V/H/S/94

This is easily the weakest instalment in the franchise with no single standout part to pull it through. This entry also has the single highest use of fake grain overlay of any of the movies making it almost unwatchable.

It's like tales from the crypt, only worse, much worse.

The V/H/S series has always been incredibly hit or miss. The first one, V/H/S, was interesting in that a lot of the shorts challenged (at the time) what the idea of found footage could be and used unconventional cameras (glasses cam, webcam, etc) to provide a different perspective on what a horror film was. While interesting, it didn't always work in practice as those segments had myriad issues (too slow, too much filler, too much obnoxious camera glitching, etc) which kept them from being all that good or entertaining. Thankfully V/H/S 2 significantly improved the formula, and it is still imo the best of the bunch. Things sadly took a nosedive in the highly forgettable V/H/S: Viral, but I'm happy to say that they've rebounded in the 4th offering and V/H/S94 is more or less good all around.

Wraparound story - "Holy Hell" - the idea of this one is really cool, with a SWAT team going into the abandoned compound of a death cult. Unfortunately this is one of the weakest segments due to the extremely poor film quality, cheap effects, and some of the worst acting I've ever seen committed to film which manages to get worse the longer the segment goes on. I would've liked to see a more expanded story as it definitely had potential, but I feel like I never had any idea what they were supposed to be doing.

"Storm Drain" - this one starts off kind of slow and between that and the lame wraparound intro, I was thinking this whole anthology would be a bust. However, this one gets significantly better as it goes along and ends up being pretty good. The sewers provide interesting, dark, and very creepy atmosphere-- vaguely reminiscent of As Above, So Below. This very much feels like what you'd expect from a found footage vhs horror film and I think nails what the series is all about.

"The Empty Wake" - this one also starts off slow as well, most of it is a lady sitting around at a somewhat unsettling wake, but it gets pretty good when it picks up. It's rather short and you get almost nothing in the way of story or development, but there are some cool visuals & gore, and it's suitably creepy.

"The Subject" - holy crap, this one is absolutely INCREDIBLE. This is by far the longest and most detailed of any of the segments, and the film quality is a lot better than everything else. The Subject is on par with "Safe Haven" from v/h/s 2 (the indonesian death cult one) as undoubtedly the best of the entire series...which makes sense as it turns out that the writer/director Timo Tjahjanto also wrote Safe Haven (along with The Raid's Gareth Evans). You get a mad scientist turning people into robots whose secret lab gets raided by the police - lots of really good body horror, violence, and gore. This one gets a little cheesy and video game-y at times, but overall it's incredible - very engaging and well made. Also, by far the least likely to have ever been transferred to a vhs tape lol.

"Terror" - this one had potential, but never fully realized it. You have a group of extremist militia guys who have some kind of secret weapon and are going to attack a federal building. I found this to be entertaining; it was realistic enough while also being suitably tongue-in-cheek. It had a decent build up, but it kind of fizzled out before ever hitting a satisfying crescendo. I think this one needed more time to develop the story and it could have been significantly better; once the "action" starts, it feels like they kind of rushed to end it which leaves you feeling like "oh...that's it?". I will say that this one felt very "vhs-y" and definitely nailed the vibe of what this whole series is about, however it's still the weakest segment other than the wraparound.

Overall, this is an enjoyable anthology. It offers one of, if not the, best segments of the entire film series, and 3 other segments ranging from decent to pretty good. And while the wraparound was quite weak (and generally they always are), it had a couple redeeming qualities. These found footage films aren't for every horror fan, but if that's your thing than it's definitely worth a watch and it's definitely better than VHS: Viral.

The shorts here are great. Tjahjanto, Prowse, and Okuno bring very unique tales that are genuinely scary. Barrett's segment is adequate and on par with segments in previous the previous films. However, the wraparound by Jennifer Reeder is awful and taints the pros of the individual segments. The last 3 minutes of the film close the wrap segment and is the worst part of the film by far. Though not as bad as the wraparound in VHS Viral, this film didn't do much better for its framing device. Overall the film sits around the quality of the first two.

6/10.

Timo Tjajhanto's segment "The Subject" is the vivid standout in this messy found-footage sequel which heads back to its grainy-cassette-tape roots. After the last installment bombed, it needed franchise returnees Timo Tjajhanto and Simon Barett, plus a conceptualizer in David Bruckner to inject some interest back into this anthology series. Similar to the "Safe Haven" segment by Gareth Evans and Timo Tjajhanto in V/H/S 2, Timo pulls off yet another audio-visual showcase here that melds CGI and practical effects in an action-packed (but non-scary) thirty-minute stretch shot entirely in first-person. This segment towers over the rest in terms of its core idea, slick production design, and bucketfuls of gore. It's the only segment worth revisiting in the film altogether.

I also enjoyed Chloe Okuno's Storm Drain in bits & pieces, especially for its typical found-footage claustrophobia, wacky effects, and an unexpected tinge of dark humor. Simon Barett's "The Empty Wake" initially gets its mood and atmosphere right before squandering all of it for something unintentionally laughable. The exciting bits in Ryan Prows' "Terror" are far too less to really mean anything other than its authentic '90s touches. Jennifer Reeder's wraparound segment "Holy Hell" suffers from poor performances and frequent breaks - the tension is wholly lacking. What's uniformly remarkable all through is the film's aesthetics. The news reports actually resemble the ones from the 90s; there's also retro CGI and even a fake infomercial that looks too darn legit. Add some grunge music, CRT televisions, and shades of the early internet into the mix, and we get a pretty decent throwback of sorts.

Some of these shorts in this film series are suprisingly original and well executed for the budget. Every one of the V/H/S/ films has a few gems to give. If you are a fan of the anthology style horror films, then i would recommend this and the other films in this series.