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V/H/S/2
Stars: Lawrence Michael Levine, Kelsy Abbott, L.C. Holt, Adam Wingard, Hannah Hughes, John T. Woods, Jay Saunders, Dave Coyne, Wendy Donigan, Bette Cassai, Fachry Albar, Hannah Al Rashid, Oka Antara, Andrew Lincoln Buleiman, Epy Kusnandar, Riley Eisener, Rylan Logan, Samantha Gracie, Cohen King, Zachary Ford Josh Ingraham, Jeremie Saunders
Director: Simon Barrett, Adam Wingard, Gregg Hale (plus mor
If at first you succeed, set up a sequel.
Which is just what what the directors of The Blair Witch Project, The Raid, Youre Next and Hobo with a Shotgun have done.
Their latest collection of found-footage horrorflicks should appeal to scare fans and, particularly shockfilm completists who, I assume, wont mind the migraine the avalanche of grainy and bumpy hand-held camerawork left me with well before the show ended.
The format follows the original.
Private investigator Lawrence Michael Levine and his assistant Kelsy Abbott break into the rundown home of a missing college student and find a cache of strange videotapes which reveal a quartet of terrifying tales trafficked by an underground tape-sharing community. And watching the shockers leads to an even more shocking resolution
Unfamiliar faces give the anthology added impact, starting off with director Adam Wingates tall tale Phase One in which he also plays a man fitted with a prosthetic eye that causes him to see dead people (remember The Sixth Sense?) who ends up seeing mounting terrors.
A Ride in the Park, directed by Eduardo Sanchez and Gregg Hale of Blair Witch notoriety faces luckless biker Jay Saunders wearing a camera on his helmet and being attacked by zombies who then, in a bloody, blackly comic sequence, lay waste to the attendees of a childrens birthday party.
The third mini-shocker (directed by Timo Djahjanto and Gareth Huw Evans of The Raid fame) is cynically named Safe Haven and proves to be anything for the TV camera crew that invades the gated compound of loony Epy Kusnandar. More blood and gore result.
And in Hobo With a Shotgun director Jason Eiseners offering, prank warfare turns out to be the genuine nasty thing and more mayhem of the nasty kind spirals.
V/H/S/2 earns its 18 certificate with ease, defining the likely audience for a sequel which isnt quite as groundbreaking as the original but still offers a bloody good time for filmgoers with a dedicated taste for terror.
Alan Frank
USA/Canada/Indonesia 2013. UK Distributor: Koch Film. Colour.
91 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 18.
Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 2, Violence/Horror 3, Drugs 2, Swearing 3.
Review date: 11 Oct 2013