V/H/S/Halloween
Directors/Writers: Bryan M. Ferguson, Anna Zlokovic, Paco Plaza, Casper Kelly, Alex Ross Perry, Micheline Pitt-Norman, R.H. Norman
V/H/S/Halloween is one of those movies that feels inevitable. Once the long-running horror anthology series — all themed around found footage you might discover tucked away on a VHS tape — started tapping into specific themes for individual entries, a Halloween version was just a matter of time. It's the perfect pairing, especially if you're of an age where, like me, you remember pulling Halloween specials and old horror movies out on scratchy video cassettes for seasonal enjoyment.
With all that in mind, it would have been easy for Halloween to be a V/H/S film that coasts by on vibes and solid production design, giving us nostalgia for our own trick-or-treating days while not really doing much else. The vibes are certainly there, and the production design is note-perfect, but at its Fantastic Fest world premiere this month V/H/S/Halloween did anything but coast, delivering one of the strongest entries in the franchise thus far.
Like so many past V/H/S films, we get six segments this time, including one frame narrative, "Diet Phantasma," which takes the form of proprietary video tapes documenting shadowy tests on a new, potentially deadly soda. This segment, directed by Bryan M. Ferguson, recurs throughout the film, breaking into the other segments with new peeks at test subjects reacting violently and hilariously to a soda that seems to have ghosts right there in the formula. It's the least Halloween-y of any of the segments, but its cartoonish depiction of corporate greed makes it an engaging dark comedy.
With the frame story in place, the film wastes no time diving into the rest of the segments. In Anna Zlokovic's "Coochie Coochie Coo," a pair of teens out for their last Halloween together run across a local cryptid in an inescapable house. Paco Plaza's "Ut Supra Sic Infra" takes us to the aftermath of a bloody massacre involving the abandoned home of a spirit medium, while Casper Kelly's "Fun Size" brings the most lighthearted story of the bunch as a group of adults try to trick-or-treat and find something terrifying at the bottom of an impossible candy bowl.
From there, the film moves from hilarious to jaw-droppingly unsettling with Alex Ross Perry's "Kidprint," a throwback to the days when parents would make videotapes of their children to play in case they went missing. I'm hesitant to say anything more about where this one goes, but it's not for the faint of heart. Fortunately, we get a little lighter again at the end with "Home Haunt" by Micheline Pitt-Norman and R.H. Norman, in which one family's handmade haunted house attraction goes hilariously, amazingly off the rails.
As with every V/H/S installment, each fan will have their own favorite segments. For me, "Home Haunt" is immediately in the franchise's Hall of Fame. It's funny, it's scary, it pushes its concept to absolutely unhinged levels, and it also manages to be about a family whose former Halloween innocence is fading as their children get older.
"Home Haunt" far from the only bright spot. "Fun Size," with its initial hook of a seemingly sentient candy bowl, draws you in right away, and then pushes into something that's equal parts cartoonish and horrifying. These are the kinds of segments a movie like V/H/S/Halloween seems to be promising from jump, and they do not disappoint.
But tonal variance is also vital to the success of this franchise. The overall impression is one of ghoulish fun by the time the credits roll, but there are still filmmakers working within these segments that are doing their best to go for the absolute throat, bringing the horror in full force. For that, we turn to Perry, who with "Kidprint" has delivered what's easily one of the most shocking, bleak, and frightening segments in the history of the franchise. Part of the fun of building an anthology film around Halloween — and the reason there are more than a few predecessors to this one in that regard — is playing with the absolute darkest fears we all have about this night, a night when everyone is theoretically allowed to be the most free version of themselves even as the world retains its horrors. In framing Halloween as a cultural event where anything can happen, we leave the door open to the absolute best of us, but also the worst, and Perry's segment represents that darker side with gusto and unflinching power.
These are the highlights of the V/H/S/Halloween experience, but there is by no means a weak link in this chain. Zlokovic's segment represents one of the most unsettling watches in franchise history, Plaza's segment is devilishly clever, and Ferguson's frame story is both vintage V/H/S and recalls great horror satires like Larry Cohen's The Stuff.
A good V/H/S movie should make you feel like a kid at the end of the night on Halloween, home in your bed, too wired to sleep, stomach bursting with goodies. It should feel like too much, and yet the more you think about the heights of it, the more you crave it again. V/H/S/Halloween is that kind of movie, a thrilling, chilling horror rollercoaster that never slows down and leaves you giddy with the atmosphere of it all. I had a blast, and I'm betting you will too.
V/H/S/Halloween premieres October 3 on Shudder.
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