V/H/S/2

Saw V/H/S/2, the sequel to V/H/S.  Like that film, this one is an anthology film, with four mini-stories plus a frame story.  As anthology films often are, this was hit-and-miss.  Thankfully, the filmmakers learned from the previous movie and this movie is improved in two ways: fewer obnoxious douchebag guys, and more editing.  I pointed out in my review of the last one that they slavishly stick to the idea of found footage and thus do no editing or soundtrack addition (at least none so obvious that I noticed.)  Paradoxically, this only exposes the artificiality of films in general and makes things somehow feel more fake than a conventional film.  With this one, they just embrace editing and soundtrack however.

Ok, so here's a little mini-review of each the films:

• Phase I Clinical Trials
• This film was the weakest of the bunch.  It was about a guy who gets an experimental digital camera eye which we 'see' out of.  It features some truly CD-ROM-tier acting at one point and, although it was the only film to make me jump, it was not very original or interesting.  Pass.
• A Ride in the Park
• This one follows a guy with a go-pro on his helmet who gets zombified.  I think the idea for this film started and ended with "zombie with a go-pro" or possibly just "zombie-cam".  This one was not interesting to me.  There's some playing around with the zombie concept which is somewhat interesting but not enough to save it for me.
• Safe Haven
• We follow a news crew investigating what is clearly a cult.  I loved this one.  It dips into the supernatural (and zombies why not) at the end, but up to that there's creepy, smiling tour guides and loudspeakers barking speeches about Heaven and God.  All that's much more interesting to me because it's real, you know?  People actually drive themselves to murder and suicide because of faith and belief.  That's very sinister, very fascinating to me.
• Slumber Party Alien Abduction
• Alas, we couldn't wholly avoid the douche-bros.  This one features some very clumsy aliens who bedevil a slumber-party of teenagers and pre-teens.  It's interesting in its own way.  I liked, for example, all of the non-alien threats.  The loud bangs and lights are effective.  I believe the escalating prank war between the kids.  It's an inferior Incident at Lake County
• The Frame story
• This was serviceable but uninteresting connective tissue footage.  There was one scene I loved: when the woman's head and hair passes by the camera, he fingers scrabbling dumbly against the floor.  That shit was gold.  The rest is fairly limp though.  The main characters here are investigating a missing college kid.  They find an abandoned creepy house full of TVs and VHS tapes.  They then keep popping VHS tapes into the player in spite of quickly mounting creepiness.  Their VHS obsession quickly becomes unsustainable.  You just saw a monster dude, don't pop in another tape!  Oh well.

I don't really see a unifying theme of this film (other than zombies perhaps) but it's serviceable.  It delivers some scares but not ones so bad that I can't handle them.  The cult short was my favorite, but they're all okay at least.