V/H/S 2 (Review)

V/H/S 2

V/H/S 2 (aka S-V/H/S)

Directed by Simon Barrett (segment "Tape 49") Jason Eisener (segment "Slumber Party Alien Abduction") Gareth Evans (segment "Safe Haven") Gregg Hale (segment "A Ride in the Park") Eduardo Sánchez (segment "A Ride in the Park") Timo Tjahjanto (segment "Safe Haven") Adam Wingard (segment "Phase I Clinical Trials")

If you're a frequent reader of this blog, you'll know I gave the original V/H/S 3 spinkicks. Most of the shorts were good in my opinion and though a little muddled, they showed what the next generation of horror directors could do with a slick collaboration.

I went into seeing VHS 2 knowing it had critical acclaim and one can only wonder if that seeps into the unconscious when reviewing a film. I'll be the first to admit I tend to get influenced by the Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic rating. But hell, I went against that when I praised VHS.

So now after seeing the sequel, I'm in a place I was before. It's a solid anthology that delivers a taste of the mild, the hardcore and the fantastic. What you get with this collaboration is a film that edges the original just based on originality, blood and guts and more amped up WTF. Found footage in VHS 2 is just the wraparound. The 1st person forced perspective is the next evolutionary step and here we see it utilized well and not so well.

Clearly we get a mixed bag but the pure ingenuity in some of these shorts must be graded on a curve. Kudos to Bloody Disgusting Brad Miska for producing and delivering a reemergence of the anthology.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Searching for a missing student, two private investigators break into his house and find collection of VHS tapes. Viewing the horrific contents of each cassette, they realize there may be dark motives behind the student's disappearance. 

Awesome Review-O-Matic


Well here be some mini reviews of each segment and a letter grade for each. Shorts are listed in the order as they appear in the film (though I think I'm forgetting the order now)

Tape 49/frame narrative (Simon Barett)


The private eyes segment starts with boobs in your face but is usually the weakest of the inter spliced shorts. Clearly better than the first wrap around in the original, it's your standard VHS tape spookiness with some clear The Ring influences to get your jump scares.

Grade: C

Phase I Clinical Trials (Adam Wingard)

Again my excitement stemmed from getting my Wingard fix in VHS 2. A man with an eye transplant starts seeing ghosts though believes it to be glitches in the software of his untested implant. The forced perspective of "eyeview" provides glimpses of faraway ghosts, one being a creepy man and a little girl. Later joined by a an ear-psychic hot girl, they soon realize technology is NSA-ing into another dimension. Nothing new on this front. Just some old fashioned Paranormal Activity spooks and scares.

Grade: C

A Ride in the Park (Gregg Hale/Eduardo Sanchez)

Sanchez and Hale are your found footage pioneers (via The Blair Witch Project) and it's awesome to see them back in the sub genre they started. With this short, one can only wonder how in the world have we not seen this originality...well ever. A biker with a camera attached to his helmet unfortunately wanders into the zombie woods and tries to escape. But our hero becomes our anti-hero hero zombie hero.Got that? Infected, we see the wonders and hilarity that ensue when we get the zombie's point of view.


On the oh shit that's awesome scale, this is zombie vs shark type awesomeness. Brilliantly written and directed by the founding fathers, we see the chaos unfold at a kid's party and the utter sadness of being a zombie. Ridiculously LOL moments throughout that make you wonder why nobody has ever done this before.

Grade: A


Safe Haven (Gareth Evans/Timo Tjahjanto)

If you've never seen the The Raid: Redemption, go watch it now. I'll wait. You one? Wasn't that awesome? OMG too awesome. With Safe Haven, I had to figure out how in the world Gareth Evans would do something horror-y. Clearly, were back in Indonesia/Thailand? for some very fucked up reason. And as short unfolds telling us of a Branch Davidian like cult, you start to realize this is going to end well. The news crew all equipped with hidden cameras on their clothing interview a manic cult leader and visit the compound where it seems they are in final preparations for something big. When the chaos begins, all hell breaks loose.
Evans dresses up the suicide cult with all the brainwashed angst we love and the frenetic pace and movement of a fight scene that's actually a "I gotta run away from these fucked up cult members".

