V/H/S: B

I’m usually not into found footage movies, but this one was incredibly charming and had a clever design. The film manages to use the found footage model to engage one of my favorite types of horror movies: The Creepshow/Tales from the Crypt frame narrative.

Instead of a Crypt Keeper or a comic book, the outer frame of the story involves three criminally pathetic hipster-misfits who like to engage in Clockwork Orange type behavior like smashing stuff and terrorizing women, which they also film so they can LOL about it later. They are hired to break into some old guy’s house to steal a rare VHS tape. When they get there, the dude is dead, rotting in front of an obelisk of static filled televisions and a mound of VHS tapes. The hipsters decide to watch the tapes and each one is a miniature found footage horror movie. I thought that shit was clever! In between each tape, creepy shit starts happening at the house and it escalates to a tasty climax after they view the last tape.

Tape 1 is about three super irritating frat-type bros who get fucked up by a vampire/succubus after a long and annoying night of partying. They drink their faces off, snort some blow, and take some babes back to their hotel room. Man, after like 20 minutes of a seemingly pointless bro-odyssey through the annals of the dive bar scene, it is so much fun to watch them get maimed/eaten. The girl who plays the monster does a great job. With minimal effects and delicious gore, this was my favorite vignette.

Tape 2 sucks. It’s about a couple who go on their boring 2^nd honeymoon only to be stalked/molested by a mysterious and also boring switchblade wielding woman in between their boring bickering and yawn-inspiring escapades. Really anti-climactic. Oh, and boring.

Tape 3 is about some buddies who decide to go camping in the woods. They didn’t decide to get murdered by a fucking specter, but that’s not typically something one gets to decide. There’s some funny gore and typical irresponsible teen behavior in the forest a la Friday the 13^th. One girl almost pulls off a Schwarzenegger from Predator as she slows down the antagonist with booby traps. The ending is pretty cool.

Tape 4 is about a woman who has a strange bump on her wrist that shows up about the same time a tribe of midgets starts haunting her house. Instead of a camcorder, this footage is found from her Skype convos with her BF, who strangely doesn’t seem to like her investigating the midget phenomena. This tape ends with a “twist” that you sort of see coming, but I’ll bet you can’t guess the specifics.

Finally, Tape 5 follows some friends who go to a Halloween party only to be terrorized by a bunch of poltergeists. Meh. It’s okay.

I heard they are already making a sequel. I hope they call it L/A/S/E/R/D/I/S/C.