Jennie Kermode V/H/S Mixtape 20550
Reviving a horror anthology is a tricky balancing act. While projects like the V/H/S series are certainly welcomed for giving a platform to up-and-coming filmmakers, they often prove to be a bit hit and miss. The challenge, as is often the case with collaborative projects, lies in maintaining effective quality control and successfully balancing the tone. Finding the right framing narrative—the essential glue that holds all the disparate elements together—is where the true artistic difficulty begins.
Sometimes, the solution to finding that narrative isn’t found in conventional storytelling, but in something far messier and more unexpected. This time around, the inspiration for the necessary glue turned out to be something sticky, messy, and entirely unwise: the drug choices and resentments of teenagers.
This juxtaposition of mundane teenage angst with the macabre often leads to wonderfully bizarre results. It asks us to consider what strange landscapes exist at the intersection of adolescence and horror.
And what happens when you inject the utterly absurd into that framework? Enter GWAR. This legendary extraterrestrial metal band, known for making continuity editors nervous, are guaranteed to put on a show wherever they go. Their involvement throws the entire project into a realm of glorious chaos.
The ensuing narrative spiral is equally bizarre. The story kicks off with a deeply strange premise: Grodius attempting to bring his childhood drawings to life by masturbating onto them in a desperate attempt to conjure reality. From this incredibly specific and visceral starting point, the band unleashes their signature madness, announcing a spectacle for the masses: “Sit back, human filth, and revel…”
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