V/H/S:Viral

I love intelligent horror films, especially if they are made in a unique way. There are plenty of titles who show how great horror can be made, with the right director. Found footage horror is one of those genres who have become very popular for many years. I am not sure if V/H/S can be placed in this category, but there are elements in the stories the first film delivered. V/H/S showed how different directors could make a story, based on different VHS tapes. The first film had some great short stories, i really enjoyed one of them called Amateur Night. The scene where the invited woman become a flesh eating beast looks great, and feels really creepy. Overall V/H/S delivered horror quality, and proved to have an intelligent combination. When the sequel V/H/S/2 landed, i was totally blown away. This sequel is even better than the first film, and had some of the greatest short film stories so far.The story called Safe Haven is one of the best short film horror stories i have ever seen, i am honest. This story is so good you will be shocked how disturbed this religious cult is. I also enjoyed the story called A Ride In The Park, a zombie invasion in a forest area, that goes absolutely insane. V/H/S/2 had both better stories, better acting and a much darker tone in each story. So when i heard the news of V/H/S:Viral is coming out, i was really excited. With new directors on board this time, and with some changes made since the second film, is this third film exactly what we ere hoping for, or is this a sequel that never should have been made at all ?

3 VHS tapes, with 3 different stories are found, and for some reason they were supposed to be found.

Dante The Great

A magician known as Dante The Great always make sure to entertain the audience, with the help of his magic mantle. The mantle can do tricks that no other magician would be able to do, but it demands human sacrifices, otherwise it won´t do Dante´s magic shows. Dante need to find victims, in any way he can.

Parallell Monsters

A man named Alfonso completed working on a gate, that can open the door to another world. It seems that here he have a copy of himself, who´s name is also Alfonso. They visit each other and try to connect with each other. They cross each others worlds, to see the differences. But are they really the same person, or is Alfonso actually someone else ?

Bonestorm

3 guys are filming their skateboard tricks with cameras placed in different directions. At a skateboard area, one of them end up in a fight and get kicked out. So, the guys decide to head towards a ditch in Tijuana, to finish their skatebord film tricks. They find strange satanic symbols on the ground. Suddenly a strange looking woman shows up, tearing one of the boys arms off. From all corners strange cult members shows up for no reason, the boys need to find a way out to survive.

Since i loved the first 2 films, i was really hyped about this third film. Unfortunately, this third film is bad compared to the previous films. Not so bad that i would call this an awful horror sequel, still there are plenty of problems here. The stories feel uninspired, not very interesting, and the flying scene with a magician and a girl, feels like watching Christopher Lambert fighting in Highlander 2 - The Quickening, where he fights a flying guy with sword. The difference here in V/H/S:Viral is that they fly around with magic powers. A silly idea. I am so dissapointed that they ruined V/H/S: Viral, since the previous films had so much to give storywise. I realised it might be hard to make this film better than V/H/S/2, since it was even better than the first film. But this is not a worthy sequel though, and i really hope they fix things up, if they decide to make a fouth one. Is there anything positive about V/H/S:Viral ? The only positive change is that they tried to use the VHS tape scene different, where they find all the VHS tapes filmed with murdered people. Anything else ? No, not really. There are way too many flaws here that should have been corrected while the screenplay was being made, including the script. Some of the special effects may look ok in some scenes, but that´s not enough to make a V/H/S sequel in the same quality as the previous films. One of the biggest dissapointments for mer personally this year. V/H/S:Viral will remain a mystery to me, why was it made like this ? If you respect the first 2 great films, do not see this one. It is not worthy your time, buy V/H/S/2 instead, and see how real quality horror is made.

Rating: DD