Dir - Bryan M. Ferguson/Casper Kelly/Micheline Pitt-Norman/R.H. Norman/Alex Ross Perry/Paco Plaza/Anna Zlokovic
Overall: MEH
Another borderline terrible and now annual V/H/S installment drops around its appropriate holiday, V/H/S/Halloween delivering six segments that are linked by trick or treating, missing trick or treaters, more trick or treating, Halloween parties, more trick or treating again, haunted houses (plural), even more trick or treating, and a diet soft drink for some reason. At this point, the only way to enjoy these films is to have a lobotomy beforehand, since they are shamelessly stupid and aggressively pummel the viewer with the type of horror movie schlock that makes people hate horror movies. In other words, if you are annoyed by the same lazy tropes being made fun of for the billionth time, steer clear. There are both expected, (Paco Plaza), and unexpected contributors, (Alex Ross Perry), joining the mayhem, but each vignette adheres to a bloody and tongue in cheek trajectory that never bothers to utilize the found footage gimmick in any plausible fashion. None of this is new to the series though which has always been inconsistent at best, so at least one can say that the harebrained tone stays on track here. Besides Casper Kelly's "Fun Size" which is the most egregiously insulting, the rest of the bits are just egregious. Which in the case of this franchise is actually an improvement.
Dir - Brandon Christensen
Overall: MEH
In the tradition of needlessly convoluted 80s throwback slasher movies that abuse jump scares and feature one smart-ass "twist" after the other until they collapse upon each other, writer/director Brandon Christensen's latest Night of the Reaper is as mediocre as the lot of them. It is dumb, but it thinks that it is smart, which is part of the fun for those who want to scratch the itch that such genre-adherence provides. Set in the 1980s because having cell phones in any of the scenarios presented would have easily solved things, (also, nostalgia yo), it opens with a by-the-books babysitter murder where the masked killer possess superhuman agility, foresight, and is seventeen steps ahead of their prey, cutting to a later time where two different story lines eventually collide, both of which are directly linked to said opening kill scene. The actors are given no choice but to play the material straight, and it is to the movie's advantage that there are no obnoxious caricatures here whose bloody demise we root for. At the same time, the goofy plot gasps and multitudes of moments that do not pass the ice box test jive poorly with the emotional roller-coaster that our two leads go through. The details and beats are all familiar to a fault, but the best thing that can be said about the whole affair is that it could have been much worse.
Dir - Luke Shaw
Overall: WOOF
An overly ambitious full-length debut, The Household from Austrailain filmmaker Luke Shaw is loaded with problems that undermine its acceptable yet barely explored premise of a clandestine cult, (Is there any other kind?), that has been able to kidnap, amputate, and sacrifice victims on the downlow for decades. The first issue is the two-hour length which is padded with minutes upon minutes of Shaw and his girlfriend filming EVERYTHING even remotely pertaining to their latest documentary venture. This puts it in the realm of vanity project, not just because the making of their true crime project is nowhere near as interesting as the subject which they are investigating, but also because they are poor actors who never once properly convey the type of panic that their characters should be in as their inquiries deepen. As far as "stupid people acting stupid in horror movies" tropes go, this one is brimful of them, Shaw in particular portraying a moron who dismisses every disturbing encroachment on his personal life so that he can keep plowing forward with his little movie that could. His dipshit protagonist also seems to possess supernatural foresight as well as multitudes of cameras since so many angles are covered every time that there is a scene change. He even manages to cut between professionally shot talking head footage and dodgy handheld footage OF THAT footage for no reason whatsoever, all while near-persistent scary music manipulates the proceedings and detrimentally signifies any would-be frightening image on the horizon.
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