It wouldn’t be Fantastic Fest without a “V/H/S” movie. Once again, the good folks at Shudder, Bloody Disgusting, and Cinepocalypse have gathered some adventurous directors around the found footage campfire to tell some twisted tales, and this time they’re all centered on every horror fan’s favorite holiday. “V/H/S/HALLOWEEN” is one of the best entries in this now-annual anthology series because it feels the most tonally consistent (and has maybe the best batting average). Not only are most of the stories tied together with themes of Halloween like urban legends, bowls of candy, and haunted houses, but they mostly have the same tone: a tongue-in-bloody-cheek sense of humor and willingness to go beyond perceived decorum. Keep your elevated horror. Let’s get down in the muck. I heard that’s where they have the full-size candy bars.
Every “V/H/S” has a connecting short that the film returns to between entries and this one presents the excellent “Diet Phantasma,” which plays out like grainy footage of a focus group working on its latest product, complete with “For Internal Use Only” across the screen. From the mad scientist side of the glass, we see test subjects given a can of Diet Phantasma, and they await to see the side effects. We’re not talking nausea or hives. Think demonic possession and spontaneous combustion. It’s a clever bit because we know as horror fans that each time we come back to it, the ante has been upped on the insanity that we’re likely to witness.
The first proper segment in “Halloween” is Anna Zlokovic’s inspired “Coochie Coochie Coo,” a story of two of those kids who are a little too old to be trick or treating but want one last run at the candy machine. They’ve heard the stories of “mommy,” an urban legend figure that makes unruly teenagers disappear on Halloween. Of course, they end up at her house, which is a deranged piece of filmmaking, both in conception and execution. There’s something truly unsettling around every corner of this impossible house of horrors, making it a great one to include early, as it launches the momentum of the film overall and sets the bar for gross shit.
Of course, everyone knows that “[REC]” director Paco Plaza is going to match that bar, and he mostly does in “Ut Supra Sic Infra.” A lone survivor of a group of massacred victims is being taken by the police to the scene of the crime to explain how all of his friends ended up with holes where their eyes used to be. Plaza cuts back and forth to the night in question and the investigation, kind of “cheating” at the found footage thing, but he’s one of the stronger visual artists in the “V/H/S” legacy, as proven here by how brilliantly he stages the final shots of impossible carnage.
The one that will have people talking the most is Casper Kelly’s “Fun Size,” which is truly unhinged in a way that the genre could use more often. Rather than drench his horror in atmospheric dread, Kelly has a broadly comic approach as he introduces a few average Halloween party goers, dressed in generic costumes and talking about their lives. They stumble on one of those unmanned giant bowls of candy on a porch with a sign that says, “Take One.” Of course, no one heeds those signs! You really should. They end up in an impossible funhouse of a candy factory that turns body parts into chocolate-covered treats in a segment that had the Fantastic Fest crowd cackling. It’s visually inventive and bright in ways that this franchise often refuses to be, eschewing shaky cam for composed shots of absolute insanity.
The grainy effect returns in “Kidprint,” an entry from what could safely be called an unexpected participant: The brilliant writer/director Alex Ross Perry of “Listen Up Philip” and “Her Smell” fame. Perry worked at the infamous Kim’s Video in the East Village in the 2000s, and “Kidprint” has an unhinged quality that feels somehow inspired by that time of his life. It’s something that would have been popular at Kim’s, a lo-fi story of a guy who works at a photo shop that takes video recordings of kids around Halloween just in case they go missing. A lot of local kids have gone missing. Of course, the Kidprint shop is connected to the missing kids, and this one gets truly dark with some violence against children that may turn some people off. It’s definitely fearless in its depiction of true evil brutality, and that kind of commitment to the tone is why it works. I also think that there’s something in here about how parents who seek to overprotect their children are not looking for monsters in the right places, but I could be reading too much into it.
Finally, there’s the great “Home Haunt,” directed by Micheline Pitt-Norman & R.H. Norman. Do you have one of those annual, homegrown haunted houses in your neighborhood? Many do. This short is about a family who has been running one for years, long enough that the oldest son is tired of doing it. Dad convinces them to run it back one more time, but a cursed LP unleashes actual, physical Hell. It’s a great closer in how it incorporates imagery of the holiday and even ties the last short to the first in that they’re really both about haunted houses that are actually dangerous.
What took them so long to get to Halloween? It’s a good question, especially given how well this one works. Maybe they didn’t want too much comparison with other holiday anthologies like “Trick ‘r Treat” and “Tales of Halloween.” There’s room enough for all the maniacs on this holiday. And it gets me thinking about other ones that might work. I can’t wait for “V/H/S/Easter.”
This review was filed from the world premiere at Fantastic Fest. It premieres on Shudder on October 3.
