Review: V/H/S (18)

Anthologies were big business in the ’60s and ’70s. Their popularity has faded significantly since but there is now a dedicated fanbase for them with a hardcore of genre filmmakers willing to experiment with the form.

The band behind V/H/S appears to focus its cameras on the themes of love and romance. But this is a bad romance, and the path of love – true or otherwise – does not run smoothly. It’s twisted and nasty.

In fact, it’s a wonder how people manage to fall in love anymore with all the corpses littering the place.

The stories are a mixed bag that vacillate between the gory, the uneasy, the baffling and the plain badly acted. Yet there are moments in all of them when a glimmer of what this movie might have been shines through.

Perhaps the principal fault is the choice of multiple directors. Maybe one clear voice is needed rather than a stitched together tapestry of styles.

The tales themselves trip along nicely.

In Amateur Night a group of horny males find their evening darkened by a cannibalistic vampire girl.

The stories are notable for their sting-in-the-tail gruesomeness and the filmmakers’ unwillingness to offer a sense of redemption. Think Tales of the Unexpected for the slasher generation, and buckets of blood.