Stream It Or Skip It: ‘V/H/S/85’ on Shudder, in Which Director Scott Derrickson Headlines the Latest Entry in the Horror Anthology

Another year, another group of directors willing to handcuff themselves to the found-footage-short format dictated by the V/H/S anthology franchise, which is back with its sixth installment, V/H/S/85 (now streaming on Shudder). The notables behind the camera this time are: David Bruckner, returning to the series (he contributed to the first anthology) after helming the excellent The Night House and the pretty good 2022 Hellraiser remake. Scott Derrickson, who helmed Sinister prior to cashing in with Doctor Strange, then returned to his roots with the highly effective The Black Phone. And Gigi Saul Guerrero, director of goofy thriller-comedy Bingo Hell, and Culture Shock, easily the best episode of defunct Blumhouse series Into the Dark. They join relative newcomers Natasha Kermani and Mike P. Nelson for this mishmash of defiantly non-HD splatterfests, which are inevitably hit and miss, but also mostly enjoyable. 

V/H/S/85: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: OK, pretend you’re popping a juddery old videocassette into a VCR with a satisfying KA-CHUNK instead of streaming crystalline high-def video via the internet. Got the vibe? No? Then you must be too young for this shit! Go suck on a smoothie on TikTok or something, whippersnappers! 

Anyway. The sound of the VCR whirring and grinding accompanies Bruckner’s wraparound segment, a TV “documentary” called Total Copy, about scientists who discover a gelatinous hunk of possibly intelligent, possibly sentient gloop. They “teach” it human culture by letting it watch cable TV for hours and hours and hours and hours, which seems, what’s the word? Dubious? Yes. Dubious. Highly dubious. This story is chopped up into bits and dropped between the other V/H/S/85 segments, so it either keeps teasing us or never maintains much narrative flow, take your pick!

Next is Nelson’s No Wake, which features such realistic gore, it’s quite convincing as a vacation video gone horribly wrong. A group of partiers tools their RV and boat past a NO TRESPASSING sign to a gorgeous lake, where they chug white-label generic beers (more like SHITE label, right?) and do a little waterskiing, until someone starts sniping them with a deer rifle. One girl gets half her face blown off, and it’s, like, really cool, but also brutally awful, take your pick. This short eventually ties to a later Nelson short, Ambrosia, about a nice suburban family – members of whom have perms and mullets – that ends up being a bunch of psychos.

Guerrero’s bit is dubbed God of Death, and of all the shorts here, it sticks tightest to the ethos and aesthetic of the found-footage format. A Mexico City TV news crew is broadcasting away when a massive earthquake hits, forcing a cameraman and a handful of his rescuers deep into the bowels of a building that’s about one earwig antenna-twitch away from toppling over. How deep into the bowels do they go? Deep enough to find an ancient-ass evil, that’s how.

Kermani’s TKNOGD (pronounced “techno god”) plays out in a hilarious setting: One of those tiny performance-art theaters with a sparse audience seated in uncomfortable folding chairs. The artist is not a fan of technology, and she rants and raves her criticisms before donning early-VR-tech gloves and helmet, with the virtual “world” she sees projected on a screen. She recites an incantation – note: if you ever find yourself in a short horror film, never, ever recite an incantation – and what occurs next is lunacy, lunacy I tell you. But the funny part? I’m pretty sure the audience can’t tell if it’s part of the show or not. 

Finally, we have Derrickson’s ambitious Dreamkill, where a local police cop receives anonymous VHS tapes in the mail with snuff films on them. They depict a serial killer who likes to invade homes and cut into peoples’ eyeballs with an electric carving knife – neat! Thing is, he receives the tape, then a few days later, that exact same murder occurs. WOT the HELL, right? Turns out, a local goth teen has found a way to videotape his dreams (we don’t get the specifics on how he does it), which are, indeed, disturbingly prophetic.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: No Wake is so convincing in its depiction of gore, it gave me some eerie Faces of Death vibes.

Performance Worth Watching: Derrickson’s son Dashiell Derrickson is a rather convincingly blasé goth kid – amusingly so, considering the grim story he finds himself in. 

Memorable Dialogue: This bit from God of Death:

Rescuer: F—ing Argentinian, nobody understands your Spanish!

Rescuee: Your sister never complained!

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Let’s break it down, sickos: Dreamkill is the most visually ambitious of the bunch, Derrickson finding – sometimes awkwardly forcing – different means of incorporating “found”/handheld footage into the story. It also, like Ambrosia, uses an actual videocassette as a prop or plot device, to emphasize a fetish for blocky hunks of plastic filled with filmy, flimsy tape. 

No Wake shows the most potential, and is the funniest of the bunch, although it feels incomplete, its central mystery left dangling, to our mild frustration (same goes for Ambrosia too). TKNOGD captures an authentic vibe of a slightly out-there performance-art space, but unfolds with a disappointing obviousness; thankfully, it boasts a pretty memorable money shot, which leaves a deliciously disgusting taste in our mouths. 

God of Death might be the most typically V/H/S of the bunch, sticking closely to the handheld aesthetic and claustrophobic-horror vibe; I liked it. And Total Copy amusingly spoofs era-specific quasi-news docs, until the story goes off the rails and concludes with a hilarious and ironic final shot.

What do these shorts have in common that justifies their existence in one anthology? It might be accidental, and it might not, but… it’s gore. V/H/S/85 has a highly effective SPLICK factor that’s gruesomely effective in that guts-hurt-from-laughing-and-being-nauseous kind of way. Sometimes, blood and guts are ties that bind tighter than being on one grimy, grainy videotape.

Our Call: I’m not sure if V/H/S/85 is a standout entry in the franchise (I’ve missed a couple, and V/H/S/99 might end up being more memorable), but it’s consistently watchable, and will pique the interest of horror mavens looking for fresh Derrickson and Bruckner fodder to feed their gore-hungry souls. STREAM IT.  

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.