As Above, So Below (2014)

Well this fits nicely next to Verónica, because writer/director John Erick Dowdle also directed Quarantine, the American remake of [Rec]. It all ties in!

Maybe because it was actually filmed in the Paris catacombs, or that there are some genuine moments of "oh fuuuck", or that I was reminded that it follows Dante's Inferno... and maybe all three, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this the second time around.

This found footage flick follows a group as they break into the intensely claustrophobic catacombs that lie beneath Paris. They're searching, we're shown in annoying scenes of exposition/set-up, for a mysterious ancient stone and possibly treasure, too. Lead character Scarlett (Perdita Weeks) is a tomb-raider style daredevil daughter of some old bloke who discovered the secrets of alchemy. Or something. I dunno, it's not really that important.

On their underground adventures, Scarlett and her accumulated crew (including Ben Feldman, "Ginsberg" from Mad Men) find both the desired stone and loot, but in the process, they also encounter cults, violent apparitions of their past, and maybe even Satan himself.

Honestly, the plot is kind of secondary to what Dowdle is trying to achieve (down) here. 

Rather than do the decent thing of just losing their minds with fright after the first cave-in, the group continues on as they become repeatedly trapped and blocked in their passage through the catacombs; journeying deeper, further, squeezing through tiny tunnels and dropping down bottomless-looking pits.

For an atheist, I do still find religious/blasphemous-tinged horror pretty unnerving when done correctly (just ask Baskin) and so as the weary travellers realised they may be descending into Hell, I definitely found it an unnerving experience. The imposing darkness and impossibly labyrinthine routes they take don't help to un-jangle the nerves, either.

❝According to mythology, that's the inscription over the gates of hell.❞

 − Scarlett.

As the group thins, we learn more about what this system of caves really represent, and how the remaining individuals might escape. The aspect of the narrative with the mystical stone is absurd, but at least it allows for some more scares.

Two impressive set pieces have always stuck in my mind from this film, even when I initially wasn't convinced of its merits. The burning car deep underground, and the manhole cover scene at the film's end. For all the irritation I felt at Scarlett & Co. at times, the inventiveness and audacity to conceive of and execute both of these ideas is something I must tip my hat to. 

As Above, So Below is an effective, imaginatively claustrophobic nightmare punctuated by solid scares. It must have played brilliantly in a cinema environment.

Ignore the earnest jabbering at the beginning and stick with it, it's streaming on Netflix now.

I ❤ U The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The Blair Witch Project hits Shudder US today! To celebrate, I thought I'd jot down a Zombie Cupcake "take" on the movie, since I never actually have. After a recent re-watch I've been having some feels about this one!

For years I felt kind of embarrassed admitting I loved this film, but not any more. Watching it through recently, and then again with the thoroughly entertaining and informative commentary track, it clarified that this is definitely one of my favourite horror films for a few reasons. Over the years I confess feeling a tinge of embarrassment whenever I've been asked to name the scariest film I've ever seen... because honestly, nothing has ever come close to terrifying me as much as this did when I saw it in '99.

Yes, it's been something of a divisive movie ever since its release. The "slowness" of the story; the shaky-cam; the "why are they still filming" aspect and Heather being a "bitch"... Ugh, I don't agree but I get it. Like I said in my Blair Witch review though, whatever your opinion of The Blair Witch Project, you have to admit it was a milestone in horror history. 

Coming out of nowhere, successfully creating mystery around itself - the cast’s IMDB profiles had the actors labeled as "missing, presumed dead" for a full year! - and using the internet in a way that was unheard of at the time. This shit went viral before viral even existed.

"Missing" poster as marketing for the film.

Written and directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, the movie is a beautifully crafted piece of cinema where the more you learn about it, the more impressed you'll become. 

