V/H/S: Viral

Until the last moment I didn’t believe it was as bad as Filmbooster was saying (32%), but it is, it really is. I can’t understand how they allowed this decent anthology series to be run so much to the ground – though the list of directors, a much lower class than in the previous one, should have been a warning. But the saddest thing perhaps is that they stopped giving a fuck and abandoned even the original concept of a found VHS, replacing it with some utter nonsense about a mysterious ice-cream truck (really, I don’t get the what and how about it), while the stories themselves are no longer the classic found-footage format – the first one is in part some sort of documentary with captions and in part something shot with a normal camera. The only story worthy of attention is Parallel Monsters, by the the Spaniard Nacho Gigalondo. It would be average if we put it against the stories from last year and the year before, but in Viral is way better than the rest, and the rest is so bad that I don’t want to write any more about it. (25.10.2014)

Neither the story trying to capture something great nor the one from the skatepark stand out, and the film would work even better without them, perhaps even improved. I don't think it's that big of a problem; it's just that those films overall simply don't stand out. There's no standout gem that would blow you away; everything is rather average to below-average. And the film is in this spirit as a whole, where you are just not captivated. (31.12.2015)