When a group of misfits is hired by an unknown third party to burglarize a desolate house and acquire one rare VHS tape, they discover more found footage than they had bargained for.
The film also plays to the strengths of the found-footage format, proving that sometimes the scariest things are the ones you can barely see.
– Rene Rodriguez,
Miami Herald,
5 Oct 2012
rotten:
Two hours of nausea-inducing shaky cam footage that fails to tell a coherent or engrossing central story.
– James Berardinelli,
ReelViews,
5 Oct 2012
rotten:
"V/H/S" probably sounded great in the pitch meeting, but it loses all luster through some shoddy execution.
– Sean O'Connell,
Washington Post,
5 Oct 2012
rotten:
I came, I saw, I hunkered.
– Christopher Orr,
The Atlantic,
5 Oct 2012
fresh:
The mostly played-out found footage aesthetic has its limitations, and V/H/S doesn't escape all of them. But the collected directors do manage to make many of those limitations into the films' strengths.