thelastblogontheleft V/H/S, created by Brad Miska and the horror website Bloody Disgusting, features a series of five horror shorts tied together by a sixth wraparound short that ties them all together. It features different directors for each segment, (five individual directors and one directing team) which makes for an interesting bit of diversity throughout the film.** SPOILERS! **It's no secret that I love the found footage niche of the horror genre. I'm also a big fan of anthologies, at least in theory (Creepshow delivered while The ABCs of Death, well, didn't), so I thought this would be a home run. It was a great idea, and I think it was decently done, but the shorts varied a bit too much in quality (I only liked two of the six), while the wraparound itself was mediocre.Tape 56 — the short that it continually returns to — was directed by Adam Wingard (You're Next, Blair Witch). It's a decently interesting story to tie the shorts together but just didn't do much for me.Amateur Night, directed by David Bruckner (The Signal), was a bit too obnoxious for me to enjoy. I know the story centers around three seeming frat boys out for a night of partying (and amateur porn making), but the drunken WOOing and cackling gets old really quick. It makes it pretty satisfying when Lily — the mysterious, wide-eyed woman they bring back to the hotel — literally rips off the incessant laugher's genitals. While they did a decent job making her a bit terrifying — I actually liked when she shows her face sort of split in the middle — the only real highlight for me was when she carried Clint off into the night with her talons dug into him, which was oddly convincing.Second Honeymoon, directed by Ti West (The Innkeepers, The Sacrament), was maybe my favorite of the bunch. They were the most natural actors and the premise, while not wild or supernatural, was pretty great. Also, after watching Sam try to convince Stephanie — repeatedly and uncomfortably — to take her clothes off while on camera, I was pretty happy when he was killed off. The gurgling and struggling to breathe was surprisingly convincing, and it was a nice twist to have Stephanie run off with a woman.Tuesday the 17th, directed by Glenn McQuaid, was one of the weakest, in my opinion. It went with the overplayed storyline of 20-somethings deep in the woods and, while the killer being unable to be captured on video was mildly interesting, the weak acting ruined it for me.The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger, directed by Joe Swanberg (who actually starred in Second Honeymoon), had a decently interesting premise, but was somewhat painful to watch. It was neat to go into it thinking that it was your typical haunted house situation but then find out it went deeper into aliens- using-her-as-an-incubator territory. But still… it relied too much on cheap jump scares than anything else.10/31/98, directed by Radio Silence (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez, and Chad Villella, who also all — aside from Justin — acted in the film), was my second favorite. I thought it could have been overplayed to have the story take place on Halloween but it felt fun, especially since so many creepy moments got laughed off due to their belief that they were in an elaborate, but fake, haunted house. When they realize what is going on — or at least that it isn't staged after all — the special effects come on a bit too heavy-handed (though, no pun intended, I thought the hands coming out of the walls was particularly creepy). It uses some of the classic White Lady folklore with the girl leading them by car to the train tracks and then abandoning them right before their death. Maybe not the most brilliant short film to ever exist but I liked it.A bit disjointed overall and, again, the quality seems to jump around quite a bit. I wish the stories relied more on writing and acting than jump scares and camera glitches, but it's worth a watch.

ed_hof Terrible. I love horror movies, but this one was not worth the watch. Glad I didn't pay to see it. Most of the stories were poorly written, filmed with a wobbly camera with distortion effects that doesn't even look like real distortion. I wouldn't recommenced this one to anyone. To the people that keep giving this one good rews: thank you for wasting two hours of my life.

CinemaClown A horror anthology of five short films tied together by a sixth short that weaves a narrative around the entire stuff, V/H/S merges found-footage style with anthology format and allows up-n-coming filmmakers to showcase their talents by giving them free creative reign over a blank canvas but it's an opportunity wasted, as most of them chip in with mediocre entries.The basic premise of V/H/S follows the exploits of a criminal gang who are offered a large sum of money by a third party in exchange for breaking into a desolate house and acquiring a particular VHS tape. Upon searching the house, they discover a dead body and hundreds of unmarked VHS tapes but the longer they take to find the right tape, the more danger they put themselves in.The problem with most anthology films is that they almost always fail to maintain a consistent tone and rarely are they effective as a whole. V/H/S is bogged down by the same set of issues, for some of its shorts are genuinely creepy & competently crafted while the rest are simply absurd. Even the frame narrative, directed by Adam Wingard, fails to keep things tight and lacks a proper closure.In addition to that, all the stories have more or less the same narrative structure, and each one of them feels longer than they needed to be. Rarely much happens in any of the stories for the most part and when it does, it's too quick & over before you know it. The POV camera-work itself varies in execution, ranging from excellent to terrible, while Editing fails to trim out the excess fat from each tales.The only one that I really liked was Amateur Night which follows a group of three friends who bring two women back with them to their hotel room and plan to record the activity on a hidden camera but are one of the women isn't what she seems to be. For the most part, it's just as mediocre as the rest of the shorts but its ending is powerful, chilling & frightening. A couple others come close but this is the only one I enjoyed sitting through.On an overall scale, V/H/S neither captivates as a found-footage horror nor impresses as an anthology feature. All the shorts suffer from weak & boring story lines, none feature a compelling character, each episode is poorly edited, hand-held camera-work is all over the place, and it packs more gore than genuine scares. Anthology films are either a hit or miss, often the latter on most occasions, and V/H/S is another disappointing addition to that particular list.

Tim Morgan I don't consider myself a fan of the found footage genre, but I've seen V/H/S show up on several lists of the best of the genre, so I thought I'd check it out.There's some semblance of story setup (bunch of thugs break into a house to steal a tape, but find a dead body and a bunch of other tapes instead). Then it dives into a series of unrelated short films.In a feature you need a story; in shorts you can get by with a gag. I'm going to give the writers a tip of my hat and admit each of the shorts has an effective gag. Some of the shorts work better than others and some just don't work at all.A few of the shorts feature some head-scratching, WTF moments. There are a couple of scenes that almost threw me out of the movie, but I'm glad I continued to watch.I think the team put most of the film's budget into the last short and it shows. I feel it was the best of the batch. I was going to rate the film a 5 but as I think about it, the effectiveness of that last short warrants a higher mark.If you're a horror fan and/or a found footage fan in particular, you can't go wrong streaming this.