Found Footage Horror Classic Still Scares Over 10 Years Later, Stream Without Netflix

The concept of V/H/S is as simple as it is engaging: some criminals with a tendency to record their own crimes are hired to break into a home and steal a particular VHS tape. They find a dead body in front of several televisions, prompting one of the criminals to watch the last tape that was in the VCR. This is all a frame story, of course, to introduce a series of weird horror shorts, all of which make up the contents of the mysterious VHS tape this criminal is checking out.

If you’re a horror fiend, then one of the main draws of V/H/S is that some very acclaimed genre directors bring these VHS shorts to life. For example, the frame story is directed by Adam Wingard, the man who directed both Godzilla vs. Kong and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. And “Second Honeymoon” was directed by Ti West, who brought to life some stylish horror films like Pearl and MaXXXine.

Meanwhile, “Amateur Night” was directed by David Bruckner, who brought us the excellent 2022 Hellraiser reboot. And “10/31/98” is directed by Radio Silence Productions, the company behind Scream (2022) and Scream VI. As you can tell, V/H/S has a little something for everyone because most of the stories are crafted by some of the biggest names in modern horror, each one in a nostalgia-friendly VHS found footage style.

V/H/S didn’t exactly make a killing at the box office, earning only $1.9 million in a limited theatrical release. However, it managed to seriously impress audiences at the Sundance Film Festival, and the movie was successful enough on both home media and streaming to warrant a string of sequels, some admittedly better than others. Additionally, the “Amateur Night” short in this first film was later expanded into a full-length feature film, Siren.

Outside the wider world outside of Sundance, critics weren’t entirely sure what to make of V/H/S. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film currently has a critical rating of 56 percent. In general, critics complained that the various shorts were “uneven” and despite having some “inventive scares,” the “execution is hit-and-miss.”

As for me, I really fell in love with the whole VHS found footage gimmick, and while I agree that some shorts are better than others, I would most argue that V/H/S has more hits than misses. Plus, I likened anthology films to a buffet earlier for a reason: chances are that nobody absolutely loves every single item available at the buffet. But the whole point of such a selection is to have enough variety that everyone can find at least a few things they will love, and that was certainly my experience with this violent variety of VHS stories.

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Plus, your mileage may vary, but I loved how much V/H/S leaned into its gimmick. In “Tuesday the 17th,” we have a mysterious killer whose identity is obscured by VHS-style tracking errors. And “Second Honeymoon” does a great job of getting us into the mind of a killer who films some awful crimes, and this creepy tape provides a small taste of the style and verve director Ti West would later bring to films like Pearl.

Will you find V/H/S to be as thrilling as I did, or will you want to throw this in the bin with the rest of your old VHS tapes? The only way to know is to stream it on Tubi (always more convenient than getting your old VCR working). If you like what you see, just know that the rest of the franchise continues to provide the best found footage thrills in all of horror.