In an interview with IndieWire,[3] producer Brad Miska revealed the process in which they developed V/H/S, which included a "trust-fall" style of filmmaking. All of the relationships came through the long history of Bloody Disgusting.
For "V/H/S", we went to people that I have a relationship with via Bloody Disgusting — a group of trusted filmmakers who we thought would want to take part in this. They pitched us their ideas, then came to us with treatments and scripts. It was like, "If you like this, go do your thing." In terms of the movie itself getting green lit — the storyline that runs through the whole movie was something that we had originally discussed. So we just went with the decided upon streamlined story and just let the filmmakers go do their thing. Which is kind of a reverse of how you're supposed to do a movie like this. You're supposed to do that last. It became a 'fill-in-the-hole' type project. What can we put here? What can we put there? You know, what would amp it up here? So it was a living project. A living film if you will.
Plot
The film is presented as an anthology of five short horror films, built into a frame narrative which acts as its own sixth short horror film.
The frame narrative focuses on Brad, Rox, Zak, and Gary, a criminal gang who film their acts, which range from vandalism of an empty house to sexually assaulting a woman in a parking garage. An anonymous source hires them to break into an abandoned house and steal a VHS tape. The quartet accept, eager to expand their criminal enterprises.
Inside the house, they find an old man's corpse sitting in front of several televisions broadcasting white noise. While his friends roam the house, Brad stays with the corpse to watch a tape left in the VCR.
Three friends—Shane, Patrick, and Clint—rent a motel room with the intention of inviting women for sexual intercourse. Clint wears glasses that have been outfitted with a hidden camera and microphone to allow the trio to turn their planned encounter into an amateur porn video.
While he and his friends are bar-hopping, Clint meets Lily, a mysterious young woman who appears unusually shy and only says "I like you." to him. In addition to Lily, the friends also convince another young woman, Lisa, to go to their room. Back at the motel, Shane attempts to initiate sex with Lisa, but she passes out in a drunken stupor, prompting Patrick to discourage him. Lily awkwardly seduces Clint until Shane comes on to her instead.
Clint notices that Lily's feet are clawed and scaly as she's undressed, but Shane and Patrick are oblivious. Lily pushes Shane onto his back and begins to undress Clint to apparently initiate a threesome. Overwhelmed, Clint goes to the bathroom. Patrick attempts to take Clint's place, but Lily makes it clear that she dislikes him. Moments later, Patrick bursts into the bathroom with a large cut on his hand, claiming that Lily bit him.
When Clint and Patrick approach her, Lily suddenly sprouts fangs and screams at them, attacking and killing Shane while the remaining duo hide in the bathroom. Patrick, armed with a shower curtain rod, returns to the bedroom. Clint tries to wake Lisa while Patrick confronts Lily, but she easily kills him and rips off his genitals. Clint runs out of the room, but falls down a staircase and breaks his wrist. Lily, with her face now bearing a hideous split down its middle, catches up to Clint. She attempts to perform fellatio on Clint, but starts to cry and growl angrily when he remains unresponsive.
Clint flees outside and begs bystanders for help until he is suddenly lifted into the sky by Lily, who has transformed into a demonic winged creature who was on the hunt for a mate. The video glasses fall off Clint's face and hit the ground as the footage ends.
"Tape 56" — First interlude
Entering the room, Rox discovers that Brad has disappeared. In the basement, Zak and Gary find hundreds of unmarked VHS tapes, and decide to collect them all to make sure they get the right one. After spotting a glimpse of what looks to be a naked man wandering deeper into the basement, Rox puts another tape in the VCR and watches it.
The newly-married Sam and Stephanie travel through Route 66 for their honeymoon in Arizona, a trip being documented by Stephanie. That night, they visit "Wild West Junction", a Wild West-themed attraction where Stephanie receives a prediction from a mechanical fortune teller. The prediction claims that she will be happily reunited with a loved one, but that she is also very trusting and easily taken advantage of.
After returning to their room, a strange woman interrupts an argument between the couple and awkwardly tries to convince Sam to give her a ride the next day, doing so off-camera. In the middle of the night, while the couple are asleep, an unseen intruder breaks into the room, turns on the camcorder, and films themselves stroking Stephanie's buttocks with a switchblade. The intruder also steals money from Sam's wallet and dips his toothbrush in the toilet.
