Midnight Screenings 2013 / V/H/S/2 / USA, Canada, Indonesia 2013
This loose continuation of the successful "found-footage” horror collection consists of five bleakly chilling or agreeably light-hearted horror shorts. The film’s main draw is Safe Haven, a perfectly constructed, suspenseful and brutally horrific story in which the journey undertaken by a group of reporters into the Indonesian jungle turns into hell on earth.
V/H/S/2 is an exception proving the unwritten rule that sequels tend to be worse than the original film. This loose continuation of the successful found-footage anthology horror film is framed as the story of two detectives investigating the disappearance of a college student. In his apartment, they find a huge collection of videotapes and play four of them. The effect-laden creepshows include paranormal phenomena, a humorous story about a young boy who is slowly turning into a zombie, and a home video about a visit paid by unfriendly aliens. All these skillfully constructed shorts retain a sense of complete authenticity as we watch events unfold through security videos or via a cycle helmet camera. The film’s main draw is undoubtedly the segment Safe Haven by director Gareth Huw Evans (The Raid) and Timo Tjahjanto, a perfectly constructed, suspenseful, and brutally chilling genre piece about a group of reporters who journey into the Indonesian jungle, where a visit to a mysterious sect turns into hell on earth.
96 min / Color, DCP
European premiere
Director Simon Barrett, Jason Eisener, Gareth Huw Evans, Gregg Hale, Edúardo Sánchez, Timo Tjahjanto, Adam Wingard
/ Screenplay Simon Barrett, Jamie Nash, Timo Tjahjanto, Gareth Huw Evans, Jason Eisner, John Davies
/ Dir. of Photography Tarin Anderson, Seamus Tierney, Stephen Scott, Abdul Dermawan Habir, Jeff Wheaton
/ Producer Gary Binkow, Brad Miska, Roxanne Benjamin
/ Production The Collective, Bloody Disgusting
/ Cast Adam Wingard, Lawrence Levine, L. C. Holt, Kelsy Abbott, Hannah Hughes
/ Contact Memento International
Simon Barrett, director of Tape 49, is active in several cinematic professions, primarily as a screenwriter of horror movies. He also wrote the film’s second short, Clinical Trials, which was directed by Adam Wingard, the only director to also have worked on the original V/H/S. Edúardo Sánchez helped transform the horror genre with the famous The Blair Witch Project (1999); his more recent films include Lovely Molly (2011), shown at last year’s festival in Karlovy Vary. He and Gregg Hale co-directed the third segment, A Ride in the Park. The fourth segment was a collaborative effort as well: Safe Haven was directed by Timo Tjahjanto and Gareth Huw Evans; the latter’s bloody actioner The Raid (2011) was a midnight hit of last year’s festival season. Karlovy Vary audiences will also remember Jason Eisener, director of Slumber Party Alien Abduction. His Hobo with a Shotgun was screened here in 2011.
Memento International
50 rue de Chabrol, 750 10, Paris
France
Phone: +33 153 349 020
E-mail: [email protected]
Sylvain Lagrillère
Sales Agent
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