Compiled, as it claims to be, from the footage taken by Heather, Mike and Josh (Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams and Joshua Leonard) The Blair Witch Project was mostly shot over six days as the actors camped and hiked in the woods, working off of personal "this is your motivation" prompt notes left by the crew. What we see today is thanks to intelligent guidance, expert editing (the Sundance screening apparently showed a different cut) and immersed, improvised acting. The breaking-point exhaustion we see as the film advances was real, and by the final days the three were only given bare minimum food rations to increase their irritability and encourage more anxiety and conflict on film.

Heather (Heather Donahue)

Heather Donahue's casting is called the single best decision of the entire project, and is a powerful but often maligned force of a character in this film. I always had a fondness for her, but my appreciation of the depiction of her has only grown as I've gotten older. Heather is something of a control freak, and she knows what she wants and how she wants it (umm, I can relate). The word "project" is right there in the film's title, and it's her project. Much of the movie is taken from her point of view as she's the one that insists on keeping her camera rolling, even after things take a sinister turn.

Mike (Michael C. Williams)

We meet Heather as a pitch perfect self-righteous film maker, and we leave her running through that house screaming - the audio accompanying her footage coming from Mike's camera making it all fantastically disjointed and unreal - and finally, she's on the floor of the basement. Fade to black.

Much we take for granted in this movie was actually a decision made by the actors (or a happy accident) as they were left to their own devices. If, after reviewing the day's footage Myrick and Sánchez thought someone needed guiding in a slightly different direction, then that was done. But generally they took what the actors gave them, discarded what they thought didn't work (much more, much nastier bickering between the men and Heather found its way to the cutting room floor in an effort to make the audience more sympathetic towards them) and then they spun indie horror movie gold with the rest.

Josh (Joshua Leonard) who lost that sick tooth necklace in the woods :(

Did you know that some of the townspeople at the start were real townspeople from the area? The actors presented themselves in-character so they got natural reactions from the public. Some were plants, too; actors hired and given a story to tell. The stand-out, the lady with the little kid who says "no!" was a real person who made her tale up on the spot (and had to be tracked down to sign a release form!).

Many clever shot set-ups were accidental or actor-driven, rather than anything suggested by the directors. Heather's iconic confession was self-scripted, and the framing of this shot was by mistake. The Blair Witch Project is a wonderful combination of glorious group effort and luck.

As for my personal reaction, marketing and trivia aside, it still creeps me out to this day. When I first saw it I don't remember necessarily thinking it was real, but I did get completely sucked in by the found-footage approach - and remain to this day a fan of imaginative found-footage movies. Whether I was just unaccustomed to horror (or this kind of horror) on the big screen or whatever the reason may have been, I was in full foetal position in my seat with a pounding heart by the end of the movie. Definitely one of those moments you love/hate and spend years trying to recapture!

Even watching the collection of alternative endings (spoiler: none of them work as well as the one they chose) spooked me. There's just something about that final sequence; the hysterical screaming, the house, that basement... I still find it frightening.

It's so cool that Shudder is adding this to their catalogue. But don't forget that there are some great extras on the Blu-ray if you feel like owning it permanently. There are so many amazing little details given in the commentary (the "taco" code word if anyone needed to break character; the stick-man affectionately named Chewbacca) so if you are a fan, it's an excellent investment.

The sequel, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 also hits Shudder today. I remember not being wholly convinced when I saw it, thinking it felt too much like a studio cash-in. Kind of excited to watch it again and see if that still stands.

What's your opinion on the original, or even that 2000 sequel? Lover, hater? Let me know!

Lake Nowhere (2014)

*kisses fingertips*

Coming in at a mere 50mins long (including the amazing fake trailers and ads at the start) Lake Nowhere is a small but perfectly formed homage to 80s slashers, complete with its own deliciously weird spin on things.

If you're old enough to be nostalgic about watching scary movies on VHS and all of the character-building little details it involved, like murky visuals, tracking lines and glitches, then this film is something you're going to want to check out.

Written by Ryan Scott Fitzgerald and Christopher Phelps, and directed by Phelps and Maxim Van Scoy, Lake Nowhere keeps it simple but strong in two important aspects.

