Movie review: V/H/S/94

Scene from the horror anthology V/H/S/94 now streaming on Shudder.

The fourth installment of this found footage anthology horror franchise goes back to the waning days of the videocassette to present arguably the best entry in the series yet, offering up a variety of imaginative and gory delights.

Generally speaking, anthology horror films are lucky to have one or two decent segments surrounded by underwhelming dreck, but the closest thing to a bum note here is the wrap-around/linking narrative which sees a SWAT team in 1994 raid a mysterious warehouse filled with TVs playing footage from VHS tapes, from which the film's individual segments - each from a different director - are derived.

The first segment sees a local TV news team investigating a supposed "Rat Man" running around the sewers. It also contains a pitch-perfect fake informercial and the best live-on-air freakout since 1981's The Howling.

The second segment takes place at a funeral home where an overnight attendant is disturbed by a coffin that just won't stay still.

The third segment is the longest and forms the centrepiece of the film. It's a mad scientist tour de force from Indonesian filmmaker Timo Tjahjanto and it features some hilariously grisly cyberpunk body horror.

The final segment focuses on a US militia group plannng to bring down a government building with a unique, supernatural explosive device. Militia groups seemed so quaint back then.

By utilising interesting, independent genre filmmakers from all around the world, the V/H/S films have always been more about ideas than production values, but this has a noticeably slicker presentation than previous entries. The gore doesn't look cheap, and there's plenty of it. You've never seen this many topless heads.

Plus it's becoming increasingly apparent that as we get further and further from the VHS era, the inherently drab medium appears more and more romantic.

Verdict: Gruesome fun from start to finish.

V/H/S/94 is now available on horror streaming platform Shudder.