Dear oh dear. I have always had a fondness for anthology pictures, such as Creepshow and the Tales From The Crypt TV show. It has always been interesting, though not without its faults, to see filmmakers deliver their idea in a 15-20min segment. Horror bites, if you like.

Sadly, the results of V/H/S/ 99 are more miss than hit. The first segment, throws out scares and replaces them with gore and dismembered limbs.

It does capture the 90’s aesthetic very well though, with the baggy jeans, frosted tips hairstyle and grunge look to name but a few.

But getting an aesthetic right is one thing, delivering on your mission is quite another. I felt like I was watching Goosebumps the TV series, rather than V/H/S/. The earlier iterations had better stories, whereas this just feels tired.

The Ozzy’s Dungeon section is a brief attempt at clawing back some of the scares, and Steven Ogg is great as the host. It has a H.P. Lovecraft flavour to it, which is very good. But it is one step forward, two steps back with the anthology on the whole.

The story that bookends a few segments, starts off promising, but fails to deliver with a very generic denouement. It just doesn’t feel scary, or offer anything you haven’t seen done a million times better before.

It is a shame that the bad parts of V/H/S/ 99 overshadow the good parts, as when it hits it’s stride it delivers….sadly it doesn’t hit it’s stride often enough.

V/H/S/ 99 is available to buy now on Blu Ray from all good stockists.

2/5

JM