Film Review

V/H/S/94 (2021) • Shudder

A SWAT team investigate a mysterious VHS tape and discover a sinister cult has pre-recorded material which uncovers a nightmarish conspiracy.

One of the more revered found-footage series of recent years, drops any pretence of not being nostalgia bait for this latest entry, produced for the horror streamer Shudder. It’s a series of shorts embedded in a wraparound story about people driven insane by creepy old videotapes, this time with a thematic focus on the culture and aesthetics of the early-1990s. It never reaches the level of being a focused and meaningful satire, however. Strangely, V/H/S/94 seems to want to act like it’s satirical without actually being so, alluding to important cultural touchstones like WACO and the Oklahoma City bombing, but not actually saying anything about them.