Written by: Ryan Dailey
This film franchise continues the downward spiral that started with the third installment. V/H/S as a series could have been this amazing, wild thing in the vein of Liquid Television. It could have been the punk rock of found footage horror. The latest entry, V/H/S 99 ditches the format of having one run-through story line that is broken up by vignettes and adopts a random dump of shorts, the only “bookend” being that the film opens and closes on a mildly amusing stop-motion animation skit involving plastic Army men. While the singular story thread tying the shorts of the first few movies could be awkward at points, it was a great idea, if poorly executed.
A vast majority of the shorts contained therein, much like most found footage films, comes across the issue of, “why in the hell is this character STILL holding a camera?” V/H/S 99 also runs into the issue that most “period” pieces run into, especially those written/directed by individuals that were alive during said era and feel they need to poke a little too much fun. This movie is full of references to the turn of the millennium and few of them are warranted, JNCO jeans and Limp Bizkit nods pepper the bad acting and horrible dialog.
If there is one saving grace to this debacle, that would be the performance of Melanie Stone as Mabel in the short To Hell and Back. The actress plays the role of the impish tour guide through Hell so well that her performance saves this particular segment. She blends feral tendencies, innocent humor and child-like innocence so well that the audience wishes the entire run time was dedicated to her.
The V/H/S films from Viral onwards are not a complete waste. They each have redeeming qualities that are just good enough to keep some form of relevance in the straight to streaming market. Aside from the Leelo Dallas-esque Mabel in the latest installment, there has only been one other story in the franchise that deserved further treatment and it got it in the 2016 film, SiREN.
Horror fans should not give up all hope on the franchise, as in the right hands, future films could become the things of Halloween tradition and the types of movies that kids snake out of their beds in the dead of night to watch while the grown ups slumber,
V/H/S 99 is streaming currently on Shudder.