V/H/S/Halloween (Various, 2025) Review

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“Enjoy the spooktacular taste.” In what has now become an annual October outing for the portmanteau horror franchise, V/H/S takes on the subject of Halloween through six tales filled with gruesome gore and frenzied bursts of terror-fuelled chaos. But as a franchise with a reputation for inconsistent quality, can V/H/S/Halloween stand proud like a jumbo-sized chocolate bar or will it fumble the sugar-coated candy ball?...

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V/H/S/Beyond (Various, 2024) Review

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“That's why everyone likes filming spooky things with VHS cameras.” A few years ago the terror-fuelled streaming service Shudder took over the portmanteau horror franchise V/H/S, one that has always produced mixed results, from soaring heights of inventive and gore-drenched scares to crushing lows of misplaced fumbling for direction. Now onto their fourth entry in the long-running series, does Shudder's alien-themed V/H/S/Beyond deliver the gruesome, gruelling goods?...

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Destroy All Neighbors (Josh Forbes, 2024) Review

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“Rock and roll is about being on time.” The nightmare neighbour next door with their loud music blasting all through the night while you lie there in bed awake, eyes bloodshot and weary, wanting to put a stop to it and never having the stones to do it. But what if one day you worked up the gumption to bang on that door and tell them to turn it down … and then accidentally killed them?...

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V/H/S/85 (2023) review...

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The V/H/S portmanteau horror anthology franchise has been a mixed bag from its inception, but this inherently goes with the territory. The first film, from 2012, was a bold but flawed beginning that was clearly one story too long and, most egregiously, suffered from featuring numerous characters who were outright wretched to spend any time with. The 2013 follow-up clocked in at an agreeably brisk 92 minutes, balanced the tone and characters, and explored a nice variety of ideas, styles, and approaches to the set-up. Sadly, 2014's V/H/S/Viral was thoroughly misguided, at times appearing embarrassingly cheap and sloppy, while also featuring mostly uninspiring tales.

Fast forward to 2021 and horror streaming service Shudder co-produced and distributed V/H/S/94, which proved to be a return to form and an impressive doubling-down on the 'vhs style'. It had some weak aspects, but it's strengths outnumbered its weaknesses. Hopes were high, then, for 2022's V/H/S/99, which absolutely dropped the ball. Aside from one segment ("Suicide Bid"), the film was a mess of miss opportunities, half-baked ideas (some of which didn't fit the format or franchise tone whatsoever), aggressive amounts of shaky-cam, and poorly-placed humour.

Nonetheless, V/H/S/99 was a ratings hit, but this was no doubt built more on the achievements of its immediate predecessor that it's own content, as born out by numerous reactions from the audience. Approaching V/H/S/85, therefore, came with some serious concern that the wrong lessons would be learned from V/H/S/99's success. Thankfully, V/H/S/85 feels more in-keeping with the first two entries in the franchise as well as V/H/S/94...

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Kids vs Aliens (Jason Eisener, 2023) Review

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“I'm tired of hearing and smelling what comes out of your face hole!” It's been a long time since the director of Hobo With A Shotgun unleashed his foul-mouthed, gore-splattered, ramped-up roar of a debut movie onto audiences, but finally the renegade filmmaker from Nova Scotia has dished up a new feature-length helping from his multi-coloured mind of madness...

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Scare Package II: Rad Chad's Revenge (Various, 2022) Review

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“Time to die … again.” Following on from franchise creators Aaron B. Koontz and Cameron Burns' 2019 Shudder-exclusive comedy horror portmanteau flick Scare Package, it's time to strap-in for movie references galore, big splattery guffaws, and some twisted ideas turned on their severed head...

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Flavours of the Month: June/July 2021...

Adventures in Nouvion, squealin' Italian wheels, and many a trip into the printed word are just some of what's been setting the tone of my June/July 2020, if you know what I mean and I think you do...

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