V/H/S/99
It’s been ten years since the original V/H/S found footage anthology was released, the subsequent decade having seen a trio of sequels, V/H/S/2, V/H/S: Viral and V/H/S/94, now followed by V/H/S/99, adhering to not only substantially the same format but presenting five short films which could almost have come from that first compilation; while the production values have substantially improved in terms of prosthetics, the same cannot be said of the underlying quality of the material.
With little attempt to link the segments with a framing story, nor does it seem that there was even discussion among the filmmakers what their themes and approaches would be, the result being that rather than watching individual stories it often feels that it is the same story told over, aimed at the lowest common denominator of an audience presumably composed of badly behaved teenagers as they are the group most represented.
Opening with Shredding, written and directed by Maggie Levin, punk band RACK break into the condemned building where three years before a fire claimed the lives of the four members of Bitch Cat, the group performing that night; the drummer protesting the desecration of the site and the shrine set up in the memory, the singer turns on him rather than considering she is in the wrong.
Indifferent to the death or suffering of the peers in whose steps she wishes to follow, caring only when something affects her directly, unsurprisingly she is first to die, representative of the theme of entitled selfishness which repeats in the following three segments, Johannes Roberts’ Suicide Bid, Ozzy’s Dungeon, directed by Flying Lotus and co-written with Zoe Cooper, and The Gawkers, directed by Tyler MacIntyre and co-written with Chris Lee Hill.
Sorority bitches torturing a pledge by burying her alive, a game show host tortured and degraded in revenge for an incident years before, a group of teenage boys spying on their neighbour and recording her while she undresses rather than talking to her, V/H/S/99 is a tasteless parade of base behaviour, entitlement, voyeurism, cruelty and humiliation presented as though they were rituals to unleash the predictable punishment, reinforcing all that is synonymous with the worst found footage films.
Written and directed by Vanessa and Joseph Winter, To Hell And Back is the only segment to break this format, featuring actual adults filming willing subjects, a religious ceremony intended to invoke a spirit which instead displaces the film crew to another astral plane; the only offering consciously played with an awareness of the inherent ridiculousness of the premise, it is too little to late to save a series which should have long since been taped over or used as landfill.
V/H/S/99 will be available on Shudder from Thursday 20th October
