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Very disappointing. The film was just mis-step after mis-step. SPOILERS: First, the wraparound segment stars a gang of pervy morons who videotape themselves vandalizing houses and molesting women in public. We don't care for them or about them, so why should we care what happens to them when they break into an old house (especially when they suggest that if they run into the homeowner that he be "taken care of")? As one of them watches the VHS tapes, the other begin to disappear, but again, why should we care? They're thugs and can't be killed fast enough, in my opinion. There's bits of things that are supposed to creep us out, I guess, such as a glimpse of something in the basement, but the guy who sees it instantly dismisses it, even though he could REWIND THE FOOTAGE AND WATCH IT AGAIN. And a dead body disappears and reappears in a chair behind one of the men, but no one notices. And finally, a zombie/thing shows up, never mind that we've never seen it in the house up until now. And most head-scratching of all...the wraparound segment ENDS between the fourth and fifth stories!! I take that back. The biggest problems that I couldn't wrap my head around were all the unanswered questions: Who hired the thugs to get the tape? Why did he want it? What is on that tape? Who's the guy with the collection? What's the thing in the basement? Who is the zombie on the stairs? Why are the gang members so interchangeable? Ugh. The wraparound was directed by Adam (YOU'RE NEXT) Wingard. Ridiculous.

The first segment is "Amateur Night", directed by David (THE SIGNAL) Bruckner is strong: three guys go out to pick up girls and bring them back to their hotel. One of them is wearing spycam glasses in the hopes of recording themselves having sex. But they bring back the wrong girl. It's creepy and has some scary moments to it, especially as the guy wearing the glasses takes refuge in the bathroom as his friends are being attacked, and must try to sneak out.

The second story is "Second Honeymoon", directed by Ti (HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, THE INNKEEPERS) West and stars mumblecore director Joe Swanberg. A young couple record their vacation even as they are stalked by a young woman in a mask. I was really looking forward to this one, being a Ti West fan, but it's really the weakest of the bunch, with his slow burn approach where nothing really happens until the end, and then a very lame twist ending, making me wonder "Why would they even record this?"

Third is "Tuesday the 17th" (directed by Glenn "I SELL THE DEAD" & "STAKE LAND" McQuaid), in which a young woman takes her new friends to a lake in the woods for the weekend, only to reveal that she's brought them there for another purpose. Now, when the lead chick gets weird and says, "You're all going to die out here," NO ONE takes that as a red flag and beats cheeks back to the city. And since the chick has an ulterior motive, why would she tip her hand? This segment features a serial killer called the Glitch, but he appears all static-y and in two places at once, again, with no explanation as to who he is, why he kills and why he has these powers. This was the most disappointing of the tales, as Mr. McQuaid is very talented. His two features mentioned above were well-crafted, and to see him turn out something as raw and rank and amateurish as this piece was a real letdown.

Next is "The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger" (directed by Joe HANNAH TAKES THE STAIRS Swanberg), which tells the story of a young woman who Skypes nightly with her doctor boyfriend, studying on the east coast. She feels her apartment is haunted and has a nagging pain in her arm. She keeps seeing the ghost of a little boy and explores the apartment with her laptop so her boyfriend can see, too. While Swanberg's mumblecore films are hit-or-miss, he really knocked it out of the park with this short. It's creepy and the scariest one in the film. But, again, once the twist comes, it offers us several questions with no answers. None. And because it's been so good up until this point, it leaves us the most frustrated.

Finally, in "10/31/98" (directed by the group Radio Silence), four young men go to a Halloween party but enter the wrong house and find something devilish going on in the attic, where it then becomes a fight to escape alive. This piece had a lot of FX and was pretty entertaining, but the four guys were interchangeable and uninteresting, so it's just a fight-or-flight piece.

There's a lot of hype around this movie. Don't believe it. And yet, a V/H/S 2 has just been announced.  It's frustrating because you know there's a lot of talent here, but the movie mostly comes across as lazy filmmaking.

DOCTOR 13