Review
As another year passes, we’re treated to another batch of short horrors from our friends over at Shudder with the V/H/S franchise. This time, the focus is on the scariest of holidays: Halloween. Following on from previous V/H/S films, this one features a single frame narrative and five shorts presented within it.
The overall wrapper story is one that, in my opinion, got old very fast. Called “Diet Phantasma,” it centers on an American company, The Octagon Corporation, who are testing a new fizzy drink also called ‘Diet Phantasma’ and recording the results. All the tests seem to involve a demon within each can that kills the drinker in various violent ways. There is no real wrap-up for this segment, just different people dying each time. It’s not the best the franchise has done, though the majority of the previous ones seem to just use a random story to break up the five main shorts.
The first main segment, titled “Coochie Coochie Coo,” features two high school girls going out for one last trick-or-treat run before they each go their separate ways. They are not the most pleasant protagonists, which this anthology seems to have an abundance of, but it is entertaining to watch the loose cannon interact with the smart, careful one. They come across a strange house and, once inside, find they are trapped with a big, creepy woman and a bunch of grown adults with deformed faces who are acting like babies. This is one of my favorite segments from this film and had some truly unsettling, creeping moments.
Next up we have “Ut Supra Sic Infra,” a foreign-language horror set in Mexico. It’s well-edited in that it mixes the police investigation with the incident that kicked it all off. It wastes very little time and builds a good setting. The performances are really well done, too, and there are some good visuals when the horror kicks in. This could have easily been a full-length film.
Next, we have “Fun Size.” First and foremost, I have to say the acting in this one was not good; it kind of pulled me out of the experience. Playing more as a horror-comedy, it involves four people getting kidnapped by a candy man who proceeds to pick each person off and turn them into candy. It’s funny, but I’m not entirely convinced it was meant to be. Overall, it’s not great, but it’s not awful either.
“Kidprint,” the fourth segment, is a low point, though. Set in 1992, it features the owner of a video store who records everything. He offers a service where kids are recorded at the store prior to going trick-or-treating because there’s a child killer on the loose. Showing the store staff in the early minutes already suggests the killer is one of them, if not the owner, and sure enough. The owner goes back to the store in the evening and finds that it is indeed one of his staff members who is not only kidnapping and killing the kids but torturing them as well. Honestly, this just felt all kinds of wrong, but not in the ‘horror is entertaining’ kind of way. It just felt unnecessary and grotesque, and I did not enjoy it at all. It is certainly, in my opinion, a low point for the entire V/H/S franchise.
Finally, we reach the end segment, “Home Haunt.” This was fun—cheesy, silly, and a little bit Treehouse of Horror, but it was a fun concept! It focuses on a man and his son who run a local, traditional haunted house in their backyard. Now that his son is older, the father is forcing him to partake in the tradition. One chance purchase at the local thrift store, however, causes the maze to come alive, and the set pieces begin killing the poor visitors in all sorts of gross ways. The ever-dwindling group runs from room to room, being picked off by all forms of horror until only the original family remain and escape. The segment ends after a comical, green-skinned witch takes the camera and films her little montage of murder, with the final shot suggesting this town is about to get all sorts of haunted!
Verdict
Overall, V/H/S Halloween was fun at times but not the strongest entry in the franchise. I give it points for making each segment Halloween-focused and for testing some unique ideas. “Kidprint” was distasteful and is certainly one of the lowest segments from any V/H/S film, and the overarching narrative should also be retooled to better weave the stories, rather than just featuring “stuff is happening.” I would love to see where they go next with the V/H/S franchise, though, as it’s a great way to experiment with horror without forcing a plot to span an entire film.
⭐⭐⭐.5
