October 4, 2021
Fourth Film in V/H/S Series Scored by “Sunn O)))” Guitarist Greg Anderson
– Randall D. Larson
V/H/S/94 is an American found footage anthology horror film, and the fourth installment in the V/H/S series. The film originates from a screenplay by David Bruckner, with segments directed by franchise returnees Simon Barrett and Timo Tjahjanto, in addition to newcomers Jennifer Reeder, Ryan Prows and Chloe Okuno. The overarching plot follows a police S.W.A.T. team that investigates a mysterious VHS tape that reveals prerecorded material from a sinister cult that unfolds a horrifying conspiracy.
The film has been scored by Greg Anderson of the experimental drone metal band Sunn O))) and Southern Lord records founder, a guitarist best known in the genre of doom metal, avant-garde metal, and hardcore punk. “We’re trying something a little different with the score,” wrote the filmmakers in a September 16th announcement on the horror website BloodyDisgusting.
The film had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest on September 26, 2021. Response from critics has been mostly favorable. “V/H/S/94 delivers impressive moments of horror, insanity, and gore, with some fantastic plot twists,” opined Melissa Hannon in her review of the film at horrorgeeklife.com. “It is sure to satisfy fans of horror anthologies, as well as longtime fans of the V/H/S franchise.”
“V/H/S/94 brings the found footage horror anthology franchise back to the land of the living since 2014’s V/H/S: VIRAL,” noted Jeff Nelson in cheatsheet.com. “V/H/S/94 doesn’t offer fresh horror voices in the way the franchise once did. It achieves a relatively even tone for the majority of the film, but most of the shorts don’t utilize their time very well. Its lows aren’t as low as the previous entries, but consequently, its highs aren’t as high either. It has an even moderate tone, although the viewing experience is likely heightened by watching with a crowd.”
“V/H/S/94 knows exactly what kind of movie it is, and it knows that its audience does, too; it gets around the ‘why is someone still filming this?’ issue that always plagues found-footage movies in clever ways,” writes Cheryl Eddy on gizmodo. More importantly, it realizes that the horror part of found-footage horror is what people are tuning in to see. And in that aspect, it more than delivers…”
Siddhant Adlakha of IGN was more critical, stating that “All five stories in V/H/S/94 feature a cult-like element, but only one of them feels like a true work of madness.”
V/H/S/94 is scheduled for release on Shudder starting on October 6, 2021.
Watch the film’s trailer:
