Has there been a more unlikely series of horror films than the V/H/S franchise? By the very nature of the sub-genre, anthology films don’t typically lend themselves to being series as even the segments within their own movies are almost always unrelated. Sure, TV has found a way to make it work in things like American Horror Story from Ryan Murphy or the criminally underrated Channel Zero that ran 4 seasons. Side note, if you have Shudder, please go check out Channel Zero. There are exceptions of course with The ABCs of Death or the Creepshow series but most of them are one and done. You also have nonrelated ones that use the same actors and directors like the wonderful things Amicus films was doing opposite Hammer in the 60s and 70s but again, these weren’t sequels at all. V/H/S has defied all odds and with a new film having just been released, let’s look at the one that almost halted the entire series 10 years ago. V/H/S: Viral. Its Rotten Tomatoes are rotten, and it is routinely on the bottom of any ranking but let’s see why this black sheep should be rewound and shared.
V/H/S came out in 2012 and was a bit of a sensation. Sure, it was rough around the edges, but it was also a breath of fresh air and was loved by audiences while being at least respected by critics. One of the segments even got turned into a standalone movie that bridged the gap between the first 3 movies and the current set. It had great names behind the scenes too like Radio Silence, Ti West, Joe Swanberg, and David Bruckner. It made more money than expected and was followed by V/H/S 2 which would follow the same formula and have some more recognizable creators. These include Adam Wingard, Eduardo Sanchez (the name may not pop but he is a co-creator of The Blair Witch Project), and Gareth Edwards. This one was bigger, had better production value, better effects, and is seen as one of the best in the series. It would again have a segment that would get its own feature length movie and again have a sequel come out the very next year.
V/H/S: Viral would get no quick follow-up. It would have no single segment that would go on to a spinoff movie. Finally, it would get the worst reviews from both critics and audiences that remain the lowest to this day after 3 more movies. Is it really that bad? Would I be putting a defense up if it was? Okay, no need to bring up some of the other ones I’ve defended. That may not be the best barometer. In any case, I too did not like this movie the first time I saw it and after this rewatch I get why. One of the biggest issues is its placement in the series. It came after part two which is quite frankly just a banger of a movie with one of the best anthology segments ever put to celluloid. Even with the other stories not fully living up, it creates a black hole where that’s all anyone remembers or talks about and unfortunately, Viral has nothing really close to that. It does have a couple really fun ones though. The next actual V/H/S to come out? The one with the highest audience and critical scores of the bunch, so that did it no favors either.
Those two really fun stories I mentioned are more than worth watching but unfortunately, they come first and are followed by a lousy wraparound story and a mostly dud of a third segment. The wraparound story for any anthology is tantamount to its success even if that means mostly staying the hell out of it. Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors is my favorite, with Peter Cushing’s Tarot reading death dealer simply smiling as his fellow train passengers see their doom until it is revealed he is death itself. Great stuff. Easy stuff. Non-intrusive stuff. No notes. Other ones that can be good are things like the great Clancy Brown being our Cryptkeeper like host in The Mortuary Collection or John Carpenter channeling his Cryptkeeper in Body Bags. Come to think of it, Carpenter’s transition into the real-life Cryptkeeper is almost complete! The wraparound here is a disjointed mess that doesn’t even lead into the other stories or have anything to do with them. It tries to have something to say with viral content ruining our lives or being on our devices ruining our relationships, but it doesn’t go anywhere.
Looking at the behind-the-scenes talent, particularly compared to other entries, falls flat too. There aren’t any future horror star creators apart from Justin Benson and Aaron Morehead who would go far further into sci-fi with greats like Synchronic and The Endless and probably got the job with their low budget thriller horror Resolution. The funny thing about that is that their segment is easily the worst. Most of the time their stories are filled with complex characters looking to complete a sad or harrowing arc but in Bonestorm, the characters are absolute jerks who I have never rooted harder for to be killed off. It’s a bunch of skateboarders who head to Mexico and run afoul of a death cult that lets out some sort of creature. It’s cheesy in all the wrong ways and feels like a bad Jess Franco movie in all the wrong ways with cheap makeup, cheap effects, and no sense of suspense or urgency. This is exacerbated by the special effects in general, which does have some practical worked in but is mostly digital and really shows its budget.
