Creeptober Night 5: V/H/S/Halloween (2025)

It’s not October without a V/H/S movie, and apparently it’s not Creeptober without one either. We watched V/H/S/Beyond last year on October 5th, and on this year’s October 5th we’re watching V/H/S/Halloween. Was this year’s V/H/S better than last? Read on, but be sure to watch the movie first because there are SPOILERS BELOW!

Reacting to V/H/S/Halloween

V/H/S/Halloween is the eighth main entry in the franchise. I’ve watched most of them, and my general feeling on the series as a whole is that I like the V/H/S movies fine. Overall, they’re okay. Most anthology horror films are like that though, right? Most of the story segments will be fine, a few will be very good or great, and there will often be one stinker in the bunch. That’s how I feel about this franchise, and that’s pretty close to how I feel about V/H/S/Halloween specifically.

The frame story in V/H/S/Halloween is one of the okay parts of the movie. I’m always a little disappointed when the frame narrative doesn’t tie in to the story segments. Like, the first V/H/S had people going through tapes they found in a house and watching them, and each tape was one of the story segments. I know you can’t just do that same thing every time, but the frame narrative for V/H/S/Halloween, titled “Diet Phantasma,” has no connection to anything other than itself. It’s not even Halloween themed until the commercial at the end. But, the various possession/death scenes are fun, so it’s fine.

The first main story is “Coochie Coochie Coo.” This is a “just okay” segment. It’s a story written around what feels like an attempt to create another fun and spooky monster for the series. My favorite in the franchise is Raatma (hail Raatma) from V/H/S/94. The Mother monster in “Coochie Coochie Coo” feels a little like they’re trying too hard to be funny and gross, but she’s fun enough as far as monsters go. The segment is made up of a lot of running and screaming, and I enjoyed it pretty well even if it did go on a little too long. My favorite part isn’t the monster though. It’s when Lacie and Kaleigh are frantically trying to find a way out of the house and are in fear for their lives, but when they open the door to a bathroom one of them exclaims, “this is a health hazard, you’re going to get another fungal infection!” I had a good chuckle at the absurdity of that line in that context.

I enjoyed “Ut Supra Sic Infra,” the second main story. I think the setup of having Enric being interviewed about a horrific incident before recreating the event is a smart way of ramping up the tension quickly and effectively. We know immediately that Enric is terrified, and his fear is what helps us start to get nervous as well. We also know that some horrible stuff is about to happen, and waiting to see exactly what form that takes is fun. This segment has the smartest writing of the entire movie, and the payoff works well.

Unfortunately, the movie takes a steep dive in the third story, “Fun Size.” I didn’t enjoy this at all. The dialogue feels like when you’re watching a streamer who doesn’t know what to say, so they just narrate whatever they’re looking at to fill the dead air. It’s inane and pointless, like when one of the characters says “they’re turning him into candy” about five minutes after we’ve already been shown what they’re doing. The jokes aren’t funny, and they’re beaten into the ground with how often some of them are repeated. And the sub-plot of the broken engagement led to exactly nothing. “Fun Size” was not for me. Like at all. And that bums me out because I like some of the director’s previous work.

The previous segment started to lose me, but “Kidprint” brought me back in. I was surprised by how brutal and uncomfortable this one got. This story is the only one that attempts to be realistic in its depiction of violence, and the found-footage format is used extremely well here. I enjoyed the misdirection about who the culprit is, and the ending is nicely unsettling.