I have not seen the first V/H/S film but I had read reviews and seen that it had mixed reactions. When reviews and word about its sequel came rushing in, they were slightly better and I thought it was finally time for me to give this horror film a chance.
I will start out by talking about the film as a whole before I break down each individual short story and I will say that I thought they did a pretty good job of implementing the camera into the entire film. Since it's a low budget found footage horror film, it could have easily have felt forced and out of place to have this hand held camera perspective pushed in front of you. I can safely say this wasn't the case and I thought there were actually some innovative usages of it. These are more segmented into the shorts themselves so I won't go into great details about them just yet.
Starting off with the first short story which was named "Phase l Clinical Trials". This followed the story of a man involved in a car accident who was blinded by the event and is part of an experiment where he has an artificial eye inserted to replace his sight. Now this had some elements to it which were great but also some that I thought were quite poor and lacking the zest that I was looking for. I will mention firstly that how they implemented the low budget camera style into this short was brilliant and such a creative way to make the style feel natural while successfully still engaging the audience. The overall direction that the story seemed to take however was something I felt that wasn't quite right. You have these dead people who can only be seen by this protagonist through his implant and I didn't really feel all that interested by this. I loved the general concept of having us see it from the perspective of his artificial eye, and would have much preferred the filmmakers to have come up with a much better story to use this for. I will say that this was probably the most scary of all four which at least I can give it credit for on this level.
The second short was called "A Ride In The Park" and I think just edged it for me as my favourite out of the four. This story followed a man who just happened to be riding his bike through the park one day when suddenly a woman who has sustained unknown injuries stumbles across him and screams for help. Trying to help, he comes across another man whom he believes to be her attacker, confronts him only to find out that he is a zombie, becomes infected through a bite and turns into a zombie himself. You had another unique idea for implementing the style of filming the short through the use of a go-pro camera which again I really liked how they did this. Now I say that this was probably the most entertaining of the four shorts. Something about seeing the perspective of a zombie was so intriguing that I was deeply disappointed when it ended. I could have literally watched a full length feature film just based on that very idea and would have been overly satisfied with what was given to me. I think something that is worth a mention for this short was the make up that was used. I thought who ever created the make up effects did a fantastic job at really convincing me. From all of the blood, wounds and general image of the zombie I thought they completely nailed it in this department which was truly impressive to see.
And finally, the last short was definitely the worst in my opinion which was "Slumber Party Alien Abduction". This followed a group of teenagers who as the title suggests, are victims to an alien abduction while their parents leave town for the weekend. While I mentioned that "Safe Haven" could have easily felt out of place due to its subject matter but thankfully didn't, this one sadly did. I had not in fact seen any trailers, footage etc for this film so I really had no clue in what to expect so that could well have had an impact on my viewing of this particular short. I just felt with what the film was trying to be it didn't really settle in with that. While all of the other shorts were outrageous in some way or another, this was just completely ludicrous and it hindered my enjoyment massively. As well as this, I couldn't really follow entirely what was going on. This was just the presentation of the short as well as the convoluted editing that it had. It felt like them trying to give the perspective sometimes of the dog was a bit confusing too. The story had nothing to do with the dog at all so the only reason I could think that they included this was to try and give us a 'unique' view of the events unfolding.
As for the story that was connecting all of these tapes together, I didn't particularly care for that either. Not that I thought it was bad or anything along those lines, but it was sort of just something that was present in order to connect the dots together and give some context to these short films that we are shown. It is of course the details that are in the synopsis I included at the start of this review and something that I enjoyed about this at least was the tension that it created. As the break between each shorts went on, I felt more and more unnerved by what these two private detectives were going through. It provided me with a few tense moments and scares which I can at least say it had some purpose in relation the overall film.
Before I give my verdict I will just mention one or two very minor gripes that I had with the film. One is being that I expected it to be a lot more scarier than it actually was. Like I said, maybe this is just because I went into watching it completely blind eyed and hadn't seen anything in relation to the stories. I think I'll probably be in the minority because of this reason but if I'm not and you actually agree, please let me know because I couldn't help but keep thinking that it didn't unsettle me as much as I was hoping.
Another little problem was in relation to the two private detectives watching the same tapes that we are seeing. For starters, why did they seem so comfortable and natural with coming across multiple TVs set up in an organised fashion as well as dozens of VHS tapes scattered across a secluded house at night? Something about their reaction to the whole situation they were coming across was just completely fake and wasn't half what I was expecting them to be like dealing with it all. As well as this, their reactions for after watching the tapes and when the man comes across the woman unconscious were just ridiculous too. Of course, I'm undeniably nitpicking here and even for a larger budget horror film, the level of acting isn't particularly something I should be worrying about. It was just something about these minor moments that had me baffled as to why they couldn't just give some form of a normal reaction the these horrifying situations they were being put in.
Overall, I'd recommend watching V/H/S 2 because I certainly had a good time with it. There are a few laughs, a few scares and some great moments in some extremely creative shorts from some talented directors and writers. I'm not sure how it compares to the first film as I haven't seen it but I definitely intend to check it out now after watching the more than satisfying sequel.
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