V/H/S/99
It is a welcome surprise to see that the V/H/S series is officially a yearly franchise for Shudder, as the world of horror can always use anthology films directed by both beloved and up-and-coming filmmakers. Bloody Disgusting, Radio Silence, and Studio71 have to be commended for keeping the once-tired subgenre of found footage alive through these short films.
V/H/S/99 continues the trend of its predecessor by taking place in a specific year, and setting this at the end of the millennium is a clever way to approach the expansion of the Internet, the dread of Y2K, and other peculiar elements of pop culture at the time. “Ambition” is the name of the game here, and it is commendable that, on a rather small budget, these independent creators push their limits to create memorable, disturbing horror tales. However, while V/H/S/84 struck a fine balance between spectacular sequences and a small scale, V/H/S/99 is Icarus, flying too close to the sun, only to melt its wings and fall.
Said fall is a small one, as this anthology is fairly consistent across the board, with not a single bad entry but nothing truly outstanding. While all five of the films here capture the look and sound of 1999 rather effectively, the occasional use of digital images does take away from the experience – something that has sadly been present since the decade-old first entry. The short films that end up working the best are those that embrace the period-setting and inherently playful vibe of this franchise.
The first segment, Shredding by Maggie Levin, is about a punk band that desecrates a concert hall with a dark past. Nothing too imaginative or inventive here, and it does not help that the characters are unlikable to an excessive degree. This is followed by Johannes Roberts’ Suicide Bid, which continues the filmmaker’s fascination with claustrophobic spaces as a hazing ritual of a sorority involves spending the night stuck inside a coffin. It is short, genuinely unnerving, and with a fun karmic ending that is satisfying and appropriately nasty.
The third entry, Ozzy’s Dungeon by Flying Lotus, is the easy highlight here: a kids' game show goes wrong when a young contestant suffers a brutal injury, and her parents decide to torture the host by giving him a taste of his own medicine. Out of all these shorts, it makes the best use of its limited budget and 1999 timeframe to develop a clever horror story that is equal parts disturbing and surprising. It hits even harder for those that grew up watching programs like Takeshi’s Castle.
The penultimate story, Tyler MacIntyre’s The Gawkers, suffers from Shredding’s annoying cast of young characters. In this case, it is a group of male teens that goes the extra length to spy on a female neighbor that just moved near their area. While its implementation of the rise of the Internet is an interesting angle to explore voyeurism and sexuality, there is very little done with this premise, which feels even more like a wasted potential considering the surprising creature reveal. As a fan of ancient mythology, the presence of this monster is fitting on a thematic level, and might even work as a criticism of the male gaze, but its design is marred by slow direction that makes the climax far less terrifying and intense than it should have been.
Lastly, there is To Hell and Back by Joseph and Vanessa Winter. This is the most ambitious and commendable of all the short films, and the one that could potentially work as an expanded feature film. Two videomakers filming a pagan ritual on the eve of the new millennium are catapulted to the underworld and must fight their way out to return to the realm of the living. The scope of the narrative is massive, but sadly the limited budget makes it so that this is shot in the desert and can showcase only a couple of – admittedly nasty and well-designed – demonic creatures. Props for mainly using practical effects and for having the most memorable character out of all the entries: Mabel, played by Melanie Stone, is an ambiguous, Gollum-like figure that leads the two protagonists towards a way out, and her presence alone makes this a story worth watching.
Overall, V/H/S/99 is consistently entertaining despite never fully reaching its true potential. To Hell and Back and Ozzy’s Dungeon are must-watch short films in their own right, with ingenious use of a small production that is a testament to the skills of their respective filmmakers, while the other three segments of this anthology amount to nothing more than cute, spooky tales that are just shy of hitting their marks. Next year’s V/H/S/85 features more familiar names and is likely to have grander set-pieces, and hopefully, this found footage franchise will continue thriving for a few more years.