Studio:   Shudder
Director: Various
Writer:   Various
Producer: Roy Lee, Steven Schneider, Derek Dauchy, Josh Goldbloom, Michael Schreiber, Brad Miska
Stars:    Various

Review Score:

Summary:

Unusual videotapes tell six stories about hauntings, serial murders, a cursed soda, and supernatural chaos set on Halloween.

Synopsis:

DIET PHANTASMA (Director/Writer: Bryan M. Ferguson)

On October 2nd, 1983, Blaine Rothschild, the COO of The Octagon Company, oversees test trials in the United Kingdom of Diet Phantasma, a haunted soda made with real poltergeist extract. Over the course of the experiments, various test subjects become victims of violent paranormal activity upon trying to drink the beverage. When the final test subject, a little girl, ends up paranormally possessed instead of dying, Blaine declares the formula finished and releases the product to the public.

COOCHIE COOCHIE COO (Director/Writer: Anna Zlokovic)

Despite being irreverent teenagers on the cusp of college, best friends Lacie and Kayleigh dress as overgrown babies to go trick-or-treating in a neighborhood where a high school cheerleader went missing on Halloween one year earlier. Thinking an isolated house with weirdly pulsing lights is a home haunt, Lacie insists on going inside. The two young women become supernaturally trapped in the house, which turns out to be haunted by a ghastly “Mommy” with six breasts, a deformed “Diaper Man,” and the cheerleader, who now has a bloated baby face and childlike mannerisms. The terrifying experience ends with Lacie and Kayleigh also mutating into doll-faced adult babies who join the twisted “family.”

UT SUPRA SIC INFRA (Director/Writer: Paco Plaza, Writer: Alberto Marini)

After his friends’ corpses are found crushed with their eyes torn out in a sprawling manor where they were having a Halloween party, police interview Enric, who insists he was responsible for the deaths despite no evidence of his involvement and him having no clear memory of what happened. Hoping to recreate the timeline of events, the police and several lawyers take Enric back to tour the site, which had once been the home of Roberta Marconi, a famous medium from Turin who claimed she could talk to the dead over an old telephone.

Just as it did when Enric was there with his friends, a phone mysteriously appears in one of the rooms and begins ringing despite being disconnected. Over his friend Vicky’s objection, Enric answered the phone and became possessed during a flurry of paranormal activity. This time, a woman picks up the ringing phone, again causing Enric to become supernaturally possessed while vomiting eyeballs. The police and lawyers levitate to the ceiling, where Enric gouges out their eyes, before violently crashing back down to the floor.

FUN SIZE (Director/Writer: Casper Kelly)

Recently engaged, Lauren and Josh go trick-or-treating with their friend Haley and her boyfriend Josh. On one porch, the four friends find an unattended bowl of strangely labeled, never-before-seen candies with a sign that says, “one per person.” Austin unwraps and eats a chocolate-covered, cream-filled treat shaped like a penis.

When Austin tries to take a second candy, a red hand comes out of the bowl to pull Austin and Josh inside. Frightened and confused, Lauren and Haley attempt to call 911, but the bowl flies up from the table and swallows them too.

The quartet is mysteriously transported to a factory warehouse where they are chased and tormented by a cartoon mascot named Fun Size and his assistant. Austin ends up trapped on a conveyer belt and chopped into body parts that are turned into candy. A tube forcibly inserted into Haley’s anus fills her with candy until her face explodes. Josh is also torn apart on another conveyor belt. Lauren escapes outside but is still attacked by Fun Size.

Two children later take candies from the bowl, with one of the candies turning out to be Lauren’s severed ring finger. After the boy reveals he took a second candy despite the sign warning one per person, the bowl flies up to swallow the two kids and their mother.

KIDPRINT (Director/Writer: Alex Ross Perry)

For his “Kidprint” business, a public safety service offered at his electronics store amid a rash of disturbing child murders and disappearances in 1992, Tim Kaplan records a series of interviews with children and teens so they can be easily identified in case of a kidnapping. When one of the interviewees, Olivia Hamel, goes missing on Halloween, a police officer asks Tim to retrieve Olivia’s tape from his store. Tim arrives at his store after hours to discover his trusted technician Bruce is actually a serial killer who has been using the store to record grotesque skin peelings and murders.

Traumatized by Bruce’s torture, Olivia and another teenage captive, Drew Stackhouse, attack and kill Tim. Bruce then kills the two teens and stages the scene to frame Tim as being “The Butcher of Ardmore.” In a TV news interview about Tim’s supposed crimes, Bruce vows to continue the “Kidprint” business.

HOME HAUNT (Director/Writer: Micheline Pitt-Norman, R.H. Norman)

Having created a home haunt called “Dr. Mortis’ House of Horrors” since 1977, Keith pressures his son Zack, now a teenager who is embarrassed of his annual role as Igor, to participate in the haunt once again. Looking for props at an antique store, Keith swipes an unusual Halloween record with the warning label “He who invokes the song of Samhain on All Hallows Eve… lets loose the riders of Hell with a symphony of the damned” from a back room. Playing the record in front of patrons on Halloween unleashes supernatural chaos as haunt props come to life and kill everyone.

Review:

Having steadily declined in overall entertainment value over the course of its previous seven installments, the “V/H/S” horror anthology series was overdue for a rebound. As a frustrated fan who had been going into each annual entry with a begrudging sigh of increasingly lower expectations, I’m pleased to say “V/H/S/Halloween” represents that rebound, as it’s easily the franchise’s strongest and most consistent collection in years.

Although the film features a segment titled “Home Haunt,” the first full short, Anna Zlokovic’s “Coochie Coochie Coo,” feels the most like going through a Halloween haunt from a first-person perspective, which of course is the conceit of each “V/H/S” movie’s “found footage” format. The setup follows two teen girls on the cusp of college going for one last trick-or-treating hurrah only to end up trapped in a house of horrors haunted by a big man in a diaper and his ghastly “Mommy” with six breasts. The disorienting POV combines with creative set decoration to craft creeps that get a little goofy, and a lot gross. Zlokovic seems to want this outrageous edge, though if the frights were tweaked to stay higher than the slight humor, “Coochie Coochie Coo” could have completed an even more terrifying vibe of claustrophobic chills.

Paco Plaza’s “Ut Supra Sic Infra” keeps the macabre mood going strong with a mystery about eye-gouged bodies found in a psychic’s old home following a Halloween party. With the exception of the wraparound, “Ut Supra Sic Infra” is the only portion of “V/H/S/Halloween” that doesn’t really lean into the holiday. It happens to be set around October 31st, but it could be moved to any time of year by taking everyone out of their costumes. It’s also missing some meat in its mythology. There’s not necessarily enough here to warrant a feature film, although more background and better opportunities to get to know the characters as something other than future corpses might make the horror heavier.

The problem with giving filmmakers creative freedom to do essentially whatever they want, with the only limitation being that their contribution should have something to do with Halloween, is you run the risk of a result like Casper Kelly’s “Fun Size.” It’s not quite fair to call “Fun Size” the “weakest link” in “V/H/S/Halloween.” It’s merely the most “out of place,” as it would undoubtedly play better in an anthology of like-minded concepts instead of having a hard comedic bent that’s tonally imbalanced with the rest of the movie. Kelly tries to make “Fun Size” campy, and succeeds, with his tongue-in-cheek tale of adult trick-or-treaters mysteriously transported to a factory where a cartoon mascot chops up body parts for candy coating. Intentional or not, awkward acting further asks viewers to gamely hit a humorous gear the rest of “V/H/S/Halloween” doesn’t prepare anyone for.

That jarring difference in tone is made more noticeable by “Fun Size’s” unfortunate placement in front of “Kidprint,” Alex Ross Perry’s retro recreation of what it’s like for a suburban neighborhood to fear kidnappings amid a rash of Halloween season disappearances. Between “Kidprint” and “Coochie Coochie Coo,” “Kidprint” wins as “V/H/S/Halloween’s” most unnerving short for its grounded plot and shockingly visceral depictions of children and teens being mutilated. Some viewers may have a tough time in this section due to the disturbing subject matter, as Perry goes hard on the gruesomeness and unsettling suggestions about a serial killer’s hidden lair. There’s nothing “fun” about “Kidprint,” but its fright factor is high.

Micheline Pitt-Norman and R.H. Norman’s “Home Haunt” has a thin narrative, yet this dearth of depth doesn’t feel as noticeable as it is with “Ut Supra Sic Infra” since “V/H/S/Halloween” deliberately decides to end on a crescendo of chaotic spectacle. Lowlights of this bit where a Halloween haunt’s props come to life to kill patrons include some bad wigs. Highlights include a hilarious Rick Baker cameo. “Home Haunt” does get bit by the “found footage” format, as the shaky camera occasionally gets in the way of doing justice to several good gags that would benefit from a little better fidelity.

Not for the first time in a “V/H/S” film, the wraparound doesn’t do any actual wrapping. An amusing bit about lab techs developing a haunted soda containing “real poltergeist extract” written and directed by Bryan M. Ferguson, breaking up “Diet Phantasma” into pieces shoved between the other shorts doesn’t do the film any favors. Instead of enjoying “Diet Phantasma’s” natural flow, repetitive pauses to show test subjects dying in different ways fosters impatience to just get into the next segment already.

While the movie might be limiting its viewing window to one specific month of the year, the “V/H/S” series gets a much-needed adrenaline shot in its arm thanks in part to finally having a theme, in this case Halloween, that automatically does the work of tying everything together. Even though some assessments above are notes about what might make certain pieces even better, they’re all conceived and executed very well in their current states. The only real weak points are the conflicting styles and placement for certain shorts, though that’s not the fault of any individual segment or creator. Including the most obnoxious end credits song of all time, on the other hand, can definitely be blamed on someone who has questionable taste in atmosphere-appropriate music.

NOTE: There is a mid-credits scene.

Review Score: 80