V/H/S/99 [2022]

 "HERE, WHERE WORM HATH GONE ABOUT HER BUSINESS, YOU MUST CRAWL." 

The fifth installment of the V/H/S/ franchise debuted last year exclusively on Shudder and this year got it's physical release.  The prospect of a new entry in the series didn't cause me to jump up and down in elation.  I've only actually seen the first 2 films and they were just OK, as I remember.  Although I'm thinking the second one was better than the first; I need to rewatch to be sure since I haven't seen them probably since they were first released.  Then I started seeing a lot of people really liking this latest installment which is supposed to be a 'found footage' tape from the year 1999.  Needless to say, the filmmakers do their bit to pump the film full of late-1990's atmo and, for the most part, they are pretty successful.  Some of the attempts for a 90's vibe are a little too heavy handed; a teen rattling off a bunch of 90's rock band names a particularly obvious attempt.  And, as usual, the found footage genre lends itself to over-obvious acting to the camera (which 99 times out of 100 comes off as terribly fake.  So all that is here in V/H/S/99.  However, I think what saves the film is the stories themselves which don't take themselves seriously (as many found footage films are wont to do) and come of as fun.  After all, a 'found footage' horror movie is just a film version of walking through a Halloween haunted house attraction.  Monsters posing in threatening stances (but never actually touching you) occurs while walking through a haunted house attraction in October as well as in a movie.  So the point seems to me that the viewers and the filmmakers are both in on the amusement-parkiness of V/H/S/99 and that either works for you or it doesn't.  For me, the individual episodes in the film work on that level; each story has an interesting little twist which kept my attention.  Unlike most anthology horror films, V/H/S/99 doesn't have one exactly.  The film opens with videotape of someone making a home movie with his plastic army men.  This sequence doesn't really count as a wraparound story since it doesn't re-appear at the end of the film but instead ties into the penultimate sequence called "The Gawkers". 

The first story by writer/director Maggie Levin is called "Shredding" which features an amateur punk band/group of pranksters called R.A.C.K. (standing for the first letters in each of the teens' names) videotapes their antics (a la JACKASS) while also trying to be an actual punk band.  4 years ago, the all-female punk band Bitch Cat were performing at a venue called 'The Colony Underground' when a fire broke out (a la the Great White incident) and the 4 women were trampled to death by their own stampeding fans.  R.A.C.K. breaks into the now abandoned Colony Underground in order to tape themselves performing a song while also pulling some tasteless pranks inside the underground building.  (Super)naturally the dead members of Bitch Cat are not amused. 

The next story is called "Suicide Bid" by writer/director Johannes Roberts.  Lily is a college freshman who is applying to join the most prestigious sorority on campus.  Lily makes an application video saying that she is only applying to that one sorority (known as a 'suicide bid').  The sorority girls invite Lily to join -- but only after a hazing which involves her being buried alive in a coffin for the night.  The reason for this particular hazing is an urban legend of a pledge named Giltine who performed the same buried alive ritual but was left for a week.  When the coffin was dug up, Giltine was not inside and it was rumored she dug her way into the underworld.  The sorority warns Lily not to make noise because if Giltine hears her, she will drags Lily to the underworld as a playmate.  Packed with unlikeable characters, I was on Giltine's side as to whatever happened to these snots. 

"Ozzy's Dungeon" directed by Flying Lotus is the next story which takes it's obvious 90's inspiration from the kids game show "Legend of the Hidden Temple".  Kids compete to get a chance to have their best wish granted by a figure only known as Ozzy.  This is a rather dark version of a kids game show since there isn't any real concern over the safety of the kids.  Young Donna has her leg snapped almost in half while crawling through a chute and Donna's mother in particular isn't happy about it. 

The girl's family kidnaps the smarmy game show host and puts him through torture based upon the game show's tasks.  A quite nasty and typically unhinged Flying Lotus episode.  Next we have the aforementioned "The Gawkers" which shows us teen Brady filming his stop motion home movie with his army men.  Brady's older brother catches him using his camcorder and snatches it away from him in order to shoot surreptitious videos of the hot neighbour lady.  When the woman asks Brady to help her install her new computer and webcam, his brother forces him to install spyware which will allow them to peep on the woman.  The woman catches them in the act and then reveals herself to be not what they thought she was. 

Finally, "To Hell and Back" by Vanessa & Joseph Winter finds friends and videographers Troy and Nate hired to film a coven's attempt to summon the demon Ukabon at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve 1999.  The guys assume this entire ritual is a fake but they accidentally conjure up an uninvited demon named Ferkus before midnight.  While banishing Ferkus back to the netherworld, Nate and Troy are accidentally sucked there with the demon.  While encountering horrifying stuff in the demonic dimension, the guys encounter a strange creature named Mabel the Skull Biter who promises to help them return to the real world when the coven summons Ukabon at midnight.  Her only request is that, when they return, the boys write Mabel's name in the demonic book the coven is using.  

V/H/S/99 was fun.  As I said, nobody seems to be taking themselves too seriously and the emphasis on fun seems to be on the minds of all the directors here.  Particularly strong is the art direction/production design/makeup which seems to me much more lavish (particularly in the final "To Hell and Back" segment) than the previous 2 V/H/S/ films I've seen.  The acting on hand ranges from meh to not too bad; however special mention must be made for Melanie Stone as the wacko Mabel the Skull Biter who needs to have an entire movie all her own.  Note:  if you stay to the end of the credits, you will hear the music suddenly stop and the coven chanting to summon Mabel . . . Mabel . . . Mabel . . . Hopefully this means that we might get to see Mabel again, this time unleashed on an unsuspecting world.  But as for this unsuspecting viewer, V/H/S/99 was surprisingly entertaining and I know I'll be watching it again someday.  Rewatchability isn't exactly a hallmark of the 'found footage' genre so that in itself is a win.