Story. A group of friends (and a dog) arrive at a remote lakeside cabin for the weekend and set about merrily exploring, chopping wood, and settling down for a couple of days of fun. They drink, smoke some pot, have some sex - the usual.

What they don't anticipate is a masked killer lurking around outside (cue lots of cool POV peeping shots). To say any more would give too much away... but rather like a micro budget version of The House of the Devil, this largely sticks to well-worn horror paths. Where and how both elevate themselves above mere imitation and remain an actively enjoyable watch, is due to the fact they're so clearly made with a deep love and understanding of the genre.

Lake Nowhere gets so much, so right. Plus there's also enough of a twist in the tail to still shock.

One of my favourite shots.

Style. I've never had a movie so perfectly mimic the behaviour of VHS, to the point where ancient muscle memory kicked in and I almost found myself reaching for the remote to try and stabilise the playback.

To the haters on Amazon leaving bad reviews because of the picture quality: I truly pity your misunderstanding of this aspect of the movie! ️🤦

The titles and soundtrack/score too, are spot on. Bright red words glare at us over grainy shots of the shoreline, and the upbeat rock music played by the kids sits perfectly next to scuzzy atmospheric electro.

I debated showing the screenshot directly above, but want to draw attention to what a simple, eerie choice this was to have the killer's eyes upside down when shown. These shots are extremely creepy as they punctuate the film. Genius idea.

This is honestly the kind of horror movie that makes fans want to make movies. It took a little over a year from concept to screen; was funded by the makers themselves and an Indiegogo campaign, then shot in just 6 days at a last minute back-up location. Lake Nowhere is a solid gold example of creating something beautiful if you have the guts to go for it.

I wrote simply "YES" and the end of my notes for this.

Seriously considering buying one of the posters from their aptly dated looking official site.

See it, see it, see it!

I watched on Shudder but it's also available on Google Play, Amazon Prime and Vimeo.

Blair Witch (2016)

Google this film and you'll be met with a smorgasbord of rating aggregate sites, all basically giving it a huge thumbs down. And no, it's not perfect, but I think Blair Witch has been given a rougher deal than it really deserves.

Of course, it was always going to be impossible to match The Blair Witch Project in terms of audience reception and cultural reaction. By no means the first found footage horror film (for that we could go all the way back to Cannibal Holocaust, and arguably further. Plus I'll always mention that The Last Broadcast came out a year before The Blair Witch Project did) it was a movie in the right place at the right time, breaking out into the mainstream and grossing nearly $250 million from a budget of just $60,000. Whatever your opinion of The Blair Witch Project, you have to admit it was a milestone in horror history.

So with that, despite this being another Wingard and Barrett dream team effort (like A Horrible Way To Die, You're Next, The Guest), this sequel is just "good" rather than "great".

The plot is simple: James (James Allen McCune) is the brother of Heather (Heather Donahue) from the original film, and has understandably never got over her mysterious and violent disappearance. After discovering previously unseen footage depicting (he thinks) Heather inside the same creepy AF house from the climax of The Blair Witch Project, he gathers a group of friends and locals to venture into the woods to investigate, so they can figure out once and for all what the hell is going on.

The gearing up sequences are a necessary but annoying start to the tale. Yes, it makes total sense to introduce newer technology, as the events shown here are meant to have taken place in 2014. So as well as the updated camcorder, we have a quadcopter/drone (I still can't decide if it was underused or used just enough) and the biggest cam contrivance: "earpiece cams". Even though they look like a bluetooth headset, these cameras seem to be able to film a full POV from the wearer...? There's also numerous mentions of SD cards and battery life, but ultimately none of that becomes relevant - so why bother mentioning it?

Of course, it makes sense why we have all this techy exposition up front. It's part and parcel of found footage, just like the "oh no, I lost cell service!" moment in modern horrors; we have to have an excuse for all the different camera angles. It's just my least favourite moment in any of these films, because it rarely plays as anything but clunky.

