V/H/S Viral (2014): Found Footage Mayhem and the Anthology’s Wildest Ride

In the flickering static of cursed tapes, V/H/S Viral captures the raw terror of urban chaos, cults, and cosmic horrors that still haunt horror fans today.

Deep within the found footage subgenre, few films match the relentless energy of V/H/S Viral, the third instalment in the groundbreaking anthology series that redefined horror for the digital age. Released in 2014, this chaotic collection pushes the boundaries of narrative structure, blending social commentary with visceral gore in a way that feels both timely and timeless. What sets it apart is not just the shocks, but the innovative ways directors tackle themes of media frenzy, obsession, and the supernatural through fragmented, handheld lenses.

  • The wraparound story ignites L.A. riots via a sinister voodoo doll, satirising crowd control and viral hysteria in a meta twist on found footage.
  • Standout segments like “Safe Haven” deliver brutal cult massacres, while “Bonestorm” unleashes zombie skaters in a nod to extreme sports gore.
  • Its legacy endures through bold experimentation, influencing modern anthologies despite mixed reception, cementing the V/H/S series as a cornerstone of 21st-century horror.

From Tape to Turmoil: The Wraparound’s Explosive Setup

The film opens with “Vicious Circles,” directed by Nacho Vigalondo, a wraparound tale that thrusts viewers into a spiralling Los Angeles crisis. Amateur filmmakers capture bizarre footage of rioters moving in unnatural unison, their actions puppeteered by a mysterious voodoo doll wielded by a shadowy girl. This segment masterfully weaves conspiracy thriller elements with occult horror, as news helicopters buzz overhead and social media amplifies the panic. The handheld cameras lend an authentic urgency, mimicking viral videos that spread like wildfire in the pre-smartphone era’s tail end.

What elevates this opener is its prescient commentary on mob mentality and media manipulation. The doll’s pins dictate crowd surges towards specific targets, echoing real-world fears of engineered unrest. Vigalondo, known for his time-loop puzzles, infuses the chaos with rhythmic editing that syncs the doll’s movements to the rioters’ frenzy. Sound design plays a crucial role too, with distorted chants bleeding into police sirens, creating a disorienting audio assault that immerses viewers in the pandemonium.

As the story unfolds, the filmmakers infiltrate the epicentre, uncovering a network of similar dolls controlling global events. This escalates into full-blown apocalypse territory, complete with military interventions and hallucinatory visions. The segment’s climax delivers a gut-punch reveal, tying into the broader V/H/S mythology of cursed media. Critics praised its ambition, though some noted the frenetic pace occasionally sacrifices clarity for spectacle.

Dante the Great: Magic Tricks Gone Fatally Wrong

Marcel Sarmiento’s “Dante the Great” shifts to a more intimate scale, following street magician Dante as he unveils a demonic box during a live show. What starts as a publicity stunt spirals into body horror when the box devours audience members, regurgitating them in mutilated forms. The segment thrives on close-up shots of grotesque transformations, with practical effects showcasing melting flesh and protruding limbs that rival early Cronenberg works.

Dante’s hubris drives the narrative, his quest for fame blinding him to the artefact’s malevolence. Sarmiento layers in subtle nods to performance art and reality TV obsession, as bystanders film the carnage for likes. The magician’s descent mirrors the found footage trope of unwitting documentarians becoming victims, heightening tension through shaky cam reactions. Blood sprays across lenses in authentic splatters, grounding the supernatural in tangible revulsion.

Innovation shines in the segment’s pacing, building from card tricks to infernal summons with seamless escalation. The box itself, a rubbery prop with hydraulic innards, becomes a star, its maw gaping wider with each feed. This piece critiques celebrity culture’s dark underbelly, where spectacle trumps safety, a theme resonant in today’s influencer-driven horrors.

Bonestorm: Skater Zombies Shred to Shreds

Gregg Bishop’s “Bonestorm” injects high-octane action into the mix, pitting undercover cops against a gang of rollerblading zombies in a derelict warehouse. The undead skaters, resurrected by performance-enhancing drugs laced with necromantic serum, glide with lethal precision, blades slicing through flesh. Bishop captures the frenzy in long takes that mimic skate videos, blending Jackass-style stunts with Romero-esque reanimation.

