V/H/S/94 (2023)
Label: Acorn Media International
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Cert. 18
Duration: 102 Minutes 42 Seconds
Audio: Uncompressed English PCM 2.0 (No Subtitles)
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1)
Directors: Simon Barrett, Timo Tjahjanto, Jennifer Reeder, Ryan Prows, Chloe Okuno
The long-running scrappy horror anthology V/H/S continues with V/H/S/94, a Shudder Original, this time set in the year 1994, the wraparound story "Holy Hell" is directed by Jennifer Reeder (Signature Move) features a SWAT team raiding a cult compound where they discover the corpses of who cultist seemed to worship TV screens that play VHS tapes chock full of disturbing content, which is what we bare witness to as the segments unfold.
In the first segment proper, directed by Chloe Okuno (Watcher), "Storm Drain", a reporter (Anna Hopkins, The Expanse) and her cameraman are assigned to investigate a local cryptid known as The Rat Man, which is said to live in the city sewers. She's none too happy about the assignment, and she and the cameraman end up entering a storm drain where they encounter sewer-dwelling homeless who worship a half-human, half-rat creature they call "Raatma". This is a solid start to the anthology, it has a truly disturbing looking creature design, some face-melting special effects and a cool gory nod The Howling which takes place in a newsroom. This one also features a strangely unsettling fake infomercial made by Astron-6 alum Steven Kostanski for "The Veggie Masher", which seems like something Rand Peltzer from Gremlins would have conjured up.
Up next is "The Empty Wake" directed by Adam Wingard collaborator Simon Barrett, wherein a young woman named Hailey (Kyal Legend, Utopia Falls), an employee at a funeral home, is tasked with hosting an evening wake for a man named Andrew Edwards, but there’s a strange request: that Andrew’s casket be filmed for the whole night, because, well, we need video footage for this segment, 'natch. As the stormy night wears on she becomes creeped out by being alone with the casket, especially when it sounds like there is noise and movement coming from within it. Eventually a lone mourner arrives and seems to recite some sort of incantation, and later during a storm induced blackout Hailey finds the casket tipped over, open and empty - now terrified beyond belief she finds herself entrenched in an undead nightmare. This one was alright, it has some solid creepy atmosphere, and when the re-animated corpse shows up things get pretty wicked and wild, there's even a tornado in this one, and some inventive gory special effects. The ultimate end was a bit unsatisfying but as a bite-sized bit of terror it works.
Next, "The Subject" directed by Timo Tjahjanto (V/H/S/2's "Safe Haven" segment) wherein a deranged mad scientist named Dr James Suhendra is abducting people off the streets and attempting to Frankenstein a series of mechanical-human hybrids in his lab,. His latest creation is Subject 99, a young woman who's now a half-machine monstrosity. As the scientist attempts to wipe her mind a SWAT team arrives and kills the demented doc, and then instead of saving the young woman attempt to kill her, believing her to be beyond saving, forcing her to fight for her life. As the flick wears on she explores the macabre labyrinth of the lab discovering more victims, while also navigating a booby-trapped lab and a mechanized killing machine. This one has the feel of an ultra-gory RPG shooter as S99 make her way through the lab, donning an arm-mounted weapon and fighting for her life. This was probably my favorite of the segments, feeling the most realized and whole of the bunch, the action is terrific and the carnage was quite pleasing.
The final segment is the Ryan Prows directed "Terror" starring Christian Lloyd (The Handmaid’s Tale) as the lazy-eyed leader of a redneck, white supremacist extremist group known as the First Patriots Movement Militia who are plotting to blow up a government building to "take back America"... it's how they plan to do it that is quite novel. They have captured an vampire and plan to use it's explosively combustible blood to fuel their bomb. We see the process of how they drain the creatures blood, inject it into a rabbit and expose it to the morning sun as evidence of just how explosive the effect is, this is no burning-up in the sunlight like a traditional vampire, it's more like a concentrated C4 explosive. However, before they can enact their plan thwart the "unholy empire" the bloodsucker wreaks havoc on their rural snowbound compound. Not a bad final segment, the final vampire creation is pretty cool, it had a Blade II vibe about it, and the dipshit domestic terrorists make good fodder for it.
Audio/Video: V/H/S/94 arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Acorn Media International in 1080p HD frame din 1.78:1 widescreen with uncompressed DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio and optional English subtitles. It looks fine, the source by design is meant to mimic mid-90's commercial grade low-res VHS tape, and I think that it does that well enough, with an appropriate amount of smeary murkiness, scan lines, and video glitches added to what is all likelihood are digital captures. The uncompressed audio reflects the intentional low-res audio of the day well enough if not exactly accurate.
We also get a solid selection of extras for this entry, we get
a 24-min Behind The Scenes of V/H/S 94; 1-min of Behind The Scenes Picture Gallery which is mostly some cool images of the Rat Man and the vampire from the Terror segment, offering some better images of the make-up effec ts than what we get in the lo-res segments themselves, plus a 29-min San Diego Comic Con Panel; a 6-min look at the V/H/S/94 Special FX with Patrick Magee; a 1-min "The Empty Wake" Visual FX; the 2-min Hail Raatma! offering some behind-the-scenes test footage of the creature; plus 16-min of Deleted and Extended Scenes; and the 44-sec Full Length Veggie Masher Commercial. The single-disc release arrives in an oversized keepcase with a single sided sleeve of artwork featuring the film's key artwork.
Special Features:
- Behind The Scenes of V/H/S 94 (24:04).
- Behind The Scenes Picture Gallery (1:25) Ratman stuff, vamp,
- San Diego Comic Con Panel (28:50)
- V/H/S/94 Special FX with Patrick Magee (6:00)
- "The Empty Wake" Visual FX (1:10)
- Hail Raatma! (2:11)
- Deleted and Extended Scenes: Ducks (0:36), News (3:02), Open (5:22), Facemelt (1:53), Interviews (4:06), End (0:58)
- Full Length Veggie Masher Commercial (0:44)
V/H/S/94 was not one of my favorite entries in the scrappy series, but it is still a charmingly gory cinematic adventure, I love anthologies and like with most of 'em, it has its ups and down. The worst offender here for me is the wraparound story, one of the weakest wraparounds in the series in my opinion, but the segments themselves were pretty solid if not exactly full-tilt awesome. This VHS-era throwback was still a decent Friday night watch for me, no regrets here. Something that has always appealed to me about these it;s it;s sort of like watching the SOV flicks like Cannibal Campout and Video Violence, but with better gore effects, typically better acting, and they're never long enough to get bored by for the most part, that's the beauty of the anthology, if you don't like one of 'em you don't have to spend 90 minutes with it before you move onto the next one.
Screenshots from the Acorn Media International Blu-ray:
