By Geno McGahee
In 2012, V/H/S was released and it became a hit. A found footage horror anthology with reference to the lost video format of VHS, V/H/S was something unique and it had its moments. It wasn’t great, but it was different and it stood out. It led to V/H/S 2, another good, not great, movie, and now V/H/S VIRAL. It seems to suffer the same problems as the others. Some tales are very strong and others are terrible.
V/H/S VIRAL starts with a guy continually taping his hot girlfriend, focusing on her best assets. His fascination with video continues and leads to him running outside during a high speed police chase with the hope that his footage will go viral. Suddenly his girlfriend goes into a trance and disappears. At the same time, a police officer gets slammed by a truck and his arm flies off in an example of terrible CGI. We then go into a tale…
DANTE THE GREAT
Dante (Justin Welborn) used to live at a trailer park and lived an unremarkable life. One day, he stumbles upon a cloak and becomes the world’s most amazing magician. His magic tricks are unlike any others and nobody can figure out how he does it. His abilities attract a young assistant, Scarlett (Emmy Argo). Scarlett, hoping to learn at the feet of the master, desperately wants to be a magician. She becomes close to Dante, but he will not divulge his secrets. It soon becomes apparent that Dante is not using tricks. He is actually using magic and he is using that magic to kill people. It leads to a showdown between Scarlett and Dante with the magic cloak hanging in the balance.
DANTE THE GREAT is the best tale that’s ever been featured in any V/H/S movie. It is sharp, unique, and interesting.
GORGEOUS VORTEX
An inventor creates a vortex and connects with himself. He stands there and talks to himself and both are quite taken by the spectacle. Everything looks the same but they both want to explore each other’s homes. When they do, it becomes obvious that something is very wrong. Instead of photos of the marriage, there are photos of sacrificial rituals and there are dudes hanging around that he doesn’t know. A big blimp floats over the house with an upside down cross on it and the people prove to be non-human as they attempt to kill him. He now has to save his wife who is alone with his non-human doppelganger. This tale was outstanding, but (Spoiler) the big alien dicks that looked like they fell out of Jim Henson’s ass I could have done without. It went from scary to sort of silly in seconds, but it’s still a great tale that stands out in the V/H/S series.
BONESTORM
A bunch of skateboarders go around and get kicked out of places by security. They do dangerous things and have nothing good going on. They do drugs and just screw off, and they screw off forever it seems. This tale just is going nowhere and then they end up getting confronted by a bunch of Mexican Day of the Dead people that want to hurt them. The skateboarders fight them and kill them and then they become skeletons and the skateboarders beat them again…the end. BONESTORM is pure shit.
V/H/S ends with the wraparound tale and the discovery of the missing girlfriend. Next to BONESTORM, the wraparound is the weakest tale. I don’t know why the producers of V/H/S can’t tell the difference between a great tale like DANTE THE GREAT and the pure crap that was BONESTORM. You would think that there would be somebody there that could tell that the story was crap and that they shouldn’t include it. There are millions of great filmmakers out there that would have jumped at the opportunity to create a tale for V/H/S and would have done it well, but they opted for BONESTORM? It’s no wonder why this movie has gotten such a bad wrap. After you watch BONESTORM and then the final segment, you forget how good the other two tales were.
V/H/S VIRAL is a missed opportunity. It’s worth a watch but I would suggest shutting it off after the GORGEOUS VORTEX. I think if you take all these V/H/S movies, combine them, and cut out the bad tales, you’ll have one really strong movie. Maybe it’s a time for the best of V/H/S.
Rating: 4/10 – What a shame
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