I did say I was defending this movie, and I meant it. V/H/S: Viral has a few things going for it. I complained about the wraparound story but at least it tried. As spooky as the first one tries to be, with a nameless person watching the tapes they find in an abandoned house, it’s also a bit of a nothing burger. I am okay with the failure as long as it’s trying and there are a few decent parts. When a fellow biker is grabbed by the runaway ice cream truck that is the crux of the wraparound, he loses his shoes, and the street does the rest to sand away his feet and legs. Its unexpected as you think something inside may kill him, but the vehicle just drags him to his death. The ending is also interesting with the city lights flickering and if you look closely, you can see a helicopter losing control as fires rage in the city. At least it ends with a nice touch.
Along those same lines, as infuriating as the final story segment is, it also has a couple nice moments. It does kill off annoying characters, which is welcome, and the cultists blood being flammable is cool. The skateboarders kill most of them and the bodies come back like a boss in Dark Souls sans skin and a bit tougher which is also nice. These types of things get lost when the rest of what is on screen is either annoying or just plain dumb. The wraparound and third part aside, those first two stories I mentioned are quite enjoyable.
First up is Dante the Great which is told in a documentary, Blair Witch style, but also through a just plain clever amount of camera devices. They use police station CCTV, phone cameras, street cameras, and even laptop webcams to show everything. It tells the story of a failed magician who turned things around to become an almost speakeasy mystery Vegas act. We find this out when we see him get a special cape that allows some pretty typical illusions as well as some very unexplainable things. Nice touches throughout, like audience members saying they went to the show in New York and he transported them to Los Angeles, complete with them being impressed and justifiably pissed off, give the story more character than you would expect. The cape is a creature on its own or at the very least houses a creature and he ends up feeding a number of his assistants to it, presumably to continue to have it do his bidding or at the very least keep it docile.
He becomes more of a dark wizard than anything and begins to train and have feelings for his latest assistant. She understands what he is becoming, and the police go after him, but the SWAT team is no match. For the movie’s lower end budget, this scene is pulled off masterfully, with Dante killing the officers in multiple ways including breaking off limbs, throwing them on a bed of magician spikes, using one of them to shoot a bunch of others, and probably my favorite bit, where he transports himself and an officer where the officer is shot, and he kills the last one. A showdown takes place between master and apprentice and the assistant is able to feed Dante to the cape. She meets her demise in a fairly telegraphed jump scare but everything before that is really impressive and I would put it up against a few of the segments in later entries.
The second story is by the creator of the underseen Time Crimes and although I had remembered it being a time travel story, it is actually a story of possible different dimensions. It does a great job of showing us some really batshit crazy stuff and explaining almost none of it. A scientist is able to open a window to other dimensions, where he meets his doppelganger, who is a scientist like himself. They try and explore each other’s dimensions for a 15-minute period before meeting back. While anyone would guess that one of them is on the evil side, what is going on in the alternate world is shocking and unpredictable. The best part is seeing both men walk upstairs with a video camera in an identical house only to find a different picture than was in their own. The beautiful thing here is that instead of it being a minor, barely noticeable difference, it’s a bizarre and terrifying one. You won’t guess what happens next, nor will you forget it.
When I was rewatching this I only remembered a few things. 1. That I didn’t like it and 2. The wraparound and third story. V/H/S: Viral deserves much more than the hate and reception it’s gotten over the years and should be plugged in when watching the series. While I severely doubt the new film with a segment written by Mike Flannigan and directed by his uber talented wife and collaborator Kate Siegal will take its place as the new worst, Viral ain’t bad. If you need a new horror series to run this October after you get through the main offenders, make sure you don’t skip out on V/H/S: Viral when you add these movies in.
A couple of the previous episodes of The Black Sheep can be seen at the bottom of this article. To see more, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!