Rushed into production so that it could make its way to Sundance 203, V/H/S/2 features a distinctly different group of directors, barring returnees Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett, this time around and includes Jason Eisener, Timo Tjahjanto, Gregg Hale and Eduardo Sanchez.
The wrap-around story is similar to the first movie except that instead of criminals breaking into a house to find a tape, private investigators break into a house to find a missing college student. Because B and E is still not illegal or anything. Larry and Ayesha (who is, oddly, white) manage to get into the kid's house (and if you look carefully, you can see Larry's ass through a hole in his jeans) and find a stack of tapes. Ayesha starts to go through them to see if she can find anything since the video on the computer suggests that the kid believes the contents of the tapes are real.
They're HEEEEEERE!
What follows is... well... meh.
In the first tape reviewed, we follow a man who has just had his eye replaced with ZOMG-top-secret video hardware. Like any ZOMG-to-secret video hardware, it lets him see ghosts. Wait... what? Yeah, you heard me. Ghosts. He gets followed by a goth chick who can hear them thanks to a cochlear implant. She explains the dealio to him and he gets delightfully paranoid. He also determines, somehow, that the bathroom is the safest place to be in case of haunting. This, by the way, is the best of the 4 vignettes.
Yes, that's a straight razor he's holding up to his face.
Our next vignette was shot entirely using a GoPro camera attached to a bike helmet. And this pisses me off. Plus, it's standard zombie movie crap. Zombie plus shakey cam equals Angry Bob. It's not even well done zombie crap. Boo.
This is why we don't shoot zombie movies from the POV of the zombie.
I should break to point out that Ayesha is suffering from blackouts and nosebleeds at this point...
The third tape follows a news crew investigating an Indonesian cult and is filmed through documentary cameras or hidden cameras in the shirts of the crew. The crew is reluctantly invited to the cult compound to give what the leader hopes is a positive view of his flock. It's strongly implied that he sleeps with all of the female inhabitants (which, seriously, isn't news when it comes to cult activity) but this, ultimately, isn't the big issue. Let's just say that Jim Jones would have been proud of this guy. Pregnancy is also heavily involved... and guns. Lots of guns. An inordinate amount of guns.
Lamaze will not help. Trust me.
In case you're wondering? The only thing that scared me about this one is this guy.
Bitch is creepy.
Now, Larry finds Ayesha dead and another tape with "WATCH" written on it in lipstick which brings us to the last tape.
It's a dog with a GoPro camera, this time, following the kids around, having a grand old time, catching a kid and his friends pranking his older sister. The pranks escalate and it's all fun and games untilOHSHITALIENS!
And that's about it.
The wraparound concludes. The movie is done.
Meh.
As much of a ground-breaker as V/H/S was, this is a lackluster and, frankly, dull attempt to recreate the success of the first film. You guys know me, by now. I LOVE me an anthology film. The collaboration between the directors is always fun to watch. This time around, though? I fully believe that these bitches got what they deserved for rushing production because two out of the four sucked ass and of the two remaining, the foreign one ran too long and was not entertaining until the last half. Only the first "tape" was any good and that's stretching it a little.
Sorry, guys, but if you manage to pull a third film out of your asses, give it a little love before you smack it into our eye sockets, OK? We can wait more than a year if you're gonna give us good product.
I'm not saying it's bad. Just tamer than I expected. Your mileage, as always, may vary.
Speaking of varying mileage, you can check out Brent's video review right over here.
Speaking of varying mileage, you can check out Brent's video review right over here.
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