Shudder, the horror movie channel, has entered the Halloween fray with V/H/S/94. This is the fourth installment in the series. I haven’t watched the other three so I’m not sure if I’ll get lost in a storyline or whatnot.
V/H/S/94 is a “found footage” anthology series. There are four separate stories strung together with an overarching story about a SWAT team raiding a warehouse for drugs. The four stories consist of “Storm Drain,” a story about a rat-man living in the sewers of a small town; “The Empty Wake,” where a woman has to host a late night viewing at a funeral home by herself; “The Subject,” which is the story of a mad scientist kidnapping people to turn them into creatures; and “Terror,” a weirdly political vampire tale.
Like any anthology movie, there are good stories and there are not-as-good stories. I didn’t think “Storm Drain” was particularly entertaining. The story didn’t make a lot of sense and the acting was cheesy. Sometimes cheesy is good. But you need a good story to make up for the cheesiness.
“The Empty Wake” was a little bit better but it took a very long time to get to the action. There’s a lot of…well, empty time where the woman (Kyal Legend) is just sitting there. The end was interesting. It just took too long to get there.
My favorite story out of all of them was “The Subject.” We barely see the creatures. Actually, most of the movie is from the female creature’s point of view. So what we see is everyone’s reactions to the creatures. It is pretty terrifying. I think I would like to a full length movie with this premise.
As for “Terror,” I’m not sure how I feel about it. It starts out with domestic terrorism and ends up with vampires. I see what the writer wanted to do with the story, I’m just not sure it worked out well. This is another instance where I think the story needed more time to develop the characters and really bring everything together. I probably would watch a full length movie about this if it was done right. Terrorism can be a tricky subject though.
Finally, that overarching story they called “Holy Hell.” I wanted to like these parts so bad. But the camerawork is terrible. I understand that it’s supposed to be a found footage documentary type thing but the camera swings all over the place, not giving you a chance to really see what is going on. Especially since the warehouse setting isn’t lit very well. At least the good stories trapped inside “Holy Hell” made watching the movie worthwhile.
With all that said, do I think you should watch this… If you are a fan of found footage type movies, you might get a kick out of it. But if you are looking for some actual Halloween thrills, you aren’t likely to find them there. I spent more time thinking “Oh, that is interesting” or “I wonder how they did that effect” instead of being pulled into the stories. I think the people who would enjoy this film the most are the ones that love cheesy C-list horror movies. If you are into Goblin, or Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, or maybe even Sharknado, this may be for you.