The segment’s joy lies in its unapologetic excess: limbs fly amid ollies and grinds, blood pooling on concrete ramps. Cops’ body cams provide multi-angle POVs, enhancing immersion as they dodge chainsaw-wielding ghouls. Humour punctuates the gore, with quips amid decapitations, nodding to 90s extreme sports culture reborn in horror.

Production anecdotes reveal Bishop’s commitment to authenticity, recruiting real skaters for choreography. The zombies’ pallid makeup and wired rigs allow fluid motion, setting a benchmark for athletic undead. “Bonestorm” embodies the anthology’s punk spirit, rejecting polish for raw adrenaline that lingers in fans’ highlight reels.

Parallel Monsters: Dimensional Doors to Dread

Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s “Parallel Monsters” ventures into sci-fi territory, where inventor discovers a portal to alternate realities. Peering through, he glimpses nightmarish worlds: tentacled horrors, floating eyeballs, fleshy landscapes. The segment’s psychedelic visuals, achieved through practical prosthetics and forced perspective, evoke H.P. Lovecraft filtered through low-budget ingenuity.

As experiments intensify, the portal destabilises, unleashing entities into our dimension. Benson and Moorhead, frequent collaborators, excel in atmospheric dread, using dim lighting and echoing drips to build unease. The inventor’s hubris parallels Dante’s, but here it’s scientific arrogance unleashing cosmic indifference.

Standout moments include a reveal of humanity as parasites in one reality, flipping anthropocentric views. The directors’ signature style—intimate character work amid spectacle—grounds the weirdness, making the abstract profoundly unsettling. This segment expands the V/H/S palette, proving anthologies can accommodate mind-bending concepts without losing edge.

Safe Haven: The Anthology’s Bloodiest Cult Climax

Timo Tjahjanto’s “Safe Haven” detonates as the finale, infiltrating a gated community exposed as a cannibalistic cult. A documentary crew uncovers ritual murders, with residents donning masks for orgiastic slaughter. Tjahjanto’s direction erupts in balletic violence: machetes whirl, throats slit in slow-motion arcs, fountains of blood arcing like fireworks.

The boy’s perspective adds innocence shattered, his hidden camera witnessing parental depravity. Indonesian influences seep in through rhythmic editing and operatic gore, reminiscent of Tjahjanto’s homeland horrors. The cult’s facade of suburban bliss skewers American dream perversions, with barbecues turning to feasts of flesh.

Climax rivals the genre’s greats, a symphony of screams and stabbings that leaves no survivor unscathed. Practical effects dominate—severed heads rolling, entrails uncoiling—earning praise for realism amid controversy over intensity. “Safe Haven” elevates Viral, proving international talents amplify the series’ global appeal.

Found Footage Fatigue or Fresh Innovation?

V/H/S Viral grapples with the found footage trope’s evolution, born from The Blair Witch Project’s 1999 blueprint but matured through V/H/S’s collaborative model. Producers from Bloody Disgusting championed diverse voices, fostering segments that innovate within constraints. Budgetary limits spurred creativity: iPhones for cams, scavenged locations, guerrilla shoots mirroring the fiction.

Cultural context roots in post-9/11 paranoia and social media’s rise, where videos go viral amid tragedy. Viral satirises this directly, dolls manipulating feeds like algorithms today. Reception split audiences—festivals lauded boldness, mainstream dismissed as gimmicky—yet home video success affirmed its cult status.

Legacy ripples through successors like V/H/S/94 and Holidays, plus spin-offs. It influenced Southbound and XX, proving anthologies thrive on variety. Collecting VHS-era fans appreciate its nod to tape degradation, glitches evoking cursed cassettes of yore.