James and Lisa, with his "earpiece cam" visible.

Where the original was an exercise in long form improv, this was fully scripted, and the cast do a good job with what is essentially a lot of shouting and whimpering (there's even a small homage to Heather's to-camera crying moment). Callie Hernandez as Lisa has the most to do, and commits fully and convincingly, especially during an intensely claustrophobic sequence in the third act.

I'm interested to see more of her - and excited to see that she stars in The Endless, a movie I've been looking forward to for a while now.

Something unexpected was how reminiscent I found this to be of The Ritual. The nighttime sounds of the first film having evolved from children's voices and twigs snapping, to the screams of wolves and entire trees being torn down. The sound of something so massive out there in the dark made me think of The Ritual (*spoiler*! -->) and an immense old god lumbering around picking off unfortunate human visitors. I'd like to think maybe the witch has grown so powerful in the 20 years that this is kind of the case?

My one main problem with this movie comes at the very end. By now we all know that it's 'decent horror 101' not to show the monster - or at least not too much of it. However the glimpses we get of the "entity" here are way too lingering. This choice from these horror minds is surprising, and as horrible as the fiend may ever be to look at, some of the fear always drops off once you see it.

Despite this, Blair Witch is a competent handling of the evolution of the story, even if it rarely shows the finesse and imagination that we have come to expect from Wingard and Barrett. It still made me bring my knees up and pull up a blanket, ready to hide behind, and that sense of tension and unknown terror is such an important part of the Blair Witch story. Being lost in the woods at night is scary on a primal level, and these moments, though they mostly entail running, screaming and yelling, are satisfying to experience - even if they aren't anything particularly new.

A Wingard/Barrett 1.5 is still a strong 3 in the grand scheme of things! Speaking as someone who was properly obsessed with the original, this is decent follow-up, certainly making me re-live some of those feelings from '99! On Hulu at time of writing... I'd recommend it with the lights down and something to hide behind.

Angst (1983)

Coming off the back of a true crime binge (I pretty much constantly listen to true crime stuff, but recently it's been particularly intense) I've been tempering my desire to watch home invasion horror movies. This is a sub-genre I really enjoy, but part of that enjoyment stems from the fact it's one of the most terrifying.

Nevertheless! Once I realised it was on Shudder, I couldn't put off watching Angst (alternative title Schizophrenia) for very long. This may well be the granddaddy of home invasion movies, and it is a relentlessly unsettling experience.

Made in Austria (in German, with subtitles) and directed by Gerald Kargl - causing such controversy and box office backlash upon its release that he never made another movie - Angst is based on the true case of mass murderer Werner Kniesek and even utilizes phrasing from real confessions...

(How do you know you're too deep into true crime? When you can identify real confession dialogue without being told...)

The story chronicles the first 24 hours of freedom of "K", a psychopathic murderer. We not only follow K (an astonishing performance by Erwin Leder, whose other roles include Das Boot, and er, Underworld) but we're inside his head, too; hearing all of the manic thoughts, twisted leaps of logic and sickening plans that pass through his damaged brain.

Angst has us witness, in painstaking detail and intimacy, every single moment of this man's mania; the entire spectrum from an almost hysterical bloodlust, through sweat (and semen :/) drenched murders, to the post-kill clean up and groggy comedown, to thinking about doing it all over again.

We see him leave prison and immediately begin the hunt. Like a true addict, he's desperately uncomfortable and barely able to function, he needs to spill blood so much. We watch as one-by-one he chooses victims and dismisses them, finally finding a satisfactory set-up: a huge but strangely devoid of furniture house to break into, and a family to terrorize.

Sparse of dialogue in-scene, much of the exposition comes from either a doctor, giving comprehensive background and the medical/criminal diagnoses of K; or the man himself, narrating his obsessive frenzy.

