V/H/S arrived in 2012 as an inventive novelty with its combination of found footage and horror anthology, but it wasn’t until nine years later, with 2021’s V/H/S/94, that the franchise really went from cult hit to seasonal phenomenon with its leap over to the horror-focused streamer Shudder. The ongoing co-production between Shudder and V/H/S’s OG home of Bloody Disgusting has kept the same components ever since – five or so found footage horror shorts directed by a cache of new and veteran horror directors, packaged in a framing story – while adding a new topping of an encompassing theme linking all of them together. Whether it’s been the calendar year of their setting, like V/H/S’s 94, 85, and 99 or a shared genre like the sci-fi steeped V/H/S/Beyond, that connective tissue has been the franchise’s secret weapon since its 2021 revival. For V/H/S/Halloween, the move to the spookiest time of year plays as both a long-time coming and a pay-off well worth the wait in the newest chapter of the series.
The framing story of V/H/S/Halloween, titled “Diet Phantasma” and directed by Bryan M. Ferguson, keeps a dash of Beyond’s sci-fi DNA with its sinister laboratory setting and twisted experiment of testing a new soda brand on handpicked test subjects. The new beverage, of course, has horrifyingly gory side effects of the supernatural and The Thing-inspired sort, with the carbonated carnage intercut with the five shorts that comprise Halloween’s anthology. The segments kick off extremely strong with Anna Zlokovic’s “Coochie Coochie Coo”, following two teenagers embarking on one last pre-college trick or treating excursion, and finding themselves trapped in a house that’s soon unveiled as the most evil nursery setting imaginable. Zlokovic’s direction puts a nightmarish spin on a mother nurturing her “children”, complete with make-up effects on the sinister villainess “Mommy” and her captive kids that at once leave both everything and nothing to the imagination, including in the segment’s horrifyingly surreal ending.
The second short, “Ut Supra Sic Infra”, centers on a police investigation of an unexplained crime scene that a singular survivor escaped from, with the segment taking a bit too long to get everything on the table. Nonetheless, Paco Plaza of the REC franchise still delivers a marvelous pay-off in the short’s climactic assault of scares of the surprisingly (and literally) gravity-defying sort. The third short, Casper Kelly’s “Fun Size”, is a Halloween horror lover’s delight, following a group of adult trick or treaters who ignore the warning label on an unattended candy bowl of “one per person” and find themselves pulled into a Saw-style version of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory with the addition of some scary clown villainy in the mix. “Fun Size” essentially ends neck-and-neck with “Coochie Coochie Coo” as the best short of Halloween, and it most definitely takes the crown of the movie’s sickest segment with the brand of fun-sized Halloween treats produced in the short’s assembly line.
The fourth segment “Kidprint”, helmed by Alex Ross Perry, centers on a photography shop taking snap shots of kids to be used by police in the event of a missing children situation, with the shop revealed as a front for that exact kind of child abduction by an employee flying under the radar. “Kidprint” is perhaps the creepiest of Halloween’s shorts in its own way due to the genuinely realistic scenario of its plot, with the short pulling no punches on the terror of child abduction, but Perry’s direction and the short’s surprise reveal of the culprit behind it all give it a power worthy of the V/H/S franchise’s standard of scares. The fifth short, Micheline Pitt-Norman & R.H. Norman’s “Home Haunt”, rounds out Halloween with a short that is a true All Hallow’s Eve nightmare of a haunted house’s ostensibly mechanical attractions coming to life. “Home Haunt” dives into its roller-coaster of scares a bit more swiftly than the other shorts, but nonetheless delivers a true powder keg of fright topped off with a decidedly Wicked-reminiscent villainess on a broom.
If the last three V/H/S movies showed the flexibility of the franchise in taking place in any time period in which the VHS format existed, V/H/S/Halloween seems to chart the franchise’s next evolution of using different holidays and dates on the calendar as the framework for future installment. Already, one can see the V/H/S faithful enthusiastically gearing up for some Yuletide fright in a hypothetical V/H/S/Christmas as the franchise’s next installment. With a run as frighteningly fun as V/H/S has been since its return, it’s a Halloween tradition that horror fans should do anything but Shudder to see continue for years to come.
V/H/S/Halloween will debut on Shudder this Friday, October 3rd.
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The Review
V/H/S/Halloween
The V/H/S franchise is evolving from time-period settings to holiday-themed installments, with V/H/S/Halloween teasing future entries like a potential V/H/S/Christmas, cementing its place as a frightfully fun tradition horror fans don’t want to see end.
Review Breakdown
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Verdict