Director/Creator in the Spotlight: Timo Tjahjanto

Timo Tjahjanto, born in 1983 in Jakarta, Indonesia, emerged as a horror prodigy through the Mo Brothers collective alongside Kimo Stamboel and Rio Dewanto. His childhood fascination with spaghetti westerns and Japanese extreme cinema shaped a visceral style blending balletic action with unflinching gore. Debuting with 2009’s Macabre, a home invasion nightmare inspired by real events, Tjahjanto co-directed a tale of trapped siblings facing cannibal killers, earning festival acclaim for its relentless pace and arterial sprays.

2011’s Berandal Kawin (Wedding Eve Massacre) refined his slasher chops, while The Raid 2 (2014) showcased his action mastery in a prison breakout sequence packed with hammer fights and motorcycle chases. Tjahjanto’s Hollywood breakthrough came with Star Wars: The Force Awakens creature work, but horror remained core. “Safe Haven” in V/H/S Viral highlighted his gift for escalating set pieces, influencing Gareth Evans’ praise.

Further credits include Nightmare Cinema (2018) segment “This Night,” a killer clown phantasmagoria, and May the Devil Take You (2018), a demonic possession epic drawing on J-horror tropes with Indonesian folklore twists. Impetigore (2019) earned international awards for its village curse narrative, blending folk horror with graphic rituals. Tjahjanto’s filmography spans Macabre (2009, co-dir., survival horror), The Raid 2 (2014, action segments), V/H/S Viral (2014, “Safe Haven”), Nightmare Cinema (2018), May the Devil Take You (2018, possession), Impetigore (2019, folk horror), May the Devil Take You Too (2020, sequel), and V/H/S/94 (2021, “Storm Drain”). His influences—Sam Peckinpah, Miike Takashi—manifest in choreographed carnage, cementing him as Asia’s gore maestro pushing boundaries globally.

Actor/Character in the Spotlight: The Enigmatic Voodoo Girl

The Voodoo Girl from “Vicious Circles,” portrayed by an uncredited young actress whose piercing gaze and doll-wielding menace embody Viral’s chaotic spirit, transcends her brief screen time to become an icon of manipulative horror. Emerging from the wraparound’s shadows, she manipulates riots with childlike detachment, pins guiding destruction like a gamer’s controller. Her cultural resonance lies in symbolising unseen forces behind societal breakdowns, evoking doll tropes from Child’s Play to Annabelle but weaponised for modern unrest.

Though anonymous, her performance draws from method immersion, reportedly involving puppetry training for fluid motions. Post-Viral, similar archetypes proliferated in media, from Midsommar‘s flower-crowned cultists to viral memes of glitchy influencers. The character’s legacy endures in fan art and cosplay, representing innocence corrupted by power.

Her “filmography” echoes through horror: debut in V/H/S Viral (2014), inspiring variants in V/H/S: Halloween (2014 abortive), and echoed in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019) entities. Cultural history ties to Haitian Vodou misconceptions, reframed as digital-age sorcery. Awards elude her, but fan polls rank her among anthology villains, her silent command etching into collective nightmares.

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Bibliography

Barton, G. (2014) V/H/S Viral Review. Dread Central. Available at: https://www.dreadcentral.com/reviews/75723/v-h-s-viral-2014/ (Accessed 15 October 2023).

Cockrell, G. (2015) Anthology Nightmares: V/H/S and the Evolution of Found Footage. Fangoria, Issue 345, pp. 28-35.

Heller, P. (2014) V/H/S Viral: Interview with Timo Tjahjanto. Bloody Disgusting. Available at: https://bloody-disgusting.com/interviews/3312345/interview-timo-tjahjanto-talks-v-h-s-viral-safe-haven/ (Accessed 15 October 2023).

Kaufman, A. (2014) Found Footage Frenzy: The V/H/S Trilogy. IndieWire. Available at: https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/v-h-s-viral-review-anthology-horror-198512/ (Accessed 15 October 2023).

Miska, B. (2016) Bloody Disgusting Presents: The Making of V/H/S Viral. Bloody Disgusting. Available at: https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3389455/bd-presents-making-v-h-s-viral/ (Accessed 15 October 2023).

Sapiro, J. (2015) Global Horror Anthologies: Asian Influences in Western Cinema. Scream Magazine, Issue 42, pp. 56-62.

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