V/H/S

A group of twenty-something thugs led by video camera-wielding Gary (Calvin Reeder) get their kicks by attacking innocent women in parking lots and exposing their breasts to the screen. An online acquaintance pays them for these shaky camcorder shenanigans.

Presumably it’s the same unseen acquaintance who hires them, through Gary, to break into a dilapidated old house one night for the purpose of retrieving a mysterious videocassette.

Upon entering the house, they find it to be a dingy, stinky and unkempt place. Little surprise, really – its owner is sitting dead in his armchair. Littered around the house are hundreds of videotapes. Our bunch of social misfit protagonists set about searching for the cassette in question.

While they do so, one of them decides to check out a couple of the videotapes. He places a handful of them one-by-one into the VCR that sits in front of the dead man.

What follows are five ‘found footage’ segments which play out in succession, forming an anthology format. The opening wraparound yarn – Adam Wingard’s "Tape 56" – progresses in small interspersed morsels throughout the proceeding film.

First of the shot-on-VHS goodies on offer is "Amateur Night". This is directed by THE SIGNAL’s David Bruckner and is at times reminiscent of a less polished version of The Prodigy’s "Smack My Bitch Up" video.

It starts with three male friends in a hotel room playing with a pair of glasses which have been fitted with a tiny spycam. They take said spectacles to a nearby club and scout the place for up-for-it women. The objective is to get some hotties back to their room and secretly film them getting fucked. Nice, eh?

Two women in particular catch their eye: pretty Lisa (Jas Sams) and pretty weird Lily (Hannah Fierman). Honestly, what would make anyone pick up the latter? She’s wide-eyed, speaks in hisses and moves as if she’s about to spontaneously combust.

No matter, they take the girls back to their haunt and the love action commences with the three boys all looking very pleased. But then, Lily shows her true colours and pandemonium reigns supreme.

A combination of despicable protagonists and overly shaky camerawork rob "Amateur Night" of any tension. It is watchable, and the last five minutes or so do quietly compel. But the twist is somewhat obvious and the final frame therefore lacking in shock factor, making it all rather forgettable. There’s some pretty iffy acting in this one too – which is never a good thing in found-footage films.

Next up is "Second Honeymoon", from director Ti West (THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL; THE INNKEEPERS). This charts the experiences of young couple Sam (Joe Swanberg) and Stephanie (Sophia Takal), who are visiting the Grand Canyon by car.

The bulk of this is a cross between travelogue footage and seemingly inconsequential relationship subtleties. But, here and there, there are little hints of the sinister ending to come: the trip to an Old West town where a mechanical fortune teller suggests Stephanie’s destiny; the creepy girl (Kate Lyn Sheil) who calls at their motel room asking for a ride; snippets of conversation in their diary-style filmed clips which suggest this pair aren’t always the happiest of couples.

In what is becoming typical West fashion, his segment doesn’t rush itself and focuses instead on performances and characterisation. It does, however, get a little creepy towards the end, before delivering a gory throat-slashing and a coda that will either make perfect sense or have you scratching your heads. My advice is to watch it first and, if needs be, visit the IMDb forum thread for V/H/S afterwards, where users make convincing arguments as to what’s actually happened here.

"Tuesday the 17th" follows. In it, Wendy (Norma C Quinones) drives her friends Samantha (Jeannine Elizabeth Yoder), Joey (Drew Moerlein) and Spider (Jason Yachanin) to the woods were they plan to camp next to an old lake. Between them, they fit the usual slasher movie profiles: respectively, they are the resilient ‘good girl’, the hot cheerleader-type slut, the Jock and the dopehead nerd.

It turns out that Wendy has vacationed here previously, and tells the others a tale of how her friends were all murdered by a psycho in the woods. Their killer was never apprehended.

Laughing this off as a tall tale, the others busy themselves with the usual hi-jinks: drinking, fucking and swimming in the lake. But then the murders begin, and Wendy’s motivation for returning to the woods is revealed …

Lighter in tone to begin with than the preceding segments, this one comes from Glenn McQuaid – the guy behind I SELL THE DEAD. Performances are decent even if the characters aren’t particularly likeable. There’s an agreeable energy to this gory offering, but the whole thing is compromised by an unconvincing monster and some woeful CGI. There’s no real point to it either, come the end.

