This is the wraparound segment. We start off with a private investigator who was called by a woman claiming her son is missing. The detective and his partner go to the son's house and break in to see if they can find anything out. Upon entering the house, they come across a room with a laptop, tv's vcr's and vhs tapes.The one detective looks around the house while the other stays in the main room and begins to watch tapes. The only thing I really enjoyed about this segment was that it went a bit further into the tapes. It is hinted at that there is some sort of black market with collectors of these tapes. There is also a theory that is touched on about a transmission in the analog tapes effecting the brain in some way which plays out later in the story. Unlike the first V/H/S, we get started on the first tape pretty quickly.
Phase 1 Clinical Trials
The first tape/segment in the movie takes a very unique approach to found footage. We have a man who has lost an eye, and has had an experimental bionic eye installed. The catch is, this eye is recording. The doctor tells the man that the eye will be recording for the first couple weeks so that the doctors can analyze the footage and see if everything is going ok. Later that evening the man starts being haunted by dead people. The next day he has a knock on his door, there is a girl who saw him at the doctors office and tracked him down to warn him about his new eye. She tells him that she herself was born deaf and had an implant put
in her ear and now she can hear dead people. She warns him that the more attention he pays to them the more they can affect him. This is my least favorite of the stories, however that doesn't mean it was bad. As I said, I loved this unique approach to found footage.
A Ride In The Park
This segment is a fresh take on a zombie story. We start with a guy riding his bike through the park with a goPro cam on his helmet. He encounters a group of zombies, is bitten, and turns into a zombie himself. We now have, for the first time ever, a zombie story from a zombie's pov. It's not really scary, but it's a very fun segment to watch. It's campy at moments, but still exciting with a strange ending.
Safe Haven
The third segment kicks the entire movie into high gear. Not only is this the best segment in the movie, but it's one of the most intense segments I've ever seen in any anthology. I will warn you, this one was filmed in Indonesia and is mostly subtitled. I know some people have issues with foreign movies, but put that aside for this segment... it's worth it, I promise you. We start with a film crew interviewing the leader of a cult. They convince him to come to his compound to give the world an unbiased look at his group. Once on the premesis, they are walked through the compound and they begin to interview the leader again. Then, without giving much away, all hell breaks loose.... literally. What starts off as an atmospheric slow burn quickly turns into an intense, violent, and just plain batshit crazy climax.
While this isn't my favorite segment in the movie, it is a close 2nd. This segment is fast paced, intense, and a lot of fun. Also we have another interesting take in this one.
A good portion of this one is filmed from a cam mounted on the family dog. The story in this one is pretty simple. We have 2 brothers and a sister left home alone for the night with some of
their friends. The evening starts out fun with pranks and jokes, but quickly takes a turn when aliens show up.
Overall, I think this was a very good sequel, and even more impressive is the fact that it turned out so well being as rushed as it is. In some ways, it's better than the first. The stories are more beefed up than the first. The thing missing for me tho, this one, while still intense at moments, didn't grip me as much as the first one did. The first one also had a more amatuer feel to it. This one felt a little more polished. I think the amatuer feel of the first one made it feel more realistic and scary. I really hope to see a part 3, and if we do get a part 3, I hope that it delves more into the background of the tapes and/or the effect of the tapes on people.
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