‘V/H/S/Halloween’ Is A Cruel Addition To The Shudder Film Franchise
Many people do not realize how much anthologies are a group effort within the film industry, whether it’s Rod Serling‘s The Twilight Zone, Charlie Brooker‘s Black Mirror, Tim Miller‘s Love, Death + Robots, Marvel’s What If…?, Star Wars: Visions, and so on. Every piece of a film or a season of television requires input from an individual storyteller through screenwriting and direction, which is why it’s important to live up to this narrative format through collective creative endeavors. Since its soft reboot in 2021, Shudder and Cinepocalypse’s V/H/S found-footage horror anthology film franchise has often bent the rules of what it could do within its genre. Each entry has given fans a taste of its larger universe through video home system (VHS) footage, with hints of horror comedy, science fiction and body horror, monster mayhem, and I suppose what works well here specifically is how V/H/S never had rules to begin with but just kept exceeding expectations as the years progressed. I’ll share my thoughts on the latest installment, V/H/S/Halloween, below.
A little history about the V/H/S film franchise
The original V/H/S film in 2012 involved a figure in the woods appearing as a walking computer glitch, as well as an aspiring doctor who offered his girlfriends to extraterrestrials. Its sequel, which was released over nine months later, spawned more freaky tales, including a man and a woman who could see and hear the dead, respectively.
Fast-forward to 2021, wherein V/H/S/94‘s “The Subject” segment follows the points of view of missing Indonesians experimented on by a mad scientist. Then, in 2023, came V/H/S/85—with a frame narrative of scientists interacting with a shapeshifting sentient being; the “No Wake” segment, where a few college friends are resurrected in a nearby lake; another story that features a performance artist putting on a virtual reality (VR) headset and encountering the “God of Technology”; and finally, “Dreamkill”, Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill‘s spin-off of their feature film adaptation of Joe Hill‘s short story “The Black Phone.”
Last year’s V/H/S/Beyond was purely driven by sci-fi narrative segments, suggesting it was a sequel to transcend the films that preceded it. At that time, my primary question was, “What is beyond V/H/S, and where does the series go from there?” To me, this month’s V/H/S/Halloween felt like a redundant title, given the previous main films in the franchise are inherently connected to October through autumn or the spooky season (excluding V/H/S/2, which was released in July 2013). Even the first film had a segment set on Halloween Night, 1998. However, now that I’m looking at it, this eighth main film sticks to its roots in one way or another, providing a theme that celebrates the genre via its subgenres.
[Trigger Warning: V/H/S/Halloween features instances of suicide and child abuse.]
“Diet Phantasma” is good in moderation
Written and directed by Bryan M. Ferguson, who also serves as the editor, casting director, and production designer, V/H/S/Halloween‘s frame narrative doesn’t take itself as seriously as its two predecessors’ frame narratives, “Total Copy” and “Abduction/Adduction.” Like these two frame narratives, “Diet Phantasma” doesn’t exactly connect its film’s segments, and so the film itself is instead linked by multiple throughlines, the Halloween season being the most obvious. This frame narrative centers on the chief operating officer of the Octagon Company, Blaine Rothschild (David Hayon), who spearheads the taste tests of a new soda on the market. It gets its name from an experimental beverage whose special ingredient is extracted from ghosts via poltergeists.
The segment takes place in early October 1982 in the United Kingdom. However, after its first interlude, it ignores the timing of events, confining the body of its narrative inside the Octagon laboratory. “Diet Phantasma” has neat camera work with a 4:3 aspect ratio from the director of photography, Owen Laird, framing the segment as if it were a late-night horror special. Yet, gaffer Graham Stevenson‘s use of quick, flickering lights and the special effects artists’ work on swollen and disfigured faces, red and black blood, and other prosthetic choices seal the deal—no pun intended—on such an interesting eighth installment.
Moreover, supervising sound editors and sound designers Renai Buchanan and Zach Goheen and sound effects editor Jared Anderson have fun with test subjects’ screams, brisk, beeping monitor machines, and ghastly vocals. Ferguson has creative editing in areas, e.g., the comedic timing of a test subject exploding as they open up a second can of Diet Phantasma. He ends the film just as he started it—with a nonsensical child succumbing to the seasonal soda and selling it to the public via a commercial. This seems to mark one of V/H/S/Halloween‘s themes: the push and pull of capital despite the dangers it poses.
