It’s October once again, so you know what that means – it’s time for yet another V/H/S outing that delivers a new clutch of first-person, found footage depravity, all linked together by an increasingly tenuous, central theme. While the past few years have proved that dutifully delivering an annual anthology can be pretty hit and miss, I’ve always welcomed this patchy tradition just to see what the hell the series will come up with next.
This year, the subtitle of “Mixtape” hints that central theme is sound, which proves to be a rather odd subject to hang a new bunch of stories on, and the end results are predictably all over the place; but the mixture of directorial talent new and old manages to turn the volume up on the series’ ninth installment. Those not particularly fond of the antics of metal legends GWAR might find the MTV-style interludes gelling strangely with stories of killer puppets, Lovecraftian pacts, trapped vloggers and disturbingly creative music production.
As we’re constantly buffeted by the various presenting talents of the likes of Blothar The Berserker and Jizmak Da Gusha, we settle down to take in a quartet on new episodes that all seem to be connected by either the use of sound or music in general. The first installment, “Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance” introduces us to the defunct, cult children’s show, The Curious Chorus, that only ran for a single season. Featuring Sesame Street style hand puppets with names like Riptide and Botulism, we discover that an unscrupulous studio exec is hoping to reimagine the series with CGI and have visited the original workshop with some tech guys to scan the actual puppets. However, the owner of the puppet workshop maintains that it’s a bad idea, something that’s echoed by the show’s original stars who don’t mind getting their fuzzy hands dirty to prove a point.
Next up, “Heartbeat” introduces us.to a couple of vloggers who have infiltrated a closed down, Russian research centre which includes a soundproofed room so silent, it’s only safe to remain sealed inside for 15 minutes. However, after inevitably getting trapped inside, the couple soon find themselves being driven mad by the amplified sounds coming from their very own bodies.
This is followed by the Lovecraftian “The Music Of Mr. Sze”, which has a film student try to record and document his own life via a pair of smart glasses. Soon he becomes obsessed by the violin music that drifts down from the attic at all hours of the day, but after introducing himself to the titular musician, we discover there’s a cosmic reason for why he plays his strange tunes.
Finally, “Death Tone” introduces us to the daughter of a recently deceased music producer who wants to continue his legacy, but can’t quite find the right sounds. However, when recorded, vocal transcripts of her father suggests she needs to find a more organic source for inspiration, she embarks on a murder spree to find that perfect mix.
Since it’s resurrection back in 2021, V/H/S has gotten ever more chaotic with every new installment and if we were to compare the brooding, glitchy 2012 original with the over-stimulated blowout of Mixtape, we’d find the franchise to almost unrecognisable from it’s origins. For a start, I love GWAR, but I’m not entirely sure what the constant line of wanking jokes and 80s throwback skits have to do with the central conceit, other than they’re in a band. Elsewhere, that random, thread continues when the action pauses to offer up an animated short named “The Next Cabin” by Flying Lotus that feels more Creepshow than V/H/S, or an entire music video called “Premature Burial” that’s helmed by Tobias Forge of the band Ghost. It leads to this being potentially the most tonally inconsistent entry into the long running anthology series we’ve ever had.
However, strip away the frenzied bellowing of rubber-clad demon rockers and the occasional distraction of an animated short and a music video, and V/H/S/Mixtape actually has a fun selection of stories; but you can’t help but feel that the franchise needs to stop trying so hard in order come up with an overriding theme. Using “sound” is a bit of a cheat when three of the four entries simply default it to music in general, but if you subconsciously ditch the self-inflicted rules (Flying Lotus’ animation isn’t even found footage), the various stories prove to be a tad more engrossing. Strangely enough, the weakest of the four proves to be the one that sticks to the rules the closest. As the co-director of Them, David Moreau is no stranger to using ambience and sound in order to deliver a more subtle brand of scares, but with “Heartbeat”, he struggles to fully realise a fairly out-there concept – when locked in absolute silence, the endless, amplified sounds of your own body will soon drive you as insane as any other kind of sonic torment. However, thanks to a limited time frame and some fairly unlikable characters, it just can’t quite manage to accurately get across the concept that listening to your own stomach gurgles long enough will eventually drive you to stick a screwdriver into your eardrum. Still, the unnerving design of the room and a final twist that has the female vlogger discovering more about her own biology purely by sound is admittedly pretty neat.
Elsewhere, coming in a close third is RZA’s entertainingly nasty “Death Tone” which sees the screams and quelches of various murders be combined by Neela Jolene’s determined producer in order to make a song no one has ever heard before. Obviously riffing on a cross between Pieces and that episode of Hannibal where someone’s larynx gets turned into a cello, the legendary member of the Wu-Tang Clan delivers some nice, messy set-pieces, but at times you can’t help but wonder if it would have been better served being blown up to feature length. Likewise, Renee Zhan’s “Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance” can hardly be considered original due to the influx of cuddly puppet killers that’s come down the pipe over the last few years; but it also manages to be wildly fun – especially when you consider that the Jim Henson’s Creature Shop contributed to the immence gore gag that closes out the instalment. Also, who can’t deny the presence of iconic scream queen Barbara Crampton playing a bitchy studio executive who learns that digitising an art like puppetry comes with it’s own, arm twisting dangers.
However, this year’s winner proves to Ernest Dickerson’s devoutly Lovecraftian “The Music Of Mr. Sze”, simply because it’s a kick to find Spike Lee’s old cinematographer and the director of Demon Knight dabbling in horror once more, and I love anything the riffs on the works of the master of cosmic horror. We have a dilapidated tenent building, a young impressionable student, and a dimension-spanning plot twist that sees our hapless lead discover a musician that uses his unearthly music to seal evil within a fissure in space and time, and while the production values can’t quite handle the climactic cosmic cataclysm, Dickinson doing H.P. Lovecraft certainly does it for me.
A solid bunch of stories struggles to be heard over the chaotic mess of getting GWAR to host this latest ode to horror shorts. But while all of the stories try hard to be memorable, there’s a sense that the franchise needs to reign in some of its more excitable impulses if its going to continue hitting all the right notes.
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Where to watch V/H/S/Mixtape: