Or maybe they didn't give a damn about storytelling. Viewed as a radical experiment, a sampler of various recording media, the film almost becomes interesting. In the V/H/S films, each of which is an anthology stringing together episodes by different directors, everything we see is supposed to be raw footage from various cheap video cameras. This installment samples the textures of consumer grade DSLR's, a GoPro helmet cam (strapped to a cyclist who becomes a zombie in one segment; to a dog in another), surveillance cameras, iPhones and hi-def camcorders. Scan lines, distortions, stray pixels, blackouts, blown-out highlights and good old-fashioned TV snow all provide a kind of textural spectacle. Of course, you can get that thrill more cheaply by randomly cruising the back alleys of YouTube.
This is becoming a ritual, my directing people over to YouTube, and online streaming's endless cinema of attractions in general, instead of wasting money on theatrical films that seem far less rewarding than, say, "Girl Walk: All Day," or even the laziest of Sweet Brown remixes. It might be a natural consequence of DIY filmmakers migrating to the arthouse circuit. Some manage to hold our attention beyond a five minute upload; others simply exhaust us with their desperate gimmicks.
The only successful homage to retro, VHS-era horror is the inclusion of two distinct 1980's-style boob shots played for comical titillation. Thank you.
A segment set in a death cult's compound during its apocalyptic last days features some extended POV shots that move through various grisly scenes like a first-person horror video game. You'd probably get a lot more out of playing Asylum instead.
The zombie helmet-cam episode is, like most of the segments in this film, a series of relative silences punctuated by loud, gory attacks on the bearer of the camera. The clever conceit of the "victim" being a zombie is all this one's got going for it.
As silly and unscary as this film is, its best chapter is the silliest and least scary one. A bunch of suburban kids home without parental supervision use a video camera to prank each other. They're all obnoxious assholes, which makes their eventual abduction by aliens almost fun to watch. The extraterrestrial home invasion happens when their punk-cam happens to be attached to the family dog. The dog turns out to be a steadier, more artful camera operator than any of the film's humans.
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