V/H/S Viral

Plot synopsis:
=== Vicious Circles ===
Directed by Marcel Sarmiento
Written by T.J. Cimfel, David White, and Marcel Sarmiento
In the wrap-around, Kevin, an amateur videographer constantly shoots footage of his girlfriend Iris, which she claims to enjoy. As we watch these initial images it becomes apparent that Kevin's mother is abusive, at one point bloodying his nose off-screen. Later in the evening a high speed pursuit near his neighborhood is broadcast on television, he sees the opportunity to create a viral video. But, he is too late to shoot footage as the truck speeds past his house, though he sees Iris wander outside in a daze, after receiving a mysterious video call, and get abducted. Kevin chases after the truck, egged on by images of Iris broadcast to his cell phone. The truck circles the neighborhood repeatedly, and people receive strange images on their cell phones that cause them to become violently insane. When Kevin finally catches up to the truck he sees body parts strewn on the ground around it. He examines the driver's seat only to find it empty but with a pair of disembodied hands duct taped to the wheel. Upon examining the back of the truck he finds a number of televisions stacked atop each other as in the first two movies. Iris appears on one of the tv screens and demands that Kevin upload the footage to broadcasters and presumably the internet as well. At first he refuses but does as she says when Iris begins to brutally mutilate herself. The deed done, he exits the truck as the image of Iris on the screen continues to taunt him. Outside he discovers Iris' dead body slumped against the truck with her cellphone stuck in her mouth. Kevin realizes that he has been manipulated into uploading the videos and that Iris had been dead for some time. He pulls the phone out of her mouth and sees that it's in selfie-mode. He stares in shock at himself on the screen. The closing shot shows a view of the Los Angeles skyline, smoke billowing up, lights flickering on and off and a helicopter circling overhead, implying the uploaded videos have gone viral and have begun to affect thousands, thus fulfilling the grander threat introduced in the first two films.
=== Dante the Great ===
Directed and written by Gregg Bishop
Dante the Great, an untalented illusionist, discovers the infamous cloak of Houdini that grants him the power to perform real magic. He quickly becomes famous, though he learns that the cloak requires regular sacrifices to work. Dante hires a series of female assistants and videotapes their violent deaths at the hands of the cloak. When Scarlet, his latest assistant, discovers Dante's stash of tapes, she alerts the police. Dante uses his magic powers to escape captivity and kill an entire SWAT team. Scarlet then confronts him, and the two duel over the magic cloak. Though Scarlet is briefly able to take it from him, he overpowers her and recovers it. Before Dante can kill her, Scarlet uses a trick he taught her to immobilize him, and the cloak feeds on him instead. Scarlet burns the cloak, only to find it in her house; the segment ends as arms reach from inside the cloak and grab her.
=== Parallel Monsters ===
Directed and written by Nacho Vigalondo
On each side of an interdimensional portal, parallel versions of inventor Alfonso cautiously greet each other. Overcome by curiosity, the two explore each other's worlds. At first the worlds seem exact mirrored duplicates, but they are revealed to hold divergent dominant religions. As a pornographic snuff film plays in the background, his wife Marta prompts him to perform a ceremony with two men. Disturbed, Alfonso leaves the house and sees a large blimp with an inverted cross. When he attempts to record it, he angers the two men. Their appearance turns demonic, and he attacks them. He flees back to his house, where Marta, now naked, reveals demonic genitalia. Alfonso strikes her and flees back to his world, where the demonic Alfonso has attacked the normal version of Marta as she slept. The two versions of Marta each kill their husbands, blaming them for the actions of their double.
=== Bonestorm ===
Directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Scott Moorhead
Written by Justin Benson
A trio of skateboarders perform various stunts as the videographer they hired pushes them into increasingly dangerous circumstances in the hopes of filming a snuff film. After they become bored, the videographer suggests they continue the film shoot in Tijuana, where they subsequently become lost after buying fireworks. Once they find a suitable place, the videographer encourages them to again perform more stunts. When one of the skateboarders injures himself and bleeds on a pentagram, a group of cloaked cultists attack them. Using improvised weapons, including their skateboards, the skateboarders kill the cultists, though all but two of the skateboarders die in the ensuing fight. The dead cultists then rise as skeletons. Using the fireworks, the skateboarders destroy several of the skeletons. The surviving skateboarders then flee back toward the border as a monstrous creature appears and presumably eats the videographer along with his camera as we're treated to a first-person view of being swallowed into the creatures gullet.

Tags: paranormal, violence, murder, flashback

Review:
It's a shame because there was much potential from the first two V/H/S movies that this could become a good horror anthology franchise because it's such a great premise and found-footage is best in small 20-30 minutes doses but this movie tried to make an actual story with a couple random segments that make no sense.
