The original V/H/S marks a significant moment in my “journey” as a “writer,” as it was one of the first movies that I was really looking forward to and managed to get a screener for ahead of its release. More than a decade later, the found-footage franchise is alive and well, with Shudder debuting a new entry into the series on an annual basis since 2021. As is the nature of any anthology series or long-running franchise, it’s easy for your eyes to glaze over when you hear a new installment is coming out, especially given that they’re often a middling experience, but when you hear that V/H/S/Halloween is on the way, it’s hard not to get excited about an installment that’s meant to lean into the seasonal excitement of the holiday. And, as someone who has a fonder nostalgic spot for V/H/S as compared to Saw or The Conjuring, it was hard not to be eager to check it out. Much like what came before it, though, V/H/S/Halloween is another entry that doesn’t have an obvious stand-out success, nor does it have any outright stinkers.

Many of the previous V/H/S sequels were united by the year in which they took place, while last year’s V/H/S/Beyond delivered vignettes that leaned more towards sci-fi than abject horror. As you can guess from the title, V/H/S/Halloween tells multiple tales centered around October 31st, all of which jump around to different years and utilize different types of cameras. This year’s batch of stories comes from filmmakers Bryan M. Ferguson, Anna Zlokovic, Paco Plaza, Casper Kelly, Alex Ross Perry, and Micheline Pitt-Norman & R.H. Norman.

If you’re not entirely familiar with these names, you’re not alone, as this V/H/S doesn’t feature any genre heavyweights with established followings. Sure, Plaza gave us [REC], Kelly gave us Too Many Cooks, Perry gave us Her Smell, and Pitt-Norman is a well-known designer, but I’d argue none of these names are ones you could slap on a poster and immediately get that many more butts in seats. Enlisting less-established filmmakers for this installment helps temper expectations, allowing the segments to speak for themselves, as opposed to causing audiences to judge each vignette compared to a filmmaker’s previous works.

As an absolute sucker for any movie that takes place on Halloween, I hate to admit that I was a bit disappointed by the overall embrace of Halloween elements in each vignette. Zlokovic’s “Coochie Coochie Coo,” Kelly’s “Fun Size,” and Pitt-Norman & Norman’s “Home Haunt” felt like the only ones that were intentionally crafted for V/H/S/Halloween, whereas the other segments felt like they were more evergreen ideas that got slightly tweaked to fit within the theme. It’s not quite as atrocious as when Kevin Smith got Halloween for the Holidays anthology and told a story that had virtually nothing to do with Halloween, but some of these segments may have been more effective had they been included in another sequel and just stripped away some of the seasonal decor seen in the background of scenes.

Another overall setback of this sequel is that it has a run time of nearly two hours, which delivers five segments, as well as a wraparound story. The nature of anthology movies means the whole experience is often judged by the least engaging segments, and even if there aren’t any outright duds in this V/H/S, the length of the experience gets exhausting and, by the end, I struggled to even remember much of what I had just seen, for good or for bad.

With those somewhat negative critiques out of the way, there’s still plenty of fun to be had in this sequel. Much to my surprise, Pitt-Norman & Norman’s “Home Haunt” ended up being my favorite of the segments, with it being a story where a Halloween fan’s home haunt comes to life to eviscerate those hoping to enjoy the neighborhood festivities. For as fun as this segment is, though, it stars makeup legend Rick Baker, which takes you out of the movie a bit, but with this being the final vignette, I’m willing to let that slide. Plaza’s “Ut Supra Sic Infra” might be the most outright scary entry, as it features a group of friends investigating a supposedly haunted house on Halloween night, though those who were terrified of Barbarian‘s “Mother” will likely be unsettled by “Coochie Coochie Coo.”

“Fun Size” embraces its title to be the most fun of all the segments, exploring what happens when you disregard the sign above the candy asking to only take one piece, with Kelly delivering a delightfully deranged segment that is just as funny as it is disturbing. By embracing comedy, though, the characters themselves are all quite obnoxious and irritating, making much of their dialogue abrasive. Perry’s “Kidprint” might be a bit too real for some audiences, as it features a local videographer offering a service of recording neighborhood kids so the footage could be used on the news if they go missing. Other than the events of this segment taking place on Halloween, there’s little about this vignette that pays respect to the holiday, so while it’s clever and creepy in its own right, it feels a bit out of place in the sequel. Ferguson’s wraparound story, “Diet Phantasma,” is very silly and has a lot of fun effects, but other than exploring a diet soda being tested in order to be released in time for October 31st, this is another narrative that might have felt more engaging in another sequel.

Here’s the thing: even if I didn’t love V/H/S/Halloween, I love that it exists and that the V/H/S franchise is alive and well. I was entertained throughout the experience and was given a variety of different scares, whether they be serial killers or supernatural terrors or monster mayhem. As I watched the movie unfold, I was quite aware that I wasn’t totally won over, but as I witnessed the chaos of the final segment, it dawned on me that yes, I absolutely will revisit this sequel every Halloween, which isn’t something I can say about all of its predecessors. V/H/S/Halloween might not reinvent the series or break new ground for the found footage world, yet it offers just enough chaotic mayhem to delight found footage fans to make it a worthy entry into the years-long series. Oh, and it features Chat Pile’s “grimace_smoking_weed.jpeg” over the end credits, which automatically makes it pretty awesome.

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