Horror Challenge #77: "V/H/S"

This is one of those movies that everyone raved about for awhile, so I was eager to watch it, but I didn't get around to watching it until it already had a sequel, so I got to watch them both back-to-back.  I can see why this movie made such an impact.  First, it's a traditional anthology horror movie, in the tradition of "Tales from the Crypt," with a wraparound story housing the little individual horror movie vignettes.  Here, a group of crooks breaks into a house to steal a VHS tape that promises to bring them a big payoff.  Second, it's a bunch of "found footage" type movies (even the wraparound story is a "found-footage" movie), and those are still pretty popular, though getting played out in recent years.  this movie proves that when done well, "found-footage" movies can still be extremely effective.  I won't spoil any of these movies, but I will say I was impressed with the level of gore, nastiness, and general mean-spiritedness of the stories.  This is pretty hardcore horror, and I loved every minute of it.