Also this one was a lot more high tech than the others so it didn't make much sense for it to be classified as "found footage", especially since some of the camera work was not done by someone involved in the segments, it would be shot from random angles that wouldn't make sense to be shooting from if you were just filming with a friend.
These stories all stink except for "Parallel Monsters," which is good enough to warrant its own film.If you can, watch "Parallel Monsters" without wasting your time with the rest of this sequel..
The third installment in this fairly admired cult series, is not only the worst in the series, but maybe the worst film I've been subjected to in a year that has already seen two Adam Sandler and three Kevin Hart movies.First off, if you don't know how these films are constructed, parts one and two use a framing device where characters (all amidst their own scary situations) watch found V/H/S tapes, which depict 3 found-footage, low budget horror short films (all from different directors).
In "V/H/S: Viral" the three shorts are held together (like glue) by the story of a guy trying to film a supposed car chase, which becomes (from what I can decipher) a stupid commentary on the lack of coherent content in videos uploaded by teenagers that go viral, in this day and age.
But I guess, if you have nothing better to do, you can read on and find out more about the individual shorts "Viral" has to offer.The first short, "Dante the Great", directed by Gregg Bishop, is about a lame magician, who finds a magical cloak and becomes a big star.
Verdict: Good premise, but poor visuals, with a story that goes nowhere.The second short, "Parallel Monsters", directed by Nacho Vigalondo, sees my favorite premise, where a man creates a door to an alternate universe, only to have a conversation with his alternate self.
In "V/H/S: Viral" the framing device makes absolutely no sense, with an ending that is so incoherent, that when the main female lead proceeds to continuously bang her head against a wall during the final minutes, I wanted to join her in this action, if only to avoid watching any more of this movie..
VHS was probably my favorite horror film of 2012, some of the shorts fell flat (static monster and connecting story) but most of the others are really amazing, especially the last.
VHS Viral just feels like it lacks the same vision and direction that VHS 1 and 2 had.Whether you like it or hate it VHS is built around the idea of playing with portable cameras, experimenting with the "found footage" horror sub-genre, and really presenting a horror film from the POV of those going through it.
The alternate universe segment was actually pretty good, but aside from that this film wasn't truly entertaining.It is however worth watching just for the fun of it.
That said, VHS Viral is one of the worst movies I've ever seen period; inside or outside of the horror genre and I'm completely baffled by this.This time we only have 3 stories within the movie, and 2 of them are easily the worst in the trilogy, while one manages to be interesting, albeit not at all scary and if not for a few bloody moments, didn't really fit well anywhere in the trilogy.
Before I start this review I have seen the other V/H/S movies and to me I thought those films was actually really shocking but still fun to watch, and when I heard this movie was coming out I was looking forward to it, and the trailers got me excited for the film, and after seeing the film...
This segment wasted an enormous amount of our time simply showing skateboarding tricks, only for the pay off to feel like a video game where the kids weren't even scared (so how are we meant to be?) and refused to run away.
One highly mediocre film, Dante the Great, that's like something out of a lame SyFy Channel movie yet still watchable, and the wrap around film to tie it altogether, (the not so) Vicious Circles, the weakest of the bunch.Plus there's a short and incoherent section of what looks like a bunch of Latino gangbangers having a party and one vato flips out and slaughters them all for no apparent reason.
(A fourth segment was edited out.)The first is like a damn good episode of "The X Files." The fight with the cops was fantastic, and the special effects were surprisingly good for a "V/H/S" movie.The second film is a wonderfully creative horror/science fiction tale that plays out like a terrific classic short story.
(Yes, it begins a bit slow, but I think that's an intentional part of the narrative.) This segment gets extra points for its unabashed use of some not-so-subtle Freudian body horror.The third film isn't perfect, with a thin story and some schlock horror cheesiness.
Overall, this is still a FUN anthology horror that plays out more like an action film with interesting premise but a somewhat disappointing and forgettable outcome in the end >>C+<<.
Everything from the horrible camera work to the lousy acting was laughable at best, at least until you begin to think about how this movie is the 3rd installment to a great series.
I can kind of understand what they were going for but was so poorly executed such that the spliced up scenes made little sense."Parallel Monsters", the second short is probably the only one worth watching, it has a creepy-comedic vibe to it, but it feels more like a dark-comedy than a horror.TL;DRThe film is watchable, but I wouldn't go out of my way to see it.
Not saying that this is bad, or good, simply stating a fact.Overall, a completely missable movie, even if you liked the previous ones.Oh, and using Beethoven's 9th Symphony doesn't make it any better..
