V/H/S/Halloween Review - The Tapes Keep Rolling… And So Do the Heads
Every October brings its own rituals – pumpkin spice, costumes, and, for horror fans, a new entry in the V/H/S franchise. What began as a scrappy experiment in lo-fi anthology filmmaking has evolved, thirteen years later, into a kind of annual creative showcase – one part haunted mixtape, one part grindhouse time capsule. V/H/S/Halloween may be its most self-aware and exuberant volume yet, the cinematic equivalent of an all-night Halloween party where the scares come with a wink, the gore with a grin, and the filmmaking itself feels drunk on the pleasure of invention.
The found-footage conceit – once a constraint, now a badge of honor – remains both the series’ engine and its punchline. This time, the filmmakers treat it less as a genre rulebook and more as a creative dare: how far can you stretch the V/H/S format before it snaps? The answer, thankfully, is “pretty far.” V/H/S/Halloween isn’t a perfect film, but perfection has never been the point. Like a particularly rowdy costume party, it’s uneven, messy, occasionally brilliant, and always committed to the bit.
Diet Phantasma
The wraparound segment, “Diet Phantasma,” directed by Bryan M. Ferguson, sets the tone with mad-science absurdity. In it, a group of taste-testers sample a glowing soda that promises otherworldly flavor and delivers exactly that – by turning their bodies into something that might’ve crawled out of a Lovecraftian vending machine. The segment doesn’t so much frame the film as explode it, reappearing intermittently like a sugar rush that won’t quit. The visual palette is garish, its humor broad, its effects gooey, and its sense of timing wickedly anarchic. You don’t come to V/H/S for cohesion, you come for the chaos, and Ferguson delivers.
Coochie Coochie Coo
Where “Diet Phantasma” leans into camp, Anna Zlokovic’s “Coochie Coochie Coo” goes in the opposite direction – straight into nightmare territory. It’s easily one of the anthology’s most disturbing entries, a grotesque fairy tale of motherhood and transformation that captures something primal beneath the jump scares. The imagery is revolting, yes – Zlokovic’s monsters seem sculpted from equal parts flesh and shame – but what lingers is the subtext. Like the best horror, it isn’t about what’s being shown but what’s being felt: the fear of one’s own body as battleground, a theme that resonates all too sharply in an era where bodily autonomy itself has become political theater. The absurdity of filming one’s own demise is baked into the premise, and the filmmaker treats it with a knowing smirk; yet by its end, “Coochie Coochie Coo” feels genuinely tragic, like a short story that outgrows its medium.
Ut Supra Sic Infra
Spain’s Paco Plaza, best known as one of the co-directors of the Rec films, brings a touch of continental dread to the proceedings with “Ut Supra Sic Infra.” Structured like a grim police procedural, the short unfolds across recovered phone footage of a massacre at a Halloween party, blending the ritualistic with the absurd. It’s perhaps too self-contained for an anthology this playful, but its eerie atmosphere and slick craftsmanship give the whole film a necessary anchor of unease. Plaza reminds us that the V/H/S format, when treated with precision rather than parody, can still unsettle.
Fun Size
Casper Kelly – best known for his Adult Swim cult hit Too Many Cooks – contributes “Fun Size,” which plays like a nightmare disguised as a suburban Halloween special. His trick-or-treaters, played by adults who act like children, stumble upon a bowl of cursed candy and quickly find themselves in a surreal candy factory that looks like Willy Wonka’s basement. It’s broad, idiotic, and deliriously funny – a live-action cartoon about the gluttony of consumer culture and the childishness of greed. Of all the shorts, it’s the one that embraces absurdism most gleefully. Kelly’s humor, equal parts self-aware and genuinely deranged, walks a tonal tightrope that shouldn’t work but somehow does. Even its worst punchlines land with conviction. If it’s the weakest of the bunch narratively, it’s also the most infectiously weird – and that counts for something.
Kidprint
The standout, though, is Alex Ross Perry’s “Kidprint,” a short that feels like a lost artifact from the late 1980s – a paranoid suburban nightmare shot through with melancholy. Perry’s story follows a small-town businessman offering video ID recordings for children, a precaution against a string of kidnappings that may not be random. The setup evokes Reagan-era hysteria and the execution is pure slow-burn dread. Its final reveal lands like a gut punch, merging the analog aesthetic of the V/H/S series with a genuinely disturbing human tragedy. “Kidprint” doesn’t just unsettle – it lingers. Perry’s gift for discomforting the audience makes this segment feel like the emotional core of the film, the rare horror short that feels bigger than the frame it’s in.
Home Haunt
Finally, there’s “Home Haunt,” directed by Micheline Pitt-Norman and R.H. Norman, which closes the anthology with both a bang and a beating heart. It’s a story about a father and son whose annual haunted house spirals into literal hell after Dad steals a cursed record to spice up their event. What follows is chaos: screaming neighbors, demonic possession, and an editing rhythm that mimics the heartbeat of a party spinning out of control. The Normans have a gift for practical effects – every gore gag feels tactile, messy, and real – and the cinematography is a kinetic ballet of handheld panic and theatrical flourish.
Conclusion
Together, these shorts form one of the most balanced V/H/S entries to date. This is a film that remembers why the series works at all: because it invites mischief. Each new entry in the V/H/S universe feels like an invitation to the genre’s most twisted filmmakers to crash the same party and outdo each other – in creativity, audacity, and sheer nerve. V/H/S/Halloween succeeds because it doesn’t pretend to be anything more than that: a gory, clever celebration of filmmaking itself.
What’s perhaps most refreshing is how V/H/S/Halloween embraces its own artificiality. It knows that found footage is no longer “found” – it’s curated, collaged, and reinterpreted. Like a mixtape passed between generations, this franchise has become a document not just of horror tropes but of the evolution of how we see horror: from analog to digital, from fear to fun. Watching this new film, one feels the same affection that once powered Creepshow or Tales From the Crypt: a sense that horror, for all its darkness, is ultimately a communal art – a campfire, not a sermon.
And perhaps that’s what makes this installment feel so rewarding. It doesn’t simply try to scare you. It invites you in. It’s playful and self-aware without being cynical. Even its weaker moments – like the slightly overlong “Ut Supra Sic Infra” or the somewhat chaotic “Fun Size” – feel like the rough edges of a handmade mask. You can see the fingerprints of the creators, and that’s the charm.
At its best, V/H/S/Halloween captures the same sense of joyous, anarchic fear that defined the original 2012 film – but with more polish, more confidence, and a sly wink to the audience who’s been here for every tape since. Like the perfect Halloween night, V/H/S/Halloween ends not with resolution but with exhaustion – a grin, a sugar crash, and a quiet gratitude that this strange, gruesome annual tradition lives on.