V/H/S/Halloween Is Barely “Found Footage,” But It Is Plenty of Fun

The further we get into the annual Halloween tentpole era of Shudder’s V/H/S franchise, the more clear it becomes that it has long since left the stylistic guidelines of the original, theatrical films in the series (2012-2014’s V/H/S, V/H/S/2 and V/H/S: Viral) behind. If the series’ streaming rebirth of V/H/S/94 in 2021 at least paid some kind of lip service to its found footage origins, with the traditional wraparound story/frame narrative to give the smallest bit of context to the anthology horror videos that followed, subsequent iterations have slowly but surely done away with most of the lingering conventions of what a V/H/S film is really meant to properly be. Last year’s V/H/S/Beyond even theoretically branched into another genre by making its stories exclusively sci-fi oriented, although at the end of the day that didn’t prevent it from being comfortably familiar. More and more, what these films resemble are old-school horror anthologies, filled with stories that may share some kind of thematic link, but aren’t meant to actively work together in any kind of larger narrative. That’s certainly the case with 2025’s V/H/S/Halloween, which makes the obvious play to link its stories directly to the season, delivering an enthusiastically bonkers collection of tales from rising filmmakers, few of whom are really making concerted efforts toward scares. That’s just one more element that V/H/S has increasingly left behind, although in the case of Halloween, that’s not a terrible thing.

Still, it does feel odd to watch a new entry of a “found footage horror” franchise, and consider the fact that the term barely applies in most respects to the majority of entries. There may be a wraparound segment here, but it doesn’t lend any context or background on the other videos; it’s merely another segment that has been edited into bite-sized pieces. Rarely in any of the installments is it clear who would have edited the footage we’re seeing together, or even how we’d possibly be able to view it. In fact, the segments aren’t even often shot as if they’re the product of a bystander holding a camera, given that what is being shot is often very much the opposite of what someone holding a camera would be pointing it toward in that moment. The saving grace? The segments are, by and large, entertaining enough on their own merits that we can simply choose to look past the rapidly disintegrating idea of this being a “found footage” horror anthology. We don’t really need to know how these tapes were gathered, or stitched together, or viewed by us. It’s now easier to simply think of V/H/S as a conventional anthology, so that’s what we’ll do. And hey, it’s quite a fun one at that, with some fantastic FX work and a nice blend of shocking brutality and laugh-inducing absurdity.

“Diet Phantasma,” the would-be frame narrative from director Bryan M. Ferguson, sets this tone nicely, even though like other recent V/H/S framing devices such as V/H/S/85’s “Total Copy,” it’s a truncated story rather than a window into the other tapes. In truth, though, being split into chunks may actually help the segment’s Sam Raimi-esque splatter comedy, due to the way it helps to establish an escalating comedic pattern of disasters with each progressive round of consumer taste-testing of a new diet soda that just can’t seem to stop violently killing people. Actor David Haydn gives one of this entry’s stand-out performances as an oily snack food executive who doesn’t even feign horror or shock at the grisly demises of each round of test subjects, but merely exasperation at his put-upon scientists for not being able to properly dial in what appears to be a supernaturally infused soda formula. The sheer abruptness of each comically ultraviolet death builds throughout into a frankly hilarious running gag, sold by the segment’s top-notch editing–every time “Diet Phantasma” returns, you sit up in your seat in anticipation of the next ridiculous bloodbath. It’s a great device to re-engage the interest of the viewer whenever it might start to flag.

V/H/S/Halloween is blessed by several particularly attractive-looking segments, which does speak to the series’ deteriorating interest in making the footage look weathered, gritty or part of its chosen time period, but can be absolved in the name of clarity and entertainment. Anna Zlokovic’s “Coochie Coochie Coo” is one of those segments, feeling very much culled from either urban legend or creepypasta origins as it documents two college-bound girls in the mid-2000s who embark on one last, overly enthusiastic Halloween trick-r-treating hurrah, only to be lured into a seemingly supernatural maze of a house, overseen by a nightmarish, six-breasted hag known simply as “The Mother.” This is ultimately as classical as this installment’s segments get: A vintage haunted house walkthrough full of overgrown baby men and other drooling teenage “children” who have been captured and hypnotically broken by The Mother’s powers. Its visuals have wonderful texture–one glaring potential use of A.I. imagery aside–although if anything, “Coochie Coochie Coo” is most effective in its earlier moments when it’s merely teasing its monster slinking around the house while leaving disgusting trails of milky footprints, ultimately showing us a bit too much to keep the tension and immersion going. It’s the segment that most feels like it could be inserted into any other V/H/S entry, for better or worse.

“Ut Supra Sic Infra” (translation: “As above, so below”) is likely the segment of V/H/S/Halloween with the most notable filmmaker pedigree behind it, given that it was written and directed by Paco Plaza, who brought us one of the found footage horror genre’s most lauded entries in the form of 2007’s Spanish language REC. Here, it reminds me in some respects of Scott Derickson’s likewise serious-minded “Dreamkill” segment from V/H/S/85 in the way it seems to be straining to leave the format behind, threading multiple narratives together: A Halloween party at an abandoned mansion that turned into a slaughterhouse, and the following police investigation that awakens the same type of carnage. Its visual presentation pushes the boundaries of what you can attempt to sell as “recovered” footage, being a little too pristine and slick, lacking in realistic grit, but its FX are both deeply impressive (flying and levitation effects in particular) and so disgustingly squishy in one final piece of violence that they become almost difficult to look at. Suffice to say, it takes quite a bit to make my stomach churn, but “Ut Supra Sic Infra” ultimately managed it, which is no small feat.