I have sat through far worse ways to kick off the month of October than V/H/S Halloween, but I have also sat through better. The strongest opinion I can give for this anthology of six ghoulish yarns taking place on or around Halloween is, "It was all right."
Not the most enthusiastic of endorsements, I know.
Diet Phantasma serves as the film's wraparound 'story' and shows the makers of a new kind of diet soda struggling to curtail the horrifying side effects of their product, so that it can be in stores in time for Halloween. Paper thin and more than a bit repetitive, the reveal in the faux commercial that interrupts the end credits got me to crack a small smile, at least.
Coochie Coochie Coo. Lacie (Samantha Cochran) and Kaliegh (Natalia Montgomery) will be going to different schools, so they plan to milk their last Halloween night as a duo for all the mischievous fun and candy they can get. Until they go to one house too many, that is...
While there were a few creepy images in Coochie Coochie Coo that sent a chill up my spine, as well as an impressive and grody set design that made it far too easy to imagine the stench of the house Lacie and Kaliegh have dared to venture inside, I thought this starter story dragged on for far too long and was in dire need of some narrative tightening.
Ut Supra Sic Infra ['As Above So Below']: Faced with a baffling crime scene that defies explanation, the police have the soul survivor of a Halloween night massacre walk through the site of the slaughter, to try and understand what happened...
This gets my vote for best segment. It is well acted, well paced, and delivers a jaw dropper of a finale. I loved it.
Fun Size: Four drunk friends decide to do a little trick or treating. It is all fun and games, until one of the group takes more than one candy from a bucket underneath a large 'One Per Customer' sign. Bad idea...
Whether intentional or not, this segment contained a few too many story beats that were in Coochie Coochie Coo, making it feel and play as more of the same. Nonetheless its manages to overcome those shortcomings by being far better paced than Coochie Coochie Coo and enlivened by a dash of delicious black comedy that would make it suitable for Tales from the Crypt.
Kidprint: An eccentric, albeit well-intentioned, electronics store manager makes video recordings of local children for any and all concerned parents. Seems that kids of all ages have been disappearing, only to turn up dead...
This segment took me back to 1989, or so, when I worked at Blockbuster Video. They had partnered with America's Most Wanted to make video cassette recordings of children for their paranoid parents. Yep, that really was a thing.
Buried deep inside this uneven and awkward hodgepodge of footage are elements of a truly dark and twisted yarn. One that might have worked better if done with a traditional narrative structure. As it plays out here, though, I felt it did not hit quite as hard, or cut as deep, as it could have. Kidprint pretty much ties with Coochie Coochie Coo in the battle to be the weakest and least interesting segment of the film.
Home Haunt: All Keith (Jeff Harms) wants is to create the scariest homemade haunted attraction possible. A purloined Halloween sound effects record just might help him succeed in scaring the life out of any and all who dare to enter Dr. Mortis' House of Horrors...
V/H/S Halloween's closer brought to mind the charming 2012 documentary The American Scream, albeit with a far nastier edge. I thought it an entertaining and lively examination of the old truism of always being careful of whatever it is you wish for, as you just might get it.
Home Haunt ended the anthology on an energetic note that, coupled with the Diet Phantasma commercial, did not leave me feeling sorry for wasting two hours of my ever-shortening life watching this movie. I may have seen better, but I have also seen a hell of a lot worse...
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