The V/H/S Franchise Continues to Knock it Out of the Park with V/H/S/Halloween (FANTATIC) Entry
Title: V/H/S/Halloween
First Non-Festival Release: October 3, 2025 (Digital/Streaming Platforms)
Director: Bryan M. Ferguson, Casper Kelly, R.H. Norman, Alex Ross Perry, Micheline Pitt, Paco Plaza, Anna Zlokovic
Writer: Bryan M. Ferguson, Casper Kelly, R.H. Norman, Alex Ross Perry, Micheline Pitt, Paco Plaza, Anna Zlokovic, Alberto Marini
Runtime: 115 Minutes
Starring: David Haydn, Anna McKelvie, Adam James Johnston
Where to Watch: Check out where to find it here
This film’s review was written after its screening at the Fantastic Film Festival in 2025.
Since 2021, the revival of the V/H/S series has left audiences with a plethora of boundary-pushing, found-footage shorts that carry on the series’ tradition of strange, dark, and captivating stories that wouldn’t exist otherwise.
This year’s entry focuses on Halloween. In the wraparound segment, “Diet Phantasma”, a corporation tests a new diet soda. Next, two teenagers discover a strange house when trick-or-treating in “Coochie Coochie Coo.” In “Ut Supra Sic Infra,” a witness to a terrible crime is pushed by police to walk them through the events in person. A group of young adults learn the consequence of taking more than one piece of candy in “Fun Size.” Following this, in “Kindprint” a serial killer terrorizes a small community by abducting children. Lastly, “Home Haunt” explores a family building their scariest haunted house attraction to date.
A solid entry in the franchise, V/H/S/Halloween provides plenty of scares and laughs for the dedicated found footage cinephile.
Wraparound segment “Diet Phantasma” firmly controls the humor in the latest V/H/S. Always a contentious element of any entry, the wraparound segment is difficult to get right. “Diet Phantasma” avoids most of the pitfalls of a framing device. Quick, clever, and hilarious, it matches the overall tone perfectly while standing out as a memorable and effective conceptual horror short.
One of the stronger segments of the entry, “Coochie Coochie Coo” isn’t afraid to get nasty with its goopy premise. The first of two warnings about older people ignoring trick-or-treating social norms, “Coochie Coochie Coo” twists a classic urban legend setup and makes it even more diabolical. Benefitting from its small cast and cheeky premise, “Coochie Coochie Coo” leans more into the gross out elements of horror leading to varied results. It might fall into some problematic tropes at times and egregiously includes some quickly inserted and unnecessary AI slop for good measure, but it doesn’t detract too much from the experience.
Paco Plaza’s “Ut Supra Sic Infra” is a classic V/H/S segment in nearly every sense of the word. A dynamic, classic supernatural shocker, this simple tale of a Halloween party trick gone wrong is both effective and haunting. Its strong concept and pacing make the horror palpable. Plaza remains one of the strongest voices in found footage horror and hopefully “Ut Supra Sic Infra” isn’t the last we see of him in the medium.
A creative joy, “Fun Size” injects more fun, campy energy into the film. Bright colors and juvenile humor, “Fun Size” is the film’s second condemnation of Trick-or-Treating greed. Leaning more into the comedic elements, Casper Kelly’s segment is far more absurd and wackier than a typical venture for V/H/S. It works though. Obnoxious characters and a great concept make “Fun Size” endlessly enjoyable.
The biggest departure from the overall tone, “Kidprint” is a downbeat shocker that gets lost in chaotic editing and storytelling. Aligning best with the original V/H/S films in terms of tone, “Kidprint” is a curious entry in its Halloween iteration. Slow moving, this mean serial killer short is dark and impenetrable. Steeped in irony, “Kidprint” works almost like a modern-day fairy tale given its gloomy, ethereal aesthetic. It doesn’t quite come together in the end but serves up killer atmosphere all the same.
Easily the scariest of the segments, “Home Haunt” goes all out in its haunted house mayhem. Taking cues from classic V/H/S segments, “Home Haunt” embraces the explosion of horror comedy chaos that has become a signature of the franchise. Operating much like a haunted house attraction, “Home Haunt” paces its explosive hell-on-earth horror deliberately. If the quintessential V/H/S stinger segment doesn’t typically land for you, “Home Haunt” might be a familiar disappointment. For those that enjoy the classic approach to crowd pleasing horror, “Home Haunt” will deliver.
It isn’t the franchise’s best, but V/H/S/Halloween does a solid job bringing the holiday cheer to the anthology series. With another crop of shorts in, it looks like the crown for best segment will remain with “Safe Haven” but that doesn’t mean V/H/S/Halloween doesn’t have heavy hitters of its own. “Home Haunt” and “Fun Size” become the standouts with no short dipping the overall quality lower than average. There might be too much thematic overlap with its stories, but V/H/S/Halloween delivers candy-coated horror goodness all the same.
Overall Score? 7/10
