B Movies Blog

Hello, Movie Mavens! Welcome back to the B Movies Blog. Today, we’re popping the V/H/S movies into the ol’ VCR. 

Now, I’m not totally sure how to categorize these movies. I’m hesitant to label them a franchise because each film has its own wraparound and anthology entries, but the overarching theme is the same. Either way, I really dig them, with one exception. 

We won’t be talking about V/H/S: Viral. I’ve seen it exactly once, and I think it’s one of my least favorite movies of all time. However, the rest of the V/H/S movies are so good that they shouldn’t suffer for its mistakes. I digress. 

I also won’t be focusing on the individual directors for each segment. Don’t worry, several of these directors, including Adam Wingard and Ti West, will be getting their own, individual spotlights in the future. 

The one thing I would love to bring to your attention that blew my mind is that “10/31/98” from the first V/H/S film is directed by Radio Silence, aka Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez, and Chad Villella, who you might know from little movies such as Scream (2022), Scream VI, and Ready or Not. Yeah, THAT Radio Silence. Shoutout to Random Number Generator Horror Podcast No. 9 for bringing that to my attention. 

Me to my dogs when I’m trying to get through a single Zoom meeting without them barking.

Before we dive into my rankings, there are a couple of things I want to talk about. First and foremost, to fully understand the V/H/S movies, we have to talk about this weird little pocket of 2012-2015 horror. During these years, we saw the likes of The Guest, It Follows, and other little gems including the first two V/H/S movies. 

Good horror comes in ebbs and flows (fortunately for us, we’ve been on the upswing for the past couple of years), and for some reason, this three or four year pocket gave us several of my favorite horror movies of all time. 

Secondly, I’m not going to rank the wraparound segments. I don’t think the wraparound segments of the V/H/S movies are bad by any means, but they tend to be the weakest entries of each film. 

I feel like “Storm Drain” is just a metaphor for how it felt to sell LuLaRoe. 

Alrighty. I’ve made you all wait long enough. I went through each of the four V/H/S movies (I meant what I said about V/H/S Viral) and ranked all of the segments (V/H/S 2 was a doozy to rank, I’ll tell you what). Let’s do this. 

V/H/S 

• “10/31/98”
• “Tuesday the 17th”
• “Amateur Night”*
• “Second Honeymoon”
• “The Sick Thing That Happened To Emily When She Was Younger” 

*This segment was adapted into the movie The Siren. 

V/H/S 2 

• “Safe Haven”
• “Slumber Party Alien Abduction”*
• “A Ride in the Park”
• “Phase I Clinical Trials”

*This segment was adapted into the movie Kids v. Aliens. 

V/H/S/94 

• “The Subject”
• “Storm Drain” 
• “The Wake” 
• “Terror” 

V/H/S/99 

• “To Hell and Back”
• “Shredding”*
• “Ozzy’s Dungeon” 
• “Suicide Bid” 

*I need a full Bitch Cat album

There you have it, friends. I can’t wait for V/H/S/85, and I love how these movies showcase amazingly talented horror directors, writers, etc…  And, tbh, some of these segments are better than full-length horror movies I’ve watched. It’s also one of the only series that I still look forward to new entries of. 

Hail Raatma.