“Coochie Coochie Coo” centers on a scary coming of age story
Anna Zlokovic might be the person who sets the bar for V/H/S/Halloween, but ultimately, this first segment could be seen as bleak in the wrong way, whereas a later segment does it right. “Coochie Coochie Coo” follows two high school senior girls, Lacie (Samantha Cochran) and Kaleigh (Natalia Montgomery), both dressed up as adult-sized babies on Halloween night. There are some unique cuts from editors Alex Familian and Nicholas Benik as the girls embark on shenanigans from house to house, taking and stealing sweets as they see fit. That is, before they end up inside a mysterious home by a park at night.
Production designer Danny Erb (Smosh: Ghostmates) and set decorator Madeline Jacobs (Haunt) craft a claustrophobic labyrinth for the two teenage protagonists in a dilapidated home due to neglect and poor care, including what appears to be a birthday cake with housefly larvae swarming all over it. Of course, the writing is quite literally on the wall for “Coochie Coochie Coo.” Lacie and Kaleigh want to spend their final days of high school as young girls during the mid-2000s before venturing off into adulthood. They’re juxtaposed with the victim-turned-monstrous figure named “The Mommy” (Elena Musser), a woman who was forced into motherhood through harsh means.
Thematically, Zlokovic presents promise in a pro-choice horror narrative, but has other characters suffer from something that the Mommy was not at fault for in the first place. Her attempts at hanging herself are one of the darker aspects that V/H/S/Halloween has to offer, and I believe the segment reflects on people’s forgetfulness to be gentle in a harsh world. Cochran portrays her role of Lacie beautifully, between the power over young children and the fear of being in the Mommy’s presence. Conversely, recent accusations of an AI-generated image of the pregnant Mommy hold this specific segment back from being great.
“Ut Supra Sic Infra” bridges reality to the otherworldly
Spanish filmmaker Paco Plaza is a veteran in the film industry, having contributed to his country with the [REC] found-footage zombie film series since 2007. Around a decade later came his supernatural possession film, Verónica, and its prequel, Sister Death, in 2023. For a short time, these two intellectual properties find new life in Plaza and co-writer Alberto Marini‘s segment, “Ut Supra Sic Infra”, or “As Above, So Below” in English. Easily my favorite V/H/S/Halloween segment, its narrative follows a young man, Enric (Teo Planell), under investigation for the deaths of his friends inside an abandoned Madrilenian mansion.
“Ut Supra Sic Infra” is straight-to-the-point for a nonlinear narrative. Plaza, Marini, and editors David Gallart and María Mora seamlessly switch back and forth between Enric and his friends sneaking into the mansion on Halloween night and Enric being brought back with the authorities and his lawyer nine days later to reconstruct the crime scene. Director of photography Adrián Hernández‘s mesmerizing camera work is most feasible for what Plaza and Marini seek to achieve, which is that seeing is believing, that perception can be elevated and flipped when we diminish the real.
Costume designer Rebeca Durán Estrada (Venus) does a wonderful job at helping pay homage to [REC] and Verónica—Enric dressed as a bald firefighter to resemble firefighter dispatcher Manu from the first [REC] film; Enric’s close friend, Victoria “Vicky” Ruiz (María Romanillos), in a nun outfit from the Verónica films; and even Sandra Escacena in a silent role dressed as her character, Verónica, in the friend group. Planell is lovely in his role, a character who fears facing the memory of being possessed to kill his loved ones and his inability to help when it does happen.
Production designer Javier Alvariño commands a brilliant segment with gaffer Carlos Ramírez‘s lighting—mainly in flashlights raised at Vicky and Enric’s faces to spook viewers—and sound designer Gabriel Gutierrez et al’s haunting rotary phone ringing. The effects makeup from Raúl Romanillos, David Caparrini, and Nacho Díaz (The ABCs of Death, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, V/H/S: Viral, Crimson Peak, Verónica, Game of Thrones, Sister Death) is gut-wrenching, namely in the final scene as Enric pukes up his friends’ eyeballs.
