V/H/S/85

I recently watched V/H/S85 (2023) on Shudder. This horror anthology is skillfully presented as an 80s-style documentary, with a collection of videos that perfectly capture the camcorder-caliber quality of the 1980s. The stories within cover a range of themes, from cults and teenage antics to glimpses of the future and a compelling police interrogation.

Co-directed by David Bruckner (The Ritual), Scott Derrickson (The Black Phone) and Natasha Kermani (Imitation Girl), the film features a solid cast, including Freddy Rodríguez (Planet Terror), Jordan Belf (Entourage), Andrew Ghai (For All Mankind"), Chelsey Grant (Scare Package I & II) and Justen Jones (Accidental Family).

This installment has quickly become one of my favorites in the V/H/S series. The stories involving cults, the police interrogation, and the boat segment were particularly outstanding, I'd rate them between an 8 and 10/10. All of the segments featured commendable gore effects. Even the technology-themed episode, while not my personal favorite in terms of storyline, made up for it with its impressive gore effects. Unfortunately, the final episode didn't quite measure up to the rest.

In conclusion, V/H/S85 is a worthwhile modern-day horror anthology that I would strongly recommend. I would give this a rating of 7.5/10.

It gets right into it. No main story arc about who's watching these videos. We start off with a story of vacation, youth, recreation, death, sudden and surprising horror, partying, wait, this was just an old video tape of young adults having fun, right? What could possibly go wrong....oh wait.... HOLY @#$!

So the first segment was so misleading, I honestly forgot what kind of movie I was watching until things got intense. Then it took a turn. A very "different" turn. This is not your usual VHS film, nor is it a typical, cash-grab low-budget horror. It does well for itself.

Despite the unattractive, distracting segment totally dependent on subtitles (unless you are fluent in Spanish), every segment is promising, intense, and fun. There are lots of great moments. It's not at fearful as the first VHS movie. No VHS sequel only will be. But this is the best installment since the release of the original.

It does get a little weak and predictable for the last couple segments. Still, it's fun. Have a few drinks, kick back, and just have fun.

After V/H/S 99, I was approaching this next installment a little fearfully. But, to my surprise V/H/S 85 is a good entry. The wraparound story, as well as each segment were pretty good. Maybe the "TKNOGD" Segment (Segment number three) was a little weak, but still better than the first four segments of V/H/S 99.

Overall, V/H/S 85 reminded me a lot of V/H/S 94, which I consider one of the best. So, if you enjoy the suspense, eerie atmosphere and sophisticated storytelling of 94, you will enjoy this one too.

The best two segements (Dream Kill and Ambrosia) start and finish this series and therby "roll out" and "wrap up" the red carpet for the segments in the middle, allowing them to effect us with their full potential.

I am giving this a generous 6 (probably more like a 5.5) because ultimately it was a fun decent horror anthology. My problem is outside of two of the stories with ome being the wrapper story) the shorts do not feel finished satisfactorily as a complete story..

The first atory with the kids at the lake is a great idea but it never comes to anything and is incomplete and nothing is explained. It connects to another story about a crazy family which is the worst of the shorts. It is too predictable and still gives no closure to the koda im the lake story. It feels like that is artificially tacked together.

The story set in Mexico is my favorite. It is a complete atory with lota of scares particularly the claustrophobic kind. It was well done.

I have mixed feelings about the dream short bit i think it is the second best due to the gore. However it was very formulaic and predictable. It had some real stupid characters but overall was decent.

Finally the wrapper story about the alien found in the desert. It was unrealistic situation where an organism like this would end up at a lightly guarded college campus but i will ignore that. I thought the segments were interesting and the final act was cool. However it was kind of ruined by the joke scene at the end with the aerobics.

I almost forgot the technogod segment which is in the middle, It is understandable since this segment is very forgettable. The only good partofnit was the last 5 minutes of body horror. I could have also done without this one and wish they had found a better short

In summary the movie had flaws all over but did enough to keep me entertained. I wouldnt spend money to watch but if you can see for free it is worth a watch if you are into horror or the vhs movies.

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I just watched this and it's definitely better than it's rating right now. The stories are varied with some being splitt into parts and spread out so that we get both variation and familiar parts. There's fear, gore, murders and monsters and most of it is well made and well acted, and it's all sewn together in a period correct nice glitchy VHS chaos. I guess for me it had what I expect from a horror movie but a lot more varied and some of it cooler than I expected, for example the story of the scientists with ..something... behind a one way mirror (slightly reminding me of beyond the black rainbow somehow)