The days of VHS are back again, this time for the year 1999! Just when you thought it was safe to get your VCR out…
Today we’re covering…
V/H/S/99!
Movie Details:
- Release Date: 2022
- “Run”time: 1 hour 49 minutes
- Where to watch it: Streaming
- Directed by: Various
- Written by: Various
- Starring:
- Various
Synopsis: A collection of found footage V/H/S videos from the Y2K era. Teens meet ghosts, goblins, and maybe an mythological creature or two.
Open Stab Wounds (out of 10): 4
Review: Like Brandon, I’m a huge fan of anthology horror. I’m also a fan of well done found footage. I say well done, because I think the ratio of well done to crap is weighted heavily on the crap side. I’ve watched all of the V/H/S films so far and there have certainly been some good ones. So the question today is, how does the fifth movie in the V/H/S franchise hold up? Today we watched V/H/S/99.
Like the previous movies, this is a compilation of multiple short films, from multiple directors, all shot to look almost like home movies. You can clearly see different editing styles within each separate installation. I’d say you see different cinematography styles, but they all have that handheld shaky-cam feeling to them. Just about every single one of them was sure to have a timestamp to make sure you know the year is 1999.
The first story was called Shredding and followed a group of punk teens who seem to have their own CKY style video group called R.A.C.K. (I’m pretty sure I saw a couple CKY clips in the editing). Together, they all play together in a punk band and decide to go to a shutdown venue where three years earlier a band called Bitch Cat played their final “living” show. There are rumors of the place being haunted and the group ends up finding the truth behind the rumors.
Next up was Suicide Bid, a story of a college freshman who is only pledging to one sorority, also known as a suicide bid. The sisters of the sorority bring her in to prove herself, while telling her the story of Giltine, a pledge who died in a coffin years earlier. The pledge needs to stay in a coffin overnight and is told not to answer if she hears Giltine knocking, or else she will be dragged to the underworld just like she was. Things go wrong and in the end all the girls pay a price.
Following that up is Ozzy’s Dungeon, a story centered around a kids game show similar to Legends of the Hidden Temple, just with a lot less morals. Kids are set up to do some rather violent and degrading challenges in an attempt to win a chance to see Ozzy and make a wish. One of the final contestants ends up getting her leg badly broken, to the point it is just hanging there. It seems to jump to years later when the family of the injured child has kidnapped the host and is now forcing him to go through a vicious version of the games from the show. He convinces the family that he can bring them to Ozzy so a wish can be made. What follows is confusing chaos and a bit of Lovecraftian feeling insanity.
The Gawkers comes up next and is connected to the bumpers that happened in between the stories. This short tells the story of some perverted teens who like to try and sneak shots of any hot girls they can. They end up focusing on a blonde across the street from one of the boys and come up with a plan to hack her webcam. Just as the plan is working, they realize she is more than just a hot blonde.
Finally, we have To Hell and Back, which tells the story of a witch coven summoning a demon on new years eve. Two men are there to make a documentary covering the summoning. When the ritual starts something goes wrong and they both find themselves in hell. They know time is limited before the ritual is over and they have to get to the demon in order to hitch a ride back to the mortal plane. Their friendship is tested and they fight their way back only to be met with something they did not expect.
The first thing I’m going to say about all these stories is that they all felt unfinished. I understand that with found footage there is often a lack of closure, but all of these felt like the conclusions were just a writer going “yeah, I guess that’s good enough.” The most satisfying one for me was Ozzy’s Dungeon, but it also had the most convoluted writing. The whole film just felt like a bunch of first drafts and nobody there to do rewrites.
The practical effects throughout were all really well done. Blood and guts were flying all over the place, zombies and monsters looked really creepy, and that broken leg was squirm worthy. There were some visual effects as while some were decently done other parts were very noticeable, especially in The Gawkers. Sound quality was sort of all over the place, but that’s to be expected when there is so much screaming with handheld cameras.
Some of the V/H/S movies have been good and some have been mediocre. This one falls in the later category for me. The writing felt lazy and incomplete, I didn’t get any real satisfaction from any of the stories, and there was no overarching narrative like the previous films. A good premise for a story and some great practical effects are not enough to make a film like this great. If I had this on VHS, I’d record over it.
BRANDON’S THOUGHTS:
VHS is counted as a series that I want to like. It’s in my wheelhouse. Everything is anthology. For me, VHS is a series that gets more wrong than it ever gets right. I *WANT* to love the movies… but every segment is 70% longer than it needs to be to be an effectively succinct, economical piece of horror storytelling. VHS 99 has decent ideas in here. I liked the sorority one the best. It’s a tale of comeuppance, and I’m down with that. Every other story ends with certain characters getting a fate that they didn’t deserve; it felt mean-spirited.
I’m going to match Kevin’s rating here because it started all right and left me thinking by the end, “ok, yeah, I’m done now”
Open Stab Wounds (out of 10): 4
Thanks for reading and watching along with us! Be sure to keep up with all 31 days of our Halloween Horror Film coverage!
Oh, and make sure to follow Brandon on Twitter @BarnyardCruz and Kevin @Solucid!