V/H/S: Critic Reviews

A low-budget horror anthology with segments both ghastly and moronic ...

Smart, scary stuff.

"V/H/S" probably sounded great in the pitch meeting, but it loses all luster through some shoddy execution.

"The Blair Witch Project" meets mumblecore.

In too many of the shorts, bad acting quickly undermines the "authenticity" the aesthetics labor to achieve.

This indie compilation has enough inventive chills to interest any horror fan.

All of the short films are genuinely unnerving, and the point-of-view camerawork is, at times, startling.

What's the point? None of the segments is particularly compelling. Strung together, it's way too much of a muchness.

This horror anthology collects six shorts of varying quality, all purported to be found footage. My favorite is Ti West's Second Honeymoon.

No one should be expected to endure 115 minutes of this nonsense.

This anthology of "found footage" horror featurettes is predictably hit-and-miss.

The segments vary in quality and the whole overstays its welcome at nearly two hours.

"V/H/S" puts the majority of today's mainstream "scary" movies to shame; perhaps the solution is to cut them all down to about 15 minutes, and fund them on a shoestring.

Cinema's first found-footage horror anthology suggests that there's still some life left in these old tropes.

An ingenious hybrid: part Godardian art film, part abstract video experiment, part sleazy shocker, and all self-castigating interrogation of what film-theory types call the "male gaze."

Two hours of nausea-inducing shaky cam footage that fails to tell a coherent or engrossing central story.

Refreshingly, V/H/S promises no more than it delivers, always a plus with genre fare.

At nearly two hours, the gimmick punctures a hole in itself, causing ambience bleed-out.

A solid and entertaining anthology film...

Conceptual pedantry aside, there are things to enjoy here.

A hit-and-miss affair.

The anthology framework works well and features enough audacious moments to merit a viewing.

It might well be a brand-new different kind of found footage movie, but it's no better a work of horror cinema as a result.

A mixed bag of found-footage horror shorts, this anthology gives rising star filmmakers a chance to do something original with the genre. Of course, some of the clips are much more effective than others, and some are little more than gimmicky jokes.

A nauseating experience on every level.