V/H/S/Halloween

 I wound up watching a brand new movie for Halloween season 2025 last night: V/H/S/Halloween. 

I'm going to start this off by saying I have not yet seen any of the other V/H/S movies, but I definitely want to. I just have never gotten around to it. Nothing I say in this review is meant to be a statement on the franchise as a whole as I have nothing yet to compare it to in that way. I just saw a new movie set on Halloween and came running, as I do every year.

Now, I tend to have very mixed feelings about these Halloween horror anthology films. Trick 'r Treat is one of my most favorite movies of all time. I have an insane love/hate relationship with Tales Of Halloween, where I can never decide if I like it or despise it. (I should do a deep dive on that one one day.) I couldn't get past the first installment of the 10/31 movies. All Hallows Eve might actually be my favorite entry into the Terrifier franchise, if it wasn't for that alien bit in the middle. So yeah, I had no idea what to expect going into this one, which was fun.  

V/H/S/Halloween has six separate stories, including the wraparound story it keeps cutting back to, called Diet Phantasma, about a company trying to make a diet soda infused with actual ghosts. This was super fun, and I found myself really looking forward to when the movie would cut back to it. It's filmed as if it was actually recorded behind the scenes of a testing facility for this new soda, and the test subjects, believing they're just there to try the drink and possibly be in the commercial, keep dying in the most bizarre, crazy ways. In each segment, the amount of ectoplasm in the soda is either dialed back or upped a bit, leading to interesting changes in the test subjects. Eventually, a little girl gets it just right, and ends up in the commercial that's the final bit of the movie. It was a super fun watch and a great way to frame it. Fun enough that it left you wanting more each time, but not so deep that it felt like a disappointing cliffhanger every time they cut away from it. 

The first full story is called Coochie Coochie Coo. This one follows two best friends, Lacie and Kayleigh, seemingly high school seniors, on what they keep referring to as their "last Halloween", before they go to college. They go trick-or-treating one last time, despite being told numerous times that they are "too old", dressed in silly baby masks. They stumble upon a house that Lacie first assumes is some kind of home haunt, but soon realize they are in the home of "The Mommy", a strange creature who collects kids on Halloween, mainly those that are "too old" to trick or treat, and turns them into permanent babies. The Mommy seems to have a backstory that's never fully gone into, as the segments are short, but I would have liked to know more about why she does what she does. We see images of her pregnant, before she became whatever she is now, and some notes left behind, but that's about it. Regardless, this segment is extremely creepy and kept me on the edge of my seat, waiting to see what bizarre and disgusting thing would appear in The Mommy's home next. (Did I ever mention how gross I find milk in general? This alone was extremely effective for me.) When this segment ended, it left me with high hopes for the rest of the movie.

The next segment, Ut Supra Sic Infra, is probably the weakest one for me just based on the fact that it wasn't really anything we haven't seen done before, compared to the uniqueness of the rest of the movie. Don't get me wrong, it was really good, but just didn't feel special to me in any way. It was a typical, group of young friends go partying and stumble upon something they shouldn't, storyline, leading to one of the friends, a young man named Enric, becoming possessed and killing the others. The one thing I really liked about this segment, though, is that it was done entirely with everyone speaking Spanish. It made it feel more real to me, as if it were an actual VHS recording from Mexico confirming the validity of a creepy urban legend. It was done well, I just don't have a whole lot to say about it compared to the other segments.

Next up is Fun Size, appropriately named because it is absolutely the most fun of the entire movie. This one is about a group of four twenty-something friends, two couples, who decide to go trick-or-treating after getting bored at a party. They stumble upon a bowl left out on someone's doorstep, with a note saying "One Per Person", only it's full of strange, off-brand seeming candy. One of the guys opens a piece, declares it "looks like a dong", and the others are surprised at how right he is. After eating a second piece, he and the other guy in the group get pulled down into the candy bowl by a red hand that seemingly comes up from nowhere, and the two girls get chased down by the candy bowl itself, all of them to be transported to a weird little factory. Strange creatures that actually bleed M&M-like candy start appearing, and soon the first guy, who ate the "dong" candy, is strapped onto a conveyor belt and cut up into pieces, the pieces then coated in chocolate and wrapped, proving the initial candy that the group found was actually body parts of previous victims. The girlfriend of the first guy to get chopped up actually has one of the most hilarious death scenes I've ever seen, with a tube of candy attached to her butthole, pumping it in until her face explodes and the candy comes out the other side. It's not the best acted segment in the movie, and I'm not sure if that's intentional as it's clearly meant to be comical, but it sure as hell is the most fun. 

The next segment is Kidprint, and my god, this is probably my favorite one just because of how effective and upsetting it is. Honestly, if you're bothered by violence against children in movies, I would skip this one. It's very dark and feels very real. 

Kidprint tells the story of a man named Tim Kaplan, who has been deeply disturbed by accounts of children disappearing in his neighborhood. He starts a business called "Kidprint", where he records local children so that they can be identified later if they go missing, particularly on Halloween. Tim is also a father to two daughters, whom he takes to a local Halloween celebration set up by the police in light of what's been going on, and is informed there that another child, a seventeen year old girl who'd come out on her own, has gone missing. 

Tim goes to retrieve the tape he filmed of the missing girl, only to find an employee of his, a man named Bruce, in the basement actively torturing children. There's a very graphic scene where he skins a teenage boy alive, and it's all filmed in a very creepy, gritty way. Tim attempts to incapacitate Bruce, but is ultimately stabbed to death by his other employees, who believe that he and Bruce are in it together. Later it turns out that the young girl, Alicia, who worked at the store may actually have been an accomplice to Bruce, as she survives and speaks against Tim on the news, despite seemingly having been grabbed by Bruce earlier.

There are some extremely creepy cuts of Bruce wearing the teenage boy's skin and pretending to be a child on Halloween, talking about how he'll be safe this time and not talk to any strangers, implying that something most likely happened to him in his childhood to cause him to be this way now. It ends with Bruce talking to a reporter about how he plans to keep Kidprint going after Tim's death and accusal, and it's honestly very chilling, knowing that he is the real culprit. It's a brilliant statement on how real criminals continue to get away with things, and honestly one of the most disturbing things I feel I've ever watched. It's easily the darkest and most realistic segment of the movie, and huge shift in tone from Fun Size before it. 

We end the movie with Home Haunt, which seems to be the favorite among those who've seen it. This is the story of a man named Keith, an ambitious home haunter from before animatronics and all that were a thing. He utilizes his family as actors, (His son is starting to resent him for it, which was annoying because I can't even tell you how proud I'd be to be related to a home haunter.) records walkthroughs, and generally just tries to make it better every year. On this particular year, Keith goes to an antique shop and finds and old record simply called "Halloween Horror." On opening night of the haunt, Keith plays the record...and it brings all of his creations to life. Even the cute, traditional sheet ghosts spring to life and begin a massacre. It's a super fun watch, and an absolutely perfect Halloween horror to end the movie. I'm actually surprised we don't see this concept more often. 

All in all, I absolutely loved this movie and am so glad I watched it. It was a pleasant surprise for this Halloween season and I absolutely recommend it. It has something for everyone, from the darkest, creepiest tales, to the goofiest Halloween horrors, and every one of them gets the vibe of the season right. I actually would like to watch most of these as full length movies or TV episodes. I know I'll be coming back to this one, this spooky season and beyond...and probably binging the rest of the franchise at some point.

Stay spooky, my friends.