“Fun Size” is an almost raunchy version of Willy Wonka
Casper Kelly made a big name for himself in 2014 with Adult Swim’s viral eleven-minute short, Too Many Cooks, which dipped into a blend of surrealism, dark comedy, and horror comedy. Several years later, Yule Log aired on television as another surprise for Cartoon Network’s late-night programming block. With this same blend of subgenres, the television film involved an array of narrative devices, from a cursed, floating log to a killer mother-and-son duo to a devil-on-your-shoulder man who bends the metaphysics of space and time to last-minute alien invaders. Kelly carries these subgenres onto his V/H/S/Halloween segment, “Fun Size”, which also centers on characters going trick-or-treating.
Like “Coochie Coochie Coo”, “Fun Size” is as demented as it gets, but is sufficiently decent in the story it aims to tell. Dressed as a pirate, party leader, Austin (Jake Ellsworth), is roped into an activity of trick-or-treating by his girlfriend, Haley (Jenna Hogan), who is dressed as a superhero. Meanwhile, their friends, Josh (Riley Nottingham) and his fiancé-to-be Lauren (Lawson Greyson), take the backseat as the night’s camera operators. This segment is as darkly disgusting as the Chocolate Factory scene of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer‘s Epic Movie, although “Fun Size” conveys its themes with purpose.
Here, the viewers see Kelly comment on the United States’ economic state through Austin’s brief statements on corporations manufacturing candy: “All candy is lame. Corporations have taken all the creativity out. We’ve had the same main candy bars for decades. The variety pack has no variety.” As the pirate of the group, this gives the character more reason to take more than one candy from an orange bowl than is instructed: “ONE PER PERSON”. Austin’s role in the segment is unfortunately cut short—no pun intended—as he is the first of the group to fall prey to the titular Fun Size (Michael J. Sielaff). Haley tries to save his life, while Josh and Lauren play the roles of party members documenting the incident.
“Fun Size” is a comical commentary on the Western machine and the metonymous parts we each play within it—the eyes, the brain, the heart, the hands, the [phallus], etc. On the sidelines, Josh plans to propose to Lauren, joking that she could be his “trad wife”. The “ONE PER PERSON” sign, then, may also apply to the fact that Lauren is not ready for marriage, the fact that monogamous relationships require an individual to be with one person for the rest of their lives. There is room to explore one’s interests, and hopefully it’s brighter than production designer Calder Greenwood and art director Keri Palmetto‘s dim warehouse set piece.
“Kidprint” is genuinely sadistic
Alex Ross Perry (Christopher Robin, Videoheaven) writes and directs V/H/S‘ most disturbing segment to date with “Kidprint”, a narrative centering on local kidnappings of minors during the fall of 1992. Director of photography and editor Robert Kolodny shoots and assembles a viscerally shocking story in a 3:2 aspect ratio, capturing production designer John Arnos (Sanctuary) and set decorator Tommy Mitchell‘s Kaplan Electronics & Records store set piece within austere framing. This segment hits home for me—and it should for so many others—, as Perry paints a bleak portrait of modern America. With children going missing in the United States every day, I feel as if a segment focused on Child ID-esque material is most necessary to expose the conditions of current society.
“Kidprint” follows business-owner Tim Kaplan (Stephen Gurewitz), as he and his employees create a plethora of VHS tapes to help parents keep track of their kids’ whereabouts during the Spooky Season. Perry subtly hints at the major twist through Kaplan’s words while introducing teenager Lindsay (Bailey Paulson), her mother Ashley (Christian Paxton), and the audience to his employees—Kaplan doesn’t work on nights and weekends, and his video editor, Bruce (Carl William Garrison), doesn’t like to be bothered while on the job. From here, Perry doesn’t spoon-feed the audience any more than he needs to. Instead, he has Kaplan create his own conflict when shoving a camera in people’s faces.
However, that’s pretty much the point with this penultimate V/H/S/Halloween segment: strangers are not to be trusted, even if it is a person who introduces themselves as a friendly face. Is it enough to trust your child to walk the streets on their own? This idea reminds me of Dave Eggers‘s science-fiction dystopian novel, The Circle, and his 2017 techno-thriller adaptation with filmmaker James Ponsoldt, in which technology is manufactured to keep track of individuals’ movement, interests, and more.
