Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Ernest Dickerson, RZA, Flying Lotus, David Moreau, Renee Zhan, Tobias Forge
Starring: Barbara Crampton, Alex Hsu, Elie Kaempfen, Neela Jolene, Jihad Brent
As with the previous two entries - the sci-fi heavy Beyond and the self-explanatory Halloween - this ninth instalment of the (debatably) found footage anthology series has a distinct overall theme. V/H/S/Mixtape's connective tissue is ostensibly music and sound, but said tissue is ripped out like the entrails of some of its victims.
V/H/S/Mixtape stands out from its predecessors with the meta touch of having hosts rather than the usual framing device of a short divided into portions. It's a nice idea that evokes the classic horror hosts of old, but our comperes here are the members of the hokey Heavy Metal band GWAR. Anyone who isn't a fan will likely find their juvenile edgelord shtick insufferable.
The first short is one of this generally weak instalment's highlights. 'Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance' is directed by Renee Zhan and stars horror icon Barbara Crampton as a Cruella DeVille-esque studio exec who wishes to revive an old puppet show by scanning the original puppets and replacing them with CG creations. This doesn't sit well with the puppets' creator, who brings his creations to life and sets them on a murderous rampage. The puppets here come courtesy of the legendary Jim Henson workshop, a real coup for the series, and the gore is fantastic. It's Crampton's vampy performance that sells this one, and anyone sick of seeing beloved IP rehashed by cynical suits will enjoy seeing her character get her comeuppance.
After a bewildering and thankfully brief interlude involving a woman lifting a severed head with a certain part of her anatomy, we get 'Another Cabin', a brief animated piece from Flying Lotus involving a giant attacking a remote cabin. The animation is pleasant enough but it's essentially a music video with practically no story to latch onto.
Then it's over to French director David Moreau of Ils fame for 'Heartbeat'. This one sees a couple of urban explorers venture deep into an abandoned Soviet facility in the Bulgarian wilderness, only to become trapped in a sound room. The setup nods to Poe as the lack of sound save for their heartbeats drives the protagonists mad, but the short outstays its welcome.
Best known to horror fans for helming the '90s cult classic Demon Knight, cinematographer turned director Ernest Dickerson helms 'The Music of Mr Sze'. Jihad Brent plays a student living in a scuzzy boarding house who films his daily life for a college project. He becomes obsessed with Mr Sze (Alex Hsu), the reclusive elderly violinist whose ethereal playing entrances him. As you might expect from Spike Lee's former go-to DoP, this is one of the better looking segments, but the initially intriguing setup gives way to a lot of visually incomprehensible slush in a finale that throws a lot at the wall without any of it sticking.
A Tobias Forge-directed music video for an obscure Metal band leads us into the strongest segment - RZA's 'Death Tone'. Neela Jolene plays a young woman who inherits her music producer father's studio, along with a cassette containing instructions on how to make the perfect beat. Seems the way to produce a banger is to kill a bunch of victims and record their death throes. Essentially yet another riff on Corman's A Bucket of Blood, Death Tone doesn't boast the most original setup but it's RZA's execution that makes it entertaining. He edits this short with the same obsessive detail of his work as a musician.
As always, this latest instalment of the now annual Shudder-hosted series is a lucky dip. There are two worthwhile shorts, and it's up to you whether that justifies sitting through the whole endeavour. Heavy Metal fans will find it more bearable than the rest of us, as there's a whole lot of headache-inducing hard rock throughout V/H/S/Mixtape. Can we get V/H/S/Disco next?
V/H/S/Mixtape is on Shudder from October 9th.
