V/H/S is a horror anthology in which every segment is shot in a found footage format, and the selling point is that the videos are shot in VHS, an idea which presumably enhances the realism of the events. In principle, the idea is not bad, but unfortunately the execution here is flawed.
The problem already begins when considering the overarching story (TAPE 56): a gang of petty criminals break into a house in order to steal a video tape for a paying client, and the conceit is that each individual segment is a video a member watches in order to check that they have the right tape, and once the segment ends, that member has mysteriously disappeared.
Starting already with TALES OF THE CRYPT (1972), horror anthologies with an overarching story usually reveal some piece of information at the end that connects the segments to the main story, and is also instrumental to understanding the conclusion of the film. That is completely absent in V/H/S: if there was a thematic connection between the main story and the individual segments, it completely escaped me, and furthermore, there is no explanation of the mysterious happenings in the main story either. That means the movie is not really integrated as a whole, even though at first it might give the appearance that it is. For example, individual segments could have been randomly substituted by other segments, but the story of the movie as a whole would be no different.
Perhaps some people don't care about such things, but to me, one of the pleasures of watching a good film is being able to discover the connections within its structure that make it uniquely what it is.
An analogy might help: consider a painting you really like. If now some parts of the painting were randomly substituted by something else, would you still appreciate the painting for what it is?
If it was a Jackson Pollock you might not even notice the substitution (and that is, incidentally, why I am not really a big fan of modern art), but if it was, say, a Vermeer, even if you appreciated the substituted painting just as much, the work would be so well-integrated that yours would be an appreciation for an entirely different work of art.
There are horror anthologies which do not feature an overarching story but are collected by means of some other feature, and that is fine (a good example of this is ABC'S OF DEATH (2012), made the same year as V/H/S but far superior to it, where each segment is based on a thematic key word, and the segments are organized according to the words' first letter). The filmmakers, however, chose the segments-within-a-main-story format, and so it is disappointing that they did not follow their choice up with the natural (or, really, any) unifying connections between the stories suggested by it.
As with any anthology, there is variation in quality between the segments, but pretty much all of them suffer from the same problem of leaving loose ends that leave the audience baffled about why things occurred the way they did. Also, in some of the segments the choppiness of the VHS footage with the shaky cam technique becomes noticeably annoying.
Nevertheless, I thought three segments still had enough going for them despite these flaws to make them worthwhile for found footage horror fans, these are "The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger", "Amateur Night", and "10/31/98".
The others, including the main story, were rather forgettable, though all stories had promising potential.
The problem already begins when considering the overarching story (TAPE 56): a gang of petty criminals break into a house in order to steal a video tape for a paying client, and the conceit is that each individual segment is a video a member watches in order to check that they have the right tape, and once the segment ends, that member has mysteriously disappeared.
Starting already with TALES OF THE CRYPT (1972), horror anthologies with an overarching story usually reveal some piece of information at the end that connects the segments to the main story, and is also instrumental to understanding the conclusion of the film. That is completely absent in V/H/S: if there was a thematic connection between the main story and the individual segments, it completely escaped me, and furthermore, there is no explanation of the mysterious happenings in the main story either. That means the movie is not really integrated as a whole, even though at first it might give the appearance that it is. For example, individual segments could have been randomly substituted by other segments, but the story of the movie as a whole would be no different.
Perhaps some people don't care about such things, but to me, one of the pleasures of watching a good film is being able to discover the connections within its structure that make it uniquely what it is.
An analogy might help: consider a painting you really like. If now some parts of the painting were randomly substituted by something else, would you still appreciate the painting for what it is?
If it was a Jackson Pollock you might not even notice the substitution (and that is, incidentally, why I am not really a big fan of modern art), but if it was, say, a Vermeer, even if you appreciated the substituted painting just as much, the work would be so well-integrated that yours would be an appreciation for an entirely different work of art.
There are horror anthologies which do not feature an overarching story but are collected by means of some other feature, and that is fine (a good example of this is ABC'S OF DEATH (2012), made the same year as V/H/S but far superior to it, where each segment is based on a thematic key word, and the segments are organized according to the words' first letter). The filmmakers, however, chose the segments-within-a-main-story format, and so it is disappointing that they did not follow their choice up with the natural (or, really, any) unifying connections between the stories suggested by it.
As with any anthology, there is variation in quality between the segments, but pretty much all of them suffer from the same problem of leaving loose ends that leave the audience baffled about why things occurred the way they did. Also, in some of the segments the choppiness of the VHS footage with the shaky cam technique becomes noticeably annoying.
Nevertheless, I thought three segments still had enough going for them despite these flaws to make them worthwhile for found footage horror fans, these are "The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger", "Amateur Night", and "10/31/98".
The others, including the main story, were rather forgettable, though all stories had promising potential.