The latest in the VHS anthologies – I think VHS 94 is the third? Maybe fourth? – is about what you’d expect from a horror anthology. Some good, some not, nothing too memorable. But I did really like two of the segments.
The Empty Wake plays like Simon Barrett’s take on the The Drop of Water, a segment from a 1960s Italian horror anthology called Black Sabbath. The Drop of Water is about a young nurse who has to stay the night with an old lady’s dead corpse. Or is it? Because the VHS anthologies all involve people filming stuff, usually with VHS tapes, the conceit here is that a young woman at a funeral home has to stay after hours to manage the cameras set up to film a wake, by request of the attendees. And creepy stuff happens. I especially like how Barrett works in elements of the outside world intruding on the wake. And it’s got a pretty cool payoff.
The best payoff is is the segment by a woman named Chloe Okuno, who I’ve never heard of before, but I’m looking forward to whatever she does next. Her segment is called The Storm Drain and it alternates between creepy, over-weird, and eventually hilarious. Okuno has a sly sense of humor that works perfectly for short-form horror, and her lead actress Anna Hopkins is a lot of fun as a local TV news reporter chasing down an urban legend.
The other two segments didn’t do much for me and the connective storyline was ultimately a disappointment. Did any of you guys watch it? What were you favorite/least favorite segments?
-Tom
Is this a theatrical release? VOD? VHS?
It’s a Shudder exclusive.
Man I really need to get into Shudder one of these days.
If you subscribe to AMC+, it includes Shudder, at least right now. I did last week through Amazon Video.
And I haven’t watched VHS 94 yet. I should do that, I guess.
It has done since they launched AMC+, I’m pretty sure.
It’s a pretty fantastic deal, considering you get all the IFC Films streaming too (lots of indie horror there too) and it’s like $6/mo if you get it on your cable provider.
Speaking of Simon Barrett, he’s got a new movie on Shudder. Seance starts out as a girls boarding school ghost story, then turns into a crackerjack of a fun time.
Man, it is really getting to the point where I’m just going to have to throw down some money for Shudder I guess.
And yes. I know I said that a week ago. It can take me a while to psych myself up for these things.
Just saw this tonight, and would rank the segments in pretty much the same way. The Storm Drain segment was definitely my favorite, especially with the shift in tone at the end. I’ve not heard of Chloe Okuno, but I’ll keep an eye out for other stuff by her in the future.
The funeral/wake segment was really good as well, and gave just enough information to keep things concise and interesting while still ratcheting up the tension. Also this thread reminded me that I really should check out Seance sometime.
As far as the rest of them:
The… uh… Robocop segment felt like something I would have written as a 12 year old, even if it still had some gory charm. It very much had a ‘special effects person makes a movie’ vibe to me.
The last segment had a premise that sounds interesting on paper, and to its credit, I did like the drip-feed reveal of what it was really going on. That being said, the execution was muddled and left me a little confused. I was never really clear on the rules, and then I didn’t really get why the vampire apparently decided to blow himself up at the end.
The framing story was fine up until when it completely fell off a cliff and got kind of embarrassing at the very end. It was also the part of the movie that had too much of the fake VHS tracking slathered over the frame.
Between this and Dune, it’s been a good week for watching the first half of a movie. :)
