31 Days of Horror; V/H/S/94 is bold found footage at its best

Horror has many subgenres, and one of the biggest of those subgenres is found footage. Found footage is a special type of horror. It's one most anyone can follow and one most any filmmaker can make, and ever since Heather Donahue and her friends set out into the woods of Burkittsville, Maryland in 1999 in The Blair Witch Project, audiences and producers realized that the simplicity of handheld horror was something special. V/H/S took it to the next level in 2012.

V/H/S/94 was a sort of reboot for the V/H/S franchise after it spent years dormant following V/H/S/Viral in 2014. The film brought back a few filmmakers from previous franchise installments as well as some fresh blood. This installment also kicked off the thematic element of V/H/S films going forward. Ever since V/H/S/94, films in the franchise have revolved around a certain theme, and while that theme is usually a time period like V/H/S/99 and V/H/S/85, the franchise has also expanded to genre clashes like V/H/S Beyond and even holidays with V/H/S/Halloween.

The film begins with the start of the wrap around segment, a SWAT team arriving at an abandoned building filled with dead bodies and CRTVs. Throughout the film we cut back to this segment, and while it's probably the least entertaining part of the film, the set design is certainly something to be admired. You can't help but feel a sense of unease as the team walks through the seemingly never-ending facility with mutilated bodies. It's all show and no substance, but it's a hell of a show.

Before long we're taken to our first segment, Storm Drain written and directed by Chloe Okuno. This segment follows Holly (Anna Hopkins) a news reporter, and her camera man Jeff (Anthony Christian Potenza) covering the story of a small town's urban legend, the reclusive "Rat Man". The two interview various strange pedestrians about what they know about the Rat Man before descending into the tunnels to investigate. Hopkins gives a performance that feels reminiscent of another 90s horror film reporter, Gale Weathers, right down to having a short fuse with dealing with her bumbling camera man. This segment serves as a solid start to the mayhem of V/H/S/94 as their journey into investigating the rat man leads to the discovery of a creature, a possible cult and a whole lot of face melting. The standout of this segment is the practical effects and the disturbing creature design of Raatma, the true identity of the creature the townspeople have been seeing. The segment also ends on another really enjoyable practical effect where a mans face is melted off with acidic vomit. Overall, Storm Drain serves as the perfect kick off to the film, and sets the disturbing and strange tone of V/H/S/94, warning audiences that this is only the beginning.

Okunu went on the write and direct the film Watcher starring Maika Monroe, which is also streaming on Shudder.

The following segment The Empty Wake, written directed by Simon Barrett, follows a funeral home employee tasked with supervising a wake for a deceased man. The wake, being recorded on multiple video cameras allowing for multiple perspectives is, as the title suggests, devoid of guests, making this one a quiet and contained slow burn. The Empty Wake feels akin to a found footage version of a campfire story. Its creepy atmosphere and tense build up to the scares makes you jump at every thunderclap or strange noise coming from the coffin. The segment is spearheaded almost entirely by Hayley (Kyal Legend) as she is the only person on screen for most of the segment and does the most with her screentime with a convincing performance that goes from unsettled to terrified in a matter of minutes. The building tension all comes to the head in the third act of the segment with a terrifying face off with a resurrected corpse, garnished with some gnarly visuals.

Aside from previously writing a segment in V/H/S and V/H/S/2, Barrett also wrote the hit home invasion horror film You're Next and the 2016 Blair Witch film. Barrett has also gone on to write modern hits such as Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire and most recently the A24 Adam Wingard film Onslasught.

Image courtesy of Shudder 

The third segment in the film, The Subject, written and directed by Timo Tjahjanto, is by far the most exciting and also the second longest segment in the franchise. The segment follows a mad scientist in Indonesia conducting human experiments and trying to fuse humans with machines. His first successful experiment is that of a woman he's kidnapped being mutilated and having a camera for a head. Her new head serves as the POV for the majority of the segment and makes for some entertaining visuals. While the first half of the segment is mostly the doctor, credited as The Creator (Budi Ros) reveling in his own narcissistic genius, the second half follows the subject (Sania Sree Maharani) trying to escape the lab while a group of soldiers try to kill her. The ladder half moves at the pace of a first person shooter video game with tons of shooting, limb ripping and blood spilling action, all from the first person perspective. The segment also has a fun set piece with the make shift lab littered with human remains and analog technology. While I feel some are split on the more action oriented nature of this segment, I consider it a bold swing and standout segment for not just the film, but the franchise as a whole.

Timo Tjahjanto previously directed the V/H/S/2 segment Safe Haven. He also went on to direct The Shadow Stays, The Night Comes for Us, and most recently, Nobody 2.

The film's final segment, Terror, written and directed by Ryan Prows, follows a group of white supremacists planning a terrorist attack using a mysterious bioweapon they've obtained. At the start of the segment, we see the group executing a man they have locked up in their outpost. This all seems normal enough (at least by V/H/S standards) until later in the segment, they kill the same man again the next day, and again after that. It is revealed that the man the terrorists have locked up is a vampire, and they are using his blood to make a bomb. Prows creates what is one of the most unique vampire stories I've ever seen with his segment, and while there's certain comedic elements with how dumb the members of this terrorist group are, the final act of the segment is scary yet satisfying when the group gets what's coming to them after their hostage gets loose.

Ryan Prows has the lightest resume of the bunch, with only one short and one feature to his name prior to V/H/S/94 with Narcocorrido and Lowlife respectively. However, he recently directed last year's Night Patrol starring Justin Long, Jermaine Fowler and RJ Cyler.

Overall, V/H/S/94 was the bold resurrection of the franchise after a seven-year hiatus. Its bold swings and unpredictable plotlines reminded audiences that V/H/S is one of the most chaotic and exciting horror franchises today, and it still springboards the careers of horror directors to this day. I would even go as far as to say that V/H/S/94 triggered a new wave of found footage horror, challenging filmmakers to be bold, insane, and very bloody with their found footage tales. All the more reason why I try to rewatch V/H/S/94 every Halloween season, and if you haven't seen it yet… what are you waiting for?

V/H/S/94 is currently streaming on Shudder.