Breaking News: The V/H/S Franchise Has Caught a Fatal Virus
There’s a special kind of cinematic misery that comes from watching a movie that thinks it’s clever while actively drooling on itself. V/H/S: Viral is that kind of movie. The third entry in the found-footage anthology series that once promised to reinvigorate horror instead delivers the cinematic equivalent of an infected USB drive—glitchy, confusing, and capable of ruining whatever good memory you had of its predecessors.
If the first V/H/S was a wild new experiment and V/H/S/2 was an overachieving sequel on Red Bull, V/H/S: Viral is the kid who shows up late to class with his homework written in blood on a pizza box, insisting it’s “meta.”
The Frame Story: ‘Vicious Circles,’ or The Fast & The Found Footage
The film opens with a frame story so aggressively nonsensical it feels like someone shot a car chase, dropped their phone mid-recording, and submitted the footage to Sundance.
Meet Kevin, an amateur videographer who spends his days filming his girlfriend Iris because nothing says “romance” like unsolicited surveillance. When an ice cream truck—yes, an ice cream truck—starts leading the police on a high-speed chase, Kevin thinks, Perfect! My chance at viral fame! Because apparently, the real horror here is influencer culture.
Before long, Iris disappears, people’s phones start bleeding evil YouTube energy, and everyone in Los Angeles begins murdering each other for reasons that may or may not be caused by poor signal reception. The film wants to say something about technology, but the message gets lost somewhere between bad Wi-Fi and worse editing.
Imagine Black Mirror written by someone who only skimmed the episode descriptions while watching Jackass 3D. That’s Vicious Circles.
Segment One: ‘Dante the Great’—When Harry Houdini Met Criss Angel at a Kmart
We start strong(ish) with Dante the Great, a mockumentary about a trashy magician who finds Houdini’s magic cloak, which grants him real powers… as long as he sacrifices people to it. It’s part Now You See Me, part Hoarders: Demonic Edition.
Dante—played by Justin Welborn, who looks like Nicolas Cage’s sleep-deprived nephew—uses the cloak to get famous, kill his assistants, and commit crimes so stupid you’d think his real magic power was escaping logic.
The found-footage style doesn’t even try to make sense here. We cut between “documentary interviews,” SWAT helmet cams, and random cellphone clips like the editor sneezed mid-timeline. Still, Dante the Great is the film’s high point—mostly because it contains actual plot, coherent lighting, and one halfway decent fight scene involving a possessed garment.
Unfortunately, it ends with the assistant burning the cloak, only to find it hanging ominously in her closet later that night. Ooh, spooky! If you’ve ever wanted to see The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants reimagined as The Robe of the Murdering Magician, here’s your chance.
Segment Two: ‘Parallel Monsters,’ or Science Has Gone Entirely to Hell
Next up: Parallel Monsters, directed by Nacho Vigalondo (Timecrimes), which starts promisingly before descending into genitally nightmarish chaos.
A Spanish scientist named Alfonso invents an interdimensional portal and meets an alternate version of himself. Naturally, the two decide to swap universes for 15 minutes, because what could go wrong when you trust your doppelgänger?
Well, apparently everything. Alternate Alfonso’s world turns out to be a Satanic nightmare where blimps bear inverted crosses, people perform blood orgies, and both genders are armed with… um, carnivorous genitalia. Yes, the otherworldly horror here is that everyone’s crotch has teeth. Freud is spinning so fast in his grave he could power the portal himself.
The short’s message is unclear—perhaps “don’t open parallel universes,” or maybe just “men are terrified of women’s bodies.” Either way, it’s the kind of sequence that makes you question not only science but also why you paid $4.99 to rent this movie instead of just screaming into a mirror.
Segment Three: ‘Bonestorm,’ or Jackass Meets the Devil
By the time we reach Bonestorm, the film has given up pretending to be scary and fully embraces chaos. Three skater bros go to Tijuana to film tricks for YouTube and end up fighting a skeleton army. That’s it. That’s the plot.
