V/H/S/99

V/H/S/99
Promotional release poster
Directed by	Maggie Levin ("Shredding") Johannes Roberts ("Suicide Bid") Flying Lotus ("Ozzy's Dungeon") Tyler MacIntyre ("The Gawkers") Vanessa & Joseph Winter ("To Hell and Back")
Written by	Maggie Levin ("Shredding") Johannes Roberts ("Suicide Bid") Zoe Cooper ("Ozzy's Dungeon") Flying Lotus ("Ozzy's Dungeon") Tyler MacIntyre ("The Gawkers") Chris Lee Hill ("The Gawkers") Vanessa & Joseph Winter ("To Hell and Back")
Produced by	Josh Goldbloom Brad Miska David Bruckner Radio Silence Chad Villella
Starring	Steven Ogg Ally Ioannides Keanush Tafreshi Emily Sweet Archelaus Crisanto
Production companies	Studio71 Bloody Disgusting Cinepocalypse Productions Radio Silence Productions
Distributed by	Shudder
Release dates	September 16, 2022 (2022-09-16) (TIFF) October 20, 2022 (2022-10-20)
Running time	109 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

V/H/S/99 is a 2022 American found footage horror anthology film produced by Studio71 and Bloody Disgusting. The sequel to V/H/S/94 (2021), it is the fifth installment in the V/H/S franchise. Set in 1999, the film features five found footage segments written and directed by Maggie Levin, Johannes Roberts, Flying Lotus, Tyler MacIntyre, and Vanessa and Joseph Winter.

The film premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival on September 16, 2022, and was released as a Shudder Original Film through the streaming service Shudder in the United States on October 20, 2022. Upon its release, V/H/S/99 broke streaming records on the service, including becoming its most-viewed premiere—a title which was held by its predecessor, V/H/S/94. It grossed $385,827 in home sales. A sequel, V/H/S/85, was released on October 6, 2023.

Plot

The film is presented as an anthology of four short horror films. Each short film is linked together with the concept of found footage as each segment is from the VHS tapes that Petro and Nash distributed from the warehouse.

Unlike the previous installments, V/H/S/99 does not have an oveararching frame narrative in between each short. Instead, short stop-motion animations of toy soldiers—made by Brady from "The Gawkers"—serve as interludes.

"Shredding"

• Written and directed by Maggie Levin

Punk rock band R.A.C.K.—acronym for its members Rachel, Ankur, Chris, and Kaleb—regularly record their antics on a web show that they host. For their latest video, the quartet break into the Colony Underground, a former music venue that burned down three years prior in an electrical fire which killed all four members of another band, Bitch Cat, after being trampled during a stampede.

As the quartet explore the venue, Ankur warns Rachel about his fear of the bhoota, having heard that they possess any person who defiles their resting place. However, Rachel, Chris, and Kaleb trick Ankur into believing that they are being possessed. An unimpressed Ankur storms off and declares that he hopes the bhoota kills them. The three remaining members produce inflatable sex dolls filled with gelatin and stomp on them to re-enact the stampede that killed Bitch Cat.

Suddenly, Kaleb is snatched into the darkness and his bloody, pulverised remains fall from above. Rachel and Chris attempt to escape until the zombified bhoota of Bitch Cat appear and seize their camera. Bitch Cat film themselves as they gruesomely dismember and decapitate Ankur, Rachel, and Chris. The tape glitches out to reveal the re-animated and crudely re-connected remains of R.A.C.K.—now possessed by Bitch Cat—performing an old song on-stage as the footage ends.

"Suicide Bid"

• Written and directed by Johannes Roberts

College freshman Lily attempts to join Beta Sigma Eta, the most prestigious sorority on her campus. She performs a "suicide bid"—which applies to one sorority as her recruitment choice. The effort pays off as Lily is invited by the Beta Sigma Eta sisters to a nearby graveyard where, as part of the hazing ritual, she is dared to spend the night buried inside a coffin.

The sisters' leader Annie explains that it is meant to re-create an urban legend where another freshman, Giltine, was dared to commit the same deed to enter the sorority twenty years earlier. Giltine was forgotten by her classmates for a week and was rumored to have crawled into the underworld when the empty coffin was unearthed.

Lily enters the coffin with a box—whose content she is told will provide reassurance if her resolve falters—and a camera to film her ordeal; she opens the box to discover it contains several spiders. Terrified, Lily demands to be let out, but the sisters laugh at her torment. A sudden rainstorm commences just as a police car arrives to investigate the noises. The sisters flee and agree to exhume Lily in the morning. The officers make an investigation but leave, unable to hear Lily's muffled cries for help.

