I've never understood the slashies in the V/H/S series. Video Home System works fine without them, and I've never known anyone to refer to VHS as anything but. Maybe it's a copyright thing, who knows? At any rate, the title of this film at least makes sense to the plot (as there are viral videos being passed about in the wraparound segments of the film), but I can think of a couple more apt titles. V/H/S: Absolute Shit or V/H/S: Franchise Killer would have made a lot more sense.
So yeah, I didn't like it - and this is coming from big fan of the first two films in the series. I mean, I've seen worse anthology films, but those were no budget/no effort numbers. To have this brand name pretty well established and then release such a big pile is just plain bad news. V/H/S Viral is bad enough that you actually feel embarrassed watching it - and it also pretty blatantly ignores what was set up in the first two films. (i.e that these are all found VHS tapes, and that they are found footage - the first story pretty much abandons that entirely in favor of a faux-documentary feel).
Our wraparound story is about some guy who likes to tape things (surprise!), and gets into this whole thing with an ice cream truck driving in circles around his home city (I'd guess LA, but I don't think it's specifically mentioned). Apparently, this truck is somehow emanating some sort of viral signal to people's phones, which makes them go crazy. (By the way, this is *not* what I got from the film - after reading some synopses, I guess it makes sense... but the whole "infection" thing was not made explicitly clear.)
The 3 stories just kind of happen, and aren't really tied into the wrap-around in any meaningful way. First, is "Dante the Great," some faux documentary about a magician and an evil cloak that eats people. It's not inherently bad, but it's just totally wrong for a V/H/S entry - while there is some gore here and there, it's surprisingly toothless. If the story was used for Goosebumps or something, I may even be down with it. Half of the story has no found footage element to it; much of it is edited together with talking head interviews and *clear* third person camera footage. My notes say "too bad when a clock is your most likable character."
Second, is "Parallel Monsters," a story about a scientist and a parallel universe where everything is the same, except genitalia. It starts off with some promise, gets a little porny, and then falls flat. I think this is probably the best segment, but I would still chalk it up as a big swing and a miss.
The third segment is "Bonestorm," a semi-coherent story about jerky skateboarding kids who run afoul of some cult in Tijuana. I guess skating around on a bunch of poorly drawn satanic symbols is a no-no. Supposedly they fight people who come back from the dead, but really it looks like they are fighting people in skeleton costumes. Our obnoxious kids all have GoPros (some day I'm going to have to learn how that is properly written), and while the story may be okay the execution is pretty terrible. The kids kind of suck, and the action is shot and edited in such a way that you can't really tell what is happening.
The wrap-around is the most obnoxious, and sadly the most prominent section in the film. (Again a divergence from the prior entries in the series - the stories should always be the main point of an anthology.) I feel like there must have been some footage added late in the game - it's never a good sign when the climax of your film feels like padding. Apparently, there was a fourth story that didn't make the cut - according to the producers, it didn't fit in with the overall vibe of the film. The part of me that hates myself is curious to see how bad you have to be to not make the final cut in a film this terrible.
V/H/S Viral is just flat out bad. The main thread between the three stories and the wraparound is that there just aren't any stakes whatsoever. You are never really given any reason to care about anyone... granted, character development is never really a strong suite of these types of films, but in the last two you at least had some inventive camera work and economic storytelling to get you involved. Here? Nothing of the sort. The stories and characters are grating more often than not, which ends up being worse than if they were just boring. The most interesting the film ever gets is when it flirts with being amateur-porny (no nudity though, so don't let that sway you). And when that's your horror movie highlight, you're in trouble.
I guess I liked the ending credits though. Although I wasn't sure if it was the fact that it was some pretty cool electro-music with crazy visuals, or the fact that it meant the film was over.
I would recommend that you stay far, far away from this film.
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