Recently, the film V/H/S/2 came out on Netflix and I decided to check it out considering since I saw the first one and thought it was ok. Plus, this one is considered better than the first one so I figured that’s worth a look.
Much like the first one the film is set up in the style of a Found Footage Anthology film. I’ll be looking at each segment individually as well as the film overall and how well the set up works with it.
MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD.
Main Narrative/Tape 49
A College Kid goes missing and Two Private Investigators go to his Apartment to check things out. In there, they find a whole bunch of Analog Televisions along with A Bunch of VHS Tapes (Much like the First one.) and his Laptop which contained a Vlog about his thoughts on the tapes as well as some of the Stories for the film. One of them decides to watch the tapes while the other goes on exploring the apartment.
Phase I Clinical Trials
After a car accident, a man gets surgery on his missing eye in which he gets an Artifical Eye which has a Camera inside it which is part of a test the doctors are conducting. Later that day, he starts to see people who mysteriously enter his home without showing any intention of what they want.
The segment, basically, turns into a mini ghost film. The segment only offers one more character named Clarissa who apparently had surgery done on her hearing and can also see the ghosts.The method of only them seeing the ghosts isn’t explained but it’s hinted that if you’ve either had replaced body parts or have been in a near death experience, you’d be able to see them. (Similar to The Frighteners.)
I thought this one was the weakest segment for me in the film.
A Ride In The Park
A guy filming his bike ride with his Go Pro comes across a woman who needs medical attention. She then bites him, and he eventually becomes a zombie.
The rest of the segment is just him going around bitting people and getting attacked while he also vaguely remembers who he once was near the end of it. That’s pretty much all I can say about this segment.
(Interestingly, I found out this was made by the Directors of The Blair Witch Project.)
I thought this was Ok. I didn’t really like it, but it’s not the worst segment on here.
Safe Haven
A camera crew goes to a Indonnesian Cult group to interview their Leader and hope to answer some questions upon some rumors that have been spread about him and his “Children.” Meanwhile, a few of the crew members explore the area to find some rather bizzare ritualistic style of events that soon will plague the Interviewers.
Each of the interviewers finds something that encounter in the village like area where they could basically be killed almost instantly and it ends up to be a part of a Ritualistic Sacrifice to summon a Demon from the pregnant filmmaker.
This one was definitely the most bizzare of the bunch…and it was the Best Segment out of the whole film.
Slumber Party Alien Abduction
….Gee, I wonder what happens in this segment….
As the title pretty much says, a bunch of guys are having a Slumber Party all day and they constantly pick on the main boy’s older sister & boyfriend, and, Obviously, Aliens arrive and they decide to take each of the kids one by one.
The Camera work on this one was done by a Go Pro style of camera, like the zombie segment, that was mainly strapped to the Dog the family had. The segment made the footage look damaged and a bit blurry to help hide the look of the aliens. As for the aliens themselves, they were Greys, The most generic type of Alien.
This one ended up being one of the segments from Both films that I really enjoyed.
(Another interesting fact, this segment was made by the Director of Hobo with A Shotgun, Jason Eisener.)
As the film progressed, I noticed that each of the encounters in the segments involved some form of monster. The first film didn’t really have some consistent encounter like that and it was a mix of Serial Killers, Monsters, and an Exorcism.
One of the bigger issues I had with the first film was wondering how did they put some of the footage onto a VHS Tape since a few segments were done Digitally. Thankfully, 3 of the segments were on the missing kids’ laptop and the Safe Haven segment was on VHS.
Overall, this one was more Enjoyable than the first one and I ended up liking it. I guess I could say watch it if you want to see a Found Footage Monster fest.
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