"The Sick Thing That Happened To Emily When She Was Younger" (from Joe Swanberg, SILVER BULLETS) comes at just the right time, if only because it comprises of a series of Skype conversations and therefore employs largely static camerawork. It’s something of a relief after all the spastic motion of the first three segments. Performances are a little quieter in the main here too – another bonus at this point in the game.

The scenario finds pretty Emily (Helen Rogers) in her new apartment, speaking on Skype to her boyfriend James (Daniel Kaufman). He’s a trainee doctor and can’t get to her until the end of term (or "fall break", if we must).

Their interchanges soon become fixated on the strange noises emanating from her ceiling, a lump in her arm that starts to go bad and ghostly goings on in her kitchen. As Emily gets more and more fraught, James can only watch helplessly and scream at the screen for her to get out and get some help.

This one starts rather conventionally, even when it gets a little spooky in its mid-section. But the final third throws in an original twist which turns viewers’ expectations upside-down. I liked it.

Finally it’s time for "10/31/98", from short filmmaker and punk rocker Matt Bettinelli-Olpin (a.k.a. Radio Silence). Eagle-eyed readers have probably already guessed that this one is set on Halloween night, 1998.

In it four drunken friends dress up in really poor costumes (a pirate, a bear etc) and drive out in search of a house party they’ve been told of. Upon arriving at the supposed destination, they enter the building and are amused to find it apparently empty.

Searching the place proves to be a source of much more frivolity for the foursome. When they finally find their hosts in the attic, seemingly in the midst of hanging a witch, they continue to giggle at the "theatrics". But then things go awry …

Though reasonably well-executed, this final segment again suffers from protagonists who deserve to die and a final act that can’t live up to the build-up. The CGI poltergeist tomfoolery seems misplaced here too.

Co-produced by the guys at Bloody Disgusting, V/H/S is admirable in its ambition to pay homage to shot-on-video horrors by way of the found footage genre. Even more so, as it manages to nod towards other horror genres along the way: haunted houses, demonic possession, ghost stories, psycho slashers and vampires all come into play.

But as with most anthologies this is a mixed bag. Its worst offence is in its repetition. Each segment – and the wraparound – has a reliance on jump-scares and panicked crescendos where characters run around with a handheld camera screaming "Oh shit! Oh Shit!" noisily into the screen. Then, of course, on each occasion the footage tends to cut out and blur haphazardly across the screen in a sea of static interference. The techniques soon become tiresome.

Also, it was a tad disappointing how the wraparound story didn’t really come to a satisfying conclusion. Nor did it bring all the others together in any logical thematic manner, which made it seem all the more pointless.

Still, there are a few good ideas here and the occasionally tense moment to be enjoyed. V/H/S is certainly one of the better horror anthologies of late … but then, that’s not really saying much.

Metrodome’s DVD presents V/H/S uncut in anamorphic widescreen, retaining its original aspect ratio. Judging the picture quality is not straightforward as proceedings are shot in a deliberately lo-fi, handheld fashion to replicate VHS horrors of yore. Natural lighting is used for the most part and consequently there are many scenes that are intentionally either overly dark or rather drab and grey-looking. Having said that, the film is perfectly watchable and the transfer is a solid representation of how the film should look.

English audio is provided in 2.0 and 5.1 options, both of which sound good for the most part. Optional English subtitles are easy to read at all times.

The disc opens with the novel image of its copyright warning being written on the dead guy’s TV from "Tape 56".

From there, an animated main menu page leads into a static scene-selection menu allowing access to V/H/S via 12 chapters.

Extras begin with the film’s original 2-minute trailer. If you’ve seen this on YouTube, you’ll already know that it’s a fair representation of what the main feature has to offer.

An 89-second alternate ending is heavy on the shouting (as is the film in general).

3 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage from "Amateur Night"’s shoot find its director on goofy form.

More substantial are interviews with Rogers (7 minutes) and "Emily"/"Tape 56" writer Simon Barrett (5 minutes). Both of these are conducted via Skype by Swanberg. These are light-hearted but worthy and engaging chats.

Lastly, we’re treated to 2 minutes of outtakes from the "Tuesday the 17th" shoot.

V/H/S is fast-paced and frequently trying to scare its viewers witless. It also earns credit for covering so many horror sub-genres within its 111-minute running time. But at the same time it’s noisy, populated by loathsome characters and quite repetitive.

As with most anthologies, the results are mixed. The same can be said of Metrodome’s DVD.

Also available on blu-ray.

Review by Stuart Willis