.png){kind=small}
V/H/S/Mixtape Review: Has V/H/S Lost Its Identity?
By Justin D. Williams
The V/H/S franchise has always worked because it gives filmmakers room to experiment without completely abandoning the grimy, unpredictable found-footage identity that made the series stand out in the first place. Every installment has its hits and misses, but there is usually that feeling that you are watching footage you were never supposed to see. V/H/S/Mixtape wants to push the franchise further than ever before by using music as its central theme, and while I respect that ambition, this is also the first installment where I genuinely felt like the experimentation was beginning to overpower the horror itself. The music concept should have been perfect for V/H/S. Sound is already one of the most powerful tools horror filmmakers have, and there are countless ways the movie could have turned recordings, frequencies, voices, rhythms, subliminal messages, or corrupted audio into something frightening. Instead, Mixtape frequently seems content with simply having music involved. There is a big difference between creating horror around sound and putting horror next to music, and too much of this anthology falls into the latter category.
Renee Zhan’s “Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance” was easily my favorite segment of the movie and the clearest example of how this more experimental direction could have worked. The puppet-driven setup immediately gives the short a personality of its own, and the contrast between children’s entertainment and increasingly violent horror creates exactly the kind of bizarre energy I expect from V/H/S. It is strange without becoming random, and once things begin escalating, the short actually commits to being horror rather than treating the genre as another stylistic ingredient. What impressed me most is that the segment never feels like it is experimenting just for the sake of being different. The puppets, practical effects, violence, and unsettling tone all work toward the same goal. It is weird, memorable, and nasty in a way that feels appropriate for the franchise, and by the time it ends I was hoping the rest of Mixtape would continue finding similarly creative ways to combine music, performance, and horror. Unfortunately, that expectation did not last long.
Flying Lotus’ “Another Cabin” is one of the movie’s most obvious departures from traditional V/H/S, presenting an animated music-video piece rather than anything resembling found footage. Visually, there is certainly creativity here, and I can appreciate the willingness to take the franchise somewhere completely unexpected. My problem is that being different does not automatically make something meaningful within the larger movie. The segment is so brief and disconnected that it never has enough time to build tension or develop its premise into something genuinely frightening. It feels less like part of an anthology and more like a music video that happens to contain horror imagery. That became one of my recurring frustrations with Mixtape: I understood why certain pieces belonged under the musical theme, but I kept questioning why they belonged in a V/H/S movie.
David Moreau’s “Heartbeat” gets much closer to what I expected from a music-themed installment because sound actually becomes connected to the danger. The abandoned military setting provides a naturally creepy environment, and the unusual camera work gives the segment a disorienting quality that helps build discomfort. There are moments where the sound design itself becomes more unsettling than anything happening visually, which is exactly the kind of direction I wanted the anthology to explore. The problem is that the concept never becomes as effective as it initially promises. There is something disturbing about the idea of sonic experimentation affecting the people trapped inside this location, but the story never pushes that premise far enough for me. It has atmosphere and technical ambition, yet once it ends, I was left thinking more about what the segment could have done than what it actually accomplished.
Ernest Dickerson’s “The Music of Mr. Sze” came closer than most of the anthology to giving me the slow-building tension I had been waiting for. The mysterious music, the curiosity surrounding Mr. Sze, and the gradual feeling that something is deeply wrong create a strong sense of unease. For a while, the segment understands that withholding information can be far more frightening than immediately explaining everything, and the mystery surrounding what is happening upstairs becomes more effective because we are allowed to imagine the possibilities ourselves. Then the monster is revealed, and that is where the segment lost me. The buildup had created something far more disturbing in my imagination than what eventually appeared on screen. Once the threat became tangible, the mystery disappeared with it, and instead of escalating the horror, the reveal actually made the situation feel less frightening. It is frustrating because everything leading up to that moment had been working, and a more restrained ending could have made this one of the strongest shorts in the entire movie.
