A Private investigator and his partner have been asked to check out the whereabouts of a missing student.
Breaking into his house (with the permission of his mother, the PI's client) they find an elaborate setup of multiple TVs, VCRs and a Laptop.
The PI goes to check out the rest of the house, and leaves his partner to see if she can find any clues on the laptop, or any of the collection of VHS tapes strewn around the floor.
When I reviewed the first movie, I basically enjoyed it, but had issues with every segment; they were too short, and lacked resolution, despite their best efforts there were still moments of "why are they filming this?" (the curse of the found footage movie), and the wraparound segment didn't actually wrap around.
I'm pleased to announce that the filmmakers have addressed (at least partially) each and every one of these issues, delivering a much better movie this time out.
The framing narrative has very little to do with the one from last time (a blink-and-you'll miss it appearance from some of the footage shot by the thugs in the first movie is the only connection) but there is a hinted-at mythology which goes someway to explaining the VHS hording from both movies, and may eventually (if enough of these get made) tell us why digital footage is ending up on VHS tapes.
The first story is about a man who receives a cybernetic eye as part of a clinical trial; as part of the deal, while the eye is still being trialled, it will record everything he sees so that the manufacturers can analyse the footage. This neatly solves "why is he filming", but adds a new question for the pedantic... why is there sound? in any case, it isn't long before he starts seeing people who aren't there, and gets a visit from a girl who claims that she can hear ghosts ever since she received an ear-implant from the same company... suffice to say, all hell breaks loose. Its a fun segment, it raises some questions, but is better than (and more complete than) any of the segments in the first movie, and overall it did have a full plot. That said, I think this one could have easily made a movie in its own right.
The second segment is a fairly standard zombie movie (or extended scene from a zombie movie) in which a push-biker is attacked by zombies of unknown origin, is infected, and goes on a rampage of his own. The hook this time is that (with the exception of a snippet of a face-time chat on his iPhone) the entire thing is caught on his helmet-cam. This works surprisingly well, and again, bested anything from the first movie.
The 3rd segment is subtitled, and sees a group of journalists investigating an indonesian cult, on what just happens to be kool-aid day. This being a horror movie though, the cult are onto something. Probably a bit too balls-out insane in its last few minutes for some people, but for my money it's the strongest segment by a long way, and is really only let down by a terrible costume in the last scene (seriously bad - there are many better costumes on instructables). Kudos to the actor in that scene, by the way, for going above and beyond for his art; its not everyone who would be willing to have millions of strangers see them with enormous snot-strings dripping from their bloodied face as they cry into camera!
The final proper segment (there are only 4 this time, allowing much better pacing than the rushed 5 in the first movie) is titled "Slumber Party Alien Abduction" and does exactly what it says on the tin; sadly the weakest entry, with poor Alien design, and a slightly too chaotic feel that makes it at times tough to follow. This time a bulk of the action is captured by a camera strapped to a dog (it makes sense in context), which explains the chaos, but its a shame that we never see what happens to any of the characters (apart from the dog himself, then you wish you hadn't - Fuck you, movie!). For all that, the worst segment in this movie is about on par with any from V/H/S.
A much, Much better movie this time around, and one that genuinely has me looking forward to V/H/S/3 (which has been greenlit).
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