In the world of independent horror films, it can be tricky to figure out what qualifies as a success. Movies of this type rarely receive much in the way of a wide theatrical release. If they do make a profit, it usually comes in the forms of DVD sales and digital rentals. Usually, success can be more easily measured in terms of buzz. Regardless of what you thought of the film, the first “V/H/S” absolutely generate plenty of buzz in the horror and film press. The production companies behind the film clearly saw “V/H/S” as a potential franchise. (And, to horror nerds, few things are more exciting than a long-running franchise.) A sequel was fast-tracked. “V/H/S/2 – which originally had the amusingly referential title of “S-VHS” – was in theaters a year later. Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett would return, along with several other up-and-coming genre filmmakers, for another round of found footage mayhem.
“V/H/S/2's” framing device revolves around a sketchy private detective hired to locate a missing college student. They locate the guy's home but only find his extensive VHS collection, which they watch for clues. “Phase I Clinical Trials” follows a man who has an experimental ocular implant installed, everything he sees being recorded. And what he sees are ghosts. “A Ride in the Park” concerns a mountain biker who has a camera atop his helmet. He stumbles upon a zombie outbreak and is infected himself, his camera recording his undead experience. “Safe Haven” follows a news crew investigating a religious cult, who soon uncover disturbing phenomenon. “Slumber Party Alien Abduction” is about exactly that: Kids goofing around with a video camera at a party end up capturing extreme evidence of alien life.
By 2013, found footage was just about played out. Horror fans had seen almost every variant on the concept imaginable. The filmmakers behind “V/H/S/2” were obviously struggling with how to distinguish their film from the hundred other found footage movies that were out by that point. (The lo-fi, video aesthetic did that for the original but much less attention is paid to that here.) The solutions range from the novel to the absurd. Bike ride videos are a genre onto their own on Youtube. Combining that with the found footage premise, in “A Ride in the Park,” was extremely clever. “Slumber Party Alien Abduction” straps the camera to a dog for part of its run time. “Phase I Clinical Trials,” meanwhile, takes the glasses gimmick from the first movie's “Amateur Night” segment too far, sticking the camera inside the human eye. If you have to invent new technology to justify your found footage story, maybe just don't tell that story.
As with the first “V/H/S,” the framing device is the weakest of the movie's segments. Screenwriter Simon Barrett steps behind the camera, making his directorial debut. There's some interesting ideas contained within “Tape 49.” The recorded monologues of the tape collector suggest a subculture of people who collect freaky found footage exists in the “V/H/S” universe. (The guy casually laughs off finding “CP” in the tapes, proving how extreme this subculture is.) That probably should've been the focus of the framing device, as it's more intriguing than the private detective angle. The detective tries to blackmail the cheating husband he finds in the first scene, suggesting the E.C. Comics style sense of justice that informed the first movie.
Yet most of these angles are abandoned in favor of the idea that watching evil tapes destroys the mind. We see this in the way the detective's female accomplice slowly develops strange symptoms while watching through the evidence. This is a premise thoroughly explored in “The Ring,” “Videodrome,” and other movies before. ”V/H/S/2” doesn't really engage with the potential deeper meanings of that idea, like those other films did. “Tape 49's” best idea is the reveal at the end, that the tapes within-the-film end directly where the framing device starts. That, admittedly, caught me off-guard and sets up a pretty decent series of scares.
Luckily things start to improve with the next segment. Eduardo Sanchez and Gregg Hale pioneered the found footage genre with “The Blair Witch Project,” so it was fitting that they were invited to work on “V/H/S/2.” The two managed to cook up a novel approach to the zombie premise, the only horror idea more played out than found footage was in 2012. While movies before had purported to tell the zombie apocalypse scenario from the zombie's point of view, “A Ride in the Park” commits to that rather literally. It straps a camera to the zombie's head, giving us a first-person perspective as they shamble along, attack people, and consume human flesh. It's an almost fresh perspective on the genre, at least adding a novel angle to this often-told tale.
By telling a zombie story directly from the point-of-view of the zombie, “A Ride in the Park” manages to find some humor and even pathos in the idea. Zombies, being mindless corpse, respond to everything in the most dead-pan of fashions. Whether it be a poke in the eye with a barbecue fork or a torn-off limb, they groan quizzically and continue wandering around. Yet there is something sad about the lifeless zombie too, crawling around as a rotten reminder of the lives they had. When our main zombies picks up a teddy bear, it seemingly stirs something in his dead brain. The film emphasizes this by having the zombie cluelessly answer a phone call from his still-living girlfriend, who has no idea about what happened. In just a few minutes, “A Ride in the Park” manages to find a lot of depth to these undead archetypes.
The film doesn't just throw this gore around for its own sake. Evans and Tjahjanto know exactly how to make this violence hit with maximum impact. The found footage angle – which definitely doesn't address the “why doesn't he put the camera down?” question – is mostly used to put the audience right in the middle of this madness. And it's so effective that we don't ask that question. “Safe Haven” accurately captures a sense of panic and chaos. As the characters grapple with zombies, or have a crowd of cultist close in on them, the intensity definitely keeps rising and rising. The stakes are continuously upped, especially once that goat-headed monster appears. “Safe Haven” keeps rocketing along, with grotesque and disturbing imagery, until its final and intentionally sarcastic image. It's a hell of a ride.
“Slumber Party Alien Abduction” attempts to keep that tension going and somewhat succeeds. Director Jason Eisner, of “Hobo with a Shotgun” fame, has some pretty smart tricks to visually and aurally overwhelm the audience. The alien invaders are often accompanied by blasting lights and rumbling noises on the soundtrack. The creatures are classical greys, a simple special effect that is further exaggerated with smartly utilized CGI to make them more inhuman. The segment – which resembles forgotten found footage classic “Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County” in a few ways – is largely a series of attack scenes once the chaos starts. Yet Eisner largely keeps the sense of panic going, making “Slumber Party Alien Abduction” a pretty intense episode to close on.
While the first “V/H/S” was somewhat divisively received, the sequel earned much better reviews from fans and critics. “Safe Haven” was especially singled out, with some even listing it among the best horror films of the year. While that is probably the stand-out segment, I think pretty much everything in “V/H/S/2” after Wingard's installment is pretty damn good. It's a little more accessible than the first and perhaps more strongly assembled in general, even if some of the attitude and aesthetic that really distinguished the first movie are reeled in some. Either way, the two films together stand out as some of the best later entries into the found footage horror trend. [Grade: A-]
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