Movie Review- V/H/S 2

Short films are a medium which receives little love or attention from mainstream audiences.  Shorts seems to have peeked out during the mid 80's to early nineties with anthologies like Creepshow or Amazing Stories.  Recently though there has been resurgence in anthology film making, especially in the horror genre.  At  a local horror film festival the shorts features are the only thing that I will not miss.  For myself the horror genre is a perfect avenue for short feature films; a little introduction, some buildup, a couple of scares or creepy moments, and end.  If the short was bad it's ok, because another one is following up quickly to wash out the bad taste.  If it was good that only heightens the scares and anticipation of the next short.  Which is why when I heard a while back about V/H/S I was exceptionally excited.  I watched it and was very impressed.  The shorts were cleaver, scary, bloody, and entertaining.  Some were better than others but on a whole the vehicle delivered what it needed to.  Fast forward a year and another anthology has been released titled V/H/S 2.  

     I tried to keep the anticipation low for this movie.  I did not want to over hype it till it could not deliver the goods.  I couldn't help myself and began readings some reviews, and they were unabashedly gushing over it. I was hooked in.  Though after watching it I'm not sure how to come down about it.  It was not a bad movie by any means and they did "ramp" things up for the sequel, but I'm not sure that was the best approach.  The movie definitely has a harder edge and is much more bloody.  The amount of times someone puts a gun to their head and pulls the trigger seemed almost like a running gag after while.  It had the same clever feel to it as the original but the gore gets in the way.  Why I am no prude when it comes to onscreen violence and gore but with all things you have to walk a fine line before it becomes too much and ceases to have shock value anymore.  While trying to be edgy and upping the gore the film becomes exactly the opposite.  The segments which had the least gore proved to be the ones I enjoyed the best; the first and last segments.

     To give a quick no spoiler account of the film; the first section is about a man who gets an eye implant, but the implant starts to glitch giving him strange glimpses of people who may be dead.  The second is different spin on the zombie tale.  The third has to do with a cult and the sinister dealings they are involved in.  I mean they are a cult after all.  The last segment is a alien abduction tale.  All the segments are woven together in a story of two private eyes looking for a missing kid and stumbling upon the tapes, of the features, at his house.  

       The movie overall was uneven and tried to hard with slop buckets full of gore which was detrimental to the scares and unease it was trying to create.

Verdict- 5 out of 10 Fatal Head Wounds
Who will like this- Horror and short fans, people who like something on the different side other than mass produced horror movies starting young hot bods, and lovers of gore.
Who will not like this- Those who are sensitive to gore need not apply, those who want in depth characters and long arcing stories, and those who obviously do not want to be scared.