V/H/S/94

 "V/H/S/94" (2021, Jennifer Reeder, Chloe Okuno, Simon Barrett, Timo Tjahjanto, Ryan Prows, Steven Kostanski, Radio Silence Productions, Bloody Disgusting Films, Shudder Original Films) is a found footage horror anthology and the fourth installment in the V/H/S franchise. 

It's 1994 and a SWAT team enter an abandoned building and discover a series of VHS cassettes which we then watch in order. 

"Storm Drain" is an entertaining story of a reporter (Anna Hopkins) and cameraman (Christian Potenza) who are investigating the sighting of local urban legend "Ratman" and enter the storm sewers to uncover the truth. Upon finding a group of people living in there, they decide it's an opportunity to do a more serious human interest story but, unfortunately for them, the local legend may be more real than they thought! 

A pretty good segment with good pacing and some fun effects. 

"The Empty Wake" is by far my favourite segment of the film. Hayley (Kyal Legend) is a young woman working at a funeral home. She's been asked to hold the wake of a man named Andrew alone at night. After a while with no visitors, she begins to try and find out more about the death of Andrew when suddenly she hears what sounds like knocking coming from the coffin...

A pretty decent jump-fest. The segment builds up slowly before unleashing the actual scares, but, once there it's pretty fast paced. Some fun effects and, even if you feel like you knew where it was going, it's a really strong execution. 

"The Subject" is a story of a mad scientist (Budi Ross) engaging in human-machine vivisection and a team of army personnel on his trail to try and rescue some of his unwilling test subjects. 

We see most of the story in first-person style through the 'eyes' of one of his creations (Shania). The segment boasts some creative camera-work and pretty impressive 'off-screen' acting from our determined 'creature'. However, the action is pretty videogame-like and did feel like it overstayed its welcome a little (and I say this as someone who likes playing videogames). But the action is truly gory and pretty satisfying to watch.

"Terror" is about a group of insurrectionists in America who are planning to attack a federal building. This segment was the weakest in my opinion and didn't hold my interest extremely well. The humour felt somewhat misplaced in comparison to the other segments, although it maintained the same level of gore. 

The wraparound "Holy Hell" is functional but not a standout part of the film, although I did enjoy the 90s advert for "The Veggie Masher". Very entertaining. 

All in all, this is the first time I've really enjoyed a V/H/S installment since the original film, and it felt pretty innovative. The pacing is still an issue, but this is part and parcel with horror anthologies as a whole. 

Available to stream on Shudder.

[Image: Shudder, et al]

Hani

Videodrome

"Videodrome" (1983, Canadian Film Development Corporation, Famous Players, Filmplan International, David Cronenberg) explores porn and how we view life in our advancingly technology-dependent world in an excellently (Rick Baker) gore-soaked way.

Max Renn (James Woods) is a TV executive for a cable channel. It's the 80s, VHS and Betamax are still shiny new technologies, and he thinks he's found the most interesting thing ever to show on TV: foreign snuff porn of questionable quality! The underground programme is called "Videodrome" and Renn is determined to get to the bottom of it. He has become sinisterly obsessed.

As his life becomes more entwined into the cult-like Videodrome lifestyle, his view on life changes and he begins to see things that he is not sure are real or not... Is he losing his mind or is he becoming part of a new reality? His femme fatale friend, Nicki (Debbie Harry of Blondie), also gets herself involved as she and Renn fall into the Videodrome trap together.

His searchings lead him to the hub of the technological cult, but has he gone too far?

This film was a slighlty different step for Cronenberg at the time and hinted towards where he would take his movies next. Videodrome manages to balance slightly obnoxious cerebral plot with a message about society's obsession with technology, with the confusing, but gory action his audience had come to expect. He manages to make a social comment on video and technology while also exploiting just that as his platform to do so. The film remains ever relevant and the effects make for undated, uncomfortable viewing.

[Image: FilmPlan International, et al]

Hani

Video Nasties: Draconian Days

"Video Nasties: Draconian Days" (2014, Jake West) is a documentary about the days after the 1984 Video Recordings Act in the UK and the strict censorship laws and crazy underground horror scene it spawned.

We actually owe the UK censors a lot to be honest. Without their crazy, hyper paranoid and restrictive ways we would never have enjoyed a vast and colourful underground scene which created the horror festivals and allowed some truly awesome friendships to form over a shared love of gore, boobs and being a little bit naughty.

When you look at today's cinema entries, especially the modern horror scene, you're left wondering how the censors could have possibly thought such things as "The Driller Killer" to be worthy of banning, but remember, times have changed.

Nowadays, with the internet an' all, the censors just don't have as much effect as they once did, and it's a damn good thing too.

This documentary will open your eyes to how crazy these times were in the UK, and how much power the censors were allowed, especially certain individuals, under the guise of 'it's for your own good'.

A few good scenes, archive footage and trailers are spotted througout, and we enjoyed that the producers, director, writer etc were all our hosts of the wonderful Fright Fest itself!