As the storm continues, the coffin is partially flooded by rainwater. When the water stops rising, Giltine's ghoulish spirit punches through the lid of the coffin and attacks Lily. The next morning, the sisters find the grave full of water and the coffin mysteriously empty; they agree to never speak of the incident but, that night, the sisters awaken, buried in coffins.

Lily, now a ghoul herself, appears with Giltine in Annie's coffin and explains that she has made a deal with Giltine, offering the sisters to her as replacements victims in exchange for her soul being spared. A tarantula crawls out of Giltine's mouth and both then attack Annie amid the sisters' screams as the footage ends.

"Ozzy's Dungeon"

• Directed by Flying Lotus
• Written by Zoe Cooper and Flying Lotus

The next segment is called Ozzy's Dungeon, and begins with an episode of a children's game show with the Nickelodeon's same title game name. It's an homage to obstacle course driven Nickelodeon shows from its outfits to its showcasing of kids just like the same timeline. In place of Kirk Fogg we've got Trevor Philips, accompanied by some In Living Color style Flygirls. The kid contestants have to compete in the Clash of Eggs and the Face Splat, all under the watchful eye of Trevor and his muscle step-mother sidekick. If they win, they'll get to enter Ozzy's Dungeon, where the unseen Ozzy will make their wildest dreams come true. The only catch is that literally no one has gotten to the end yet. During the first Dungeon Crawl, one contestant eats the poops so bad she has to get taken out on a stretcher, and they are good thing they've got highly trained EMTs. This entire thing is so spot on to me for two crucial reasons: 1. It understands how fixated 90s Nickelodeon was with goop, slop and mess. 2. It also understands how actually terrifying Legends of the Hidden Temple actually was—on that show, if a temple guard caught you, you were violently pulled into the beyond 9th Circle of Hell was behind the temple. The second challenge sees contestants catching spicy saucy turkey legs in their mouths. This is like an early Survivor challenge that gets retired because someone fractured their orbital bone. By the end of it, there are only 2 kids left: Timmy from L.A. and Donna from D.M., from the last 2 survivors. And the 2 of them are entering the final challenge: an obstacle course based on Ozzy's digestive system. Donna gets an early lead which upsets Trevor so much he starts low-cost-talking this other kid—and she's too bad an obstacle course to cause suffers a serious open fracture to her leg crack right in half and loses patience after Trevor does not stop the game so her injury can be properly tended to the broken 1 leg.

Let's rewind it—if you look closely, you can actually pinpoint the exact moment her leg breaks in two. Some time later, after Ozzy's Dungeon was cancelled, and it was revealed that he is not in kids show—it's then revealed as a adult obstacle show, the show's former Trevor awakens, and it turns out this is a tape being played in Donna's family's secret basement. They've kidnapped Trevor as revenge for Donna's debilitating gangrenous leg—, Trevor does not having a waiver and then Donna's mother was so furious that she's takes off with her white shirt. This is revealed that the Donna's mother named Debra, and she also apparently played The Witch in Into The Woods on Broadway at one point, which, if anyone has found footage of this, she didn't get a Debra's un-favorite Dreamcast. Debra is so outraged because she hoped the canceled gameshow would be their Donna's family's ticket out of this dump, and maybe that smell is disgusting and then Donna reveals the literal stanky leg, all gangrened from her injury. Donna's family subjects the Trevor to homebrewed versions of his TV games. The first challenge is honestly only slightly more dangerous than the original, including Connect 4. Then, instead of turkey legs, he's forced to catch raw chicken cutlets, likely dripping in Fish-Wishbone's. For the final challenge, they've recreated the Ozzy's digestive system, and only this one is a little more disgusting, abomination and detailed.

If Trevor can't beat the buzzer, he'll get a face full of this green-liquified acidic spontaneous melting decression. In the Ozzy's Dungeon's nastiest scene, we watch this Trevor slip and slide his way through the putrid Play Place. Other kid and she argued over who got to do this over-under-rated show and they think we both forgot about how much feces there is in it. Despite a valiant effort, Trevor loses by a couple of seconds, earning him a acidic syringe. Before they inject him, though, he offers them a deal: in exchange for his life, he'll take them to Ozzy so Donna can have her wish granted. They agree and everyone bundles into the van for a family trip. Donna's father Marcus likes the music do be listening to Detroit's home or smooth jazz V98.7. While the show itself has since been cancelled, the mythical Ozzy remains in the studio under armed the heavy guards. Debra recaps what they're all going to wish for the latest new car and $10000000 to $15000000. Trevor sneaks them in backstage and leads them into the actual Ozzy's Dungeon. Lying on a slab at the heart of the dungeon is an overgrown, bad-tempered, morbidly obesity and bureaucratic Ozzy. As Donna is brought before steps forward to make Ozzy to tell him her wish, but it's not to make Donna's family to be rich and famous. Amongst all the feces and the other stuffs, this adult obstacle course has real commentary about kids being exploited for entertainment and personal gain and Debra and Donna's family and parents have been giving hardcore showbiz losing friendly patience parent vibes. And apparently Donna's sick of it, since whatever she says causes Ozzy to split open and reveal his true form causes to the vaguely-humanoid, spindly creature.

