V/H/S/2
Directed by Eduardo Sánchez, Timo Tjahjanto
- horror
- thriller
The story
Inside a darkened house looms a column of TVs littered with VHS tapes, a pagan shrine to forgotten analog gods. The screens crackle and pop endlessly with monochrome vistas of static white noise permeating the brain and fogging concentration. But you must fight the urge to relax: this is no mere movie night. Those obsolete spools contain more than just magnetic tape. They are imprinted with the very soul of evil.
What it’s like
Gritty, low-resolution video in washed-out greens, muddy blues and the hiss of tape, with handheld and camcorder framing that jolts and lurches through dim rooms, night-vision smears and sudden glitch-cuts into static. The found-footage conceit means every segment looks like something dug out of a dusty box: lo-fi sound, bursts of harsh screams, electronic drones and long stretches where the only noise is the crackle of a dying screen. The vibe is queasy, feverish dread with a kind of grimy, grindhouse-tinged humour, the sort of thing to watch late at night with the lights off and the volume up. Its five-odd mini-stories shift between eerie, absurd and outright nasty, with plenty of graphic gore, bloody body horror, shocking violence and some sexual nudity, so it lands hard rather than gently. The tone is cynical and jagged, with arcs that tend to end in escalating mayhem rather than resolution. Made for horror fans who enjoy anthologies, analog creepiness and gore-soaked, rough-edged experiments in found footage.
More films like V/H/S/2
Closest in mood, pacing and theme. Tell us why you loved V/H/S/2 and we’ll explain which ones fit you.
