Review of V/H/S/2 (2013) by Zacho D — 17 Aug 2013

I had a decently fun time with the first V/H/S film as despite a fair amount of misses, it's format and successes overall won the tug of war that led me to give it a recommendation. Now we have V/H/S 2 which is yet another reason of why I am calling 2013 the year of Horror.

So many fun/brutal/unique horror films this year and V/H/S 2 is no exception. One thing I have to mention right off the bat is that V/H/S 2 is an overall improvement of the first film. The faults are more minor.

The achievements are gargantuan. Even the wrap around story of why they are watching the tapes is better than the first, though, it's nothing spectacular. Now, lets get into the nitty gritty. The first tape is the throw away in this movie.

It's got some unique ideas like having the cyborg eye in the main character as your POV camera. It also had a pretty funny moment and maybe a minor scare here and there, but over all, it was pretty generic and also the shortest of the bunch.

The second tape is also most generic, but it's also about zombies which are usually a good time and with this one, there's a bit of a neat twist on it. Here's the gist of it. A guy is biking down a trail with a camera on the top of his helmet.

A lady covered in blood runs out on the trail pleading for help. She starts to throw up and dies. He notices 3 figures slowly approaching in the woods. He tries to get her up, but she spins around and bites him.

He bashes in her skull and makes his way from the zombies. Of course, in his POV view, he walks through the woods and eventually falls down, throws up, and falls down. We know what happens next, but it's still pretty cool.

What we get here is a POV from a zombie. Don't ever remember seeing that, but it was pretty neat. As the tape goes on, a moment happens which slowly causes some humanity to creep back in which eventually leads to an unexpected ending.

I liked this one. A story that starts off as a generic zombie attack movie in the woods and then it gets really unique. Now the third tape is the showstopper. This is where you get your money's worth and then some.

Brought to you by Gareth Evans (The Raid: Redemption)and Timo Tjahjanto, "Safe Haven" starts off in Indonesia(of course) with a camera crew trying to interview a leader of a religious cult and they want the inside scoop.

The man grants them access to his "church" and they film different parts of what's going on inside. I can't really explain anything further because it's just pure insanity, but it's something else! Gory, frightening, spellbinding stuff.

A short film bread by a great filmmaker that had my attention for every second of his tape. Even better, this tape is by far the longest of the bunch. Easily the length of tapes 1 and 2 combined. Maybe even 4 as well, but I could be exaggerating.

Either way, Evans and Tjahjanto's "Safe Haven" is a terrifying adventure into hell! Please make a feature of this! The fourth tape comes from Hobo With A Shotgun and Canadian born director Jason Eisener and it's the second best tape in the movie.

It starts off very funny with likeable kids that are trying to prank the main character's sister. Then the film quickly descents into mass terror. What's terrifying them? I'll let you find that one out, but I thought it was pretty cool.

Overall, even with the film being 20 minutes shorter than the first film, V/H/S 2 gives you a lot more than the first film. It might not be perfect as whole, but it's still a hell of a ride and " Safe Haven" could be in consideration for the best horror movie of 2013.

.. if it's allowed to compete.