"This horror bonanza, the eighth instalment in the V/H/S anthology series, is a mixed bag, with some very high highs and regrettably poor lows. This is essentially a collection of Halloween-themed shorts, and while they're billed as found footage in keeping with the conceit of the original, the idea that you're watching found footage has been more or less worn away to a nub at this point."
"Among the highlights is a riotous and disgusting chapter called Fun Size, made with grisly flair by Casper Kelly, whose viral masterpiece Too Many Cooks took the internet by storm in 2014 and whose feature film Buddy just premiered at Sundance. Fun Size sees a group of young adults stumble into what might best be described as a wrongness zone where they're pitted against a villain who comes on like the vicious kid brother of the Ghostbusters Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man."
"In franchise tradition, there's also a wrap-around section, Diet Phantasma, to which we return after each section, and which closes out the film; it's probably the funniest material here, playing out like The Fast Show meets Re-Animator. Conceived by director Bryan M Ferguson, it sees a bunch of amoral scientists attempt to finesse the recipe for a haunted soda, and it is completely absurd, in the most charming way possible."
The eighth V/H/S instalment delivers a mixed bag of Halloween-themed shorts that lean on the franchise's found-footage conceit, which now feels worn. Several segments stand out, notably Casper Kelly's Fun Size, a grisly, riotous entry where young adults enter a 'wrongness zone' and face a monstrous, oversized antagonist. Alex Ross Perry's Kidprint offers a quieter, more unsettling threat in the form of an everyday villain. Many lesser chapters still have merits, but the nearly two-hour runtime could benefit from editing. The wrap-around, Diet Phantasma by Bryan M Ferguson, is absurd and notably funny. Digital release: 9 February.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]