He speaks incessantly of his "plan", although this spree repeatedly plays out like he's close to losing control of the situation. In one of many choices made that tinge the film with horrible realism, K is not a "cool" looking dude (see: most serial killers are awkward, conventionally unattractive individuals). He is a thin, sweaty, rat-faced man. His strength comes from his psychosis, not from his physical stature, and so even though he possess a terrifying presence, he is also barely able to move his hostages, alive or dead. There are numerous, uncomfortably protracted scenes of him dragging his victims from room to room.

"Visceral" is a word that gets thrown around a lot in this genre, and there are definitely a couple of instances in this movie where that word springs to mind.

Learning that Gaspar Noé is a fan of Angst came as absolutely no shock, and the sickening violence and profound sadness of Irreversible now makes a little more sense. Tonally both films are brutal in subject matter and uncompromising in their portrayal of it. They're also both aggressively visual pieces of cinema.

The cinematography in Angst was by Zbigniew Rybczynski who, I was excited to learn, was the director of a short I became slightly obsessed with a couple of months ago! 

The camerawork often takes on a dynamic, experimental style: when K runs, the vertigo-inducing "SnorriCam" is used; our viewpoint appears abnormally high up in some scenes, and too low to the ground in others; outside, what today would be a simple drone shot, must have taken some doing in the early 80s to achieve, as the camera lifts so high we're able to watch K from a bird's eye view as he runs around the house's estate opening gates and jumping over walls. 

And good luck forgetting the faces of Angst, in all of their grotesque close-up glory.

Every aspect of this film was a choice to provoke unease. Even the soundscapes are unnerving, with the score a repetitive synth march or a low-note dread-filled dirge, and normally innocuous noises such as footsteps and chewing food are blown up on the soundtrack to monstrous versions of the real thing.

Films that dwell so heavily on the viewpoint of a cold-blooded killer are always going to be for the strong of stomach, and the depths to which K sinks are matched only by the fact that we sink there too, in witnessing every painful second of it. If you want a truly soul-destroying double bill, Angst and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer would be a hell of a way to spend an evening. If the thought of taking stock of what you just participated in doesn't appeal, then maybe give this a hard pass.

Personally, as deeply grim as this film gets, I "enjoyed" it an awful lot for its full on commitment to making me feel so uncomfortable. Like Irreversible, it'll leave you with an empty feeling afterwards - but it's a beautifully constructed, frightening representation of the mind of a psychopath. It's a fucking travesty Kargl never made another movie. I cannot imagine the sights he would have shown us, if THIS was the first thing he had in his head. 

On Shudder right now, and you'll get a content warning if you decide to watch it!

The Blob (1988)

This was a pretty nice one to help ease into my October, as it was just the right balance of 80s cheese; "where have I seen this actor before?" moments, and lovely lovely gooey practical effects.

For the record, the actors I recognised were:

• Shawnee Smith (from the Saw franchise) as female lead Meg
• Kevin Dillon (Entourage) as bad boy Brian with the incredible mullet
• Jack Nance (Twin Peaks' Pete Martell) in a small role as a doctor
• Erika Eleniak (old school Baywatch) as a sleepy drunken date, Vicki

In this remake of the 1958 sci-fi horror classic - real talk: I've never seen that one - a meteorite crashes in a forest near the town of Arborville, California. It makes first contact with a local, and when some teens find him and take him to the hospital, they unwittingly start a series of events that are going to leave one of them, and a lot of the townspeople, dead.

The blob itself (reminding me very much of the psychomagnotheric slime from Ghostbusters 2, which was released a year later) is a lot more dangerous than it appears, and if you let it touch you, you're basically done for. Not great news for the locals, but awesome news for us...!

A whopping $9 million of this film's $19m budget was spent on FX, and it shows! Some bad green screen aside (which must have been inescapable in 1988), the practical effects for gore and blob shenanigans are really impressive and still stand up. The blob genuinely seems terrifying!

