It's ironic that the first review we do at The Abandoned Video Shop should be V/H/S. Mr. Appolyon brought it in last week saying: "This is right up your street." Well I inserted the cassette into my trusty Wharfdale to see if he was right.
I used to really like those old Amicus anthologies The House That Dripped Blood, Tales From The Crypt, and especially Asylum. They would usually pop up late on a Bank holiday Monday and was something to look forward to beyond Disney time and endless variety shows.So I thought V/H/S might be a bit of a return for the good old multi story anthology.
In fact it mixed its genres because it is all found footage stuff, there just aren't enough found footage films these days why don't they make more? The narrative story revolves around a group of yobs who break into an old house to get a mysterious VHS tape. Good job they didn't break into The Abandoned Video Shop, we have nothing but mysterious VHS tapes. But I digress, in the house they find an old man dead in his chair so while some go looking for their treasure, others watch VHS tapes and thus we get our anthology. It starts quite strongly with David Bruckner's Amateur Night, where another bunch of yobs decide to film their sexual encounters only along the way they have picked up an incredibly spooky looking girl, whose only words are "I like you", well she turns out to be decidedly nasty, the story moves well and doesn't outstay its welcome.
In fact it mixed its genres because it is all found footage stuff, there just aren't enough found footage films these days why don't they make more? The narrative story revolves around a group of yobs who break into an old house to get a mysterious VHS tape. Good job they didn't break into The Abandoned Video Shop, we have nothing but mysterious VHS tapes. But I digress, in the house they find an old man dead in his chair so while some go looking for their treasure, others watch VHS tapes and thus we get our anthology. It starts quite strongly with David Bruckner's Amateur Night, where another bunch of yobs decide to film their sexual encounters only along the way they have picked up an incredibly spooky looking girl, whose only words are "I like you", well she turns out to be decidedly nasty, the story moves well and doesn't outstay its welcome.
The next tape in is Second Honeymoon by Ti West and is a kind of throw back to the old Amicus greats, seemingly happy couple, vaguely terrorised by an unknown stranger.
I remember it done a bit better back in the day. But the title of the next story Thursday the 17th says it all, a group of kids in the woods, lots of blood and to tell the truth I really didn't understand it. I could see why they buried it in the middle.
All the while the narrative story, Tape 56, has been rolling along in a stunningly uninteresting manner, the dead man moves about, you get the picture. The next tape in is Jo Swanberg's The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She was Younger, now this really does have some very spooky moments and a neat twist at the end, which the other tales seem to have, more or less, missed. The last episode 10/31/98 by Radio Silence really should have adopted radio silence because it lacked any real quality and meandered its way to the end only really contributing to the excessive running time.
If we had stopped at The Sick Thing I think we would all have felt a little better about the film. Those Amicus anthologies would start and end strong, V/H/S really couldn't have ended weaker. Plus those old films could rely on the cream of British acting talent, most of those on display here are probably not the cream of their family's acting talent.
All in all I thought V/H/S was a bit of a disappointment, although I might not tell Mr. Appolyon that, just in case he liked it.
The Owner
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