Tobias Forge’s “Premature Burial” continues Mixtape’s fascination with music-video presentation, and once again I found myself wondering what it was really adding to the anthology. The piece certainly fits the title and the overall musical aesthetic, but simply matching the theme is not enough. I want each segment to either frighten me, deepen the concept, or strengthen the movie as a whole, and this one never did much of any of those things for me. That does not mean there is no craftsmanship involved. The imagery and musical presentation have their own personality, but the segment feels like an interruption rather than an essential piece of the film. By this point, the movie’s commitment to being a “mixtape” had started becoming more important than maintaining any sense of horror momentum, and the anthology was beginning to feel increasingly fragmented.
RZA’s “Death Tone” is one of the segments that most directly engages with the concept I wanted Mixtape to explore. Here, the process of creating music actually becomes part of the horror rather than simply serving as the backdrop. The idea of following instructions left by a deceased father and gradually turning sound production into something grotesque has exactly the kind of twisted potential that fits this franchise. There is some effective gore, and I appreciated that the segment actually asked how music itself could become dangerous. Unfortunately, once the basic mechanism becomes clear, the short begins repeating itself instead of continually escalating. The idea remains stronger than the execution, but I still found it more satisfying conceptually than the standalone music-video portions because at least it attempts to make the act of creating sound part of the nightmare.
The recurring GWAR material became one of my biggest problems with V/H/S/Mixtape. A framing device in an anthology should either connect the shorts, build its own mystery, or at minimum maintain the atmosphere between stories. Here, the interludes frequently accomplish the opposite. Whenever one of the shorts manages to create genuine tension, the movie abruptly cuts away into another loud, exaggerated piece of connective material and completely breaks the mood. That constantly resetting atmosphere becomes exhausting because every new segment has to rebuild the tension from scratch. Instead of feeling like pieces of one increasingly disturbing experience, the shorts feel like separate programs being interrupted by bizarre commercial breaks. Combined with the standalone music videos, the result is an anthology that rarely has the opportunity to settle into a consistent rhythm.
What makes V/H/S/Mixtape particularly disappointing is that I actually love the basic idea behind it. A music-centered V/H/S installment should have endless possibilities. Imagine a cassette recording that changes every time someone listens to it, a frequency that causes hallucinations, subliminal messages hidden beneath a song, or a voice buried inside a recording that was never there when the tape was made. The franchise already revolves around dangerous media, so sound could have been the perfect next evolution. Instead, the movie too often treats music as an aesthetic rather than the source of the horror. That may be the biggest missed opportunity of the entire anthology. There are glimpses of what the concept could have been in segments like “Heartbeat” and “Death Tone,” but they are surrounded by music videos and interludes that make the movie feel more interested in constructing an experimental playlist than creating a frightening experience. The problem is not that Mixtape tries something different. I actually want this franchise to keep taking risks.
The problem is that those risks should expand what V/H/S can be rather than removing so much of what makes the franchise recognizable. By the end, I felt like the movie had pushed the format so far that the original identity had almost disappeared. “Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance” proves that the experimental approach could work because it is strange, creative, visually distinctive, and still committed to delivering horror. “The Music of Mr. Sze” has an excellent buildup before weakening itself with the monster reveal, while “Heartbeat” and “Death Tone” contain interesting ideas that never fully reach their potential. “Another Cabin” and “Premature Burial,” meanwhile, feel more like music video experiments than essential horror shorts, and the recurring interludes consistently damage the pacing and tension of everything around them. There are flashes of imagination throughout V/H/S/Mixtape, but imagination alone is not enough. The movie has plenty of style, plenty of experimentation, and plenty of music, yet surprisingly little sustained horror. For an installment built around sound, I expected the filmmakers to make me afraid of what I was hearing. Instead, I spent too much of the movie waiting for it to remind me why I was watching V/H/S in the first place.
VIDEO REVIEW
Comments