The next day, on their way to visit the Grand Canyon, Sam notices the missing money and accuses Stephanie of taking it, despite her assurance that she did not. That night, the intruder enters the room again and repeatedly stabs Sam in the neck with their switchblade, filming him as he chokes to death on his blood. The camera then shows the intruder is actually the woman from earlier wearing a porcelain mask. She is also revealed to be Stephanie's lover, who conspired with her to kill Sam. The women drive away, with Stephanie asking if the recording was erased as the footage ends.
"Tape 56" — Second interlude
Confused by what he has witnessed, Rox fails to notice that the corpse behind him has disappeared. Meanwhile, in the basement, Zak and Gary debate on what exactly is on the tape they're looking for, and also consider making copies of it to get extra money.
Childhood friends Joey, Spider, and Samantha accompany their new friend, Wendy, on her annual trip to a lake in a nearby forest. As Wendy leads the way, she mentions an "accident" that took the lives of her old friends. Joey's digital camera also pans certain empty areas in the woods, prompting glitched images of mutilated bodies to appear in the captured footage.
When they discover the mutilated corpse of a pig, Wendy declares that everyone is going to die. As the group smoke weed near the lake, Wendy explains that a murderer killed many people years earlier at the same site, but the group laughs it off as a joke. Spider and Samantha leave for a break until the latter is suddenly killed by a knife that is thrown into her face. Spider attempts to run, but is stabbed to death in the forehead. The culprit is revealed to be a glitched figure obscured by tracking errors (identified as "The Glitch" in the end credits).
When Wendy collects the camera, Joey asks her where Samantha and Spider went, to which Wendy says that they left before awkwardly propositioning him. When Joey guesses that she was telling the truth about the murders, she reveals that she was the only survivor after all her friends were killed. She further reveals that she lured the group into the woods as bait, hoping to kill the murderer when they come out of hiding. The Glitch then walks up behind Joey and slits his throat, prompting Wendy to run. Wendy lures the Glitch into a pit, then a bear trap, which briefly halts it. She tries filming the Glitch up close, but it slashes her hand before she flees again. After losing the Glitch, Wendy furiously tells anyone who finds the recording to stay away from the forest. Wendy finds a dying Joey, and the Glitch confronts her as he collapses, just before a bed of spikes impales it.
After Wendy gloats and walks away, she looks back to see that the Glitch is gone. It ambushes Wendy, beats her to death with the camera, and disembowels her remains. Once the Glitch leaves, Wendy's corpse twitches and shudders violently; the camera glitches out as the footage ends.
"Tape 56" — Third interlude
The old man's corpse has returned to the room, but Rox has disappeared. Zak and Gary return upstairs, becoming confused as to where their friends have gone. Gary then tells Zak to look through the tapes, to which Zak complies, putting another tape in the VCR.
"The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger"
Through a series of video chats, aspiring doctor James is told by his girlfriend Emily about a strange bump on her arm, and how it reminds her of an accident she had when she was younger. After Emily shows James around her new apartment, she hears noises outside her door, prompting her to investigate. A ghostly child-like entity rushes into her room and slams the door, leading Emily to believe her apartment is haunted.
After another encounter with the entity, Emily tells James that she questioned her landlord, who claims that no children have ever lived in the complex, nor have any people ever died there. During her next chat, Emily attempts to cut into the bump on her arm to find out what it is. James urges her to stop to before the wound becomes infected, promising to check on it when he arrives in a week.
The next night, Emily closes her eyes and carries her laptop to have James look out for the entity. It appears with two more entities, which knock her unconscious as James enters the apartment. The entities are actually aliens that watch as James surgically removes a fetus from Emily's torso, having been using her as an incubator for half-alien, half-human hybrids. James asks the aliens how much longer they plan to use Emily, remarking that she may not survive much more damage and has already noticed their tracking device in her arm. The aliens erase Emily's memory while James breaks her bones to "make this look like an accident again."
In their next chat, a badly-injured Emily believes that she sustained the injuries after wandering into traffic in a fugue state. She says that the doctor James recommended diagnosed her as schizoaffective and tearfully tells him that he deserves a better, more normal girlfriend. James assures Emily that she is the only person he wants to be with as their call ends. James then begins a new call with a different woman who also has a bump on her arm and believes he is her boyfriend, revealing that the aliens are using multiple women as incubators as the footage ends.
