In case you didn’t realize from the copious amounts of pictures of costumed people popping up in your Facebook newsfeed, it’s Halloween, and what better day for a genre production to announce itself than on All Hallows Eve? If you were one of the many to find that horror anthology “V/H/S” breathed new life into the found-footage genre at Sundance, in its limited theatrical run or on VOD (where it still is playing for those looking for a little H’ween fun tonight), this news may pique your interest.
While the first film from production shingle and horror news website Bloody Disgusting featured an onslaught of up and coming horror filmmakers like Ti West, Joe Swanberg, David Bruckner, Glen McQuaid, David Bruckner, Adam Wingard, and directing collective Radio Silence, it’ll be upping the filmmaker profile slightly with “V/H/S 2.” Gareth Evans of “The Raid: Redemption” fame, “The Blair Witch Project” co-director Eduardo Sanchez (co-directing here with his producing partner Gregg Hale), “Hobo With A Shotgun” filmmaker Jason Eisner, “Macabre” filmmaker Timo Tjahjanto (co-directing with Evans), “V/H/S” script contributor Simon Barrett (making his debut), and the returning Wingard will all contribute segments. Yeah, genre hounds should be excited.
While the first film was wildly uneven in terms of the quality of each segment, it established an intriguing new mythology in a mysterious character that has dozens of VHS tapes sitting around his house that showcase some really sick shit. While there’s only brief word of plot specifics here, a quick look over at the film’s IMDb page has a logline that details a sleazy private investigator and his assistant who are drawn to the house of this particular individual who holds tons of terrifying tapes – which we saw come to life in the first film – in search of a missing student. The set-up in “V/H/S” certainly lends itself to a franchise, and it sounds like it has the potential to keep chugging along, offering something new each time rather than the same reheated killings and characters. Perfect for the age of YouTube and viral videos, which the titular product was a precursor to.
Bloody Disgusting will once again be co-producing the film along with The Collective, who are also financing the film. Shooting sounds as if it’s slated to roll relatively soon, with production set for L.A., Maryland, Nova Scotia, British Columbia and Indonesia. The first “V/H/S” hits DVD/Blu-Ray on December 4th, so maybe we’ll get a sneak peek of some sort then. [THR]
