I have a deep love for anthology horror films. They remind me of digging into a trick-or-treat bag at the end of Halloween night: You dump it all out on the floor, not knowing what you are going to find. Some of it is pure gold: the full-size Snickers bar you never expected to get. Other times, it’s a handful of stale taffy or that mystery candy no one has ever actually bought, but that’s part of the fun. Even if one piece is a dud, there is always something else in the pile waiting to redeem the experience.
That’s what makes anthology horror so special to me. Each segment offers its own flavor of fear, and when one story falls flat, another one can come along and absolutely blow your mind. You might get a slow-burn ghost story next to an over-the-top creature feature, and together they create this wild grab bag of creativity. It’s the closest thing horror fans get to a sampler platter: a showcase of styles, tones and twisted imagination, all in one sitting.
Exactly one year ago from the day I sat down to write this review, I watched V/H/S/Beyond. It was not my favorite entry in the long-running series, but it still delivered enough eerie moments and creative segments to keep me semi-entertained. The V/H/S franchise has always been hit or miss, yet there is something about its blend of found-footage chaos and short-form storytelling that keeps me coming back each year. It feels like checking in with an old group of horror-loving friends, each with a new twisted tale to share.
One year later, Shudder has returned with another entry, just in time for spooky season, and this one feels tailor-made for fans like me. V/H/S/Halloween arrives packed with everything the franchise does best: strange videotapes, unsettling imagery and a healthy dose of mayhem. But this time, it leans into the most fitting theme possible. Halloween itself becomes the thread that ties it all together, and Shudder once again proves it knows exactly how to deliver a good time when the leaves start to fall and the nights grow long.
Like every V/H/S film before it, this latest entry is made up of several stories stitched together through its found-footage style.
The first story, “Coochie Coochie Coo,” follows two high schoolers (played by Samantha Cochran and Natalia Montgomery Fernandez), who decide to go out for one last night of trick-or-treating. What starts as innocent fun quickly turns terrifying when they enter a strange house and are hunted by a grotesque creature known only as The Mommy (Elena Musser).
In “Ut Supra Sic Infra,” the police attempt to reconstruct the events of a gruesome mass murder inside an abandoned mansion, with their only lead being Enric (Teo Planell), the lone survivor of that night. As the investigation unfolds, it becomes clear that the source of the horror is not in the house at all but buried somewhere inside Enric, himself.
“Fun Size” lightens the mood a bit, following a group of friends who leave a disappointing Halloween party and decide to grab some candy from an unattended bowl. Ignoring the simple rule to only take one, they soon find themselves pulled into the bowl and face to face with Fun Size, a monstrous candy mascot brought to life by Michael J. Sielaff.
In “Kidprint,” the story moves to the early 1990s, where Tim Kaplan (Stephen Gurewitz), owns a small video store and offers a service for parents to record their children, in case they ever go missing. When a string of kidnappings hits the town, Tim’s well-intentioned idea turns sinister, especially when he is asked to help find one of the missing kids he has filmed.
“Home Haunt” tells the story of a strained father and son (Jeff Harms and Noah Diamond), who find a strange vinyl record during a shopping trip. The warnings on the record are ignored, and before long, they must protect each other and their neighborhood from what they have unleashed.
Finally, “Diet Phantasma” closes out the anthology with chaos and humor as a research team creates a soda infused with actual poltergeists. Predictably, the experiment goes wrong, turning a fizzy drink into a supernatural disaster. Each short plays with its own flavor of horror, but together they capture the wild and unpredictable energy that makes V/H/S/Halloween such a fun seasonal treat for fans of the franchise.
When I say that V/H/S is a hit-or-miss series, I truly mean it. This entry is one that mostly missed for me. The tonal shifts between stories felt too extreme, pulling me out of the experience more than once. “Coochie Coochie Coo,” “Fun Size” and “Home Haunt” all center around monsters as their main threat. The creatures are impressively made and visually fun, but they carry a slightly playful energy that keeps them grounded in the familiar world of movie monsters.
Then along comes “Kidprint, which changes everything. Its story is grim, its imagery unsettling and its horror entirely human. There is no ghost, no demon, just a deeply unstable man, whose actions are far more disturbing than any supernatural being. The shift in tone is jarring, and while I understand what the filmmakers were going for, the placement of “Kidprint” in the lineup really disrupts the pacing of the entire anthology. Maybe that reaction comes from a parental instinct, because the subject matter hit me harder than expected. Either way, it made the film feel uneven, like it was unsure of what kind of fear it wanted to leave lingering when the credits rolled.
My favorite story in V/H/S/Halloween would have to be “Home Haunt.“ Maybe it is because of my own history working in haunted attractions, but this one hit just right. I found myself relating to the dad in the short, dreaming about one day setting up a small home haunt in the front yard with my daughter. There is something special about the way this story captures both the fun and the fright of Halloween.
The monsters in “Home Haunt” are over the top and absolutely delightful. They are the kind of creatures you would expect to see in an old-school haunted house, the kind that make you laugh right before they make you jump. What makes it even better is the surprise cameo from special effects legend Rick Baker, who appears as one of the neighbors. That moment, alone, made me grin from ear to ear. Unlike “Kidprint,” this short manages to balance its scares with a sense of fun, feeling like a love letter to those of us who have ever built a haunted house in the garage or dreamed of doing it someday.
Overall, I give V/H/S/Halloween three out of five stars, which is an improvement from last year’s entry. It still has some uneven moments, but when it works, it captures everything that makes anthology horror so much fun. The variety, the unpredictability and the mix of tones all remind me why I love this kind of storytelling in the first place. Like a bag of Halloween candy, there are a few pieces you could toss aside, but there are also some sweet surprises worth savoring. Even when one short misses the mark, another one jumps out to keep the spirit alive.
For fans of the series or anyone who just wants to celebrate spooky season with a collection of twisted little tales, V/H/S/Halloween feels right at home in the lineup: a messy, fun and fitting treat for those of us who never stopped believing anthology horror is where the genre shines brightest.