"Tape 56" — Epilogue
When Gary returns, he finds that both Zak and the corpse have disappeared. He searches upstairs and finds the decapitated remains of his Zack, before he is suddenly attacked by the zombified corpse. Fleeing downstairs, Gary falls and twists his ankle, allowing the zombie to kill him. In the TV room, the VCR starts the last tape by itself.
On Halloween 1998, four friends—Tyler, Chad, Matt, and Paul (respectively dressed as a nanny cam, the Unabomber, a pirate, and a Marine)— head out to a Halloween party, but end up at the wrong address that holds an abandoned house. Believing they are merely the first to arrive, the quartet sneak inside and begin to experience paranormal phenomena, which they dismiss as a haunted house attraction and have fun with.
When they reach the attic, the quartet find several men gathered around a crying woman suspended from the rafters, apparently reenacting an exorcism. The quartet join in the men's chanting, which alerts them to their presence. The men angrily tell the group to leave before physically assaulting the woman, causing them to suddenly be pulled into the darkness by an unseen force. As more violent paranormal phenomena manifests, the quartet initially flee, but go back to the house to rescue the woman when they hear her begging for help, untying her and leading her to safety.
The entire house come to life with poltergeists as the quartet race to their car with the woman, driving away. The car abruptly stops and the woman disappears, reappearing in the street before them and walking away admid a flock of birds. The quartet realize that the car has stopped on train tracks they previously crossed to get to the house, and that the woman they rescued is actually a witch who was faking being in distress to fool her saviors. The group try to get out as a train approaches, but are unable to start the engine or unlock the doors. The train smashes into the car, killing everyone inside as the footage ends.
Alternative joke ending
A joke ending to "10/31/98" was shot in one take by Radio Silence, in which the doors are unlocked and the quartet get out just before the train smashes the car. The quartet walk away and talk about how much fun they had, and what a crazy night it was. Meanwhile, the train hits the car and it explodes behind them.[8]
Trevor Groth, a programmer of midnight movies at the Sundance Film Festival, said, "I give this all the credit in the world because conceptually it shouldn't have worked for me. Personally, I'm bored by found-footage horror films, which this is. And omnibus attempts rarely work. But this one does. It's terrifying, and very well executed."[5] Horror-Movies.ca reported that two people fainted during the premiere at Sundance.[9]
At the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, Magnolia Pictures purchased the North American rights to the film for slightly over $1 million.[10] The first theatrical release began in Russia on September 7, 2012.[11]Limited theatrical release began October 5, 2012, in the United States. The film was released onto DVD, Blu-ray, and digital download on December 4, 2012. It was released on the titular format of VHS on February 5, 2013.
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 56% of 108 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.6/10.The website's consensus reads: "An uneven collection of found-footage horror films, V/H/S has some inventive scares but its execution is hit-and-miss."[12]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 54 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[13]
Most reviewers said that they felt the film was too long. Variety noted that "the segments vary in quality and the whole overstays its welcome at nearly two hours. Some trimming (perhaps relegating a weaker episode to a DVD extra) would increase theatrical chances."[14]
Empire gave the film four stars out of five, saying that "the biggest twist is its consistently high quality ... anything goes, and all of it works".[15]The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a mildly positive review, stating "Refreshingly, V/H/S promises no more than it delivers, always a plus with genre fare."[10]Fangoria praised the film while remarking that "the mystery of why/how some of this stuff is even on VHS tapes to begin with" was a bit of a leap.[16]
Sean O'Connell of The Washington Post gave the film a scathing review, saying that although "on paper, it's a clever concept" and "probably sounded great in the pitch meeting", it "loses all luster through some shoddy execution". He went on to criticise the "unwatchable shaky-cam technique" and "rough and amateurish" acting, though he did identify Swanberg's segment as the best.[17] Likewise, Roger Ebert was among the critics who felt the film was overlong, giving the film one star out of four and saying that "None of the segments is particularly compelling. Strung together, it's way too much of a muchness."[18]
A third installment in the series, titled V/H/S: Viral, was released on demand on October 23, 2014, and theatrically on November 21, 2014. A fourth installment, titled V/H/S/94, was released exclusively on Shudder on October 6, 2021.[19]
A fifth installment, V/H/S/99, debuted in the Midnight Madness stream at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival[20] and was released on Shudder October 20, 2022.[21]V/H/S/85, the sixth installment, was released on Shudder on October 6, 2023.[22] The seventh installment, V/H/S/Beyond, was released exclusively on Shudder on October 4, 2024.[23]
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