Granting Donna's wish, Ozzy fires a ray of energy beam that melts the faces of Trevor, Debra and Marcus, killing them all, and Trevor went through all of this to avoid getting his approximation anaphylaxis shock, only to get his face melted. On a freeze frame while Donna looking awfully satisfied at the camera as the footage ends.

"The Gawkers"

• Directed by Tyler MacIntyre
• Written by Tyler MacIntyre and Chris Lee Hill

Young teenager Brady films stop motion videos of toy soldiers, and at first it seems like something a child would make, but pretty quickly you realize how creative and well-done it is. But they're interrupted by a toy tank and get hit by a death pummeling, and the commercial comes out and the channel surfs past the Veggie Masher from the last film. They are seeking to the grey and green soldiers, but they are interrupted by a origami dinosaur and attacks and devours him. And then the scene next to the horrified monster, where the army guys fight a rat monster, which as a nod to Raatma. And they're ever so briefly return to the army men, who are all of a sudden Dylan appears that he calls him loser. But Dylan notice this—Brady is recording and stealing the camera because he is a camera-kidnapper, and Dylan has a camera that Brady stoles the camera that he is mine and without permission to using skills and Dylan takes the camera off. The retro Red vs Blue show is the creation of Brady, who's been using his older brother Dylan's camera—and which he uses to film himself practicing pick-up lines with his consists friends Kurt, Mark and Duncan—A.K.A. Boner. The quartet exclude Brady from their activities, thinking him to be a hopeless loser, and being bored dumb suburban boys with a video camera, they get into all sorts of idiot antics, Dylan is filming with the muscle techniques, but she is interrupted by a Dylan's girlfriend that she hear a noise, but he doesn't care. Dylan's girlfriend what she needs the breakfast, so Dylan chooses the Hot Pockets after he has the favorite ones, and the all other videos has the same gallery and the collection become gone viral as well.

When they're not finding giant snake skins in the woods, they're talking about ylyl's Y2K. The group loses their idiotic charm when they start trying to sneak upskirt videos of random girls. After concealing the camera to get secret naked virals, the quartet become fixated on Sandra, an attractive blonde woman who has moved into the house across the street and whose yard is decorated with several stone busts. The pubescant criminality doesn't stop there, either now forever. Brady later meets and befriends Sandra, who invites him into her house while he attempts to roller-skate, much to Dylan's shock and jealousy. They start creeping on Dylan's sunbathing neighbor Sandra who just moved in across the street. Thing is, she seems to be making it easy for them. He mentions that she's out there washing the car in Daisy Dukes everyday, and giving all those statues in her yard and she's always making the flaming Saganaki. The quartet compliment Brady for his newfound relationship with Sandra and beg him for information. They're pulling a delivery person earlier when they see Sandra get a delivery from a famous delivery dude who thinks he has a chance, and dance happily. It's a brand new computer, and she hires none other than boy pup Brady to help her set it up. Brady's the constant rear one of his brother's jokes, but his new unfunny gig finally makes him one of the boys almost scolds and tolerates Dylan. Dylan and his friends explains that Sandra invited him to help set up a new webcam and is enlisted to install a spyware on her computer and hack into her webcam in hopes of seeing her nude.

He successfully pulls it off, earning him beer and approval. It shows how this kind of behavior can be reinforced and promoted. Brady reluctantly agrees and goes to Sandra's house that night. He installs the spyware despite being wracked with guilt for betraying her trust, Brady starts to feel guilty when things start getting real, but they will not. As Brady leaves the room, the quartet watch Sandra through the webcam while she undresses. They wanted to explore the perils of unchecked horny teen behavior, and mentioned Woodstock 99. Despite the subject matter, they aimed for a less intense segment to be a palette cleanser in this otherwise grody film. The rest of the boys sit back and watch the show. But this spyware show turns the creepshow when Sandra rips off her scalp to uncover a wig and starts growing snakes out of her head—revealing that she's name is not Sandra: it's actually transformed and named into a full-on Medusa, like full-final-form Gorgon, and that snake skin they found earlier was shed by herself. She also notices what the quartet is doing and Sandra knows they're watching her, which is exactly what she's wanted this whole time. She leaps across the cul-de-sac and into Dylan's bedroom, where she promptly starts tearing Mark a new one.

