Out with the new, in with the old. Throwback vibes are a reliable source of entertainment these days. Short for “video home system,” VHS is a term synonymous with the pre-DVD days of watching the latest films from the comfort of your couch. Of course, you had to wait a big chunk of the year before the movie made it from theaters to the video store. It’s a process millennials and earlier generations had to endure back in the day, growing up in the 1980s and ’90s. More recently, the V/H/S franchise kicked off and effectively revived that nostalgia with a series of anthology films showing different gory and terrifying found-footage clips filmed in analog video.

The installments truly lean into the grainy, non-HD nature of vintage videotapes, and that includes V/H/S/85, which is now available for streaming on Shudder. Sure, there are a number of kid-friendly Halloween films out there, but the V/H/S franchise best be left to the grown-ups. This is especially a gruesome and morbid installment, though it’s not without a strong amount of humor.

We recently caught up with the directors of three different segments that make up the retro horror movie. Filmmakers Gigi Saul Guerrero (Bingo Hell), Natasha Kermani (Lucky), and Scott Derrickson (The Black Phone, Sinister) helm standalone storylines that are equal parts humor, terror and intrigue, while calling to mind both current events and past cinematic classics.

David Bruckner is responsible for the wraparound segment in V/H/S/85, a made-for-TV documentary about a research study gone wrong that is only revealed in snippets. That’s because we’re randomly exposed to different storylines throughout, played out in an unknown viewer’s effort to tape over the documentary with other groundbreaking found footage. It’s all fake, of course, but the realistic nature of standout segments — despite the supernatural components — is quite haunting, to say the least.

First comes a tale helmed by Gigi Saul Guerrero (Satanic Hispanics), dubbed “God of Death,” with the catastrophic Mexico earthquake of 1985 serving as its backdrop. “As soon as they told me it was ’85, I had to base it on something that everyone in Mexico City understands and has lived through,” she told us.

Interestingly, Guerrero noted that they experienced a real-life earthquake while filming. What are the chances of that?! She continued to detail some other challenges during production:

The first thing you have to get right on cam footage is the realism of it, that we believe it… You don’t want it to feel like we are watching a movie. You just want to feel the realism of it. And so that in itself was the biggest challenge. But definitely we had the challenge of also making a disaster film and the challenges of filming in a very decrepit location. Who knows what will happen?

Related: Exclusive: V/H/S/85 Directors on Their Multipart Segments in Latest Installment

One of the perks of a found-footage film is the banter between the actors. Dating back to The Blair Witch Project, the realistic dialogue would never fail to bring levity and authenticity to an otherwise terrifying film. “The actors definitely have the liberty of improvising,” said Guerrero about her V/H/S/85 story. “There were very specific lines that I just put in there in the script for them to be inspired by, and I just wanted them to feel the moment and feel the rush, so our camera guy can know who to shoot and when. But definitely, the banter — they just have very few lines to hit, and they improvised so much of it. It was amazing.”

TKNOGD
Bloody Disgusting

Next in the anthology film comes another laugh-out-loud yet frightening sequence, this time directed by Natasha Kermani (Imitation Girl). Titled “TKNOGD,” it centers on a performance art piece by a passionate speaker named Ada (Chivonne Michelle) who warns a black-box theater audience against the dangers of modern technology. Even though it takes place decades ago, we can see the similarities between then and now. “We were really excited about the final image of the piece, the idea that the technology has eaten our protagonists by the end,” said Kermani. She continued:

“And then the ’80s of it all gave it its texture and its place, but the film is definitely in conversation with today, which is a lot of fun. And a lot of it just came very organically out of our research and watching archival videos… [Writer] Zoe Cooper and I both joke around that we were raised in black box theaters where we grew up, that’s where we found our voices and stuff. So even though we’re poking fun at it, I think it is also a love letter to that world.”

Related: Exclusive: Fright Krewe Showrunners on Collaborating with Eli Roth for Their Spooky New YA Series

Embracing the ‘Freedom’ of the V/H/S Franchise
Shudder

The expansive work of David Lynch comes to mind with “Dreamkill,” the next segment in V/H/S/85 from director Scott Derrickson (Doctor Strange). Starring Freddy Rodriguez (Planet Terror) as a detective in distress, “Dreamkill” centers on a series of grisly murders that appear to be videotaped before they even happen. “I was watching everything I could find that had characters observing something horrific on film,” Derrickson told us.

It’s a unique storyline that has a shocking twist (like the other aforementioned V/H/S/85 segments), but another distinctive component is how Derrickson chose to reveal how the murders are played out on the videotape:

“I learned the way to do it and make it effective by watching Lost Highway, because what happens in Lost Highway is that, when they get the videotape, it’s unlike every other film I had seen where it bifurcates the audience’s experience and cutting it off, you’re showing what they’re watching and they’re showing you that reaction, which is how you think that story should be told. In Lost Highway, they put those tapes in, it goes to the screen full-frame, and you don’t cut back, so you’re having the full experience that the characters are having without cutting.”

“And that was the way I did Sinister. And then did the same thing with the dreams here: once they start, you never cut back and watch anybody watching the tapes until they’re over,” added Derrickson. “And I think that that effectiveness comes strictly by seeing that particularly. It gets back to the freedom of these movies, that you have the balls to do that.”

V/H/S/85 is now streaming on Shudder, and it’s certainly effective.