screen.

A monster belly eating a head, a penis monster, skeletal menaces right out of a Tombs of the Blind Dead film, skateboard wheels and the skateboards themselves serve as effective weapons, a bone stabbed into a throat, cameras in the POV turning circles due to those behind them suffering punishment, and a magician's cape eating folks when its host isn't using its power to break arms and legs all are certain to provide some with enjoyment, so I can't totally dismiss this. I think it is clear that the franchise is nearing its end. None of the three have been earth-shattering but the found footage genre got a boost from their horror fan interest.

"Vicious Circles" : *½ 

"Dante the Great": **

"Parallel Monsters": **

"Bonestorm": **½ 

The tax cab installment: *½

The Spanish harlem installment: *½

** / *****