The V/H/S The found footage anthology horror movie franchise has had quite an arduous journey. After the first two entries were generally liked by the horror community, the third was considered so bad it killed the property for half a decade. However, horror streamer Shudder revived it last year with one of the service’s biggest hits to date in V/H/S/94. It was no surprise when it was announced that another film would be made, this time focusing on the year 1999.
One of the big differences between V/H/S/99 and previous entries is that this one lacks the narrative cohesion of someone discovering the lost tapes that “contain” the horror shorts. As a result, it doesn’t really justify the found footage/home movies angle anymore, and instead feels like a hodgepodge of semi-professional horror content – with a few exceptions. The only connecting fabric here is a fun (but underdeveloped) piece involving toy soldiers.
The first segment of the film follows a group of teenage punks as they travel to the abandoned site of a concert hall where a fire had occurred years before in which the audience all escaped but trampled the group in the process. Of course, things don’t go according to their plan. It’s an intriguing and fun concept, but it turns into a payoff that’s unfortunately quite disappointing. The segment does, however, give us a pretty catchy original song.
Next comes Johannes Roberts’ contribution to the anthology. The best-known filmmaker of the group, known for directing 47 meters below and last year’s Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, his segment about a girl buried alive in a hazing prank gone wrong is the simplest of the bunch, but also isn’t particularly interesting or thrilling.
Also Read: Top 5 Anthology Horror Movies
One of the film’s most twisted shorts comes from musician-turned-filmmaker Flying Lotus, and it had the Midnight Madness audience laughing the most. A dark touch on the Legends of the Hidden TempleA style game show that will delight any kid from the 90s or early 2000s, it’s a gnarly, satisfying piece of genre cinema.
Tragedy Girls‘s Tyler MacIntyre brings to the table a fairly entertaining short that features a unique twist on the Peeping Tom trope, but this segment is representative of the problem that has plagued so many anthology films: locals are extraordinarily one-note, and once they wear out of their welcome, they become annoying very quickly.
Whether intentional or not, the film saved the best for last with Vanessa and Joseph Winter contributing to the anthology. Given that Deadstream drops Shudder just weeks before V/H/S/99 does, audiences will definitely be clamoring for more winters content, and this campy, hellish tale will satisfy their cravings.
Although V/H/S/99 is barely as good as the last entry in the franchise produced by Shudder, it manages to be entertaining enough to be worth watching. Audiences who regularly turn to anthology horror aren’t looking for much in their movies, and it definitely meets those low standards. 5/10.
V/H/S/99 screened at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, which runs September 8-18.
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