V/H/S Directors: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, David Bruckner, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez, Ti West
Cast: Adam Wingard, Joe Swanberg, Jason Yachanin, Chad Villella, Joe Sykes.
Art directors: Lanie Faith Marie Overton, Raymond Carr
Cinematography: Ti West, Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Glenn McQuaid
Running time: 93 minutes
Aahh, the found footage horror! That already much maligned, copied and cliched staple of the modern horror genre has some life in it yet, apparently. Not so long ago, it was 'Chronicle' which seemed to be the last film capable of telling a genuinely gripping story in the genre(or is that medium? After all, as a comics fan I never tire of informing people that comics are more than just a method of dispensing tales in the superhero genre. Anyway.....), before that 'Lake Mungo' had significantly veered from the gruesome path carved out by the likes of 'Cloverfield', 'Apollo 13' & 'Grave Encounters' to introduce a more subtle, eerie and suspenseful tale of grief, loss and freaky doings. Now, subverting the standard beyond anything I've seen before, we have 'V/H/S', a found footage anthology like no other from the twisted minds of Ti West and co.
Although I already had an idea I may have enjoyed 'V/H/S', given its legendary rave reviews from last year's festival screenings, I was still unprepared for exactly how much fun it would be to watch the static cam segments wrap around each other and unfold before me. It was more a rabbit hole of films within films, webcam footage playing on videotape and recorded onto DVD's to be edited on a computer. Of course that last line is just a bizarre thought I had while watching the film, but it also kind of proves my point about how engaging the film was to watch as an 'event', as much as a movie.
These stories within stories work so well that even those segments that felt slightly less fresh and inventive than the others still have a genuine purpose to fulfill in the overall story, and so their flaws became easier to overlook. Strong echoes of non-found footage chillers such as 'Ring', 'Vacancy', 'The Signal'(whose writer & Director appear here on: ) and even the more recent 'Cabin In The Woods', as well as just about every other haunted house, vampire, alien abduction film there has ever been don't make the film feel any less inventive, either. In fact, what sets 'V/H/S' apart is that its structure allows for a pretty much relentless pace, eschewing much of the usual dull and pointless exposition, while sacrificing overcooked character development in favour of delivering short, sharp, nasty & scary shocks in as many ways as possible. In a format which often leaves viewers with that unique form of motion sickness that only incredibly shaky, handheld footage on a big screen can provide, I find it's best to get straight to the story anyway. Also, before we even get time to catch our breath after each of the vignettes reaches its conclusion, we land back in the freaky world of the framing tale and our interest in the overall narrative is piqued once more.
One aspect in particular that interested me was that despite on the surface utilising a more or less obsolete format, there are enough modern references in each of the film's segments to make me wonder if an occult glimpse of the future was even one of the plot points. The various recording devices we see include a nanny cam sewn into the mask of a bear costume, a hi-tech spycam concealed in the lenses of an ordinary pair of over-sized glasses, while plain old, ordinary, everyday webcams are employed in a very creepy sequence which manages to tell its story entirely through online conversations between an archetypal alone-in-the-house girl and her apparently long distance boyfriend. These inventive and relatively modern methods of video recording appeared to comfortably contradict the film's retro feel, which I felt lent a slightly off-kilter and mysterious air to the film. When the characters of the original, framing narrative settle down to watch the other segments on old VHS tapes, I was never sure if they were in fact watching some form of 'broadcasts from the future', a bit like the psychic dreams seen in John Carpenter's cerebral schlock classic, 'Prince Of Darkness'. Either way, I doubt they could be more freaked out by the contents of each tape, given their contents and the circumstances in which they find themselves watching. So, in conclusion, and in case you didn't notice how much I clearly like the movie, let me just say that I would recommend it to any fan of the horror genre, and/or 'Found Footage' medium, without hesitation.
