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Title: V/H/S Halloween (2025) Director: Paco Plaza // Anna Zlokovic // and others… Writers: Paco Plaza // Anna Zlokovic // and others… Studio: Spooky Pictures // Imagenation Abu Dhabi FZ // Shudder Films IMDb Plot: A collection of Halloween-themed videotapes unleashes a series of twisted, blood-soaked tales, turning trick-or-treat into a struggle for survival. Joe Says: V/H/S Halloween is a grab bag of six fun-sized tricks and treats stuffed with old school, gross-out horror movie gore and plenty of shrieks and screams.

The found-footage anthology series V/H/S fires up the old VCR for spooky season, this time rewinding straight into V/H/S Halloween — a grab bag of six fun-sized tricks and treats stuffed with old school, gross-out horror movie gore and plenty of shrieks and screams. Grainy, grimy, and gloriously unhinged, this is another chaotic mashup of blood-soaked tricks and treats that prove this franchise still knows how to make you flinch, laugh, and check under your bed for lost tape reels.

Alongside stories about horrible haunted houses, creepy candy bowls, and possessed party goers, V/H/S Halloween bridges each short with a wraparound story. “Diet Phantasma” (written and directed by Bryan M. Ferguson), follows focus group guinea pigs testing a mysterious new soda. Each sip unleashes another wave of grisly side effects, as the company’s apathetic COO (David Haydn) shrugs through the carnage like a man who’s seen too many quarterly reports. It’s a pitch-perfect Re-Animator homage — fizzy, funny, and increasingly grotesque — that ties the anthology together with just the right amount of horror.

V/H/S Halloween intercuts five shorts that range from wickedly fun to genuinely disturbing. “Coochie Coochie Coo” (by Appendage’s Anna Zlokovic) kicks things off with two older teens trick-or-treating at the wrong house. Inside waits “Mommy,” an urban legend come to life and one of the nastier mother figures this side of Barbarian. “Coochie Coochie Coo” is mean, claustrophobic, and dripping with that old-school, don’t-go-in-there energy that makes this one of the best V/H/S segments.

Paco Plaza (REC) takes the found-footage style to new heights — and depths — in “Ut Supra Sic Infra,” a Spanish entry that stitches together police bodycams and iPhone footage during a Halloween party gone to hell. When a phone call from the other side of the veil rings through, things literally flip upside down. Plaza wrings pure dread out of chaos and goes beyond the shaky found-footage trope, employing a full arsenal of cinematic feats to deliver a creepy tale about possession and murder. This is the most polished and cinematic piece of the bunch complete with a terribly chilling feel. 

“Fun Size” (by Casper Kelly) is the goofball in the mix — a candy-coated morality play about ignoring the “one per visitor” rule. This is the silliest, and softest, of the group; self-aware, and juvenile that leaves more of a sugar crash than a scare. If anything, “Fun Size” provides a nice breather before things get ugly again.

And they do get ugly. “Kid Print” (by Philly born Alex Ross Perry) goes more for serious serial killer vibes than demonic monsters as a video recording studio ends up as a base for trick-or-treating nightmares. The choppy, nauseating camera work hurts the pacing, but it’s not as bad as the French found footage movie As Above So Below. Here, an atmosphere of sleaze and implied violence (especially around missing kids) gives the short serious teeth — and a serious trigger warning.

The anthology goes out with a bang — and a broomstick ride — in R.H. Norman’s “Home Haunt,” a splatter-happy ode to a neighborhood haunted house attraction when the wrong incantation is played. A tale of teenaged angst splattered with a full-on Sam Raimi-esque palette complete with a startingly-fun broom ride POV, gnarly makeup, and a gloriously twisted finale. “Home Haunt” is messy, manic, and a perfect closing act for this wicked mixtape.

As with all anthologies, the hits and misses come fast and uneven, but that’s part of the charm. V/H/S Halloween is a sugar rush of found-footage horror — equal parts sick joke and spooky spectacle. Some shorts are deliciously dark chocolate, others are stale candy corn, but all of them go down with a satisfying gulp. 

V/H/S Halloween doesn’t reinvent the tape, but it is a quick reminder as to why this franchise endures: because horror, when it’s weird and wild, doesn’t need polish; it just needs guts. And this one’s spilling over with them.

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Check out a full discussion about V/H/S Halloween on the Cinefied podcast featuring Read @ Joe‘s Joe!