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V/H/S/99 hits Shudder this week, the fifth installment in the V/H/S franchise, the now decade-old anthology series that finds horrors and haunts on found footage VHS tapes. With a different crew behind each segment in the series, fans are treated to every subgenre in horror, from slashers to ghosts to zombies to demons to torture.
That’s really what’s so great about horror anthologies – not a fan of something? It’ll be over in 15 minutes. Fortunately for V/H/S 99, it’s an all-hits, no-skips mixtape (mix-videotape?) full of great fun for all horror fans.
The segments include a little something for everyone:
Shredding
When a punk rock group decides to film their latest music video inside a condemned underground music venue, the site of a tragedy that saw the disappearance of another band, they find out the answers to that very mystery. Writer/director Maggie Levin makes you hate those punks just enough to celebrate their bonkers fate. With only one feature under her belt, her website says that she ‘is a filmmaker with rock n’ roll roots’ and you can see why she went that route in this short. Her attitudes and excitement toward that punk scene, the DIY mentality, and the skate videos of the late 90s, are all contagious — even for someone who might not love those things. And a special shout-out to Production Designer Britt Keller who really creates this DIY world, starting us off right, feeling transported to ’99.
Suicide Bid
There are few things scarier, I believe, than being buried alive. Spiders are harmless, get a security system to stop intruders, people can’t actually rise from the dead, you get the idea. But if you were ever actually buried alive — what could you do to save yourself? The answer is: nothing. So, what if you volunteered to be there? In this sorority-pledge horror story, Lily is left to die from the ‘sisters’ that put her there. Like many V/H/S entries, it ends up having something to do with demons, but the Carrie and Heathers vibes are enough to carry that creepy premise. Director Johannes Roberts, the filmmaker behind one great shark film, 47 Meters Down, and a few unfortunate sequels, 47 Meters Down: Uncaged and The Strangers: Prey At Night, makes his V/H/S debut with this short.
Ozzy’s Dungeon
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The shorts that make-up V/H/S/99 bell curve here, reaching their highest point with this third and middle entry, ‘Ozzy’s Dungeon’ — my favorite of the bunch. One thing the ’90s did really well was bring us ridiculous game shows, and this short starts with a Legends of the Hidden Temple-inspired, ridiculously difficult obstacle course. When a teenage contestant is permanently injured during her experience on the show, her parents kidnap the host to get their revenge. And boy do they get it. Just like ‘Suicide Bid’, it takes a bit of a turn at the end that doesn’t seem totally necessary, but the revenge is fun and the over-the-top performance from Sonya Eddy as the girl’s mother is the best of the movie. Director Flying Lotus is probably best known for his hip-hop work, but he’s no stranger to the horror world having directed the 2017 film Kuso — and he’s showing he’s one to watch in the genre.
The Gawkers
What do teenage boys do best? They gawk. This fourth short, from writers Chris Lee Hill and Tyler MacIntyre (also the director), brings us a handful of slimy and mischievous teenage boys as they use this camcorder to spy on their attractive next-door neighbor. It’s all fun and games (and for them, quite tantalizing — one character’s name is literally Boner) until they find out that they’re in a V/H/S short, which means this can only end one way. It’s perhaps the most glaringly 1999 of the bunch, with Britney Spears and Sarah Michelle Gellar namedrops, references to Woodstock ’99, and, of course, the line, ‘Is this that CGI thing?’ when their neighbor turns out to be a lot more than they bargained for.
To Hell and Back
This final segment starts off vying for that most nostalgic spot, taking place on exactly December 31st, 1999 — the very eve of Y2K. Videographers Nate and Troy are hired to film (we can assume, on this camcorder) a ceremony of sorts — one put together by cultists to sacrifice someone. It heads the direction all of these segments seem to head, making good on its titular promise to go ‘to hell and back.’ Well, I’m not so sure about heading back. Co-writers and directors Vanessa & Joseph Winter just made their feature debut with Deadstream, which also just hit Shudder to great reviews. Seems like a great month for them.
Overall, this is another solid entry in a franchise that knows how to do ’em — give us some variety (maybe we could use some in the endings, however), hire some exciting filmmakers, and keep giving them to us. The latest, V/H/S 99, is no different. If you’re a fan of the series already, you’ll dig it just the same. If you’re not, don’t worry – that’s what is so great about anthologies, you can start here.
V/H/S/99 has a run time of 1 hour 49 minutes and is not rated.
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