PLOT: The identical V/H/S franchise you recognize and love. Stuffed to the gills with Halloween goodness throughout a number of anthology segments.
REVIEW: V/H/S has, in its personal method, stuffed the sneakers of two completely different franchises over the previous couple of years. It’s grow to be the gnarly sequel machine Noticed was once (in case you bear in mind, it used to really feel like a brand new Noticed film got here out yearly round October). But it surely’s additionally a form of trendy Faces of Dying. Clearly, nobody is being tricked into pondering any of that is actual in in the present day’s day and age. However this franchise has created itself a pleasant little area of interest the place it might get away with regardless of the hell it desires and it revels in it. This provides a way of hazard to every part the identical method that Cineverse has been capable of do with the Terrifier franchise. You don’t know what to anticipate as a result of these guys can get away with it.
In the case of this latest entry, count on the standard: A handful of recent discovered footage anthologies that make you’re feeling such as you’re doing one thing unsuitable simply by watching. However this sequel retains it recent by doing just a few issues in another way.
For starters, it looks like there’s a bit extra comedy this time round. There’s nonetheless a wonderful assortment of “I need to shower with a steel loofah after watching this” moments. Solely with just some extra comedic gags than traditional. For example, the glue surrounding your complete anthology is an ongoing section going down in a lab. What takes place there may be so over-the-top disrespectful to the worth of human life that you may’t assist however snort out loud. Males, girls, and kids are handled as one thing as disposable as packing peanuts and you may’t assist however giggle on the anarchy.
The addition of the Halloween theme this yr actually hold issues from getting stale as properly. Most stunning is that they inject the franchise with vacation ambiance in their very own genuine and wicked method. V/H/S isn’t attempting to copy the season-soaked opening of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (although that’s by no means a nasty concept). As an alternative, they take the Halloween aesthetic you recognize and love, dip it within the Males’s room bathroom of a trashy 7/11, sprinkle some genital jokes in, and name it a day. One way or the other, it really works. I’m just some proportion factors much more psyched for the Halloween season. Which is precisely what the task was right here. I simply gained’t be consuming any phallic formed sweets. I imply, not that I’d have earlier than.
V/H/S Halloween is ideal spooky season viewing for the initiated. For the uninitiated, you may really feel like they’re watching one thing they aren’t purported to see. Therefore The Faces of Dying reference earlier. It’s straightforward to exit and do one thing only for shock issue. It’s a lot tougher to maintain one thing yearly celebrated by horror followers that also manages to remain modern and entertaining. Maybe what’s most spectacular about V/H/S Halloween is {that a} franchise with a handful of latest filmmakers yearly is ready to hold a finger on the heartbeat of precisely what the franchise tick.
So, in case you just like the V/H/S franchise, you aren’t skipping V/H/S Halloween. It’s the identical disreputable social gathering you’ve been attending yearly, now that includes horror fan’s favourite vacation. And this viewer wouldn’t thoughts if the franchise pivoted to being Halloween themed yearly. Although I’ll say it may have benefited from ending the social gathering a couple of minutes earlier. It will get to be rather a lot to soak up on the ole eyeballs after some time and loses its edge. However both method, one other stable addition.