It's pure brilliance than turns in WTF that turns into OMG. Who knew this would be one of the stellar shorts in VHS 2?
 
Grade: A

Slumber Party Alien Abduction (Jason Eisener)

I'm hoping all of you have seen Hobo with a Shotgun by now. Eisener's fake trailer turned full length movie is what indie horror is all about. With Slumber Party Alien Abduction, you have all the elements of taking the ordinary wacky pre teens and older sister dynamic and getting our Fire in the Sky on. It borders on the absurd but it's what Eisener clearly is great at. The greys start to attack our tweenage boys, the teenage older sister and her boyfriend until were left with a boy and his dog.It's a bit too weird for my tastes and seem out of place for a horror film.

Not great and one of the oddest choices to end VHS 2.

Grade: C

*********************************************************************

VHS 2 is like an appetizer sampling of the who's who in the next crop of the Internet generation's horror alumni. You may not like all the shorts but the one's you do, hopefully will enable you to see watch the director or writer's other films. Wingard is coming out with You're Next which I'm excited to see. VHS 2 is definitely better than it's predecessor focusing more laughs than scares. The monsters are out and about in VHS 2 and that's definitely a good thing. With few shorts, the movie gives more time for each segment to set up.

A Ride in the Park and Safe Haven are standouts and should be seen by any self serving horror fan.

With VHS 2, the found footage/POV film is alive and well and the pioneers and the colonists are still making sure it stays that way.

Nude-ipedia

Yes and it's awesomely gratuitous (well look at that. I copied what I wrote in my last VHS review)

Gore-ipedia

Lots of it. You're momma would be proud. (ditto!)

WTF moment

The ending for Safe Haven.

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

VHS is now out on VOD and in theaters on 7/12. Head over to the official site via Magnet Releasing and Facebook page.


Rating:
 

Check out the trailer.

Categories: 2013 horror movies, adam wingard, anthology, horror anthology, horror short, the blair witch project, the raid redemption, v/h/s, v/h/s 2, vhs

3 Slices of Life (Review)

3 Slices of Life

Slices of Life (2011)

Directed by Anthony G. Sumner

As noted a few weeks back, I questioned whether or not the horror anthology was seeing a resurgence. One of those films that showed evidence of this was Anthony Sumner's 3 Slices of Life which from the cover art and the trailer made it seem like the "IT" film to see in the indie horror circuit. Would it replace Trick R Treat as the reigning horror anthology in the last 5 years?

Now having watched the film, I can safely say Trick R Treat has nothing to worry about. Slices of Life has a solid anthology structure working in an amnesia girl working at a motel bridge while throwing in the titular slices of life. Those being Work Life, Home Life and Sex Life. Clearly if this movie was going to kick ass, 2 of the 3 stories would have to be awesome.

And that's where we fall short. Only 1 story, Sex Life drew my attention to stellar as the other two were mediocre at best. Sometimes that's how it goes. Slices of Life shows flashes of creativity covered in DIY blood and CGI cleverness, but gets ultimately doomed by the predictable stories and inconsistent pacing. I really wanted to like this flick but the more I thought I'd see an edgy piece of indie wickedness, the more it delivered old Twilight Zone-ish plots and old Tales from the Crypt goofiness.

Much of it reminded me of a Drew Daywalt short but without his ingenuity. The premise clearly peaked my expectations to high but somehow the story never followed through. In a nutshell, your slices are a zombie short, a ghost story and a creature feature. The creature feature is the only one that made the inner gorehound in me squeal with delight.

So let's explore all 3 in a breakdown.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Sexual Parasites, Disembowelment, Zombies, Serial Killers, Demon Children, Violent Vixens, Rabid Office Workers and Angry Embryos all spring to life from the flesh covered sketch books featured in Anthony G. Sumner's (Gallery of Fear) SLICES OF LIFE.

Mira (Kaylee Williams) awakens in front of a seedy roadside motel with amnesia. She searches for clues to her identity in the pages of three bound sketchbooks, in which each book represents a different aspect of everyday life, maybe her life.

