Anyone who reads my site at all, or follows me even slightly knows how I hold Panos Cosmatos in such high regard. He wrote and directed one of my favorite films of 2012, the highly underrated mindf*ck, Beyond the Black Rainbow. While this movie was not for everyone, those of us who took to it immediately knew we had something special.
Beyond the Black Rainbow was an intensely surreal story that played heavily off of visuals, and on top of that, was inspired by movies SEEN on VHS (Blue Lightning), so what better fit for an anthology movie that has its films all shot on VHS-like devices? Although all the stories in V/H/S were awesome, there was no single director who took a real chance. Everything, though original, fed off some kind of horror trope, but I feel if Panos was given a skit for VHS 3, the man would give us something unlike anything we had ever seen. How can you NOT be curious to see what he would do?
An extremely underrated and passed over director – Lucky McKee has created some of the most entertaining horror movies in the last decade. From The Woman, to May, to Red, Lucky has absolutely established himself as a prolific writer/director not afraid to try something off-putting or rather insane. I’m looking directly at The Woman in this scenario, apparently throwing one Sundance viewer into such a riotous rage he had to be removed from the theater during the Q&A and shown out the door. I guess some people just can’t handle a film about a feral woman being domesticated and tortured by a crazy Southern family, am I right?
But hell, what more could you ask in a V/H/S director? Obscenities, controversy, perplexity, zeal – I can’t think of a more perfect pairing than Lucky and his crazy sense of envelope-pushing storytelling and a horror anthology franchise which is meant to give us something unique and different. Well, considering McKee can easily hold my attention for a feature length film, I’d pay top dollar for his short story shot in an old-school manner.
