- Directed by Simon Barrett, Steven Kostanski. Chloe Okumo
- Written by Jennifer Reeder, Chloe Okumo, Simon Barrett
- Stars Anna Hopkins, Christian Potenza, Brian Paul
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 43 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opnSln8Ue2U
Spoiler-Free Judgement Zone
It’s a five-part anthology, all based on a found-VHS-footage gimmick (like the previous three films in the series). Three of the five are really good, and they all come at the beginning, so you can tune out early if you want.
Synopsis
We watch some creepy old VHS footage where we see a bloody girl counting down from ten. The first segment begins…
A bunch of S.W.A.T. cops and camera people roll out and raid a building. It seems to be some kind of cult housed inside an airplane hangar. They find the owner of a video store who apparently plucked his own eyes out. They find the rest of the cultists, all sitting in front of a bunch of TVs.
Storm Drain
We focus on a newscast, where they talk about an alleged “Ratman” in the sewers. They interview several nut jobs in their search. The reporter goes into the tunnel to report. She hears something behind her and has to go again. They investigate further and find someone’s camp in the sewer. They run into Bill, who says he is not the ratman. What they find is a lot stranger than expected.
Best newscast ever! It’s followed by a commercial for a “Veggie Masher.”
The Wake
The S.W.A.T. team continues to explore the building, and they find a church full of bodies, mannequins, and eyeballs. There’s a big screen TV in there that shows…
It’s a funeral at the funeral parlor. The family of the deceased is said to be a little weird. Hayley is there to record the wake. No one shows up for a very long time, but she plays the funeral music and records the empty room anyway.
It starts to storm, and the lights blink on and off. She hears the occasional thumping from the coffin, and that creeps her out. Then the power goes off altogether. She goes out to grab some candles, and then when she comes back, the coffin is sitting on the stand crooked. It wasn’t before.
She calls her boss, who tells her to open up the casket and calm her mind about the body’s condition. Before she can do that, one man shows up for the wake. The mans talks to the casket for a minute and then leaves. A friend calls and tells Hayley that the corpse was a mass murderer who was all over the news. One thing leads to another, and then the tornado siren goes off. This is not going to be a good night for poor Hayley.
The Subject
Back to the cops in the building, and now the find a toy room with toys, bodies, and one small TV. Some of the cops have stopped checking in, which might be problematic.
We see a show about a human head on a mechanical spider body. It burns, and the doctor explains that the experiment is a failure.
He starts another tape, and this time, he’s doing some kind of brain surgery on two “donors.” Eventually, the subject wakes up, and he says it’s a success! He has combined human and machine. We watch the rest of the video recorded from the subject’s eyes.
The doctor continues to graft parts onto human bodies. The subject see herself on the news as a missing person. They fight, and the police come to the door. The police break in and kill the doctor. The police think it’s a mercy to kill the subject, but she runs off. It seems the old doctor had made… alternate arrangements.
Terror
As the cops start to notice there is a problem. One cop stares at a burry video screen.
A group of armed men go into a bunker of some kind. They find a chained man and shoot him in the head. There are crosses and garlic all over the walls. “America is plagued by a black cancer,” we are told. These men are going to take back America. They are insurrectionists, ready to bring the corrupt vampire-infested America to its knees.
The next day, they execute that same man again – removing all doubt that they aren’t just completely deluded goobers; one shot to the head (again). They get a new weapon and test it on the man the next day. This time, they drain his blood.
They inject some blood into a rabbit. The sun comes up, the rabbit explodes like a bomb. A large bomb. Each day, they drain more blood from their vampire. They are going to use animals as living weapons.
They all get drunk and high the night before their big attack, and two of the guys decide it’s a good idea to go in the cell and mess with the monster. It is not a good idea.
Holy Hell
It seems every one of the cops who has watched a video has died and pulled out their own eyeballs. Two girls come out and explain to Slater, the last cop, that they are a hardcore VHS nasties fetish group. They beat Slater to death with a camera to make a new film of their own.
Commentary
The creature and gore effects are surpassingly good. The rat man, the man at the wake, the “subject” are particularly good.
I’m not sure if “Terror” is just a bad parody of preppers, survivalists, and fanatics, or if it’s just bad. I suspect it’s just so cringe-inducing because it’s so realistic. (Kevin says: Yes, I think it was a good parody of militia extremists with vampires as the target of their over the top patriotic zeal.)
Overall, I think they saved the weakest segment for last, and the wraparound story wasn’t much of anything at all. The first three full segments are definitely worth watching though.