Although it has had a number of wobbles here and there, the V/H/S series has become an enduring, and largely satisfying, horror anthology series. Others may disagree, but that's my opinion and this is my space for sharing my opinions on movies. I appreciate the commitment to the aesthetic, I have loved some of the wilder tales, and some of the imagery has been up there with the weirdest and wildest in the horror genre. So I was looking forward to this latest instalment, V/H/S/85.
I'm not even sure to begin with this review. I suppose I should simply say that I REALLY disliked this. It is easily the worst in the series, taking that position previously held by V/H/S: Viral, and the worst part is that very few of the stories have that sense of glee present in the rest of the series. Although two "punchlines" worked well enough to make me smirk.
There's a wraparound tale, helmed by David Bruckner, about a life-form being observed in a lab. The first of the main tales, directed by Mike P. Nelson, then shows us a group of people fooling around by a lake. All is well and good until it isn't, and this was my favourite tale, especially when it connected and was given a proper resolution later in the film. Then it's on to Gigi Saul Guerrero's tale of people trying to escape the devastating effects of an earthquake that has caused carnage in Mexico. Natrasha Kermani then brings us a retro-tech tale that delivers some gore while also mocking pretentious performance art. We then get Nelson returning, his second segment as enjoyable as it is disappointingly brief. I would rather have had more of this than the time wasted with a couple of other tales, including the next one, a twisted serial killer gorefest directed by Scott Derrickson that has a young man being able to record dreams that prophecise the future.
As well as the directors just mentioned also writing their segments, with the exception of Bruckner and Kermani, who are given story credits, writing comes from C. Robert Cargill, Zoe Cooper, and Evan Dickson. I cannot muster the enthusiasm to specify exactly who is responsible for each segment, so everyone can share the blame and the small amount of praise in equal measure.
As for the cast, most of them do perfectly fine within the limitations of the style, although the only people who stand out are those involved in the segments helmed by Mike P. Nelson, thanks to the fact that they are given a decent amount of time to show their interactions with one another, making them more realistic and fleshed out, before things start to tilt into the crazy horror.
I don't want to give anything away, the aim of each tale is still to deliver a fun surprise at the end, and some people may find the whole thing much more satisfying than I did, but I am struggling to think of anyone who will really enjoy this. Even if you find it passable, which I didn't, then I suspect you will still find that it suffers greatlin in comparison to almost every preceding instalment in this series. I'll still watch another one if the series continues, and I still love the VHS aesthetic, but I hope it is a marked improvement after this disappointing nadir.
4/10
If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do
consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A
subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share
No comments:
Post a Comment