WORK LIFE A lowly clerk at a nano technology firm unleashes a deadly virus at the office headquarters, giving new meaning to the term corporate zombie.

HOME LIFE As local girls begin to disappear, a young pregnant woman is haunted by visions of evil demonic children hell bent on stealing her unborn fetus.

SEX LIFE A young brother and sister on the run from a sexually abusive home life, take refuge in a countryside Victorian manor- only to discover the monsters hidden in this house have been looking for a new home. Convinced that the characters from these books are roaming around the motel, Mira's reality begins to crumble. Are these visions real or is she going insane? Desperate, Mira turns to the motel caretakers (Marv Blauvelt and Helene Alter-Dyche), only to discover the true evil bound in the flesh covered books and the destiny they hold for her.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

First up the glue of the anthology revolves around Mira, an amnesiac who works in a motel. With a weirdo owner lady and a handyman, she mans the front desk and reads up on the mysterious slices of life books that appear before her.

It's an interesting glue that holds your attention. The setting of a motel is a bit creepy and Kaylee Williams gives off a positive vibe. The fact that the film drops off paranormal creepiness to give you each short was a bit overboard. The best anthologies are the one's that keep yourself grounded in a "real world" focus. You know each story is gonna be oddly horrific and the balance of semi realism might have helped here. But I digress. Here's a review of each segment.

WORK LIFE: W.O.R.M.

From the plot above, it's basically Office Space meets Shaun of the Dead. The unnoticed lonely office salaryman unleashes an e-mail virus zombie apocalypse. I was hoping this would be the horror comedy portion of the anthology and at times it is. A few raunchy jokes via a sex Internet cam site seemed to be on the right track but it slowly descends into a straightforward zombie snoozefest.

If this was trying to be the comedy portion, it clearly failed on both the horror and the comedy of the segment. It's not a bad thing to copy the recent classics. Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, were a few flicks to copy from that worked the zombie comedy well. I would have love to see The Office meets Romero. We know there is going to be heavy duty fuckedupness later, getting the audience to laugh is one way to set them up.

HOME LIFE: Amber Alert

AKA the ghost story of 3 Slices of Life. If there was a segment to go all shaky cam POV this would be it. I liked the fact we followed Vonda, black pregnant woman who starts seeing evil demonic missing children. It's kinda cool to follow a black couple having a Paranormal Activity experience. But somehow this premise is boring and eventually pointless. The "scares" are weak and repetitive. CGI ghost faces, shadows and regurgitated jump scares never even made me wince.

The supposed twist didn't even register a yawn in my book. There are many things a ghost or supernatural story is suppose to do. It's suppose to be dark, devious and deadly. But there was none of that. I felt like it was a total missed opportunity to jolt the audience with some POV scariness.

SEX LIFE: Pink Snapper

Your creature feature segment is part crime grime part Teeth. If you've seen Teeth, you know what I'm talking about. As clearly as you can see yourself in the mirror you can see the twist coming a mile away but Sex Life had all the elements of a solid short. You've got a brother and sister getaway, an old man with a mysterious agenda and a kidnapping or prison victim. Throw in some superb gore and splatter and a wicked ending and it equals applause.

Deneen Melody as Susan, who escapes from the sexual advances of a creepy uncle flees with her brother where they encounter an old man who they found unconscious. Leading them to a super religious house they find a kidnap victim Elizabeth (Judith Lesser) (who's also on the cover of the DVD) and that's where the twists and turns all end in a splatterific conclusion.

Sure it's predictable and full of one dimensional characters, but it works in my opinion. The practical creature gore and effects are brilliant as is the buckets of blood that drip from the walls in the epic conclusion.

The entire film COULD and I stress could have been awesome. A horror comedy that relaxes the viewer, a ghost story that gets them edgy and a creature feature that gives you the sexual willies. But the first 2 never really got into the final story and by the end, you're not expecting much. Slices of Life is an unfired firework, ready to explode but nobody lit the fuse. Instead we're given sparklers and told "Have a good time kids!".

My expectations were super high for Slices of Life and I'm clearly disappointed that I'm waving my sparklers instead of firing off M80s. Sumner and Tinycore Pictures are talented filmmakers with an ambitious film that gets stuck on neutral. They are real indie horror filmmakers and for that I'm super proud of the work they did here.

