Our V/H/S franchise ranked article is here!
No franchise embodies the beauty of the horror anthology style quite like the V/H/S films. The brainchild of Bloody Disgusting founder Brad Miska, 2012’s V/H/S was an experiment in giving filmmakers free rein over their found footage passion projects. The V/H/S movies generally all follow the same concept: unfortunate people stumble onto cursed VHS tapes and watch the madness within them unfold, with each tape serving as the vessel for a different found footage short.
What resulted was a slept-on cult classic being made at the height of the found footage zeitgeist, standing out even when compared with the big franchises like Paranormal Activity and REC. 6 movies later, the series continues to go strong, with a seventh sci-fi horror-centric entry on the way in 2024. So today, as part of our Found Footage February series, we celebrate the legacy of V/H/S by ranking all the films and discussing where they hit, where they miss, and where they stand after all this time.
And, no, we won’t be covering Siren or Kids vs Aliens since, despite being spin-offs. They abandon the formula entirely and don’t count. You can, however, read our review of Kids vs Aliens, since it was pretty great.
We’ve updated our V/H/S ranking to include V/H/S Beyond!
The Entire V/H/S Franchise Ranked
#7: V/H/S: Viral
I know, cheap shot to put it in dead last, but Viral has a reputation as the worst for a reason. I wouldn’t say the scripts here are even that poorly written, and very few of these films have out-of-this-world effects, so I can’t blame those either.
Viral’s inability to commit to a singular tone is its fatal flaw. 99 is campy, 85 is moody, and 94 is just downright terrifying. But Viral is ultimately a day late and a dollar short when it comes to being chaotic or funny, and its more dramatic wraparound segments just needed more work. As is, the framing device takes up far too much time for its payoff, and that’s saying something in a movie that’s only 80 minutes long.
I will give it credit where it is due. What Gregg Bishop does with his brief time and slender effects budget for “The Great Dante” is silly fun, and “Bonestorm” was goofy enough in concept for me to enjoy it for its sheer cheese factor (skaters versus skeletons is totally radical dude!). Still, I would be lying if I didn’t say Viral was the film that almost made me unsubscribe from the series altogether.
#6: V/H/S/Beyond
Does the latest entry in the V/H/S franchise go even further beyond than its series siblings? It’s good, but doesn’t quite break into greatness. Most of its offerings are standard fare, bound by a science fiction theme. The most underwhelming bits are confined to its framing device that, while having a payoff, doesn’t hit as hard as any of its segments.
“Stork” is messy fun, as Jordan Downey directs an adaptation of Oleg Vdovenko’s painting series of the same name; it feels straight out of the masterful digital art that inspired it. Virat Pal’s “Dream Girl” is also a bit messy, but makes a schlocky and decently interesting first half for the film. “Fur Babies” is a mostly dark comedy short in the vein of Kevin Smith’s “Tusk” with some good acting, but feels like it should be more shocking than it is.
The real standouts here are “Live and Let Dive” and “Stowaway”. “Live” really gets to the original spirit of the other films in a way its fellow Beyond chapters don’t always with its adventurous filmmaking. “Stowaway” sees Alanah Pearce giving a really great performance in Kate Siegel’s directorial debut segment. Her mannerisms and line delivery make for a compelling story of an obsessed UFO hunter who makes the find of her dreams but gets nightmarish results in her experimentation. It’s got some of the best effects of the series, as well as a final shot with an emotional gut punch. All in all, a solid anthology.
#5: V/H/S/99
None of the entries above Viral on this list are even bad. Most of them just barely beat each other out for their spot.
And in fact, V/H/S/99 has two of my personal favorite V/H/S segments: “Ozzy’s Dungeon”, Flying Lotus’s demented take on the Nickelodeon game shows of the 90s, and “To Hell and Back”, Joseph and Vanessa Winter’s cinematic equivalent to a haunted house run through hell. “The Gawkers” also feels like a very fun callback to the first V/H/S segment of all, “Amateur Night”, as we see the grisly fate of some teenage peeping toms who mess with the wrong woman. It’s a very solid collection.
Of the Shudder films that have been released so far (94, 99, and 85), 99 is definitively the campiest of the films, and its segments are carried a lot by dark humor and a low-budget, B-movie spirit. Even “Shredding”, which I was a bit harsh on in my first review of the film, is much more enjoyable when seen for its gallows humor and grotesque but comedic ending.
The jokes probably won’t hit the same for everyone, and in general, V/H/S/99 gets stiff-armed by the other films surrounding it (especially with no strong framing device as a backbone). That being said, I’ll never pass up watching a wacky and weird horror film like this one, so it still gets some love from me.