The first V/H/S was a nice addition to the found footage genre of horror movies.V/H/S part 2 was a feeble attempt to mimic the first but with far less credibility and creativity.V/H/S Viral looks like they just said screw it.
The last two "V/H/S" installments were nothing incredible, and shared the commonality of having a shaky (speaking in terms of narrative and videography) wraparound story but found ways to compile four or five well-executed short horror stories into something worth watching.The genre's third entry is where it starts to show that maybe an annual tradition for this franchise may not be the best thing for it.
It wasn't atypical for at least one of the shorts in the prior installments to be burdened by shaky videography, but when the wraparound story (the metaphorical glue holding this anthology together) and another one of the stories are brought down so heavily by their lackluster videography, and the two additional shorts are somewhat effective yet light, is when you have a third installment that feels nothing but a rushed entry into a franchise that's already something of a roller-coaster.To begin with, the wraparound story, Marcel Sarmiento's "Vicious Circles," by far the most incoherent wraparound story of the three films, focuses on a man so obsessed with catching a big event on camera so the video can go viral he becomes neglectful of his girlfriend's feelings.
The short manages to be the most fun "V/H/S: Viral" has to offer, even if it's all a little too predictable, and features some of the strongest (and most visible) effects work of the film.Nacho Vigalondo's "Parallel Monsters" is next, a short entirely in Spanish, concerning interdimensional mayhem as an inventor creates access to an alternate universe through which he finds another version of himself.
Viral, the third movie in the V/H/S horror series, is far from perfect, the framing narrative that connects the separate stories being incredibly hard to fathom, and the film's collective of directors taking great liberties with their format, frequently using footage taken from impossible angles and unlikely sources that serve to undermine the sense of realism so important to the genre.
Stylised editing techniques further hamper the credibility of the found footage (this being most notable in the final story).However, despite these issues, V/H/S/Viral still manages to be quite a bit of fun as a whole, with a trio of inventive tales amidst the chaos of messy wraparound story Vicious Circles from director Marcel Sarmiento, in which a young man on a bike gives chase to the renegade ice cream truck that has abducted his girlfriend while viral videos warp the minds of people in his neighbourhood (!?!).The first of the separate stories, Dante The Great, is directed by Gregg Bishop (Dance of the Dead) and stars Justin Welborn as famous illusionist Dante, who owes his success to a supernatural cloak rumoured to have once belonged to Harry Houdini.
It's not quite as good as the first two movies and it does sometimes feel like more of a satire than a frightening horror film (although the gore is unreal).
Some shorts are better than others (I really enjoyed 'DANTE THE GREAT' and 'PARALLEL MONSTERS') but even as a whole, most fans of the series shouldn't be disappointed!Watch our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: http://youtu.be/FqAO2eQsONk. Great 3rd installment.
its not for everyone & if you are the emo melancholic psychological, criminally insane type - like hannibal lecter or Se7en type of horror fan, this movie may disappoint you.i think VHS is worth a 2nd visit in the cinema thats how much i love it!.
I hated the direction they're starting to go in, which is instead of having characters from the story film the event (like it's always been), they have professional filmmakers recording the scene like a movie, covering many professional angles, with crisp sound and editing.
While not as good as the first two installments in the series, I still found V/H/S: VIRAL to be a pretty creative and entertaining movie.
Not really creepy or scary like some segments from the first two movies, but I enjoyed V/H/S: VIRAL nonetheless.
I really wanted to like this movie but the stories, acting, and directing made it almost impossible.Here are few good horror movies you can watch instead of this hunk of crap.Lovely Molly, The Innkeepers, The Sacrament, House of the Devil, Absentia, Oculus, The Taking of Deborah Logan, Grave Encounters, and The Pact..
I saw the first V/H/S when it was released,and although it was kinda shoddy ,a bit of it was o.k. It had a saving grace ,and even if only one segment was great,it had a place in the market.With the second in the series ,it too had one great part ,and the others were only passable.This third one is .....well, a mess.Incoherent is a nice thing to say about this 3 rd one.First ,it should be called Cellcams viral,because i don't think anyone in the last two movies have even seen a 1/2 format VHS cam at all.I will admit that being a fan of zombies ,and an old skateboarder had me liking the last story (?) the best.Still ,it made no sense ,so it is like the rest of this mess...leaving you saying W.T.F.