Who's going to look after his dog now? :(

In amongst the poor innocent victims of this gooey menace, is one who definitely deserved what he got... and even if his death scene wasn't one of the best, it warranted the biggest cheer. Back then I suppose this type of character was considered funny, if a bit of a slimeball, but watching it now, he just comes off as rapey. 

Parked in his car, complete with a fully stocked bar in the trunk, he's too busy getting gorgeous Vicki drunk to notice the approaching ooze (in a blob POV shot! Genius!). When she passes out, he doesn't think twice about "continuing" the date.

What a creep. Thankfully the blob has quietly made its way into the car, and unfortunately, into poor Vicki too, and it isn't long before this guy is kicking, screaming and dying. Byeeee!

The carnage continues, bravely killing off some characters I wasn't expecting, until a big showdown in the centre of town and a very obvious set-up for a sequel (that never happened due to this being a box office fail at the time).

In a cast of entertaining but still rather clichéd, one-dimensional characters (bad boy, weirdo priest, town sheriff, diner waitress, little brother...) Shawnee Smith's Meg is the most well-rounded, avoiding the trap of shrill female lead and instead emerging as a strong, likeable survivor.

The first time we see her she's a cheerleader, but refreshingly there's no big deal made of her also being a badass wielding a gun by the end. She's just able to do that too, because she's a multi-faceted, "get shit done" kind of person.

She's not technically a final girl, but she's the closest thing to it here, and she's cool.

Side note: I just came across a mention that Joss Whedon had this character in mind as inspiration for Buffy, which makes perfect sense if true.


So The Blob has plenty to recommend it for a pretty chilled out, but fun and pleasingly gross watch:

1. Goo. So much goo. And there's something eminently satisfying about watching the blob pump itself into a tiny enclosed space like a hazmat helmet.
2. A cheeky reference to another film within the horror genre, with the blatant Friday the 13th rip-off the kids are watching. Fact: The real Friday the 13th franchise was on its 7th film by the time this came out!
3. A character getting fatally sucked into a sink,
4. Lighting! Cool 80s lighting throughout, plus X-Files-y shots of huge shards of light cutting through a forest, and hazmat suits with the little light inside. 

Speaking of 80s, we've got a sweet closing credits power ballad, too. Enjoy!

The Dark Tapes (2017)

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that low budget horror films can pretty easily scare the bejesus out of you.

There's a certain charm and ingrained creepiness to something that looks like your imaginative mate could have made it, and these lower branches of the horror tree really have the capacity to capture that feeling horror hounds are constantly chasing. 

Yeah, we want to be "scared", but the emotions are more complex than that. Speaking for myself, some of my favourite horror experiences have been less outright "fright" and more deep discomfort, helplessness and hopelessness. 

Without the gloss of Hollywood, you're one step closer to the dirt.

The Dark Tapes adopts the format which in some ways re-energised the genre. Found-footage movies have been around for years of course - as have horror anthologies - but together they created a beautiful little monster of a sub-genre (a sub-sub-genre?).

With V/H/S (and to a lesser extent, The ABC's of Death) viewers had the same feature-length runtime, but inside it were several stories to enjoy, usually with a wrap-around narrative to tie it all together.

And this too, is a series of found-footage, short spooky tales with a bookend narrative. Although the difference here is that all of the stories are from the same twisted mind, that of writer/director Michael McQuown.

First impressions were favourable, as viewing the trailer was enough to tell me that I probably couldn't comfortably watch this film in the house on my own. The POV's of dark domestic hallways alone ruled that out.

Tension is my absolute favourite thing about horror, and I think it's one of, if not the most important weapon in this genre's arsenal. Even those cheap jump scares from the throwaway summer blockbuster horror movies wouldn't work if the audience wasn't nervous in the first place.

When The Dark Tapes lets itself breathe enough to build tension, it does so very well. The tape entitled "The Hunters & The Hunted" involves a couple in a new home experiencing ghostly activity, and the group brought in to investigate.

