I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

WHOOPS - REALITY IS STILL BROKEN






V/H/S (2012)

Ah, the old horror anthology genre. A dying genre for sure - usually you find it most often in movies from other countries. We had a good run from about the 50's to the 80's but it's becoming rarer. This movie works, sort of, simply because there's not much time spent on any one theme so the obvious flaws and dumb stuff passes quickly. And, guaranteed, you will get confused. And maybe sickened. Lots of blood. Lots of gore. A zombie or two. And for a 'real' look the picture is often interrupted or is fuzzy - got a headache from that. Note: After watching this movie again while I was in a better mood, and having now seen V/H/S 2, I gave this one a better go on 6/8/14...

The 'wraparound' story is that amateur makers of 'shock' videos (mostly pulling down women's tops, paint gun tagging, etc.) want to make some big money (apparently someone with less taste than they have is buying them and putting them on the web). They are directed to break into a certain house to retrieve a 'rare' VHS tape although the exact nature of the tape really isn't made clear. 

What IS clear is when they break in, they discover the owner, quite dead, in his easy chair in front of rows of TVs hooked to VCRs. And hundreds of tapes. Which one is the right one? Some go elsewhere to look, furthering the main story while one stays and checks out the tapes already in the VCRs. But the house is not as empty as they think, the dude in the chair may not be as dead as they want, and the V/H/S tapes... well, they keep their cameras rolling (it's called Tape 56 in the credits):


Amateur Night: Your basic American story. Boys go out to party. Boys pick up girls. Boys take girls back to motel room. One of the girls is a demon (first look at her in the club told me that) and proceeds to eat her way through the group - except for one. When he tries to escape we see him lifted by something unseen into the sky, large bat-like wings briefly seen...

Meanwhile, needing to only find one tape (they were told they'd know when they saw it), a couple of the guys search the basement - when one swears he sees a guy running around naked down there. Does he or are they all just getting very paranoid?


Second Honeymoon: A couple on a trip. Nothing out of the ordinary, except she won't sleep with him. First night in a motel a strange woman knocks on the door asking for a ride. They shut the door and go to sleep in separate beds. Their camcorder is shown to be used by someone in their room, taping them both sleeping and... other things. The last thing the thief does (and of course it's the strange woman) is steal a knife... the next night she kills the husband with the knife, then as he dies, passionately makes out with her lover (the wife) as they leave the motel...

As the shocked thief takes the tape out we clearly see that the dead man is no longer in the chair...

Eye like this one...

Tuesday The 17th: The four-teenagers-going-to-the-woods-oh-please-let-them-die-fast-please-please-please scenario. But of course there has to be some perversion in this or it wouldn't make it... weird. In this little drama, their new friend Wendy has led them into this forest for live bait to catch the... thing that slaughtered her REAL friends and left her alive the year before. Nice. I like this girl. But despite her bait and her booby traps, the... thing that is and isn't real traps her, rips her open, and crawls inside, and we see her in a sort of St. Vitus dance...

The guys come up from the basement - their friends are gone. One stays to look for the tape while the other goes to look for them. The "dead" man is back in his chair...


The Sick Thing That Happened To Emily When She Was Younger: Emily is video chatting with her doctor boyfriend. She's freaked about a bump on her arm - they keep happening - and she swears her apartment is haunted. Her boyfriend tries to talk sense into her but fails and she goes on a ghost hunt... and finds them. They knock her out. 

Her boyfriend, who's supposed to be on a trip is actually next door. He runs over and while she's unconscious (ignoring the psycho looking children who knocked her out) removes a fetus from her. He asks how many more times this will be done, as Emily is losing it without knowing why - he apparently has been the go-between for her and whatever aliens they're trying to push for a long time. But not to worry, he has others for 'breeders' if Emily fails...

Back in the living room, now it's completely empty of anything dead or alive or??? The remaining thief finds the video camera they've been running this whole time and uses it as light as he tries to find someone, anyone... Careful what you wish for. He finds the headless corpse - and the head - of one of his 'friends', the "dead" man standing there watching him. He runs, falls down the stairs and the "dead" man kills him. We next see the empty living room, and the last tape starts:

?????

10/31/98: On Halloween four guys way too old for this kind of thing get lost on the way to a party. The house they think is the right one (although there are no cars and no people - they're not exactly the sharpest tools in the shed) is big but spooky and something's happening upstairs - they've walked right into an exorcism of some type. When the boys join in the chanting, all hell breaks loose - literally. I'm sorry about that - I really, really hate it when people use 'literally' like that but it's late and I'm tired so... the four men think the best thing to do is get the girl and get the puck out of there so they do...

Only to realize that the girl is... not normal. She disappears out of the car only to reappear on the road ahead of them. They then realize (because they're just not that smart) that they're on railroad tracks and yep, here comes the train...

The credits treat you to more of the doomed idiots (Tape 56) that figured they'd be the next Punk'd as they destroy stuff, steal stuff, assault women, and just make you glad in general that they are now dead...