V/H/S/Mixtape: A Disappointing Music-Themed Horror Anthology

Another year, another V/H/S movie. Ever since they revived the found-footage anthology franchise with V/H/S/94 in 2021, Shudder has made the films an annual Halloween event. None of their entries have managed to reach the all-time highs of 2013’s V/H/S/2, but they have consistently produced enough good material to be well worth watching each year. Until now that is.

Theming this year’s installment around music, the producers have opted to veer from the usual wraparound story format and instead offer up a series of skits featuring the heavy metal band GWAR. Your enjoyment for these is going to depend heavily on your tolerance for their cornily crass comedy, which means for most people it will instantly qualify this as the worst entry in the series. Mercifully, after their shockingly unfunny opening bit, the group’s appearances become fairly brief.

The first actual segment is “Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance”, directed by Renee Zhan and written by Zoe Cooper (V/H/S/99 and V/H/S/85) and which stars horror icon Barbara Crampton as a studio executive who is filming promotional material for a reboot of a children’s show that has built a cult following after airing for a single season. The man now in charge of the show’s puppets—along with many others—is nonplussed by the decision to digitally scan the originals and instead use computer animation and so is initially pretty unhelpful, but under pressure he relents and brings everyone to tour the still intact set, where the dark truth behind the show is revealed. The puppet work by the Jim Henson Creature Shop is great and there are some genuinely disturbing bursts of violence amid the escalating mayhem, but this segment proves more technically impressive than scary and as such winds up somewhat forgettable.

This is followed by the very brief but eerily intriguing “Another Cabin” by the electronic musician Flying Lotus (Kuso and Ash). Made in stop-motion—and therefore completely ditching the series’ found footage requirement—it follows a boy and his grandmother who are under assault by a giant creature in the woods. It’s effectively unsettling and features perhaps the film’s most frightening monster, but it does feel very out of place in the franchise.

“Heartbeat” by David Moreau (Them) follows a pair of urban explorers as they uncover an abandoned Soviet bunker. It begins about as you would expect for the premise and the two leads share some excellent chemistry, making it easy to worry over what tragic fate might await them. I won’t spoil it for you here as it is truly unexpected, though I don’t know if it fully works. It’s certainly unique and even thought provoking, but its very nature also means that it can become a tad monotonous. Still, it was nice to see Moreau try something unique—including with his camera work—and it makes me curious to see more from him.

Fourth up is Ernest Dickerson’s (Juice) “The Music of Mr. Sze” (pronounced “Zee”). In it, a young man decides to chronicle his life in his new apartment using both an expensive video camera and a stand-in for Meta’s ~~pervert~~ “smart” glasses. After meeting his oddball neighbors, including a landlord who is clearly a college-aged woman dressed to look like an eccentric old lady, he hears haunting music emanating from the unit above his, apparently being played by the enigmatic Mr. Sze. He decides he needs to record it and somehow convinces the man to let him, only to discover that there’s a good reason for his caginess and his playing serves a purpose greater than anyone could have imagined. This is the best segment here, despite the misguided moments of quirkiness. The core mystery is highly compelling and the ultimate reveal is a fantastic bit of insanity almost unparalleled in the franchise.

Next, for some reason, we get a music video for “Premature Burial” by Repugnant, directed by Tobias Forge of this band and Ghost. It’s fine.

Last up, Wu-Tang Clan rapper RZA (The Man with the Iron Fists) directs and co-writes (with Matt Landsman) “Death Tone” which follows a young woman who is struggling to live up to the legacy of her late father, a legendary music producer. As she struggles to find the perfect “sound” she follows along with advice from the old man she found on a cassette and begins to deploy some dangerous and unorthodox methods. The feel of this one recalls the Tales from the Darkside movie, though the conceit begins to wear a bit thin. The violence is once again impressively staged, but the song that results from it is also fairly ordinary and doesn’t feel worth the implied cost.

This isn’t bad enough to put me off watching the next installment (reportedly titled V/H/S: SCP and headed for a theatrical release by A24), but most of what’s here doesn’t rise above being average, and that feels like too little reward for having to watch so much GWAR. ★★