V/H/S Viral

Coming off of a franchise that I at least enjoyed V/H/S Viral was a massive disappointment! This film feels like nothing more than a cheap parody off of the other two (far superior) films in the franchise. As found footage horror film, the goal is to be scary and/or disturbing using the realism factor of "found footage", something that the first two films pulled off fairly well. Viral takes that film premise and makes a mockery out of it. While V/H/S Viral can be at least "entertaining" at times, I can with certainty tell you that you aren't missing much if you skip this one and stick to the first two.

So I understand the concept behind these V/H/S movies: An anthology film with a wraparound story, and none of the stories really fully developed or explain much further than what the viewer sees. I'm OK with that and actually find it to be a fun idea. We also see the same concept in the ABC's of Death anthology films. The only downside is that we never get a full grasp of the segments. Granted, some leave a lot to the imagination of the viewer, but some are so vague its hard to piece together. The first two V/H/S films were no gems, but each had 2 or so segments that stood out and actually engaged us while the others tended to disappoint. This new film continued that trend. the downside is that there were only 3 segments this time (not including the wraparound) which I found highly disappointing.

The wraparound was utterly boring and uninteresting. I get the irony of the guy wanting to go viral, but the tie-in at the end was confusing and forgettable.

Dante the Great was cheesy and added no horror value. Some of the visuals with the cloak were cool while some were low-budget. A power-obsessed redneck magician is just not an appealing story.

Bonestorm was absolutely annoying. The shaky go-pro cams and the characters "bottom or the barrel" personalities gave me nothing to root for. There was just nothing there for me to grasp or understand to make this engaging

Gorgeous Vortex was the only gem of this film. The ability to travel into an alternate universe and switch sides with your counterpart was pretty cool. The subtle differences they start off with only gives you clues that this isn't just a reflected world, but that something very strange and evil was happening. The only downside of this segment was that we wanted to see the main character explore the rest of the world even though he can't because of time. Also, the realization of the horror of this segment might seemed far- fetched to some, but I think it was an interesting add to make it that much weirder.

All in all, one good segment cannot carry an entire movie whether it has 6, 26, or in this case 4 stories. I hope this series continues because they are fun....and now I expect them every year, but they are going to have to hold their writers to stricter script ideas and lay off too much independence because thing can get cheesy really quickly!

This movie was utterly disappointing.

Most of the movie includes an over-saturation of CGI effects and unnecessary action. The plot line did not make much sense at all and left me more bewildered than interested; adding to my disinterest was the terribly written dialogue of our wildly underdeveloped main characters. There are also a lot of forced scenes to progress the plot and just like this movie, they were all over the place.

I was also saddened to see this movie shy away from what made it successful: Fear. There are almost no scenes in this entire movie that makes me jump and the intensity in this movie is just lost.

VHS2 is one of the best horror films I've seen in recent memory. It tightened the overlong editing of the first movie and added genuinely creepy moments. I was looking forward to watching VHS: Viral after seeing VHS2, because I thought they'd gotten a solid pattern down. But no.

No, instead you get skateboarding teens looking "totally rad" while fighting a group of cultists (seriously.) And then, after fending off the angry mob, the 15-year-old boys skate home.

VHS: Viral offers four stories: the magician story, the multi-universe story, the aforementioned skateboarding brats yarn, and a wraparound that ties all these vignettes together. These stories all stink except for "Parallel Monsters," which is good enough to warrant its own film.

If you can, watch "Parallel Monsters" without wasting your time with the rest of this sequel.

This movie is borderline unwatchable. I tried watching this in two sittings and by the third I fell asleep. It's so bad, it's like they hunted down the worst horror writers and directors in hopes to sabotage a continuing V/H/S franchise and they succeeded. The camera-work is horrendous. It makes the final fight in Alex Cross look like The Raid 2. Awkward edits, annoying static every five seconds, terribly uninteresting plots and terribly written too. It's a shame because there was much potential from the first two V/H/S movies that this could become a good horror anthology franchise because it's such a great premise and found-footage is best in small 20-30 minutes doses but this movie tried to make an actual story with a couple random segments that make no sense.

Gun to my head, if I had to pick the best segment it would have to be the one with the alien penises. That sentence alone should tell you enough about this movie. It was such a dumb segment and it made no sense but actually attempted suspense and some form of story. The main story is dogsh*t. I hate this movie a lot. I remember thinking after V/H/S/2 "man, what a great idea for a horror franchise. I hope they continue these" and then Viral had to come along and take a heaping dump on film and sell it as a V/H/S movie.

If you liked the first two V/H/S movies, don't watch this. Don't ever watch this movie unless you want to feel depressed and p*ssed off in which case by all means V/H/S: Viral is the only thing you should watch. This movie sucks balls. It should have never been made and whoever greenlit this atrocious script should be fired if they haven't been already. I wish I could unwatch this movie. Spare yourselves.