Since 2021, the V/H/S franchise has become part of my annual Halloween traditions. This year we get V/H/S: Halloween.  As expected, all the found footage shorts revolve around Halloween. Like the other installments before it, there are highs and lows. Sadly, this year was one of the weaker entries. 

Short films can be hard to do. There is a lot of information to convey and not a lot of time. The shorts that work best are ones that have a clear, focused story. Adding too many elements can leave them feeling underdeveloped or confusing.  

Coochie Coochie Coo

The first short, “Coochie Coochie Coo”, gives us a super-convoluted back story for its spirit. Why she exists, who she takes what she does with them. It’s all thought out and explained and maybe that’s not a good thing. I wish visually this had gone in less of a Barbarian direction. I also wish the characters had more personality than obnoxious teens.

Even in a short, they had the space to explore how teens stressing about an uncertain future might feel some kind of allure to perpetual childhood. All the bratty character moments, and there are a lot, could have been replaced with more depth.  If you moved the date to 2008, this is now about teens graduating during a time of financial uncertainty and unease.  There was so much potential for this one, it just falls short. Except for creature effects — that shit was gnarly enough to deserve a top mention.

UT Supra Sic Infra

“UT Supra Sic Infra” is probably the short that worked best for me since it leans heavily into my favorite theme: don’t mess with things you don’t understand. Also, it has a visual that even after my years of watching extreme horror, I did not love. But in a good way.  It’s not really a surprise that this ended up being one of my top choices.  It’s by Paco Plaza, who created the REC franchise. I’ve not covered REC yet, but it’s on my list.  The downside is there is really not much here that needed to be about Halloween. You could remove that element and tell the same story with only minor tweaks. That’s not a good thing.

Diet Phantasma

I also really dug the “Diet Phantasma” wrap-around and interludes.  The over-the-top nature of the testing, combined with the exasperation of the lead researcher, makes these darkly hilarious. Plus, my day job has always been in research and development, so I can relate. 

The Not-So-Good

The other segments hit me all about the same. There is a higher-than-average number of truly unlikeable characters in this year’s segments. The effects are great and the creatures look amazing. At the end of it however, I’m not really invested in if these characters live or die. 

“Kidprint” and the Larger Issue

Every story felt overly cynical and mean-spirited. “Kidprint” was a hard watch, but at least felt relevant, if not a bit unrealistic in the wrap-up. Conceptually, it’s true horror. But even so, it’s still a hard watch. There is a lack of restraint here that sucks the remaining fun out of the movie. 

If every short hadn’t ended on a similar down beat, it would have been a standout moment. Maybe even a sobering reminder of how real evil hides in plain sight.  As is, it just kind of gets lost in a non-stop parade of unfun endings.

The only one I truly disliked: “Fun Sized”

I know this is negative review. It’s not because the shorts are terrible, just that there weren’t any standouts that I truly loved. However there was one I absolutely did not like. Fun Sized. I don’t mind the body horror or the kills. But man I hated that stupid mascot.

It’s like someone made an indie horror game into a short, complete with a creepy cute, evil mascot. The idea is familiar, the characters are obnoxious, the dialogue is repetitive.  There wasn’t a single part of this I enjoyed.  That’s cool; I’m not the target audience and I’m 100% sure this is someone’s favorite. That’s the best part of an anthology.

“Home Haunt”

Once again, an unlikeable main character takes center stage. An overbearing father whose hobby is more important than his son steals a cursed record for his home haunt. Side note – did he not test out the cursed record before opening night? Vintage vinyl is often in poor condition.

Rick Baker has a fantastic cameo as a local hater who shows up just to talk about how fake everything looks.  Honestly, even though this one also has the same kind of ending, I think it pulls it off much better than the others.  

My issues aren’t with the individual stories; it’s putting these stories together in this anthology.  Several of the shorts seem to stick to a theme of “obeying the rules of Halloween”, but this isn’t consistent. Halloween is a broad theme, but it’s not used well here and somehow several of these shorts feel repetitive. 

At the end of it, I was left feeling a bit let down. It’s not by any means a bad movie, but it feels relentlessly grim in a lot of ways. IDK, maybe all the torture and murder of kids brings down the whole thing. Even the last segment, “Home Haunt”, an otherwise fun romp about taking your hobbies too seriously, goes too far with what I would consider some needlessly over-the-top child death. 

I’m not against killing kids in horror — if it serves the story. “Home Haunt’s” kid kills don’t do that. From a practical standpoint, one of these deaths would have been more impressive had it been an adult victim. But that’s a physics issue, not a moral one. 

Final Thoughts

I wanted to love V/H/S: Halloween.  That’s not a surprise; I want to love most movies. The harder I tried to get into it, the more issues I started to find. I’m not NOT recommending it, but I feel like previous years are a bit better overall. 

V/H/S: Halloween is streaming on shudder.