V/H/S
Ehh, not sure if that will work. This first one teetered on the edge of mediocrity at times, and at some points, was just completely incomprehensible. On another note, can’t wait to see what Eduardo Sanchez drums up.
I feel like it’ll be something wholly different with the inclusion of some of these other filmmakers.
VHS 2 announced
Oh nice – I’d be pretty happy if this became an annual thing. It was cool seeing all the different approaches to found footage together.
Anyway, as far as V/H/S 1 is concerned, I agree with Tommy – the one with the killer in the woods was the only one I didn’t particularly care for, and I didn’t think it really fit in either. Here’s how I’d rank the segments:
1. Haunted House (Radio Silence)
2. Skype (Swanberg)
3. Traveling Couple (West)
4. Camera Glasses (Bruckner)
5. Frame Story (Wingard)
6. Killer in the Woods (McQuaid)
The one with the camera glasses was filmed in Atlanta, which was exciting for me. The director of that segment was at the screening I saw and he seemed like a nice guy. I really didn’t like Ti West’s segment at first, but then it grew on me a lot. It’s the one that stuck with me the most at least.
I’m torn between putting Swangerg’s or Radio Silence’s first. I think Swanberg’s had way better ideas and even execution, but the special effects in Radio Silence’s were really really fun. And I really like the idea of haunted houses, so I think I’m biased a little.
Horror anthology related, The ABC’s of Death just released a trailer.
Inconsistent, but the parts that worked REALLY worked. Particularly the Radio Silence episode. That one was a great time and such a nice way to end a spotty film.
The Skype episode, however, was ass.
So… how the heck long is ABC’s of Death gonna be? With 26 short films… if they’re all 5 minutes, then the film is already over 2 hours, and it seems like 5 minutes is kind of too short…
IMDB puts it at 123 minutes. So some of them will be really quick I guess.
I doubt there will be much content to them anyways because from what I understand, it’s just a bunch of people dying.
First still from the V/H/S sequel, S-V/H/S.
yucky.
Well that looks pretty great!
watched this last night. wound up enjoying it, overall, though it’s clearly got both good and bad points.
the best segments, imo, were david bruckner’s amateur night (about the camera glasses and the monster girl), joe swanberg’s genuinely scary the sick thing that happened to emily when she was younger (skype chat w boogeymens) and 10/31/98, the wonderful haunted-house themed closing segment by the “radio silence” collective. i liked all three of these, though none was write-a-letter-home great.
ti west’s road trip film, second honeymoon, was the real stinker of the bunch. i knew whose work it was within a minute. dude’s style is unmistakable. and boring as hell. a complete nothing of a film. glenn mcquaid’s saturday the 17th was almost as bad. the characters and dialogue were, if anything, worse than in west’s segment, but at least it found a nice visual gimmick in the “glitch” killer. that one clever bit of visual trickery wasn’t enough to sustain a 20-minute short, but at least it looked pretty cool. adam wingard’s framing story about the search for the macguffin tape felt disposable.
so the whole thing winds up being about 50/50. would have enjoyed it a lot more if west and mcquaid’s entries had been sidelined in favor of one more top-shelf short, but i’ve definitely seen worse. i do notice that the found footage/shakeycam approach tends to reduce my demands and expectations, so that not sucking completely feels like an accomplishment to be proud of. this is both a good and a bad thing, but in this case, i was satisfied by half good enough.
agree with whoever brought it up that there’s something odd about the film’s sexual politics. a lot of “weird” (but attractive) monster/killer/psycho women encountered by “ordinary” (but jerky) guys. in fact, every one of the five entries revolved around this theme in some way or another. the sick thing that happened to emily inverts the device by having the woman seem psycho and the guy seem decent along the way, but eventually turns that setup on its head. the rest follow it with little variation.
didn’t bother me, but then i’ve been a horror fan forever. i tend to forgive the genre all its sins.
also loved the death set over the end credits. hooray for death.
I’m a big horror fan myself and usually tend to be a bit forgiving on older films while I’m pretty harsh on new films unless something really wows me. Whether it be form, story, performance or whatever, if it does something great, I tend to love it. Usually the films that I’m more impressed with widely hated. :-/
tomas.roges
Cool that you got around to it. I thought it was one of the better horror films I’ve seen in some time as well.