October Horror Challenge 2022 #72: "V/H/S 94"

The first 2 V/H/S movies were great, but the third one, "V/H/S Viral" was pretty terrible. I didn't like any of the 3 stories in it, and I was sad that such a promising series of movies had to go out on such a bad note. I've heard good things about this movie, though, and I'm hoping it's a return to the greatness of the first two V/H/S movies. Let's see what I think of it.

This movie is about a mysterious VHS tape that reveals a secret cult that has tapes of prerecorded material that reveals evidence of a shocking conspiracy. Basically it's 3 or 4 short found footage horror films held together by an interconnected story, like all anthology films. The first story is called "Storm Drain," and it's about a local legend called "ratman" that is said to reside in the city's sewers. The second story is called "The Empty Wake," and it's about a young woman who is asked by her boss at the funeral home to record a wake for an entire night at the request of the family. The third story is called "The Subject," and it's about a man who is the subject of grotesque experiments at the hands of a deranged scientist. The fourth story is called "Terror," and it's about an extremist group that plans to blow up a government building. The overarching in-between story that ties all the other stories together is the story about the cult that has committed mass suicide and have been infiltrated by a SWAT team who are investigating the mass suicide.

These stories are much better than the ones in the third installment in this series. The ratman story kind of reminds me of the movie [REC] with a news crew trying to do a human interest story when things go horribly wrong. The second story is creepy and it reminds me of an old-timey Tales from the Crypt type story. The third story is reminiscent of the first Human Centipede movie. it's a little hard to believe that the people kept filming throughout everything that was happening, but that's like a lot of found footage horror films, and you just have to suspend your disbelief. It's hard to describe what the fourth story is like. It kind of reminds me of John Carpenter's The Thing, but on hard drugs or hallucinogenic moonshine or something. And the overarching story that ties all the films together is just ridiculous. it goes too far over-the-top for me, but then it comes back with some nasty, self-referential comments that almost save it, so I don't know. I guess I dig this movie. Three out of the four stories are good, with one that's just weird, and the story that ties them all together is just ridiculous, but it's gory fun at the end. All in all this is a worthy addition to the series, and it's much better than part three.