This is one of my favorite found footage films. They utilized first person pov perspective in this film and this might be the first found footage film to use first person pov perspective in it.
At the beginning of this film in "Tape 56", we meet a group of miscreants who are making money filming themselves randomly attacking women to expose the women's breasts. One of the guys named Gary (played by Calvin Reader) tells them about a job that promises to quickly pay them more money versus them continuing their filming women's exposed breasts. According to Gary they are hired by a mystery person to break into a house where an old man supposedly lives and to find and steal a specific vhs tape located in the house.
The "job" begins without a hitch. When they initially enter the house, they encounter no one and all is quiet. They do notice a peculiar smell but otherwise don't think anything unusual is happening. As they are securing the house, they come across the corpse of the old man sitting in his chair in his living room. Interestingly enough, there are a bunch of tvs that are on and there is a large pile of vhs tapes in the living room.
The guys decide to continue to search the house while Brad (played by Adam Wingard) is ordered to check the tapes in the living room. He is understandably reluctant to left alone with the corpse but another guy named Rox (played by Kentucker Audley)overrides his concerns and Brad is left alone in the living room. In order to figure out which tape is the sought-after tape, Brad starts playing the various tapes.
The majority of the rest of V/H/S consists of different unrelated stories that Brad is presumably watching in his quest for the tape. After each story is finished, the film bounces back to the guys in "Tape 56". With each bounce back to "Tape 56" things get stranger and creepier. It is apparent that something or someone is in the house with the guys and they don't appear to have good intentions.
In the first segment called "Amateur Night" we meet three young men Shane (played by Mike Donlan), Patrick (played by Joe Sykes), and Clint (played by Drew Sawyer) who are getting ready to head out to bars and clubs. Clint happens to be wearing a pair of glasses that has a camera discreetly built into the frame. The object is for Clint to film "tits and asses" that Shane and Patrick score as the night progresses. While they are out, Clint meets a young woman named Lily (played by Hannah Fierman). She seems very fixated on Clint and keeps telling Clint that she likes him. As the guys keep going to various bars and clubs Lily keeps showing up and always hones in on Clint to tell him that she likes him. As it turns out she isn't as sweet as she looks and the men's excitement quickly turns to horror after she goes with them back to their place.
In the second segment called "Second Honeymoon" we meet a young couple, germaphobic Sam (played by Joe Swanberg) and Stephanie (played by Sophia Takal) who are on a road trip through a desert area probably the American Southwest. While on the road trip the couple starts to have unsettling experiences like loud mysterious knocks on their hotel room door at night and things getting moved around in their hotel room. Also someone is filming them as they sleep at night but who and what their intentions are is disturbing and surprising.
In the third segment called "Tuesday the 17th) we meet a group of four young people on a trip to the lake. The group consists of Wendy (played by Norma C. Quinones), Samantha (played by Jeannine Elizabeth Yoder), Spider (played by Jason Yachanin) and Joey (played by Drew Moerlein). Wendy organizes the trip and at first her friends are lulled into a false sense of security. Wendy is initally very mysterious about why she wants to go to the lake at this particular time. As the group walks to the lake, Joey sees some crazy things in his camera like dead people. Wendy mysteriously states that everyone is going to die up here. After Joey asks Wendy about what she said earlier, Wendy tells of how she had four friends who were killed at this lake some years ago. The group is skeptical of Wendy partly because she laughs after telling them her story. Is Wendy telling the truth? Is the killer still at the lake ready to strike again? If so, will anyone survive?
In the fourth segment called "The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger" we meet Emily (played by Helen Rogers) and her boyfriend James (played by Daniel Kaufman). They are long distance dating. Emily tells James that she has a strange ache in her forearm and she is hearing strange footsteps in her apartment at night. She promises to call him when she hears the footsteps again and so she does. While she is talking to James, a child comes into Emily's room and slams the door. Naturally Emily is convinced that her apartment is haunted. Later, during a conversation, Emily and James refer to an incident that happened when Emily was younger. As it turns out things aren't what they seem and Emily might be dealing with something worse than just a haunting.
In the fifth segment called "10/31/98" we meet a group of guys: Chad (played by Chad Villela), Matt (played by Matt Bettinelli-Oplin), Tyler (played by Tyler Gillett) and Paul (played by Paul Natonek) and they are heading out to party and get into mischief on this Halloween night. They get more than they bargained for when they accidentally go to the wrong house for a Halloween party and come across a girl (played by Nicole Herb) and try to help her escape what appears to be cult.
Finally we have the surprise ending of "Tape 56" in which we find out definitively what is going on at the old man's house and what happened to the group of guys there.
I liked this one because it is different than other found footage films. The first person POV was a nice touch but the stories themselves are actually good and unique. The acting felt very natural even when unnatural things happen. I liked that each story has a twist to it but please don't watch it just to figure out the twists. I find that watching movies just to figure out twists completely takes away from the film watching experience. As an added bonus, the segment titled "10/31/98" had an alternate ending that I marginally preferred to the original ending although I do like the original ending.
Definitely worth watching even if you aren't curious but be warned there is a lot of nudity and graphic violence in this picture considering its premise.
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