Film Review

V/H/S/99 (2022) • Shudder

Five supernatural tales, all taking place in 1999, are told through found-footage videotape.

The fifth V/H/S movie, released almost exactly 10 years after the original, follows much the same structure as its predecessors. It’s an anthology of short horror tales supposedly found on VHS tapes, but here it lacks a linking premise to explain why these particular tapes have been found together.

Instead, between segments we’re treated to short interludes in which Brady (a character from the fourth story “The Gawkers”, played by Ethan Pogue) manipulates a collection of cheap plastic toy soldiers for the camera, reenacting war movie clichés and consigning several of them to grisly fates. These are witty and imaginative, and quite possibly the best bits of V/H/S/99, a film that’ll just about satisfy franchise fans looking for more of the same but disappoint or bore anyone seeking true horror or originality.

Its problems are twofold and boil down to the ways in which the franchise’s requirements imprison the filmmakers. First, the narratives are too similar and over-reliant on the same…