The Hunters & The Hunted

Of all the tapes this one is the most grounded in reality, and it benefits greatly from that. If the test for a decent horror sequence is whether or not you find yourself trying to escape into the back of the sofa with your hands over your eyes, then this segment passes.


The thing is, there's a blessing and a curse with film shorts. The makers must find that sweet spot of a strong idea, plus a no-frills, tight delivery of it. With little time to waste, the set-up and tear-down of these stories has to be confident and to the point.

The Dark Tapes felt in places - particularly the wrap-around narrative - that this was a draft or two away from that sweet spot. There's a LOT of exposition at the beginning, delivered in a pretty dry way, so it's easy to become lost (and the danger with being lost, is being bored).

The weakest link in the chain here is "Cam Girls". It asks us to take huge leaps with it, narratively, with a pay-off that will make you scrunch up your face in a "wha? is that it?" rather than an "oh shit!".

Cam Girls

Webcam/skype-centred movies are a real double-edged sword, too. It's so gimmicky that unless you fucking nail it, it doesn't work. 

All of the stories came from an interesting idea though, and "Amanda's Revenge" was another I enjoyed, due to the creative use of film and Brittany Underwood as Amanda. 

Amanda's Revenge

Underwood is the best actor in the entire movie, if playing it a tiny bit too earnest and peppy at times, given what she's apparently going through. With a faint smack of the It Follows about it, the "Amanda's Revenge" tape shows the most imagination and flair, with some creepily stunning shots towards its conclusion.

For a budget of $65,000 this film definitely gave it the old college try, and there are some genuinely imaginative and suspenseful moments here... you just have to wait through some scenes of questionable, unnatural dialogue and an overuse of "scary static". But I've done more for less :)

McQuown and this team are worth keeping on your radar though; apparently there's a sequel in the works, so it'll be interesting to see what a second movie from the same stable is like. Hopefully they'll have sanded down some of the rougher edges and polished the points from their debut that shone through, because they're undoubtedly there... they just need a little work.


The Dark Tapes is available on iTunes here, and a tonne of other places if you want to check it out: Google Play, Vudu, iNDemand (Comcast- Xfinity, Time Warner, Cox, Bright House & more), Dish TV, Amazon, Vubiquity (Verizon Fios, Charter, Sudden Link, Media Com &more), Xbox, Playstation, Sling TV & Vimeo.

V/H/S (2012)

I'm so out of the loop. All I knew of this film was the name, and only then because someone I follow on Instagram posted about it a while back. So I slung it on Netflix without much thought. Sometimes that is really the way to go.

What I quickly gathered was that this is an anthology film! These can work so well when done decently. It can scratch so many horror itches in one single running time, and shorter films have to work harder and be tighter in their execution, because they don't have long to get their shit done.

The film starts like a You've Been Framed from hell: a compilation of faintly unsettling footage plays out before us. There's an attack on a woman in a parking garage and pointless vandalisation of a house... It's not slick, it's not pretty and it's not even that entertaining; it's just odd, gratuitous and uncomfortable to watch.

Well played, V/H/S  I was already feeling like this wasn't going to be a movie I mindlessly let wash over me. There's potential for fidgeting in seats, exclamations - maybe even a few nervous jumps.

The central story which threads the others together, is that of a group of guys breaking into a house under the instructions of an unnamed employer, to retrieve a video cassette. Once inside the house they find not only hundreds of VHS tapes, but also a dead body. Awkward. However they seem pretty unfazed by all this, so they each investigate the house and one by one pick up a tape and start to watch the videos - and as they do, so do we.

(Image from here, as are all the following)

Remember the controversial scene in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer: the one with Henry and Otis watching footage back after taping the murder of a family, and how we the audience don't realise until the last moment that we are watching it back with them? This film kept reminding me of that scene. In pressing 'play' on this film, we are willing accomplices. This is always the case of course, but with found footage - especially of an unpleasant and criminal nature, as here - it's extra creepy when you think about it. We sit there like Henrys and Otis's, on our sofas coolly taking in the awful events, all for our entertainment.