#4: V/H/S
Looking back, it makes complete sense that the V/H/S series got as big as it did when this is what we got as an opener. Though it didn’t see as much critical acclaim as it deserved in 2012 (a year that was 2023 levels of jam-packed horror releases), you have to pay homage to V/H/S for revitalizing the horror anthology format in a major way. Its unique brand of visionary-directed shorts gave us plenty of promise, and it delivered on that potential even if non-horror fans didn’t vibe with it initially.
Not every part of this movie lands, but it only needed three truly great shorts to make its mark: David Bruckner’s “Amateur Night”, “10/31/98” by a pre-Scream Radio Silence, and Joe Swanberg’s “The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger”. Though “Amateur Night” got so much love it earned itself a full-length spin-off in Siren, I find myself revisiting “10/31/98” the most often just because it’s such a fun concept; frat bros accidentally rescuing the monster from the heroes will always be perfect.
Even if the entries in this anthology are outpaced by their successors in terms of brutality or skill, this movie is where it all began. V/H/S left an indelible mark on the horror landscape in the long run, and for that, it deserves all its flowers.
#3: V/H/S/85
The latest entry in the franchise, V/H/S/85’s arrival was hailed with a lot of critical and audience praise, and for good reason. Two standout shorts in 85 earned that rep.
The first is Scott Derrickson’s “Dreamkill”, a spiritual sequel to Derrickson’s work in The Black Phone; “Dreamkill” is an entirely different caliber of short film than anything that has been featured in a V/H/S film. The same can be said of Gigi Saul Guerrero’s “God of Death”, following a rescue crew during the 1985 Mexico City Earthquake, and the ancient evil unleashed by the tremors.
The two are possibly the best made of all the V/H/S segments on a technical level. On top of that, “Ambrosia” is an absolute trip with a very fun connection to another segment in the film and gets a nasty resolution. Bruckner returns to direct this film’s framing device, “Total Copy”, about an alien shapeshifter in captivity slowly learning to mimic things in its surroundings. It’s a very fun setup to a dark punchline in the film’s final shot that never fails to make me smile.
Not every short film here is equally satisfying, and though all of them are well-made, they don’t pack the same punch. It’s very hard to compete with the narrative highs of Derrickson and Guerrero’s work which leaves you wanting more. Still, you can’t take away the kind of quality that 85 brings to the table, and it’s an undeniable standout.
#2: V/H/S/2
Fun fact: this was my first V/H/S film, and the one I was certain would not at all hold up on revisit. I was afraid my own bias had overblown how good it was, but no, it is just that good.
V/H/S/2 is one of those few and far between examples of an ideal sequel: where V/H/S gave us a bunch of very solid short films, V/H/S/2 delivered on that while upping the ante with more shocking and much gorier stories. It’s over the top, and the leap in effects and budget that V/H/S/2 earned makes it surprisingly hold up after all these years.
All four stories are insane, but “Safe Haven” (about an Indonesian death cult and its day of reckoning) and “Slumber Party Alien Abduction” (about exactly what it sounds like) have a special place in my heart for how crazy their climaxes are. If there’s one guiding principle that each filmmaker was on the same page about, it was that they could hold no punches. Even the framing device, “Tape 49”, is a strictly better and bloodier version of its precursor “Tape 56” from the first film.
With returning directors Adam Wingard, Eduardo Sánchez & Gregg Hale of The Blair Witch Project fame, and my personal favorite Gareth Evans of The Raid: Redemption, we have stories that aren’t only disturbing but unbelievably stylish. Conceptually, aesthetically, and cinematography-wise, V/H/S/2 takes the cake. It only gets beaten out by…
#1: V/H/S/94
I need to emphasize: I have not and never will be a worshipper of Raatma. I judge this movie solely on its execution as a really fun anthology film. And any footage of me hanging out in storm drains with rat worshippers is taken ENTIRELY out of context.
Jokes aside, the best entry could have never belonged to anyone but V/H/S/94. It’s the apotheosis of the series’ formula because of how perfectly balanced it is. Though many anthology films would feel lopsided, there’s zero disparity here between the quality of the shorts, and it feels uncanny how they coordinated with such different visual styles.
Newcomers like Chloe Akuno and Ryan Prows stole the show with their segments “Storm Drain” and “Terror”, but series vets like Timo Tjahjanto and Simon Barrett deliver absolute heaters like “The Subject” and “The Empty Wake” to supplement them. “The Subject” in particular stunned me; directorially, it’s hard to top Hardcore Henry meets Resident Evil. That’s not even mentioning Jennifer Reeder’s framing story, “Holy Hell”, which has to be the freakiest of any V/H/S film with its drug-induced cult shenanigans. Separately, they’re strong, but altogether, they make for what is undoubtedly the most frightening and cohesive V/H/S film yet.
While you may get distracted during the framing device in one film, or skip a segment here and there in another, V/H/S/94 keeps you hooked to your screen from start to finish. And that is a true feat.
***
Is your ranking of the V/H/S films different? Are you excited for the seventh film on the horizon in 2024?