It should give you insight, if like me you have not lived through this era, into those times and give you a much greater appreciation for your peers and elders as a UK horror fan. For other non-UK residents, this should certainly raise some eyebrows!

Fun and informative.

Hani

V/H/S/2

"V/H/S/2" (2013, Simon Barrett, Adam Wingard, Eduardo Sánchez, Gregg Hale, Timo Tjahjanto, Gareth Huw Evans & Jason Eisener, The Collective, Haxan Films, Magnet Releasing) is the sequel to the 2012 found footage film.

Similar to its predecessor, the film is an anthology of short horrors, all found footage, encased within one wrap-around horror story, which is also found footage. Whilst following the same equation, it manages to separate itself from the original.

As in most anthologies, and the original film, some of the stories are hit and miss, and some of the effect qualities vary from pretty schlocky to 'oooh, that was gross'. But on the whole, I really enjoyed this one over its predecessor and thought it held together much better as a film.

I'm not a fan of found footage at the best of times, finding it more likely to give me a migraine that the chills, but V/H/S/2 does well in the format. Some of the 'shorts' could have been doing with being a little shorter though, as they began to get a bit monotonous and Go Pro cameras will probably enjoy all this advertising.

 

 

[Image: Magnet Releasing]

Hani

The Grim Reaper aka Anthropophagus

"The Grim Reaper" aka "Anthropophagus" aka "Zombie 7: Grim Reaper" (1980, Joe D'Amato, Shriekshow Entertainment, Hollywood DVD, Edward L. Montoro) is a low budget video nasty. This is the edited, edited, barely gory version. If you can get your hands on the full version well done! Keep it! It could be worth some money as it's damn near non-existent, and is highly collectible for fans of the genre.

You know when a movie goes by so many different titles it's either a good 'un or a 'dear god, what the hell did I just watch?' one. Well, this one's both!

The highly prudish British government in the 80s banned this film for its vulgarity. Which is why this edited version exists. And sadly, it does little justice to the full and freaky version!

And now we have "The Human Centipede" and "Saw" movies, which make this little Italian gorefest look like a kiddies cartoon! But ho hum, sick breeds sick, they say, and maybe it's little gems of terrible horror like this that are the reason such dire atrocities are even in existence (can you tell I think both of the aforementioned movies are complete bollocks? No?! Well, they're complete bollocks!). The scene which caused so much havoc in the UK, where the killer eats a foetus, has been edited out of this version.

The opening of this movie gets the obligatory semi-nudity out of the way; a couple get to a cast-over and cloudy beach, strip and the girl cavorts around in the water while the guy listens to some terrible 80s music with his fairly old and uninterested dog. The excitement begins when the dog begins 'barking' and (wait for it!) stands up and wanders about two feet before sitting back down again! This signifies that he knows something's amiss!

The horror begins, and the underwater filming is fairly impressive given the meagre budget this movie evidently had! Boyfriend takes his sweet time noticing his girl's in trouble, too. What an oaf!

We then start on our actual plot. Some young tourists are travelling around the Greek islands when they are asked by another young woman if she can tag a lift on their boat to one of the islands where she has some friends waiting and a job set up looking after a young English girl.

They happily oblige in their naive 80s way.

When they get to the island it's almost deserted! And to their dismay, they find a very dead body. They also find one survivor, the English girl that the older girl was coming to look after. And, just for fun, the English girl is blind and so can only tell them that 'the man' who killed everyone on the island is very scary and smells of blood.

When the group's pregnant friend goes missing, you'd think they'd look for her, but presuming she's on the, now sailing out to sea, boat they arrived on they turn in for the night! Great friends.

But when the 'man' arrives to take more victims, it soon turns into a quest for survival.

The props in this movie are hilarious! I especially enjoyed the oh-so-the-opposite-of-convincing severed head in the bucket! But some of the more impressive effects are done with some skinned animals, which are, of course, of questionable morality nowadays, but are damned gruesome.

A fun little jump and slash with some random back story and side characters. Even with the gore halved, it's not too boring, but it is a little slow to get started. It's just a bit wooden, terribly dated and kind of nuts!

The dubbing is kind of distracting, personally I'm a bigger fan of subtitles, but you get used to it.

Despite the wooden acting, the even more wooden voice acting of whoever dubbed over the film, and some props that looked more amateur than some of my own attempts, the film manages to be entertaining even in its heavily censored form. I'm glad I got it for 50p, though!

There are some normal horror hooks to watch for; tarot cards, ominous statements "no future", heavy breathing killer, blind, orphaned girl, pregnant lady and cleavers to name a few!

This film was the first horror film that wasn't pornography by the director D'Amato, and a year after this film was made he decided to remake it as a porno under a different title (stick to what you know, eh?).

He also make a kind-of sequel to the non-porn version called "Absurd". So there you go! Everything you ever needed to know about this crazy flick. Probably.

[Picture: Shriekshow Entertainment]

Hani