I don't recall there being titles to the shorts during the film itself, but Wiki informs me they go by the following:

Tape 56/frame narrative

Amateur Night

Second Honeymoon

Tuesday The 17th

The Sick Thing That Happened To Emily When She Was Younger

10/31/98

I include them here because titles are cool, and it makes it easier for me to refer to them!

The first, Amateur Night, centres around three guy friends. Here we see how the film makers get around the POV thing for a time, as we're introduced to "video glasses", some hipster looking specs which have a camera and mic inside them. 

Who's got one thumb and probably won't survive the night? This guy!

The kid wearing them goes out on the town with his douchebag friends to pick up girls. All on camera, all without any of the girls knowing, of course. It's a nightmarish sequence in the sense of boozy nights out. Sloppy drunks, getting chucked out of bars... and a spooky intense looking girl who seems to have a thing for our bespectacled friend.

"I like you." has never sounded so scary.

Bringing some drugs and the girls back to their hotel, events progress how you'd assume until... they really don't. Let's just say things turn sour and really, really messy.

What I love about V/H/S is that nothing was what I expected it to be. I may have been out of the horror game for a while now, but genre conventions are strong: you see a narrative unfolding and you think you know where something is heading. These tales are so banal and derivative in their set up, that it comes like a wake-up slap in the face when they then turn out to be something so much more horrible than you had assumed.

Another thing to recommend this film is the fact I couldn't tell if it was a small budget used brilliantly or a large budget used with restraint. The effects are great, but they do what they ought to, and no more. I imagine the found footage vibe helps with coming across more gritty and gross than on slick HD film; the fuzzy, sometimes jumpy visuals wash over everything like a filter so that nothing sticks out and takes you out of the moment.

Second Honeymoon spooked me. Like, watching in broad daylight and I still wanted to crawl out of my skin, spooked. It is probably my favourite of the collection. It's got a dash of the urban myth about it, and I think that's why I liked it so much. That, and it's so incredibly simple.

Also: masks are always scary.

Tuesday The 17th plays like a cabin in the woods type deal, but again, with a twist that keeps you interested. It's the weakest of the bunch in my opinion, but even so it explores a common theme in a way I've never seen before, so must be commended for that.

Between each short the main story progresses, with its own small but chilling developments. Who is the naked person crouched in the basement? How did that apparently dead body move from the chair? (and back again?). Y'know, common questions one finds oneself pondering, from time to time.

The Sick Thing... is yet another simple idea cleverly done. This one features video chatting as an alternative to "why are these people videotaping every single thing they're doing?".

(from here)

It starts as a haunted house deal, complete with classic set-ups like searching a dark room with only one weak light source, and something happening that we and the dude chatting can see, but Emily cannot. Just good old "oh shit!" moments. I enjoyed this one a lot, and at the reveal I was pretty much looking like Emily, there.

When I used to go to horror film festivals, there would be films like these shorts amongst the bigger budget studio ones. I wanted to like them all, to support the people getting out there and becoming a real part of the genre. It was always something of a hit and miss affair though, if they were any good. V/H/S is like a 'best of' mix from one of these events.

I've read that the reception for this film was mixed; complaints of it being too long (it's nearly two hours) and dropping the ball as often as it hits it out of the park. As someone who stepped back from horror because it seemed like nothing and no one was doing anything new or interesting, over and over again, I would consider myself a tough viewer to impress - and impress me V/H/S did.

There are five solid stories here and I would say I was caught unawares 4.5 times by how they developed and concluded. They all tend to reach into different sub-genres, too, so you ultimately feel a full blanket of horror satisfaction!

More horror anthology films please...?

If you've not seen V/H/S, do so. Don't read anything online, just sit and watch and then come back and tell me what you thought! And if you have seen it and its sequel: tell me, should I bother?