Video is the Devil

Only two films to discuss here, but both of them well worth their own little space in this...series? Better stop with the introduction before I get too full of myself. Graded on the different types of horror to suit each taste. Not graded on a curve. Here we go...

V/H/S

Why oh why did I ever wait on this one? Terrifying, horrifying, creative, fun and shocking. It really runs the gamut. For those of you more out of touch than me V/H/S is a found footage compilation of five different stories each involving home video of some kind. There is also one wrap around story of a group of low lives raiding some old man's house to find a videotape. What initially kept me away from this one for so long (it came out in 2012) was that it was to my mind just another entry in the dismal found footage horror genre. 

Aside from The Blair Witch Project found footage movies are about as appealing to me as watching a slide show of your Carnival Cruise vacation. Horrific in all the wrong ways and just as boring. What gets most tiresome about them are the labored comments about why people continue to film as some rampaging demon/ghost/backwoods creep chases them. Just one of the (many) great things about V/H/S is the simple and clever ways it justifies the camera to keep rolling without getting in the way of the stories' momentum. 

​Speaking of momentum, it would be too easy (and too boring) to get into the plots of each of the the stories, so lets just say if your taste is for the "monsters" of the eighties pared with the grainy gore of the seventies you will be well satisfied. There is a great deal of talent behind the cameras in V/H/S. Ti West of The House of the Devil, the film I like and you don't (pushes glasses up nose with forefinger motion), has a segment that, while not as instantly satisfying as the others, lingers with you long afterwards. Simon Barrett, author of the amazing The Guest, and Adam Wingard, director of the amazing The Guest, created the wraparound story. Barrett also wrote a story involving two Skype users that has a nice, odd twist. 

I'm trying to keep these reviews short, one to two paragraphs at most. Obviously I blew it with V/H/S but there is just too much to say, even when you're trying to be spoiler-free. This film, with all its talented contributors, really leads you down the internet rabbit-hole so rest assured I will be writing some reviews in the future based on the writers/directors/actors I discovered watching V/H/S. Not for the faint of heart, but if you don't want to be scared why are you watching horror movies anyway? 

V/H/S Grades

General Horror Fans: A
Jump Scare Fans: B+
Creepy Vibe Fans: B+
Gore Hounds: A
Yours Truly: A+

Halloween III Season of the Witch

Bizarre. Wonderfully, wonderfully bizarre. Nothing to do with Michael Myers, except for the fact that the villain plans to use pieces of Stonehenge inserted by his humanoid robots into Halloween masks to receive a video signal after all (?) of the three, count them THREE, channels show the first Halloween to turn children's heads into bugs, spiders, and snakes that will kill their parents. There's your movie. I went from no spoilers in the first review to full on in the second. But, honestly, how else would you have given an indication to what this movie is about?

So, even though you know the plot, you still should do yourself a favor and check out Halloween III. Panned by everybody when it came out, the film is now getting a revival thanks in no small part to John Carpenter's excellent score, Dean Cundey's lighting and cinematography, and director Tommy Lee Wallace penchant for weirdness (gotta give Fright Night 2 another watch!). It is obviously no overstatement to say the world is a better place thanks to weird, wonderful movies like Halloween III. 

Halloween III Grades

General Horror Fans: B
Jump Scare Fans: C
Creepy Vibe Fans: B-
Gore Hounds: B-
Yours Truly: A+