Kurt tries to intervene, but is knocked back by a paranormal attack. Dylan escapes and runs into Brady just as Boner is tackled and killed as well. The brothers flee as Boner's decapitated headstone is thrown after them. Brady tries to apologize but Sandra doesn't accept it and turns him into a petrifying statue. She then turns her petrifying gaze to Dylan, dooming him to spend the rest of his life as a tripod and trasforms her final form and she has to conquer and destroy humanities as the footage ends.

"To Hell and Back"

• Written and directed by Vanessa and Joseph Winter

On New Year's Eve, videographer best friends Nate and Troy are hired by a coven of witches to film them performing a ritual where a woman named Kirsten volunteers to be offered as a vessel to a powerful demon known as Ukabon. Despite agreeing, Nate is skeptical of them and thinks that the ritual may be a prank. The witches tell the duo that they will not actually summon Ukabon until the stroke of midnight on the new millennium, when the veil between Earth and Hell is at its thinnest.

As the ritual begins, Ferkus—an uninvited demon who has disrupted the witches' rituals before—makes its presence known. The witches attempt to cast it out, but Ferkus grabs Nate and Troy and drags them underneath the witches' altar. As the camera glimpses Ferkus retreating, Troy learns that he and Nate have been sent to Hell. The duo encounter bloodthirsty demons, hazardous traps, and mutilated bodies spread throughout the cavernous landscape. They also cross paths with Mabel, a damned soul who speaks in archaic terms and explains that they are irresistible to hungry demons due to their mortality.

Mabel decides to help the duo escape by leading them to Ukabon, whom she hates, in exchange for both writing her name in the witches' spell book. Since Ukabon is the only conduit through which the duo can return to Earth, they have only minutes to find him before they are stuck in Hell for eternity. While trekking, Nate, Troy, and Mabel encounter more demons and eventually enter a cave where they find Ukabon, surrounded by a cult of masked demons, preparing to enter Kristen's body. The cultists attack the trio, but they manage to kill them.

As midnight rapidly approaches, the duo shout at Mabel to come with them to Earth, but she is fatally stabbed by Ukabon and reminds them to write her name in the book before dying. The duo jump inside Ukabon's cavernous stomach just as the witches' ritual commences. The duo successfully return to Earth, albeit with Nate possessing Kirsten's body; furious that their ritual has failed, the witches kill both Nate and Kirsten and argue about what went wrong. Troy attempts to flee, but is fatally wounded with a scythe. He uses his blood to write Mabel's name in the book, then succumbs to his injuries as the footage ends.

Epilogue

The tape returns to the previous segment; Dylan's and Brady's stone corpses are shown before the camera's battery dies. In the credits, the witches can be heard performing their ritual again, this time calling Mabel's name, a hint that she will also return to Earth.

Cast

"Shredding"

• Verona Blue as Deirdre
• Dashiell Derrickson as Chris Carbonara
• Tybee Diskin as RC
• Jackson Kelly as Kaleb
• Jesse LaTourette as Rachel
• Kelley Missal as Jessie
• Melissa Macedo as Jessie Deux
• Aminah Nieves as Charissa
• Keanush Tafreshi as Ankur

"Suicide Bid"

• Ally Ioannides as Lily
• Isabelle Hahn as Annie
• Brittany Gandy as Lucy
• Logan Riley as Hannah

"Ozzy's Dungeon"

• Steven Ogg as The Host
• Amelia Ann as Donna
• Sonya Eddy as Debra
• Jerry Boyd as Marcus
• Charles Lott Jr. as Brandon
• Stephanie Ray as Ozzy
• Lauren Powers as Bodybuilder

"The Gawkers"

• Luke Mullen as Dylan
• Emily Sweet as Sandra
• Tyler Lofton as Kurt
• Duncan Anderson as Boner
• Ethan Pogue as Brady
• Cree Kawa as Mark
• Janna Bossier as Mom
• Wallis Barton as Emma
• Hannah Kat Jones as Cassidy
• Danny Jolles as Delivery Guy

"To Hell and Back"

• Joseph Winter as Troy
• Archelaus Crisanto as Nate
• Melanie Stone as Mabel
• James C. Morris as Furcas
• Kim Abunuwara as Jane
• Ehab Abunuwara as Husband
• Vickie Hayden as Witch Vickie
• Perla Lacayo as Witch Alex
• Ariel Lee as Wormaid
• Tori Pence as Kirsten
• Dustin Watts as Ukoban
• Coe-Jane Weight as Grandma Great

Production

In September 2021, producer Josh Goldbloom stated that a sequel would only be possible if V/H/S/94 proved successful with streaming audiences. Soon after its release via Shudder, V/H/S/94 broke viewership records for the streaming company, which prompted a rush to produce a sequel in time for the following year.

