V/H/S/99

The fifth installment of the V/H/S series, V/H/S/99 tells five horror tales of varying quality and ultimately establishes itself as the franchise’s weakest entry – with the predictably hit-and-miss atmosphere, this time around, far more miss than hit. The movie gets off to a less-than-promising start with Maggie Levin’s Shredding, which takes a decent premise and eventually grinds it into the ground through sheer overlength – with its failure compounded by a virtually incoherent climactic stretch. It’s clear, then, that V/H/S/99 benefits substantially from its second story, Johannes Roberts’ Suicide Bid, as the filmmaker offers up a terrific take on the buried-alive trope and even elevates it with a few unexpected twists. The engaging atmosphere is short-lived, however, as the picture segues into a second half rife with decent ideas but little in the way of forward momentum or genuine scares – with the padded-out nature of every single spooky tale ensuring that they wear out their welcome long before their downbeat denouements. By the time the exhausting and mostly tedious finale tale rolls around, V/H/S/99 has cemented its place as a predominantly lackluster anthology movie that has no business running a second over 90 minutes.

** out of ****