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MY CALL: This was okay; a slightly above average horror anthology. I’m inclined to say V/H/S/94 (2021) was better and V/H/S/99 (2022) was way better.
MORE HORROR ANTHOLOGIES: Dead of Night (1945), Black Sabbath (1963), Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Vault of Horror (1973), The Uncanny (1977), Screams of a Winter Night (1979), Creepshow (1982), Screamtime (1983), Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye (1985), Deadtime Stories (1986), Creepshow 2 (1987), From a Whisper to a Scream (1987; aka The Offspring), After Midnight (1989), Tales from the Crypt Season 1 (1989), Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990), Grimm Prairie Tales (1990), The Willies (1990), Two Evil Eyes (1990), Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (1993), Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), Campfire Tales (1997), Dark Tales of Japan (2004), 3 Extremes (2004), Creepshow 3 (2006), Trick ‘r Treat (2007), Chillerama (2011), Little Deaths (2011), V/H/S (2012), The Theater Bizarre (2012), The ABCs of Death (2013), V/H/S 2 (2013), All Hallows’ Eve (2013), The Profane Exhibit (2013), The ABCs of Death 2 (2014), V/H/S Viral (2014), Southbound (2015), Tales of Halloween (2015), A Christmas Horror Story (2015), The ABCs of Death 2.5 (2016), Holidays (2016), Terrified (2017; aka Aterrados, a pseudo-anthology), Oats Studios, Vol. 1 (2017), Ghost Stories (2017), XX (2017), All the Creatures Were Stirring (2018), The Field Guide to Evil (2018), Nightmare Cinema (2018), Blood Clots (2018), Shudder’s series Creepshow (2019-2021), Scare Package (2019), The Mortuary Collection (2019), Xenophobia (2019), V/H/S/94 (2021), Netflix’s series Cabinet of Curiosities (2022) and V/H/S/99 (2022).
Swinging in on the coattails of the quite enjoyable horror-comedy anthology V/H/S/99 (2022), this 6th V/H/S anthology emerges as the least impressive of the recent three installments (i.e., 94, 99, 85). Still, this is a watchable, more often than not entertaining set of unlinked horror segments. Not only are these stories unlinked, but there is no wraparound story—and either of these tend to enrich these anthologies. However, one positive stylistic decision was that two of the segments (No Wake, Total Copy) are shown to us gradually wrapped around the other segments.
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Featuring a rather eclectic mix of brutal gun violence, unconventional undeath, forgotten Mexican deities, tentacle monsters, VR demigods and all manner of murder, this movie brings a healthy dose of lower budget (but acceptable) gore, gashes, dismemberments, flesh-tearing and guts. So there’s that.
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No Wake (Director Mike P. Nelson; The Domestics, Wrong Turn)
A group of twentysomethings hit the lake for a day of beer and waterskiing. It’s all fun and flirting until an unseen shooter starts sniping them in the boat. Bullet after bullet, they fall one by one. There’s an excellent gore effect when someone’s jaw is nearly shot clean from their face leaving a dangling chonky mess! Wow.
After the slaughter, the twentysomething victims find themselves walking around when they should surely be dead. One with his brains blown out the back of his head, otherwise seems perfectly fine… just… upset about it.
This segment continues later in the movie with an entirely different and interesting chapter that I will not spoil. I’ll just say that this is the segment that makes this anthology worth watching (perhaps entirely on its own).
God of Death (Director Gigi Saul Guerrero; SlashFM, Trap House)
A Mexican news team endures an earthquake leaving only the cameraman alive. With a search and rescue team, they try to navigate the rubble of the now-dilapidated building’s hazards as more die.
They wander into some undiscovered subterranean ruins of an ancient God that demands tribute in blood. The blood and gore is maybe decent, but there’s a lot of it. In fact, this entire segment is rather a struggle to endure. It just felt toothless for me. The shoestring budget didn’t help.
Total Copy (Director David Bruckner; Hellraiser, V/H/S segment “Amateur Night”, Southbound segment “The Accident”, The Ritual)
A shapeshifting alien lifeform is the subject of learning-based experimentation under the eye of a team of scientists. They expose “Rory” to various media to see how he reacts.
Rory becomes a tentacled monster and attacks the scientists. The writhing monstrous mess becomes violent and kills more. Okay gore, neat creature effects. It ends on a very dark but funny note that closes the movie.
TKNOGD (Director Natasha Kermani; Lucky)
Not a fan. A one-woman show becomes an exploration of 1985 virtual reality technology in search of a “Techno-God.” She enters VR and taunts the network to show her their God. Artistic, but shallow; crass even.
The Techno-God does appear and it is not happy with its doubter, whom it violently punishes, flaying and dismembering her on-stage from the VR world. Some very nice gory visuals. But overall, not a satisfying segment.
Dreamkill (Director Scott Derickson; The Black Phone, Deliver Us from Evil, Sinister, Hellraiser: Inferno)
Detectives investigate a series of murders that they have already watched on videos from before the murders actually occurred! Very bloody, gory and mean. Some truly brutal gunshot wounds. Like, wow.
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Every now and then, random clips of 80sness are deliciously nostalgic. The clothes, the video clips, classic sound bites… I feel the movie missed an opportunity in adding more. But that was also my overall impression, that this movie missed an opportunity (in most of its segments). Often the problem was budget. But I truly had trouble getting interested (at all) in Dreamkill, TEKNOGD and God of Death until the gore kicked into high gear. The ideas are all good ideas, but I cannot find their inspiration being properly realized on-screen as I did with No Wake, the belle of this anthology’s ball.
Still, I’ll take every V/H/S movie I can get. So many interesting ideas to be shared.