As mentioned by other reviewers before: the first and the second segments are fine, although some parts are quite bizarre (like the flying Antichrist zeppelin and the genitals from hell)- and some parts even do look good (e.g. the parallel Universe machine).But the third story, which seems to take place at the same set as the end of the wrap-around-story, is some of the worst written, badly filmed and uninspired piece of horror i have ever seen.Additionally the wrap-around-story does not make much sense with its squeezed-in, going off-topic scenes and it's CGI generated picture glitches.Really?
From time to time you get some good scenes like the (Spoiler)guy's feet being dragged from the car and the 2 hand scenes in the magic video.Vicious Circles starts of promising with the couple video but their story is the least exciting and never really goes anywhere.Dante the Great started off good but just got repetitive and low budget towards the end.
Its a very cool idea to play with but it wasn't ended properly.Parallel Monsters was good for the first minutes or so but when they are doing their things it just goes way down hill and there is never any sort of explanation for the hell is supposed to be going on, its just confusing.Bonestorm had so much potential but had some major flaws.
but the worst parts about it were that the fight scene could have been so much cooler had it not been so up close like that and we never got to see whatever came out at the end.and truth be told I'm not even sure what Gorgeous Vortex was, there were only 3 videos and then the main story type deal, so if someone could help me out on that one.Overall, the movie is poorly executed and fails to even touch the other 2 in terms of horror and creativity.
The current anthology includes a wrap around segment "Vicious Circles" involving an odd technological virus that makes its users rendered numb; "Dante the Great" a TWILIGHT ZONE manqué involving a redneck who discovers a sinister magician's cape that has amazing powers; "Parallel Monsters" a Spanish speaking sci-fi blend of THE OUTER LIMITS meets David Cronenberg 'flesh for fantasy' body horror and the final (and best) segment "Bonestorm" with skate rats battling monstrous forces in Mexico's Tijuana during the "Day of the Dead".
The first two instalments created quite a stir with their raw, shaky video and poor quality audio, video-cassette-style tales of: ghosts, murder, zombies, aliens, satanic rituals, harpies and the like; and I was excited to see how this follow-up would fair in comparison.Fans of the other two will find instant disappointment, as the way the movie is shot/edited (including all that "rough and raw" goodness) seems to have been omitted?
Just to get this out of the way, I am a HUGE fan of the VHS franchise, it's remained as my favorite found footage horror movie series since it's debut.
The stories were nothing I could actually get in to and it had me laughing more than feeling vulnerable, which is what I like about horror films..
After watching the three films of the trilogy, I think it was a good idea to abandon the "damned videotape" idea and update it in a form of viral videos, which allows for a different kind of frame story.Oh, and I think the movie is trying to tell us something about our urge to be famous at any cost and by any means, but quite sincerely, I don't think anyone who sees this movie will really care about that.Overall score: 7/10.
This time around, there are only three segments with a wrap around storyline, and instead of the whole VHS angle, this is more about things being filmed with a mobile phone and being uploaded to the internet, hence the 'Viral' aspect.The wrap around story is quite cool and features a a young couple watching a live police chase happening in their neighborhood.
I came into this film with high expectations after loving the 1st and 2nd film however this was terrible.This time around it follows the story of this runaway ice cream truck which emits a signal to make all the teens in the area record everything.This was ridiculous, i could tell the message of the film was teens record too much online etc etc but it seemed really forced onto the overall film.THE SEGMENTS(besides gorgeous vortex)The first one Dante the great is about this magician who finds a cloak which grants him powers similar to telekinesis.The cgi used was alright but was terrible at some stages.He finds out that the cloak is like a vampire and needs to "feed" to give him the powers.The acting was terrible,i liked the idea of it all but it collapses due to the poor acting and overall story.Parallel monsters:The story is about a dude who creates this machine which opens up a portal to a parallel dimension,He meets himself in the opposite one and decides to switch each others places for 15 minutes but it all goes wrong.i really enjoyed this one until this demon vagina shows up and the effects used looked really cheap,The acting was half decent.i just feel like it went downhill 10 minutes into it.Bonestorm: My god this one was bad.its about these skateboarders who are trying to film some tricks and they accidentally start a ritual,and these skeleton themed cult tries to kill them.
I found the second movie in the series to be one of the best horror films in the last decade.
They seem to have abandoned that idea here and it does make the movie feel a lot more like a collection of shorts than being connected stories.The actual stories given to us, though, are really just as good as most in the VHS canon.
I loved Benson & Moorehead's prior film RESOLUTION and this gives me a lot of hope that they have great things in the future.'In the end, I found this movie to be no different than the rest of the series, or from any horror anthology ever produced, as matter of fact.
Go watch something like POULTRYGEIST and then come back and tell me this is one of the worst horror movies ever made..
And feels like a TV show segments more than a movie.