They ollie, they curse, they bleed, they explode skeletons with fireworks—basically, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 6: Satan’s Revenge. It’s loud, it’s dumb, and it’s somehow the most entertaining part of the film purely because it knows it’s stupid.
If nothing else, it serves as a public service announcement for why you shouldn’t trust anyone with a GoPro and a pentagram.
Meanwhile, in the Frame Story: Viciously Pointless
Between each short, we’re dragged back into Kevin’s ongoing chase of the ice cream truck, which now feels like Speeddirected by someone on bath salts. The interludes feature random acts of violence, hallucinations, and a backyard barbecue that turns into a mass stabbing because… demonic Wi-Fi?
By the time Kevin finally catches the truck, he finds his girlfriend’s corpse and a stack of TVs uploading evil videos. She appears on-screen and demands he go “viral,” because apparently hell is powered by social media algorithms. Kevin obliges, because if there’s one thing this movie understands, it’s that no one can resist the lure of views—even if the price is the apocalypse.
The Horror: Found Footage Fatigue
Remember when found footage was fresh and scary? Yeah, that was about five films ago. V/H/S: Viral drags the concept’s corpse across the asphalt, filming it from five incompatible camera angles, then uploads the results to TikTok with #ArtFilm in the caption.
The problem isn’t just the shaky cam—it’s the complete lack of logic. Who’s filming what? Why are they filming? Why do half the characters carry five cameras when they clearly don’t own pants that fit?
Instead of using the format to heighten realism or tension, Viral uses it as an excuse for incoherence. Every time the action gets interesting, someone drops the camera or explodes, leaving you wondering whether that was intentional or the director ran out of budget.
The Theme: The Internet Will Kill Us All (But Not Before Boring Us to Death)
At its core, V/H/S: Viral wants to be a commentary on our obsession with virality—the idea that we’d rather film tragedy than prevent it. Unfortunately, it delivers that message with all the subtlety of a YouTube prank channel.
Yes, technology can be evil. Yes, viral culture is destructive. But when your movie’s moral boils down to “Don’t look at your phone or you’ll stab your neighbor at a barbecue,” it’s hard to take seriously.
The Acting: People Pretending to Hold Cameras While Screaming
To be fair, the actors do their best. Addison Timlin isn’t here to save the day; she probably saw the script and called her agent immediately. The rest of the cast—largely anonymous faces with names like “Guy With GoPro” and “Dead Skater #2”—commit fully to their roles, often by dying on cue.
The standout is the magician from Dante the Great, who chews the scenery like he’s trying to win an Oscar for “Best Performance in a Film That Shouldn’t Exist.” He deserves a better movie, or at least a better cloak.
The Ending: Apocalypse by Upload
In the grand finale, Kevin uploads his footage, triggering a citywide breakdown as Los Angeles burns and Beethoven’s Ninth blares ironically in the background. It’s meant to be haunting, but mostly it feels like watching a YouTube buffering screen for 90 minutes and finally realizing your soul has lagged out.
Final Verdict: VHS Should Have Stayed Rewound
⭐½ out of 5
V/H/S: Viral is a horror anthology so confused it could be diagnosed with cinematic dementia. It mistakes noise for tension, gore for creativity, and “meta” for meaningful. The result is a migraine disguised as a movie.
If you’re craving found-footage horror that’s actually terrifying, go watch Lake Mungo, REC, or even your own home videos from middle school. They’ll be scarier—and better edited.
As for Viral, it’s not a film. It’s a warning. A grim prophecy of what happens when horror franchises catch the one virus even demons can’t cure: bad writing.
Final Thought:
If you ever see an ice cream truck speeding down your street while people livestream the apocalypse, do yourself a favor—don’t film it. Just run. And maybe, for the love of God, leave the VHS tapes in the attic where they belong.
