V/H/S 99 (2022)

Horror/ Anthology

Rated 18

Spoiler Free

V/H/S 99, in fact, all of the recent spin off iterations of the original are nostalgia, obviously. Nostalgia sells, though, and I’m not immune to it, coughing up for V/H/S 99 with it’s “certified fresh” from Rotten Tomatoes, a scoring system I have little time or interest to investigate properly (which perhaps I should). I tried using my Google Docs voice recognition for this review, which was interesting- obviously I have edited it still, but I’ve left some in for you to spot for funsies.

It is bonkers, it is tacky but V/H/S 99 isn’t all entirely bad. It feels like the short films could be fit into any of the various V/H/S categories they create for the purpose of their lineage. It's all supposed to be awful by design in a way but it's not the worst. Though when that's the plastic cheese you're paying something. Apparently I just said plastic cheese when I meant to say platitudes. Got it right that time. Maybe it's my accent, f*** tea bye!*

This whole thing is filmed on the premise of found footage, yet it's really hard to distinguish it at some points at whose filming it. It's all just presented in the way that it might be film by someone, but logically there's no one there who's filming is never established. 

Somebody applied a prerequisite and went from there; like they blanket wrote short stories and then went, “Yeah, we'll film that one like it was in the 90’s, we’ll shoot that one like it was in the 80’s, this one can be made to look like 2007 on a fucking webcam…” There’s little by way of narrative adherence to a time period, it just happens to be a camera in that space at that time with whatever filter on it makes it seem like it's from the 90s on the 80s or God’s nose when.

I might give up on the V/H/S series, and also teach myself more about what “fresh” means on rotten tomatoes- fresh turd? I prefer my turds to be white and chalky, they’re easier to throw.

Bedsit it?

Reviewing anthology films is tricky because usually there's some pleasantly nasty vignettes, there's some less than impressive, but in V/H/S 99 it doesn't ever really hit either. Height is nothing I hated, there's also nothing I’ve loved. I watched it. There you go, there's your review. I watched it. 5/10
*Google’s guess at what Fuckity bye is- apparently they also censor swear words.