V/H/S/2 (2013)

Movie Info

Eye for an eye

The horror continues as private investigator Larry (Lawrence Michael Levine) and his partner Ayesha (Kelsy Abbott) are hired to locate the missing son of a client.  Travelling to a house, they find TV set up and piles of old VHS tapes.  The tapes all hide a secret and as the tapes are watched, the horror they hold might not be contained to the screen.

V/H/S/2 is a found-footage anthology film with directors Simon Barrett (“Tape 49”), Adam Wingard (“Phase I Clinical Trials”), Eduardo Sánchez and Gregg Hale (“A Ride in the Park”), Jason Eisener (“Slumber Party Alien Abduction”), and Timo Tjahjanto and Garteth Huw Evans (“Safe Haven”).  The movie is a sequel to the surprise hit V/H/S which was released in 2012.

Even zombies know to wear bike helmets

Anthologies are fun and worthwhile ventures…especially involving horror.  If you don’t like one story, you might like the next…and V/H/S worked decently in that sense.  With V/H/S/2 the concept is revisited and once again the results are mixed.

The movie is trying to establish an overall plot involving the VHS tapes in the house.  This is the only continuing story from the first film.  The house is revisited and the strange tapes are reviewed (this is referred to as “Tape 49” in the story process).  I have little interest in the overall story and just prefer more stories.  If the series continues, a core storyline might be necessary, but I like the Tales from the Crypt style of stories more.

Peek-a-boo!

The problem with this sequel is there is no sequence that is quite there.  All the main sequences have problems.  The first storyline “Clinical Trials” involving the eye is a snoozer and goes no were (including the random, gratuitous “let’s have sex to keep our minds off ghosts sequence”).  The most original sequence involves the “zombie with a camera” sequence “A Ride in the Park” but it is also the least compelling story since zombies are a tired subject.  “Safe Haven” is a good idea but goes on too long and “Slumber Party Abduction” suffers from poor visuals…something the movie in general has a problem with.

All your bases are belong to us!!!

The other segments are less impressive than the first film’s outing.  I expected with the moderate success of the first film, that the movie would improve the budget of this film.  Some of the techniques were interesting including the use of GoPros Instead, many of the segments look cheap and are overly long.  Creatures like the aliens in “Slumber Party Abduction” and “Safe Haven” look like really cheap costumes…the movie should have done better.

…and the best actor died

V/H/S/2 is a bit of a stumble, but I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing V/H/S return again for another sequel.  Like I mentioned, the best part of anthologies it is ok to have a bad entry…but I expect some good stories mixed in with the bad.  As of now there is no plan for V/H/S/3 but in a world where there is no originality in Hollywood, it still could happen (I still wish this film had stuck to the original title of Super-VHS).

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V/H/S (2012)