All I ask is more bottle rockets, more firecracker belts and M80 that will blow us all away.

Gore-ipedia

Gunshot to the face
Slice and dice
Vayjayjay trauma
Intestinal fortitude
Smash to the face
Decomposing awesomeness

Nude-ipedia

The boobs via the mirror in the bathroom

WTF moment

The Pink Snapper comes to life

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

The DVD has some cool stuff in it including a Sumner short called "Jitters" which I found to be Drew Daywalt-ish. Feature commentary, interviews with the ladies of Slices of Life and some VDX behind the scenes were also interesting.

There will be more horror anthologies to come and Slices of Life has some moments. It's your decision to choose whether or not you want to see all of them. I gave it 2 spinkicks as I liked the overall premise and the last segment. It's sorta a 1 1/2 spinkick or 2 to me. I'm going with the latter.

The Vitals

• The Official Site
• Facebook Page
• Twitter Page

Rating:



Here is the trailer.

Categories: 2010 horror dvd, 2011 horror movies, anthology, gore, horror anthology, indie film, indie horror, slices of life, splatter

Is 2011 the return of the horror anthology film?

Is it me or did it seem the horror anthology seem to have died since the heyday of Creepshow and Tales from the Darkside? With Trick R Treat being somewhat successful utilizing the horror anthology theme, I've noticed a rise in the amount of horror anthologies of late. And I like it. Maybe it's because I never took notice before, but my "to watch list" now includes a few horror anthologies on my radar. These all have some big name directors you may have notice and some you don't.

But I think this may be a big year for the return of the horror anthology. As horror fans, this can only be good. Talented directors collaborating their talents to tell their story in one feature film. That's like a buffet of bloody awesomeness. Here are a few that I've taken an interest in.

1.) Slices of Life

Director: Anthony G. Sumner

Plot: Sexual Parasites, Disembowelment, Zombies, Serial Killers, Demon Children, Violent Vixens, Rabid Office Workers and Angry Embryos all spring to life from the flesh covered sketch books featured in Anthony G. Sumner's (Gallery of Fear) SLICES OF LIFE.

Mira (Kaylee Williams) awakens in front of a seedy roadside motel with amnesia. She searches for clues to her identity in the pages of three bound sketchbooks, in which each book represents a different aspect of everyday life, maybe her life.

WORK LIFE A lowly clerk at a nano technology firm unleashes a deadly virus at the office headquarters, giving new meaning to the term corporate zombie.

HOME LIFE As local girls begin to disappear, a young pregnant woman is haunted by visions of evil demonic children hell bent on stealing her unborn fetus.

SEX LIFE A young brother and sister on the run from a sexually abusive home life, take refuge in a countryside Victorian manor- only to discover the monsters hidden in this house have been looking for a new home. Convinced that the characters from these books are roaming around the motel, Mira's reality begins to crumble. Are these visions real or is she going insane? Desperate, Mira turns to the motel caretakers (Marv Blauvelt and Helene Alter-Dyche), only to discover the true evil bound in the flesh covered books and the destiny they hold for her.





2.) The Black Box

Directors: Scott Dawson & David Sherbrook, Buz Danger Wallick, Andrew Kasch , Jonathan Lewis & Jerry Franck

Plot: Eight year old Bobby is a strange boy. Between spying on his teenage sister's sexual exploits, and peeping at his prostitute mother in the nude. Bobby loves to watch the midnight horror shows. But when the host of Bobby's favorite horror show begins speaking to Him directly, and the people in his life dreadfully appear to him on television, the lines of reality and fiction start to blur!! More info here.




3.) Chillerama

Directors: Adam Green, Joe Lynch, Adam Rifkin, Tim Sullivan

Plot: The last drive-in theater in America is closing its doors. The owner is having one final night.

(via Bloody Disgusting)

Rifkin's segment is entitled "Wadzilla", which is in sprint of '50s monster movies. It's about a guy looking to raise his sperm count, and things going disastrously wrong. The special effects work are being done by Chiodo brothers (Killer Klowns from Out Space).

