V/H/S/Halloween (2025) review – All tricks, very few treats

Welcome to Knockout Horror. The V/H/S series has become something of an October tradition, as of late. We’ve had a new movie each year since 2021when the franchise returned after a 7 year hiatus spent licking its wounds from the awful V/H/S/Viral. Today we are checking out this year’s entry – V/H/S/Halloween.

The Tapes So Far

For those of you who don’t know, the V/H/S series consists of a collection of short films usually flanked by a wrap-around story. The first movie was born from a concept by Brad Miska, who you may know as the founder of the big time horror media website Bloody Disgusting.

Bloody Disgusting have, in fact, shared production credits on every entry so far. Shudder hopped on at some point to release the films under its label and the rest is history. A number of noteworthy directors have created segments for the anthologies including:

• Ti West (The House of the Devil, MaXXXine)
• David Bruckner (The Night House)
• Joe Swanberg (You’re Next)
• Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead (Resolution)
• Vanessa Winter & Joseph Winter (Deadstream)
• Kate Siegel (Hush)

The directors at the helm of the five segments in V/H/S/Halloween are Bryan M. Ferguson (Diet Phantasma), Casper Kelly (Fun Size), R.H. Norman & Micheline Pitt (Home Haunt), Alex Ross Perry (Kidprint), Paco Plaza (Ut Supra Sic Infra), and Anna Zlokovic (Coochie Coochie Coo). Each segment features a Halloween theme and most seem to revolve around trick or treating.

The usual collection of horror minis

V/H/S/Halloween opens with “Diet Phantasma,” a frame narrative in which scientists at the Octagon Company test a new soda made from captured poltergeists, leading to a series of grotesque and fatal human trials that spiral further out of control. “Coochie Coochie Coo” follows two teenage girls who are way too old for trick-or-treating finding themselves drawn into an encounter with “The Mommy,” a strange ghoulish woman who just so happens to love children.

In “Ut Supra Sic Infra” a survivor of a brutal party massacre recounts a séance involving a disconnected phone and an ominous chant that unleashes supernatural carnage. “Fun Size” delivers a dark twist on trick-or-treating, as four friends discover a candy bowl that consumes them and transports them into a nightmare factory where a monstrous being named Fun Size turns humans into candy.

“Kidprint” follows a video store owner who uses a child-safety project as the front for a wave of sadistic killings. Finally, “Home Haunt” mixes suburban satire with gory chaos as a father’s attempt to bond with his son through their elaborate haunted house experience goes catastrophically wrong when a cursed Halloween record brings their decorations violently to life.

This one is made for splatter-horror fans!

Full disclosure, I am feeling very burned out on the V/H/S series but let’s try and focus on the positives. This is probably the most cohesive entry into the series yet. The Halloween theme keeps the majority of segments feeling like they actually fit together.

“Splatter horror fans should find plenty to like as well; this is pure gore. In fact, it’s almost like an explosion at a meat packing facility, at times.”

Splatter horror fans should find plenty to like as well; this is pure gore. In fact, it’s almost like an explosion at a meat packing facility, at times. I wouldn’t say it is well done, as such. Gore fans rarely seem to care about that type of thing, though.

Paco Plaza, of [REC] fame, is the only genuinely experienced and well regarded horror director with his own segment, here. Ut Supra Sic Infra might be the most complete story and would probably work the best as an actual feature film. It’s quite a traditional horror concept and a good example of “less is more”.

I enjoyed Fun Size a little. It’s really played for laughs and the characters are obnoxious enough that you will find their, honestly quite inventive, demise pretty enjoyable. Home Haunt is a competent enough segment, as well. It feels similar to Deadstream in that it’s just good old fashioned splatter horror chaos with some traditional Halloween villains and enough over-the-top gore to keep genre fans happy.

Too many tricks, not enough treats

Let’s go onto the bad and most of these issues are present in each and every segment. Just in general, this feels like a big step backwards in terms of the technical aspects of found footage. You know? The stuff that makes the genre tough to enjoy.

The shaky cam is back and shakier than ever. There’s lots of that annoying camera interference that is so prevalent in these films, including jumping shots, stuttering audio, and random glitching. It’s completely obnoxious and, again, present in practically every segment. Oh, there’s also an abundance of that incredibly amateur quick zoom-in, zoom-out shit that so many V/H/S shorts have.

“The shaky cam is back and shakier than ever. There’s lots of that annoying camera interference… including jumping shots, stuttering audio, and random glitching.”

There is a ton of mindless screaming in every segment which goes way beyond being simply annoying, as well. Sound production is very poor; voices are too low in the mix and jump scare stuff is far too high. You are going to be repeatedly reaching for your remote if watching this late at night.

It should also be pointed out that V/H/S/Halloween has an overwhelming desire to shock and gross out the viewer rather than scare them. This is by far the goriest entry and that’s going to get old fast for a lot of viewers. It’s as if the directors confused horror with simple mindless violence.

There’s a cheapness to V/H/S/Halloween, as well, that deserves mention. It feels as if most of the segments were filmed in the same warehouse. It comes across as very low effort and made for maximum turnover. I think it might be time to step away from the found footage presentation style. Let’s see what directors can do with a proper traditional setup.

From Dull to Depraved

The wrap-around segment, Diet Phantasma, is extremely reminiscent of Total Wrap from V/H/S/85 in both style and presentation. I’m guessing they were going for a sort of B-Movie approach but I just didn’t find it very interesting. It continues a tradition of kinda dull frame stories.

The first actual segment, Coochie Coochie Coo, basically takes a single element from Barbarian and tries to run with it. The characters are obnoxious, the dialogue is poor, and there isn’t much to recommend unless you really haven’t had your fill of naked old people with 8 tits.

“All I will say is that it’s pathetically try-hard with its edginess and designed to appeal to people who think that peeling the faces off of young children has a place somewhere in horror.”

I’m not even going to talk about Kid Print because that’s clearly what the director wants people to do. All I will say is that it’s pathetically try-hard with its edginess and designed to appeal to people who think that peeling the faces off of young children has a place somewhere in horror.

I will say that the producers deserve some serious criticism for plugging this segment into the middle of an anthology horror movie that so many non-genre fans watch. Like Megan is Missing, this is one of those things that blurs the line between horror and perversion.

Although Fun Size made me laugh it will probably end up being the most divisive segment. It really hammers one particular joke to a point that will really piss some people off. As mentioned earlier, my biggest complaint, as a whole, is the lack of horror. This is just a collection of shorts that are designed purely to shock. I don’t associate Halloween with splatter horror, I associate it far more with ghost stories and tales of the supernatural.

Our Scoring Philosophy: A Fair Fight

Horror is a genre that thrives thanks to indie film makers and low budget creators. At Knockout Horror, we firmly believe that every movie that we review deserves a fair fight. That's why we grade on a curve. Our star ratings are all about context, judging a film on what it achieves with the resources it has.

A 4-star rating for a scrappy indie horror made for $10,000 is a testament to its ingenuity and raw power. A 4-star rating for a $100 million blockbuster means it delivered on its epic promises. We don't compare them side-by-side; we celebrate success in every weight class, from the back-alley brawler to the heavyweight champion. Please keep this in mind when considering star ratings.

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