{"id":4168,"date":"2021-10-26T00:38:31","date_gmt":"2021-10-26T00:38:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=4168"},"modified":"2024-02-08T08:49:52","modified_gmt":"2024-02-08T08:49:52","slug":"film-vhs-94","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=4168","title":{"rendered":"FiLM REViEW: VHS \u201894"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I\u2019ve been getting into horror films recently. Much to my own surprise. I\u2019ve even been watching those awful YouTube videos of people talking about their favourite horror stuff. That\u2019s how I found out about this film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stranger still, I\u2019ve gone as far as taking out a free week long trial of Shudder, so I could watch this, and some other horror movies, over the upcoming Halloween half-term holiday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A screenshot from the Subject<\/em> segment.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

VHS \u201894<\/em> is part four of what\u2019s become a growing series (I haven\u2019t seen any of the other instalments). It looks and feels, for the most part, like a relatively low budget affair, many of the stories using suspense and \u2018jump scares\u2019 or \u2018jump cuts\u2019, or whatever they\u2019re called, more than special effects. It\u2019s also done, in the main, as if recorded to VHS, in the popular \u2018found footage\u2019 style. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wobbly camera work and glitchy images might annoy some, but I quite liked the retro granular video vibes. Plus it can help make lower budget horror and gore less obvious\/risible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And on top of all of this, it\u2019s also a horror anthology. There\u2019s \u2018ratman\u2019 (Storm Drain<\/em>), a risen corpse at The Empty Wake<\/em>, a mad prof\/doc\u2019 making human\/robot \u2018neo-humans\u2019 (Subject<\/em>), and cultish \u2018homeland patriot\u2019 nutters in Terror<\/em>. A fifth story, Holy Hell<\/em>, frames all the others. There\u2019s cultish weirdness, monsters, violence, gore, fear, and above all a general desire to scare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A screenshot from the Storm Drain<\/em> segment.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I wonder what it says about us as a species that we\u2019re so given to the contemplation of death, and our fears? I suppose those things in themselves aren\u2019t too surprising. What is<\/em> surprising, and possibly disturbing, is the fact it takes the form, these days, of a whole subculture and industry, as prolific as it is \u2026 erm..? grotesque.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certain passages in several segments are very like action from first-person video games. It seems the intersection between the worlds of video game culture and the rest of life, movies in particular, proceeds apace. This is especially true of Subject<\/em>, which is probably the strongest individual segment of VHS \u201894<\/em>. Subject<\/em> is the only story not<\/em> set in the US, and is also the slickest of the shorts, production wise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I actually enjoyed VHS \u201894<\/em>, or at least parts of it, quite a lot. There were, I feel, more interesting ideas in several of these shorts than in most full length horror films. One of the most interesting segments, Terror<\/em>, is presented as if it\u2019s the home videos of an extreme right wing neo-Nazi group, as they prepare for a terrorist attack. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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First Patriots Movement Militia, comically inept but also disturbingly real. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Grim goings on at the compound.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These Trumpist\/MAGA style lunatics are as comically inept as they are morally bankrupt. But their nefarious plans go bloodily awry. Does it make any sense? We see the same man executed repeatedly by different members of the group. Does it \u2018mean\u2019 anything? From exploding bunnies to a freaky monster; I\u2019ve no idea right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically one of the weakest stories, Holy Hell<\/em>, is the one that\u2019s spliced up and used as a recurrent \u2018back to the story\u2019 type glue, framing all the other threads, and starting and finishing the whole set. Or perhaps it feels disjointed and less effective because it\u2019s chopped up, where the others are complete?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Holy Hell<\/em>, my least favourite of the segments. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, better than a lot of much better funded mainstream stuff, and, in my view, worth watching. Especially for the Subject<\/em> and Terror<\/em> segments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been getting into horror films recently. Much to my own surprise. I\u2019ve even been watching those awful YouTube videos of people talking about their favourite horror stuff. That\u2019s how I found out about this film. Stranger still, I\u2019ve gone as far as taking out a free week long trial of Shudder, so I could … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “FiLM REViEW: VHS \u201894”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[15,74],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-15e","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4168"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4168"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11439,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4168\/revisions\/11439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}