V/H/S/99 (2022)
Directed by Flying Lotus, Maggie Levin, Tyler MacIntyre, Johannes Roberts, Joseph Winter, Vanessa Winter
I’ve only seen the first two VHS movies. VHS1 was great, the sequel was even better, I heard viral sucked and I forgot 94 existed. I’ve heard a few people talking about 99 so I fired it up last night, here we go. Since this is an anthology movie, I’ll just go segment by segment.
Shredding. It is about a punk rock group called RACK playing pranks and recording their antics. They decide to go to a former music venue that burned down years prior. Once they get there, shit hits the fan and they get attacked by zombies. The zombies are members of a former band called Bitch Cat. The RACK band gets possessed by Bitch Cat and are shown playing their songs at the end. This one was blah to me, not interesting to me, it really tried too hard.
Suicide Bid. Suicide Bid is about a group of sorority girls hazing a new member by burying her alive. She is given a box by the sisters and she opens it once in the grave and huge spiders come out. She freaks out and rings the bell so they can unearth her. When she rings the bell, campus security shows up and the girls bail. Soon it begins to rain and the casket starts filling with water. The girl nearly drowns and then a zombie pops up on the casket window and forces her way in. The girl screams and the next day the other girls show up to get her out and see the grave is full of water. They dive in to rescue her and she’s not in the casket. Soon after the girls each are found in separate caskets. The main girl shows up and kills each of them, now a zombie herself. This one was better but the whole zombie thing was pointless honestly. It wasn’t scary when the ghoul or zombie showed up. The idea of being buried alive and water pouring into the casket was creepy enough honestly.
Ozzy’s Dungeon. This one was odd for sure. It shows a kid’s game show, along the lines of double dare. A girl has an accident during the game and her leg breaks. The host is an asshole and doesn’t stop the game. Now going ahead a few years the girls mom captures the host and tortures him. They drive to the old studio and enter Ozzy’s Dungeon. Once they get in they see a pregnant woman on an altar being worshipped. The mom makes her wish. A monster erupts from the pregnant woman’s stomach and kills everyone. BORING. This one was really dull and just kind of dumb.
The Gawkers. A group of bros, yes bros tape themselves doing all sorts of lame shit. This captures 1999 so well to me, just a group of idiots that are obsessed with sex and bad music. They spy on the neighbor lady because she’s hot. They get the geeky brother to install a webcam on her computer so they can spy on her. While they’re spying on her she turns into a Medusa and turns them to stone. This one was fun, like I said it captured 1999 pretty well and Medusa is a monster that isn’t used that much.
To Hell and Back. Two videographers are hired by a coven of witches. Their suppose to film a ritual where a host girl is going to be a vessel for a demon called Ukabon. Once the ritual starts another demon named Ferkus grabs the two guys and drags them underneath the altar. They wake up in a wasteland and are found by a witch named Mabel. She takes them through hell to the demon Ukabon so they can try to return to Earth. The guys end up making it to the ritual and fight off cultists, Mabel is killed and the two guys go back through the portal. One guy comes back fine the other is now in the body of the vessel woman, they kill both guys. One guy writes Mabel’s name in the witch book before he dies. In the credits you can hear the ritual again with Mabel’s name. This one was pretty good, I enjoyed seeing all the creatures and their idea of hell.
As a whole this movie wasn’t great. Why were there so many zombies? My favorite was To Hell and Back, it was creepy, entertaining, and had some funny moments. The two guys were pretty funny. The worst was Ozzy’s Dungeon, that was just odd and boring. If I’m grading these: Shredding is a D+, Suicide Bid was a C+, Ozzy’s Dungeon was a D-, The Gawkers was a B, and To Hell and Back was a B+. The first two VHS movies were by far better, so stick to them.
