VHS2 is one of the best horror films I've seen in recent memory. It tightened the overlong editing of the first movie and added genuinely creepy moments. I was looking forward to watching VHS: Viral after seeing VHS2, because I thought they'd gotten a solid pattern down. But no.

No, instead you get skateboarding teens looking "totally rad" while fighting a group of cultists (seriously.) And then, after fending off the angry mob, the 15-year-old boys skate home.

VHS: Viral offers four stories: the magician story, the multi-universe story, the aforementioned skateboarding brats yarn, and a wraparound that ties all these vignettes together. These stories all stink except for "Parallel Monsters," which is good enough to warrant its own film.

If you can, watch "Parallel Monsters" without wasting your time with the rest of this sequel.

Granted, I can't really claim to have been much of a fan of the past movies as a whole. Sure, there were parts of the previous "V/H/S" movies that were interesting, but as a wholesome movie package, not so much.

I was given the chance to watch "V/H/S Viral" in 2019, and I hadn't even heard about it before now. So that just goes to prove the impact of the franchise, or not huh? Well, I said yes to sit down and watch "V/H/S Viral" having sort of an idea of what I was getting myself into here.

Again it is an anthology of stories that are tied together by a narrative as well, much akin to the previous movies. However, while following the same manuscript and how-to-make-an-anthology recipe, then "V/H/S Viral" just didn't have as much appeal as the previous movies, especially the second movie in the franchise.

This seemed like a scramble of different stories put together, certainly, but there was little given to the audience in terms of building up the characters or setting the scene, so it was straight into the stories and action, for better or worse. It didn't really work out all that great, because the characters were essentially pointless and shallow, offering nothing to the audience to relate to.

The different segments were of very varied quality and interest, but overall just landed well below a mediocre value. In fact, the entire stew of this movie just was dragged down by a pointless narrative and equally pointless characters. Plus the fact that there was nothing scary here at all, well, maybe except for the super annoying added layer of broken VHS quality, which really was getting on my nerves towards the end.

Stay well clear of the 2014 "V/H/S Viral", because it really isn't worth the time or effort.

VHS as I recalled was people watching a VHS tape and then they would disappear. In this one the VHS tape is all but gone, although the bad tracking and lines associated with VHS are still there in digital cameras. The film consists of several disjointed episodes of which the Magician segment seems to be the favorite. I know it was mine, it wasn't a hand held camera. It consists of a magician with a magic cape that consumes humans, similar to what the VHS tape would do. There is a group of skate boarders who get in trouble with Mexican zombies. A man creates a portal to a parallel universe and trades places with himself. The main episode which starts and finishes the film as well as pops up from time time, consists of rescue vehicles circling through the city which has Kevin's (Patrick Lawrie) girlfriend Iris (Emilia Ares Zoryanand). He wants her back and chases on bicycle.

The episodes by themselves weren't bad, but overall the story lacked cohesiveness.

F-bombs, nudity, creature sex?