The film was believed to be titled V/H/S/85 following a deleted social media post by actor Freddy Rodriguez in April 2022. The streaming service Shudder was to handle distribution, as it did with the previous installment. However, official confirmation of the film, titled V/H/S/99, came in July 2022 from Bloody Disgusting, who co-produced the film alongside Studio71, Radio Silence Productions, and Cinepocalypse Productions. The film was described to take place in the "final punk rock analog days of VHS". Flying Lotus, Johannes Roberts, Vanessa and Joseph Winter, Maggie Levin, and Tyler MacIntyre were announced as directors, with Goldbloom, Brad Miska, David Bruckner, Chad Villella, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, and James Harris serving as producers. The apparent V/H/S/85 was instead another entry in the franchise, which was officially announced on October 8, 2022. David Bruckner, Scott Derrickson, Gigi Saul Guerrero, Natasha Kermani, and Mike P. Nelson were announced as directors, with a 2023 release window by Shudder.

Goldbloom revealed that the first pitch to Shudder by the producers was a film set during Christmas, tentatively titled V/H/Xmas, as well as a film set during medieval times. Shudder ultimately rejected these pitches in favor of V/H/S/99.

Release

V/H/S/99 premiered on September 16, 2022 in the Midnight Madness category of the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival. Its US debut was at the 2022 Fantastic Fest on September 25, 2022. The film also screened at the 2022 Sitges Film Festival in Barcelona on October 12, 2022, and at the 2022 Brooklyn Horror Film Festival on October 14, 2022. The film was released on Shudder on October 20, 2022.

The film released on Blu-ray and DVD in May 2023. Then followed by a release on the titular VHS format on June 7, 2023 by Witter Entertainment.

Reception

Audience viewership

Upon its release, V/H/S/99 broke streaming records for Shudder. Through its first four days of release, the film registered 28% more unique viewers than the previous record holder, V/H/S/94, which premiered on the platform in 2021. V/H/S/99 also accounted for nearly 22% of all on-demand streams on Shudder during the same time period and was AMC+’s #1 most watched movie of the weekend.

Craig Engler, GM of Shudder said “By every metric V/H/S/99 has been a wild success, with subscribers watching in record numbers and debating with each other on social media about which segment of the anthology was their favorite. We are thrilled that the revival of the series continues to be embraced by our audience, and already looking forward to next year’s V/H/S/85.”

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 76% of 54 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6/10. The website's consensus reads: "Like most anthologies, V/H/S/99 has its ups and downs -- but more often than not, this collection of shorts continues the franchise's recent creative rebound." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 58 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.

Matt Donato of IGN praised the film as "the biggest gamble in the V/H/S franchise yet," commending the use of practical effects and the depiction of common phobias, such as the fear of spiders or being buried alive, to generate anxiety and terror. He concluded by stating that "V/H/S/99 capitalizes on frenzied found-footage fun, howls with blitzkrieg chaos, and keeps exploding like a firecracker bundle that loves to watch you wince," and rating it 7/10.

Writing for Dread Central, Emily Gagne stated that the film "may be the simplest and most streamlined V/H/S sequel yet." She praised the production design and the nostalgia factor that is incorporated into the film, affirming that "[V/H/S/99] has the potential to become a slumber party touchstone," and rating it 3/5 stars. In a review for That Shelf, critic Victor Stiff praised the film, stating that "[V/H/S/99 is] one of the rare horror anthologies with solid movies across the board. All five shorts give audiences something meaty to feast on."

In a mixed review for Variety, critic Dennis Harvey wrote that "[t]he best episodes are merely good enough, and the worst just tiresome." Harvey praised the "amusing stop-motion animations of toy soldiers" that serve as the film's interludes between segments, but concluded that V/H/S/99 "provides a watchable but underwhelming franchise clock-punch with no memorable highpoints."

Sequel

Main article: V/H/S/85

A sequel was officially announced on October 8, 2022 at a New York Comic Con discussion panel promoting V/H/S/99. Much like its predecessor, the film was released as a Shudder Original, with directors David Bruckner, Scott Derrickson, Gigi Saul Guerrero, Natasha Kermani, and Mike P. Nelson attached to the project. The film was secretly shot back-to-back alongside V/H/S/99. V/H/S/85 was released on October 6, 2023.

External links

• V/H/S/99 at IMDb