V/H/S/99
Just recently released on Shudder, where it apparently did very well indeed, but don't take that as an accurate reflection of the film's quality and more the considerable step-up that was V/H/S/94 after the truly naff V/H/S/Viral. Indeed, 99 is quite the disappointment. 94 had some issues, and anthologies inherently have a varying quality (even more likely with different creatives behind each story), but overall 94 was quite good fun. 99, on the other hand, feels fairly uninspired and consistently dispenses with internal logic while often ignoring proper set-up and injecting far too much meta-humour and irritating characters who bicker far too much whilst being underwhelmed by the horrors they find themselves encircled by.
The weak framing story (that was a noted downside to 94) is gone, but there is instead an annoying stop motion animation thing that offers nothing but sucking time - it could have gone entirely and at least trimmed a few minutes out of this too-long film (much like 94, it's one story too long). The opening story "Shredding" is okay, but most of the characters are quite irritating and the exposition dumps lay bare one of the strictures of the found footage format. There's parts of it I really like, but it never clicks overall. Story two, "Suicide Bid", is the best of the bunch, but again suffers from ropey dialogue and awkward performances (trying too hard to 'perform terror', thus making it all feel thoroughly fake). However, the mixing of the Ryan Reynolds film 'Buried' with The House On Sorority Row makes for a good story with a claustrophobic setting and the most 'horrifying' of the tales - anyone afraid of confined spaces and/or spiders will be wincing at this one. It's main fault, though, again comes down to the problem of found footage - you realise that the person holding the camera is consciously thinking to not only film the horror but also their reaction, back and forth, twisting the camera this way and that: it sucks the life out of any potential realism.
Story three, "Ozzy's Dungeon", has Steven Ogg in it, so that's a bonus right there. It's about some sort of kids show that goes wrong, but the tone is all over the place. It then turns into some sort of revenge film that then takes a weird spin into WTF (in a bad way) territory. I don't really know what was happening or why it was happening, so it just left me cold and confused. Story four, "The Gawkers", feels the most authentically 1999, but the litany of dude-bro teen voyeurs quickly grate on you. It has some potential, but it goes in a direction that doesn't work for me. Finally there's the fifth story, "To Hell And Back", which squanders the potential of using Y2K in favour of incessant shaky cam, some vague plot about a demonic cult ritual, and two bickering characters that suck any and all tension or horror out of the tale. You've found yourself in the bowels of Hell, so natually you're going to be slinging one-liners and airing your petty grievances at loud volume mere feet away from deadly hellspawn ... fuck sake.  It even drops the ball at the end (writing "Mabel" into the book) with zero pay-off. What the fudge?!
Many of the tales you end up wondering 'why is anyone filming this?', and you frequently are forced to suspend belief to paper over the inherent problems with the found style and set-up (I'm sure a Hi8 video camera would indeed survive a rain storm and record for several hours without running out of tape or battery!!!) It's also infuriating just how 'shaky' the whole movie is. I don't tend to have any real problem with motion sickness, so for me to end up feeling sick and headachey by the end of the movie is quite unusual. The 'video fuzz' aesthetic is fun, but most definitely over-used. One of the main problems with the film is that so many of the stories seem to either not be interested in scaring the audience or are actively trying to either be comedic or actually take the piss out of themselves.
Considering how V/H/S/94 was overall enjoyable and solid, V/H/S/99 comes as a big let down. V/H/S/85 is already lined-up, shot back-to-back with 99, so that doesn't exactly fill me with confidence unless the different raft of filmmakers can make a significant improvement.
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Originally Posted by MinionZombie
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Even in terms of CGI overload spectacle it's a bit underwhelming, and the script isn't even trying to paper over the chasm-sized cracks in the plot. The whole film feels rather lazy and out-of-steam. The days of Universal Soldier and Independence Day are long gone, Roland.
) had been working on this thing for decades. Mostly crafted through stop-motion animation, but with various portions incorporating live action, it's a visual explosion of creativity, like peeling open Tippet's mind and discovering a nightmarish imaginarium that's equal parts horrifying and fascinating. The sense of bizarre invention and design that has gone into the film is truly staggering on an immensely impressive level ... but where the film succeeds in its astonishing visuals and world creation, it utterly fumbles when it comes to narrative. The main reason for that is ... ... well, there is no narrative. There's basically zero dialogue either (beyond some general burblings and mutterings on occasion), so as a viewer you've got no story, no plot, and no characters to follow throughout any kind of story. Naturally, this proves frustrating and somewhat exhausting as we move from one segment to another - beautifully designed segments, no doubt, sometimes disgustingly visceral, sometimes awe-inspiringly unusual - but it all feels a bit, well, 'bitty'. I had no real idea what was going on, or why, and with little-to-no emotional engagement it can prove to be a little bit of a slog at times to proceed through all 83 minutes of it.
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