V/H/S/Mixtape review – murderous puppets pull the strings in mixed bag of gory music-themed mini-movies
Metal band Gwar host this instalment of the horror series, which serves up darkly humorous movie morsels that would struggle to frighten a toddler
The latest in the long-running horror-feature series is, as per usual, a decidedly diverse ragbag of shorts, strung together with the thinnest of connective tissue. The theme this go-round seems to be music and sound, so it sort of makes sense that hosting duties for the interstitial bits fall to the goofy metal band Gwar, its assorted members met here cracking Halloween dad jokes in their trademark extravagant outfits.
The five mini movies vary significantly in length as well as quality. Flying Lotus’s stop-motion exercise Another Cabin posits a young boy in a rural cabin living with a mean old grannie who tries to push him forward when a tentacled demon tears the roof of the house in search of a snack. The characters’ resemblance to the cast of early 2000s series The PJs is slightly jarring, given this is such a different register, but the brevity works in its favour. In contrast Renee Zhan’s Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance, the opener, drags on a bit, but has a reasonable gags-to-gore ratio in its tale of murderous puppets taking revenge on visiting studio execs who would dare to “reimagine” some ageing IP best left dormant. The funniest gag is the bright major-scale title song the puppets (designed by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop) sing about how all things must die.
Venerable cinematographer turned director Ernest Dickerson (who filmed several key Spike Lee films including Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X) turns the unsurprisingly beautifully shot and designed but thinly written amuse-bouche The Music of Mr Sze. This features Jihad Brent as an aspiring film-maker who becomes bewitched by the violin melodies emanating from the bedsit of his upstairs neighbour (Alex Hsu), a story that escalates into a fantasia of trippy but borderline incomprehensible imagery.
Far more straightforward narratively but repetitive, Death Tone (directed by RZA) stars Neela Jolene as the daughter of a famed music producer who follows her late father’s instructions – and dips into his narcotic supply – to make the perfect song, featuring the screams of agony from a range of random victims. RZA is clearly having a jolly chuckle to himself over gags that might crack them up in the sound booth, but they don’t travel as well as he seems to think. Somewhere in the middle of this package David Moreau’s Heartbeat is a snoozy riff on a theme from Edgar Allan Poe, about obnoxious YouTubers who get trapped in a Bulgarian military base.
Throughout the practical effects are over the top, rubbery and absurd; so much so they would struggle to frighten a toddler, but with its unpleasantly warped humour it’s not really for kids anyway.
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