Admittedly, I have a special place in my heart for anthology horror. The first two films in the V/H/S sequence were extremely fun and effective, blending new takes on the found footage genre with pretty sweet horror shorts linked through a framing story. V/H/S 2 is particularly good, and genuinely frightening. But by the nature of this genre segments can vary wildly in quality and impact. V/H/S: Viral is at least consistent in that none of the segments are particularly great and not one equals any of the film’s predecessors. They vary from amusing (Dante the Great), to disturbed (Parallel Monsters), but none are particular scary. I give some credit for the producers trying not to simply repeat the same formula and evolve the overall linking narrative and trying to make a commentary on the lengths our society goes for instant fame, but this is a failed experiment.
VHS: Viral