Kolodny, gaffer Dave Williamson, and special makeup effects artists Ingrid Okola (False Positive, Queens of the Dead), Dayeon Kang (Luke Cage Season 2), Emily Schubert, and Marissa Masella (Villains, Uncut Gems) craft a cold final scene between Kaplan, Bruce, 17-year-old victims Olivia Hamel (Siobhan McGroarty) and Drew Stackhouse (Harlo Cozzens), resulting in Kaplan being misidentified as an accomplice to the killer, and the teenagers being killed by Bruce, who confesses on camera to have been attacked while trick-or-treating as a young boy, the event of which traumatized him deeply and caused him to skin other children alive. Garrison portrays Bruce’s public and private sides almost masterfully, and the narrative gets chilling cries out of Cozzens.
“Home Haunt” is yet again about parents who ignore what’s best for their children
Following their 2021 fantasy horror-drama short, Grummy, based on Micheline Pitt-Norman‘s experience with childhood sexual abuse, she and husband R.H. Norman end the Shudder film on a few strong throughlines. The first relies on V/H/S/Halloween‘s haunted house vibe that started with “Coochie Coochie Coo” and continued with “Fun Size”. Moreover, the second throughline notes the theme of creation, namely, in creators being the antagonists of their own story. “Safe Haven”, “The Subject”, “Dreamkill”, “Stork”, and “Fur Babies” are all excellent examples of past V/H/S segments.
From a storytelling perspective, the Normans continue the fantastical throughline of a child confronting growth and their dreams for more in life. Only child Zack (Noah Diamond) plans to move away from home and his high school traumas—a result of being embarrassed to take part in his father Keith’s (Jeff Harms) annual “home haunt”, a haunted house attraction in the neighborhood. The narrative resembles Ari Aster‘s Munchausen, a Pixar-inspired 16-minute surreal short film in which an overprotective mother goes to great lengths to keep her son and only child from leaving for college.
The Normans command a good narrative on growing up, with director of photography Sean McDaniel pulling away from VHS footage of a 7-year-old Zack (Oliver Durante) having quality time with his father to display Zack in the present day. Keith still clings to the son he has always known and the bond they once shared; he tells his wife, Nancy (Sarah Nicklin), “I remember when I had the magic.” The Normans‘ segment is fantastical in the sense that Zack’s parents still see a child in him and refuse to see him for the man that he could be. Keith represents the American parent who overlooks the severity of modern-day life, such as in the accursed vinyl record that he steals from a Halloween store’s “Staff Only” room.
Editors R.H. Norman and Dylan Hoang weave a spooky labyrinth similar to that of “Coochie Coochie Coo” with McDaniel‘s different tilting and panning shots, and Greenwood appears to recycle the neighborhood set piece from “Fun Size”. The special effects makeup in “Home Haunt” is a little too realistic—blood shooting out of eye holes and a mouth hole via a flying bedsheet; a boy in a bumblebee (Matt Dizon) torn asunder by his neck and arms; a head being split in a perfect half by an executioner figure (Sean Berube); and a revolting-looking witch (Lize Johnston) who decapitates a girl in a cat costume (Bianca Thomson) and impales and disembowels a boy in a mummy costume (Mikel Martin) in the air. These certain aesthetics are done so well that the fact that the segment takes place in the late 1980s can be overlooked.
Final thoughts on V/H/S/Halloween
V/H/S/Halloween does more good than bad, but what is bad cannot and should not be ignored. The V/H/S franchise understands itself as a place for improvement, often calling upon screenwriters and directors who clearly know what brilliance is. It’s the second-longest film since the original by only a minute, more or less, and its runtime is definitely felt here and there. What I love about this installment is how it spotlights underseen names, a feat that the franchise continues to do.
Literature and Creative Writing Professor, Carol Margaret Davison, of the University of Windsor, explains certain technical tropes—grottophilia and toweromania—best in her Papers on Language & Literature article, titled “Gothic Architectonics: The Poetics and Politics of Gothic Space”. The former describes the symbolic “compulsion to seek out and investigate diminishing space [as if] a return to the darkness of the womb”, whereas the latter points to the “peculiar compulsion to ascend, construct, or reside in towers [thus equating with] some insidious form of power” (139). With Paco Plaza driving his characters to death from life, most of the other storytellers strive to take their characters to horrifying truths at a descent from decency. The monster that one becomes by the end is the only thing that matters.
V/H/S/Halloween is now streaming on Shudder.
Also check out The Scariest Doctor Who Episodes to Watch This Halloween
