Dir - Simon Barrett/Adam Windgard/Eduardo Sánchez/Gregg Hale/Gareth Huw Evans/Timo Tjanjanto/Jason Eisener
Overall: GOOD
2012’s V/H/S was a mostly decent, hand-held camera, anthology horror film and it got enough good buzz to generate a hastily put together sequel V/H/S/2 earlier this year. Some of the same problems persist, (the “frame narrative” story is very weak and the question of “Who is editing all this found footage?” is still the big elephant in the room), and of course there will be weaker entries here than others. Overall though, all four stories besides the linking one are tighter than in the previous entry. Adam Wingard's “Phase 1 Clinical Trials” is a definite improvement from his "Tape 56" from the first V/H/S and Jason Eisner's “Slumber Party Alien Abduction” is equally on par. The Blair Witch Project's Eduardo Sánchez and Gregg Hale wonderfully reunite with the rather amusing “A Ride In the Park”, but the show stopper is by far the gleefully demonic and over the top “Safe Haven” by Indonesian based directors Timo Tjahjanto and Gareth Evans. A steady improvement from top to bottom with the lesser moments much fewer and farther between, this is as solid of a follow-up as one could hope for.
Dir - Fede Alvarez
Overall: WOOF
Especially after last year’s outstanding Cabin In the Woods turned the entire premise here upside-down, revisiting The Evil Dead in a comparatively straight as well as a pointless manner results in an abysmal affair. Ignoring those flames in the opening scene, the “no CGI” gimmick is admirable enough and the gore is rather prominent to say the least. The real problem though is a familiar one for modern remakes which is taking a grittier, darker, more depressing, and serious approach while at the same time having your characters behave with all the tired, logic-less clichés, unload the goofy during the finale, and bust out the groan inducing one-liners. It is impossible not to compare this updated, overblown, jarringly tone-clashing version unfavorably on every level with the DIY, legendary original. Ugly and obnoxious with none of the charm of any of Sam Raimi's previous three films in the franchise, this is also completely trite by its very design. So in other words, just another misguided remake.
Dir - Ti West
Overall: MEH
With The Sacrament, flawed filmmaker Ti West at least deserves some credit for changing up his game and going for something conceptually left-field from his previous works. Forgoing any supernatural horror aspects entirely and presenting itself as an original, faux-documentary, the movie in fact borrows nearly every plot detail from the real life Johnstown Massacre of 1978. Besides the unmistakable familiarity, it is also loaded with all the other problems that West's films have thus far all had. That is the massive jumps in logic taken upon by the characters that swiftly and absolutely take the viewer out of the proceedings. Plenty is handled very well here, particularly the tone and performances and West is a very good director who is quite skilled at building unease and dread. That said, his scripts never, ever deliver on the promise otherwise seen and it is unfortunate that his trademark seems to be making one frustratingly auspicious though ultimately disastrous work after the other. It all comes down to the writing in his case and the writing is thus far always perplexingly bad considering how much everything else otherwise works.
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