Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: David Bruckner, Scott Derrickson, Gigi Saul Guerrero, Natasha Kermani,
Mike Nelson
Starring: Jordan Belfi, Freddy Rodriguez, James Ransone, Dani Deetté, Rolando
Davila-Beltran, Justen Jones, Marcio Moreno, Ari Gallegos, Forrest Hartl,
Duffy McManus, Eric Pierson, Felipe de Lara, Tom Reed, Vivian Morse
Found footage horror may have died out in the mainstream a few years
ago but on its current home of Shudder the V/H/S series
continues to fly the format's grainy flag. Six instalments and two
spinoffs in and V/H/S/85 shows there's still some fun to
be had with found footage.
Following previous instalments set in 1994 and '99, this sixth offering
takes us way back to 1985, a time when the first consumer grade VHS
camcorders were hitting the market. This is reflected in various
characters' curiosity regarding the devices they're being filmed with,
and there are a couple of geeky references to how VHS beat out Beta in
spite of its inferior quality.
As with previous films in the series, the shorts are presented in the
form of being discovered on a VHS tape that also includes various
(presumably fake but convincingly authentic) TV commercials, clips of
monster truck rallies, home movies etc. The overall effect reminded me
of being a kid in the late '80s and staying up late to watch
Manhattan Cable, a show that compiled the weirder moments of American public access
TV.
David Bruckner helms the wraparound segment 'Total Copy', which
is presented as an episode of a current affairs show examining a team of
scientists' research into an alien creature that appears to mimic
whatever it happens to be exposed to. Chopping up this short into so
many segments doesn't do it any favours as we have to keep reminding
ourselves of what previously happened every time it pops up between one
of the other shorts. The whole thing feels stretched out and ends in a
rather lame visual gag.
The best of the shorts is Mike Nelson's 'No Wake', which
opens like a classic '80s slasher as a group of young friends head off
to a lake in their RV. While out waterskiing they come under fire from
an unseen sniper shooting from the lakeside. The bloody effects are made
all the more real by the scuzzy VHS format, and despite its period
setting it evokes the sort of tense footage you see too often on the
internet now whenever a mass shooter wreaks havoc in the US. If the
short seems to end abruptly, don't worry, it returns for a second part
later on. This expands the concept and introduces the sort of lore that
could easily make for a feature length spinoff. I was certainly left
wanting more of this idea.
Gigi Saul Guerrero's 'God of Death' adopts a real life backdrop,
the Mexican earthquake of 1985. The action takes place in a TV studio
that collapses when the quake strikes. When a rescue team shows up, the
only survivor is the cameraman, who leads them to the only way out,
descending several layers into the earth and uncovering something
sinister in the process. Guerrero's short plays like a cut down version
of
As Above, So Below, the 2014 found footage horror set in the Paris catacombs. It perhaps
could use a little more time to establish its characters but it gets its
point made quickly. Guerrero has fun reminding us of the lack of
professional boundaries in the 1980s as the news crew make the sort of
lewd comments to one another that would result in an internal
investigation today.
The briefest and weakest segment is Natasha Kermani's 'TKNOGD',
which is presented as a recording of a performance art work by a
performer named Ada Lovelace (the actress seems vaguely familiar but I
can't find her credited anywhere online). Lovelace employs the then
nascent tech of Virtual Reality to mock "the God of technology," which
backfires in gruesome fashion.
Another segment that could easily be expanded into a feature is
Scott Derrickson's 'Dreamkill'. As the director of
Sinister, Derrickson knows how to create an unsettling image with vintage
media, something he does to queasy effect here with what appears to be
Super 8 recordings of home invasions that end in homicide and
dismemberment. The recordings are sent to the local police, but before
the murders have actually taken place! Derrickson does take a rather lax
approach to his found footage brief with a few cameras in places that
seem all too convenient, but the short sucks us in with its intriguing
premise and remains atmospheric and unsettling throughout.
While two of the segments are unremarkable, none of them could be
considered duds and two are among the series' best offerings. If
directors like Derrickson and Bruckner, who have established themselves
in mainstream Hollywood at this point, are still willing to get
involved, it seems the V/H/S series won't be running out
of tape any time soon.
