V/H/S HALLOWEEN Offers Gross Fun With More Treats Than Tricks (Review)

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The V/H/S found footage horror series has been delivering strange and disturbing stories for over ten years. It played a key role in launching the careers of Radio Silence, the creators behind popular horror movies like Ready or Not and Scream (2022). The series continues to please fans who enjoy its raw, guerilla-style filmmaking, complete with realistic practical effects and genuinely frightening jump scares. Considering most of the films have been released in October – for pretty clear reasons – it’s a bit surprising that V/H/S Halloween is only just arriving now. This newest installment is a bit of everything, offering more enjoyable moments than truly scary ones.

V/H/S Halloween is made up of five separate horror shorts, connected by a main story (written and directed by Bryan M. Ferguson) that also functions as a scary tale on its own. This connecting story, “Diet Phantasma,” offers a darkly humorous look at a focus group testing a new soda with a rather unusual, ahem, ingredient. As you might expect, the people involved are prisoners who don’t have much control over their own lives, which is why they were chosen for the test. Naturally, things go awry as the drink affects each person differently. The motivation behind it all is unclear, but it’s unsettlingly fun to watch, with plenty of gory moments that tap into our worries about the safety and true ingredients of the things we eat and drink.

A few parts of the story borrow ideas from recent popular horror stories. One example is Anna Zlokovic’s “Coochie Coochie Coo,” which centers around two high school seniors in 2004. When the girls are told they’re too old to go trick-or-treating, they decide to spend Halloween night getting treats and playing pranks instead. These pals venture out for a few hours of fun, hoping to postpone the anxieties about college and growing up that they face.

This story combines familiar horror elements – a quiet town hiding dark secrets, an eerie house with a troubling past, and local legends about strange happenings. Disguised as babies and knowing that young people are being abducted, the characters enter a terrifying house harboring a disturbing truth. Similar to the movie Barbarian, a gruesome figure waits inside, intending to harm its victims in a particularly disturbing way. However, Zlokovic elevates the story with a great deal of suspense, unsettling imagery, and an ending that will leave you feeling deeply disturbed.

The next part, titled “Ut Supra Sic Infra” (which translates to “as above, so below) by Paco Plaza and Alberto Marini, features a peculiar black phone that rings with a threatening sound. This image likely resonates with fans of Black Phone 2 , given its focus on supernatural horror. However, this short Spanish segment introduces an idea I’d welcome exploring in a full-length story. It shows a group of children in Halloween costumes entering a medium’s séance room… and only one survives to share what happened. He leads the police back to the location, and a deeply unsettling truth about the events is revealed. Sadly, this segment, while a bit lengthy, ends in a way that doesn’t quite live up to the promising setup, making for an unsatisfying conclusion.

Casper Kelly’s “Fun Size” explores a strange and unsettling journey that begins with a simple question of right and wrong. The familiar idea of being “too old” to trick-or-treat is revisited, focusing on two twenty-somethings who grab extra candy. The story quickly takes a supernatural turn, landing them in a bizarre location with a gumball machine that looks and acts like a person-and has a disturbing craving for their body parts to make candy. This segment is easily the weirdest in V/H/S Halloween, featuring striking visuals that likely won’t appeal to viewers who aren’t fans of extremely graphic horror.

The “Most Out-of-Sync Segment Award” is given to “Kidprint,” which shifts the focus from supernatural or unexplainable terrors to more realistic fears. Does this change disrupt the atmosphere built by the other horror stories? Yes, it does. But does that make it ineffective or a poor installment? Not in the slightest. It’s reminiscent of the ‘90s “Do You Know Where Your Children Are?” public service announcements, which reminded parents to check on their kids and ensure they were home by 10PM.

This story features the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and their creation of Kidprint, a complimentary service where parents could take their children to Blockbuster to be interviewed. These recordings served as a way to identify children should they ever go missing. Things take a turn when a serial kidnapper emerges, and their actions are much more disturbing than one might expect. I’d argue that “Kidprint” and the concluding segment of V/H/S Halloween, “Home Haunt”, are the most captivating portions of this collection.

“Home Haunt” by Micheline Pitt-Norman and R.H. Norman has all the makings of a crowd-pleaser. It perfectly captures the feeling of the V/H/S franchise, offering fans a thematically fitting and genuinely frightening experience without being overly serious. The story centers around a father and son who create an elaborate Halloween haunted house, only for the decorations to come to life and turn into a real nightmare. This tale blends sinister elements with a comforting warmth, thanks to its playful humor and impressive practical effects – truly embodying the spirit of the Halloween season.

Overall, V/H/S Halloween is an enjoyable and entertaining film. It can feel disorganized and a little chaotic at times, but it offers something for pretty much any horror enthusiast.

V/H/S Halloween ⭐ (3.5 of 5)

V/H/S Halloween hits Shudder on Friday, October 3.

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2025-10-03 13:04