Sullivan is presenting "I Was a Teenage Werebear", which is like '50s surf movie (Beach Blanket Bingo).

Green presents "The Diary of Anne Frankenstein", which is a '40s war film starring Joel Moore (Avatar, Hatchet), Kane Hodder (Friday the 13th films, Hatchet), and Kristina Klebe (Halloween, BreadCrumbs). It's about Hitler (played by Moore) creating the perfect killing machine to win the war.

Lynch will bring us a new zombie movie that's in the vein of '70s/'80s undead flicks. Lynch says the best way to sum it up is "when there's no more room in hell, the dead will f*ck the earth."

4.) The Theater Bizarre

Directors: Richard Stanley, Tom Savini, Buddy Giovinazzo, Karim Hussain, Douglas Buck, David Gregory

Plot: THE THEATRE BIZARRE is an anthology horror film set in an old, disused theatre wherein six twisted tales play out over the course of one night. Each tale, inspired by the term "Grand Guignol", is the work of a different director: Buddy Giovinazzo (COMBAT SHOCK), Douglas Buck (SISTERS), David Gregory (PLAGUE TOWN), Karim Hussain (SUBCONSCIOUS CRUELTY), Jeremy Kasten (WIZARD OF GORE), Tom Savini (NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD) and Richard Stanley (HARDWARE). Daryl J. Tucker Presents A Severin Films Production In Association With Metaluna Productions.

5.) Little Deaths

Directors: Sean Hogan, Andrew Parkinson, Simon Rumley

Plot: Composed of three disturbingly sensual and terrifying short narratives, unified by the twin themes of sex and death.





6.) Psycho Street

Directors: Anthony G. Sumner, Pete Jacelone, Raine Brown
Plot: Four Twisted Tales that lead to a Dead End. Details of each segment can be found here.

Trailer for short "Lewis"

**************************************************

Which horror anthology are you excited for? I'm kinda psyched for SOL, The Black Box and Chillerama. Have I missed an upcoming horror anthology? Let me know!

Categories: 2011 horror movies, anthology, chillerama, horror anthology, jonathan lewis, little deaths, psycho street, slices of life, the black box, the theater bizarre

From Black Devil Doll director Jonathan Lewis comes "The Black Box"! (Trailer)

I have my favorite indie horror directors and I usually keep track of what they're up to. But yesterday, I recently found out what Jonathan Lewis (director of Black Devil Doll) had been working on. Can you say a horror anthology movie?

With The Black Box, we are going to get 4 stories wrapped around a little boy watching his favorite horror TV show.

Here be the plot.

Eight year old Bobby is a strange boy. Between spying on his teenage sister's sexual exploits, and peeping at his prostitute mother in the nude. Bobby loves to watch the midnight horror shows. But when the host of Bobby's favorite horror show begins speaking to Him directly, and the people in his life dreadfully appear to him on television, the lines of reality and fiction start to blur!!

So what are the 4 mini flicks in The Black Box? See below.

• "Freddie and the Goblins" segment by Scott Dawson & David Sherbrook
• "Wax Off" segment by Buz Danger Wallick (starring Joe Pilato)
• "Thirsty" segment by Andrew Kasch (starring Tiffany Shepis, Joe Lynch andMichael Bailey Smith)
• "Mister Video"segment by Jonathan Lewis & Jerry Franck.

To check out a trailer or preview of the segments above, head over to the video section on the Facebook page for The Black Box.

Now that we got all that out of the way, you can finally check out the trailer below.



The big news is that THE BLACK BOX world premiere will take place at The New Beverly Cinema (that be in Los Angeles) on Friday night October 29th 2010 at Midnight!

You can buy tickets here.

I'll admit, I've watched the trailer a few times now and it looks bloody awesome. With Lewis teamed up with Infested Films, this horror anthology might make Creepshow look like a Disney film. Trick R Treat? That was so 2009.

The Black Box might make us all start talking to the TV.

For more info head over to the Facebook page and become a follower on Twitter!

Categories: anthology, black devil doll, exploitation, exploitation film, gore, grindhouse, indie horror, jonathan lewis, kung fu, splatter, the black box