From Newsgroup: rec.arts.tv
On 7/9/26 9:49 AM, The True Melissa wrote:
What did everyone else watch?
BTW, my tooth/jaw already stopped hurting within 24 hours of the
surgery, so I'm pretty psyched about that. :)
I watched:
V/H/S 85 (AMC+) - Much, much better than "V/H/S 99" which really does
look to be the weakest entry in the series.
In terms of the "frame", while "85" does sort of have a "framing"
short (it actually kind of has two!!), they aren't frames in the way
that they were with the first 4 "V/H/S" films.
Frame #1 (Kelli Garner and Jordan Belfi are the biggest "names" in
this one) is basically kind of a "Unsolved Mysteries" kind of show, and
its segment about these university scientists who discover a... "thing",
that can mimic people (physically). (I guess it's supposed to be
"alien", but they never really say.) Anyway, throughout the "85" film,
they keep cutting back to this.
(Basically, I think the idea of this one is that it's the same VHS
tape that has been recorded over multiple times, so they keep coming
back to "deeper" parts of the tape as you go through it, and so I guess
this "Unsolved Mysteries"-type show is at the deepest/earliest layer of
the VHS tape.)
At the beginning, the "frame" quickly shifts to Segment #1, but this
is also a kind of "frame" as this segment also continues periodically throughout the movie. The second frame is some "young people" breaking
into a "no trespassing" area so they can go play on an isolated lake.
This is another segment that probably would have been more effective if
they had just played it straight (though when you see the rest of the
story, you understand why it couldn't be played straight!). Anyway, this
one has a shocking development... and then a twist... which leads to
Revenge! REVENGE!! (saved for later!).
I really liked the second segment. "85" fixes the biggest issue with "V/H/S 99" (no foreign horror short!), and Segment #2 is from Mexico.
The year 1985 is significant, as this is set during the famous 1985
Mexico City earthquake, which is when this one takes place. We start off
with some kind of Mexican morning TV show when disaster strikes. Only
the cameraman in the studio survives, and a rescue crew quickly shows up
to try to get him out of the building. Uh... it doesn't work out!
The third segment is weird... almost "experimental". I didn't hate
it. But I didn't really like it either.
The fourth segment is probably the best one (it probably also has
the biggest "names", with Freddy RodrÃguez and the late James Ransone),
as it's kind of a cops-vs-serial-killer case, but with a twist! - The
cops are getting warned about the crimes (via videotapes!) *before* they happen!
Then we circle back to the first segment, and finally the initial
"frame". The ending to the first segment is probably better than the
ending to the "frame", though I'm not sure either really comes to a
definitive enough of a conclusion.
soaps: DOOL - Not much really happened. Stephanie and Alex fight over
Joy's machinations.
GH - Sonny catches Carly with Valentin, and Carly tells Sonny to
buzz off about her personal life. Anna's back, but she's still
hallucinating Peter August. It looks like Isaiah and awful Curtis are
going to go to (legal) war, with Ric and (a returned!) Martin Gray as
their respective lawyers. ADA/Acting DA Turner wants Molly to first
chair the case against Jenz Sidwell, which would torpedo Molly's book
tour (so I hope Molly turns it down, even though it might be fun to see
her prosecute Sidwell).
And that was largely that.
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