V/H/S/Halloween Review – Lots of horrific inventions in the latest helm of the engaging horror anthology | film

THis Horror Mine, the eighth entry in the V/H/S anthology series, is a mixed bag, with some very high highs and unfortunately bad lows. This is essentially a collection of Halloween-themed shorts, and while they’re described as “found footage” in keeping with the conceit of the original, the idea that you’re watching found footage has more or less largely worn off at this point. The series would honestly be better off ditching this element, and simply leaning into the broader idea of ​​a regular horror anthology of unsettling shorts.

Among the highlights is a riotous, disgusting chapter titled Fun Size, made with appalling taste by Casper Kelly, whose viral masterpiece Too Many Cooks took the Internet by storm in 2014 and whose feature film Buddy premiered at Sundance. Fun Size sees a group of young people stumbling into what can best be described as the Bug Zone as they encounter a villain who comes off as the Ghostbusters Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man’s evil little brother.

Less ludicrous and more shocking is Alex Ross Perry’s Kidprint, whose everyday villainy hides in plain sight at the other end of the spectrum from flamboyant Pennywise or Freddy Krueger-type child killers. It’s fair to say that even the less effective chapters all have something going for them, but with the total running time coming in at nearly two hours, a little judicious editing could have kept things brisk with nothing missing.

In franchise tradition, there is also an overarching section, Diet Phantasma, which we return to after each section, and which concludes the film; It’s probably the funniest material here, playing like The Fast Show and Re-Animator. Created by director Brian M. Ferguson, the film sees a group of amoral scientists trying to perfect the recipe for a haunted soda, which is completely ridiculous, in the most magical way possible.