LEE CLARK ZUMPE REVIEWS

V/H/S/85

V/H/S/85 SPLICES TOGETHER vignettes exploring various horror subgenres.

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of horror anthology series, including ‘Channel Zero,’ ‘Black Mirror,’ ‘Two Sentence Horror Stories,’ ‘Inside No. 9,’ ‘Into the Dark,’ and ‘Lore.’ These series stand on the shoulders of genre giants and forgotten gems.

Among the classic television shows that offered viewers chills and thrills are ‘Tales from the Crypt,’ ‘Tales from the Darkside,’ ‘Monsters,’ ‘One Step Beyond’ and ‘Thriller.’ But it was a kid from Syracuse, New York, who took the format to its pinnacle: Rod Serling ushered television viewers into ‘The Twilight Zone.’ The show ran from 1959 to 1964. Serling also hosted and contributed scripts for ‘Night Gallery,’ another horror anthology series that ran from 1970 to 1973.

At about the same time television audiences were being challenged by the supernatural horrors and provocative dark fantasy featured in episodes of ‘Night Gallery,’ they could also opt for lighter fare in the form of ‘Love, American Style,’ an anthology comedy television series. Each episode of ‘Love, American Style’ delivered multiple tales of romance with a comic spin. These stand-alone segments sometimes served as pilots for potential television series: Some never got beyond the preliminary sketch, while others went on to find success. ‘Happy Days’ developed from a ‘Love, American Style’ segment called ‘Love and the Television Set.’

Oddly enough, while watching ‘V/H/S/85,’ I was reminded of ‘Love, American Style.’

‘V/H/S/85,’ a found-footage horror anthology film, is the sixth instalment of the ‘V/H/S’ franchise. This new iteration features segments directed by David Bruckner, Scott Derrickson, Gigi Saul Guerrero, Natasha Kermani and Mike P. Nelson. It was released Oct. 6, 2023, by Shudder.

You may ask how ‘V/H/S/85,’ a solid horror film jam-packed with gore and rampant madness, is like ‘Love, American Style,’ a goofy collection of comedic skits examining the mod, mod world of love and romance. There’s clearly no parallel in tone, content, or style. The correspondence is strictly in the structure: Like ‘Love, American Style,’ each individual segment of ‘V/H/S/85’ offers a tantalizing snippet that could easily be expanded into a full-blown project of its own. ‘V/H/S/85’ manages to entertain, satisfy, and simultaneously leave the viewer hungry for more content. It’s like eating salted peanuts at the corner bar.

Brad Miska and Bloody Disgusting, a multimedia horror-centric company, launched the ‘V/H/S’ franchise in 2012 with ‘V/H/S,’ an innovative found-footage horror anthology film. Since the original, sequels have included ‘V/H/S/2’ in 2013, ‘V/H/S: Viral’ in 2014, ‘V/H/S/94’ in 2021, and ‘V/H/S/99’ in 2022, along with the spin-off films ‘SiREN’ in 2016, and ‘Kids vs. Aliens’ in 2022.

The official synopsis for ‘V/H/S/85,’ provided by AMC Networks, reads ‘An ominous mixtape blends never before seen snuff footage with nightmarish newscasts and disturbing home video to create a surreal, analogue mashup of the forgotten ’80s.’

It’s evident that the team of filmmakers behind ‘V/H/S/85’ were dedicated to pushing the limits of this anthology format. The film is a meticulously constructed masterpiece mimicking the effect of crude video editing, as if the entire affair was a DIY endeavour executed by some teenage video tape enthusiast in a 1980s basement.

It is a tour de force of spliced segments, re-sequenced clips, jarring transitions, and grainy visuals. In rendering its collected vignettes, it is both grisly and glitchy.

Six segments are presented in this anthology, including ‘Total Copy,’ a wraparound narrative delivered in between other stories; along with ‘No Wake,’ ‘God of Death,’ ‘TKNOGD,’ ‘Ambrosia,’ and ‘Dreamkill.’

‘No Wake,’ Nelson’s contribution to the mix, is the strongest tale. The segment follows seven young adults who take an ill-fated trip in an RV. Ignoring a ‘no trespassing’ sign, they set up camp near a secluded lake. While water skiing, they are attacked by an unseen assailant. Despite their horrific and clearly fatal wounds, they soon discover they can’t die.

‘God of Death,’ directed by Guerrero, is the second full story. Presented as a clip from a Mexican morning news program, it recounts events surrounding the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. Initially focusing on surviving the catastrophe, ‘God of Death’ introduces elements of folk horror in the form of an Aztec god of the underworld.

Kermani directs ‘TKNOGD,’ a kind of prototype for ‘Black Mirror’ type tales of technology transmuted by cosmic horror. ‘Dreamkill’ mixes slasher tropes with clairvoyance for a violent foray into psychosis.

‘No Wake’ intertwines with ‘Ambrosia,’ also directed by Nelson, in a wicked pairing. The connection is both unexpected and ingenious.

Bruckner’s ‘Total Copy’ is an abbreviated serial, told in chapters throughout the runtime. It takes the form of a made-for-TV documentary—with an obvious stylistic nod to ‘Unsolved Mysteries.’ The segment relates the experiences of a scientific research team and their investigation of a childlike entity that exhibits the ability to metamorphose into the semblance of other individuals. Interview clips featuring the only surviving member of the team inform viewers that something went horribly wrong with the program.

‘V/H/S/85’ manages to cover all the bases: It shows that sources of dread and fear can spring from the natural world, from deranged individuals fixated on the desire to kill, from religion and mythology, and from explorations into the darkest fringes of technology and science.

Its consistency in tone is not complemented by a consistency in the quality of content, however. Some of the film’s components feel undercooked, derivative, or impenetrable. But even the weaker segments manage to give viewers something to ponder. The clear standouts here are Nelson’s overlapping segments, and Bruckner’s ‘Total Copy.’

‘The V/H/S wraparound has always been a moving target,’ Bruckner explains in the film’s production notes. Bruckner directed the ‘Total Copy’ segment that serves as a frame narrative. ‘After “V/H/S/2,” canon mythology was abandoned and filmmakers modified the approach with each new iteration, sometimes explaining the origin of the mysterious tapes, sometimes not, but always leaning into the retro fetishism of old media. In keeping with that, Evan Dickson and I envisioned “Total Copy” as a “taped-off-the-TV” documentary that would serve as the base layer to a glitchy, beat-to-hell mixtape from 1985.’

As Bruckner goes on to state, ‘V/H/S/85’ remains painstakingly true to the era in both appearance and tone, and those who lived through the VHS era will appreciate this perfectionism and creativity that went into crafting this faux mixtape of horrific found-footage fragments.

‘V/H/S/85’ reanimates the franchise with a jolt of juice as effective as Herbert West’s special serum. Come for the blood, gore and jump-scares, but stay for the dark themes, ambitious and innovative storytelling technique, and the nostalgic retro vibe of 1980s culture.

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