The plot is a group of petty criminals are hired by an unknown man to steal a series of VHS tapes. They discover the owner of the tapes is dead, and they decide to to see what's so important about the tapes. Based on that general description, I was intrigued. Then...you actually watch the movie. The criminals are what I consider to be the worst examples of human beings on this planet. They destroy homes, sexually assault women, steal anything that isn't nailed down and say a vulgar word that rhymes with duck every 30 seconds. We have to sit and watch these idiots for 15 minutes. The full run time is 2 hours. And yes, it does feel that long.
The moron squad finally gets to the house, and discover the owner dead and slumped over in a chair. Naturally instead of getting the tapes and getting out the creepy house, they have the "brilliant" idea of staying there to ransack the house and view the tapes. Keep in mind the entire film is in that "found footage" style that I really cannot stand. However, I tried to put that aside and give all the shenanigans a fighting chance. My first impression would prove to be right. I'm not going to say that type of style is bad, but I haven't come across a film that uses it effectively. That's what ultimately drags the movie down. It gives a sense of realism, but you're also quite lost when it becomes too dark or shaky to determine what's going on.
The tapes themselves are 6 random stories that don't really have a beginning or an ending. All of them start with very unlikable people that die after about 15 minutes. That's all V/H/S is: a poor man's Creepshow. To it's credit, the stories are creative and sometimes downright creepy. Any actually scariness is lost because it looks like the film is having a seizure when the monster or murderer is revealed.
It reminds me of the one Spongebob Squarepants episode where he has bad breath, and Patrick tries to comfort him by telling him the tale of the ugly barnacle.
That's V/H/S in a nutshell: everyone dies, there's no point, the end. For awesome effects and gore, originality and a couple creepy moments I give it 2/5. I say watch it once just to see something a little bit different, but don't expect it to live up to the hype.
