I’ve been a long-time fan of the V/H/S franchise. I even bought a ticket to catch an early screening of V/H/S/99 at the Toronto Film Festival. And in many ways, my opinions align with those of many other fans of the series. I still think V/H/S and V/H/S/2 are the strongest entries and consider “Amateur Night” and “Safe Haven” to be among the franchise’s high points. Yeah, no hot take here.

Where my opinions start to differ is in which segments we should consider the worst. For example, I find the bland V/H/S/84 worse than V/H/S/Viral. I’d gladly rank “Dante the Great” above Dickerson’s “Dreamkill.” Now, don’t get me wrong—both of these segments belong near the bottom of any V/H/S ranking if only because of the sheer number of found-footage rules they willingly break.

But one statement I don’t think will be controversial is that the eighth installment, V/H/S/Halloween, is the best entry since the franchise became a Shudder exclusive. I even consider it better than V/H/S/94, which I use as the bar a film must clear to make it into The Midnight Selections. (For the record, V/H/S/Beyond just barely missed out.)

It’s my opinion that not every segment in a horror anthology has to be of the same quality for the film to be considered great, but the weakest entry needs to at least be good. And this is where V/H/S/Halloween has an advantage over the lesser installments in the franchise. It’s extremely consistent. In fact, it’s probably the closest the series has ever come to having all of its directors on the same page.

If there is any sort of tonal shift in the film, it has to do with its treatment of children. In the first half, kids aren’t the targets of violence and old-school horror rules generally apply. But near the midpoint, it’s like a switch flips and young people suddenly become fair game, with even the wraparound getting in on the act. Then “Kidprint” drops like a hammer. Honestly, I’m still marveling at how intentionally the film seems structured to condition audiences into accepting so many horrific pre-adolescent and adolescent deaths.

Let’s start with the wraparound, “Diet Phantasma,” which is one of the franchise’s simplest and strongest, though I still give the nod to “Tape 56” and “Tape 49” as the best because they contain moments that are scary in a way few things in cinema can match.

“Diet Phantasma,” directed by Bryan M. Ferguson (who?), follows a group of researchers testing a new Halloween-themed soda on unsuspecting subjects. Needless to say, it goes wrong in all kinds of predictably fun ways.

I generally don’t put a lot of stock in the wraparounds, but I didn’t mind returning to this one between segments. The plot is almost non-existent, and the whys are never answered, but who cares? Unlike some wraparounds that try to build toward a fragmented mystery, this one offers kill after kill with simplistic, gleeful efficiency. I have no complaints.

The first actual segment is Anna Zlokovic’s (again, who?) “Coochie Coochie Coo.” In hindsight, this is probably V/H/S/Halloween’s weakest segment, but while watching it, I wondered whether I might end up considering it one of the best. I just wasn’t prepared for what was still to come.

Two female high school seniors spend their last Halloween together trick-or-treating—or rather, causing random mischief—one final time while dressed in baby costumes. Then, out of nowhere, they discover a mysterious house they can’t quite explain having never noticed before. What transpires inside is a whole lot of infantilized creepiness that continuously ratchets up at an impressive pace.

“Coochie Coochie Coo” is a little rough around the edges, but I enjoyed it more than the happenings inside the house in V/H/S/Beyond’s “Stork.” I can’t fully explain why one held my attention while the other felt like random ideas thrown at the screen, but I think it comes down to immersion. It’s simply easier to get immersed in a Halloween-inspired world than one rooted in science fiction. Plus, it’s easier to get invested in the plight of two girls chasing childhood nostalgia than that of a zombie-hunting task force.

Next up is “Ut Supra Sic Infra,” brought to us by Paco Plaza, one of the directors of [REC]. Big names don’t always deliver the best V/H/S entries (just ask Scott Derrickson or Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead), but Plaza’s segment is actually one of my favorites in the film. It doesn’t contain the same overt dark humor of the other entries, but in a movie where multiple segments hit the accelerator and never look back, a slower build and more mature horror tone feels welcome.

A college-aged man is sitting in a police station being questioned about the mass murders of several Halloween partygoers who broke into an old mansion through an underground tunnel. The police, however, do not believe he committed the crimes, even though he has confessed, because of the horrendous condition of the victims’ bodies and the logical inconsistencies in his story. Plus, he has significant gaps in his memory.

To get to the bottom of the case, investigators take him back to the crime scene to reenact what happened, hoping to trigger his memory. Plaza uses the resurfacing of memory to structure the story, shifting between timelines. The mystery is well constructed, but where “Ut Supra Sic Infra” truly shines is in the payoff.

NOW, LET’S REALLY START TALKING ABOUT V/H/S/Halloween!

The next two entries are the real test of how people will feel about this film. I expect both to be divisive, albeit for entirely different reasons. They’re also the segments that will most define the film’s legacy.

So yeah, “Fun Size.” I loved this one.

Directed by Casper Kelly, the man behind Adult Swim Yule Log, a horror series packed with wacky surprises, “Fun Size” captures much of that same zaniness while adding the polish needed to satisfy V/H/S’s more hardcore horror audience. Like Flying Lotus’s “Ozzy’s Dungeon” in V/H/S/99, it takes risks, but if those risks land for enough viewers, the rewards are substantial.

A group of four adults leave a party without any candy and decide that, since they’re already in costume, they might as well go trick-or-treating. At the second house they visit, they discover a giant bowl of candy with a sign reading, “Take only one.” To their surprise, the candy has strange names they’ve never heard before, and when one of them unwraps a piece, it’s shaped like a penis.

“Fun Size” blends the hyper-realism of found footage with the campy dark humor Kelly honed on Adult Swim. The supernatural villains are especially unsettling because their bodies seem to obey the physical logic of Looney Tunes characters.

Now, I’ll admit I don’t think everything Kelly attempts in “Fun Size” works, but most of it does, which makes it one of the most original and interesting entries in the entire franchise. Its also the segment that most people will probably think of first when people recall V/H/S/Halloween.

Now we’ve reached the point in the film where kids start dying in large numbers.

“Kidprint” is directed by Alex Ross Perry, known to horror fans for… nothing, really. I have no idea how Perry got attached to this project, but I’m glad he did. As the director of numerous features, including Christopher Robin, he brings legitimate filmmaking pedigree and a noted interest in recreating the grainy aesthetic associated with V/H/S.

But damn, does he ever go dark. If I weren’t already familiar with extreme cinema, I’d probably be far more taken aback by it.

While everyone else is playing around with fun concepts, Perry decides to go full The Poughkeepsie Tapes on us. But here’s the thing: The Poughkeepsie Tapes is full of uncomfortably dark humor, and so is “Kidprint,” which allows it to fit surprisingly well within this anthology even when its depictions of child abduction and abuse hit hard.

“Kidprint” follows an electronics store owner who also runs a side business taking photographs of children so they can be quickly identified if abducted. With an active child abductor on the loose and Halloween approaching, business is booming. But something feels just a little off about this side hustle.

This is definitely my favorite segment in the film, but I can also see it becoming one of the most controversial. It goes to a darker place than any previous V/H/S entry. But damn, is it memorable. I’d even place it in the top five over the entire franchise.

The final segment, “Home Haunt,” directed by Micheline Pitt-Norman and R.H. Norman (yeah, I don’t know who they are either), is a fantastic way to close things out.

It follows a father and son who transform their home into a haunted house every Halloween. Years later, however, the son—now a teenager—has grown resentful of the tradition, believing it contributes to the teasing he receives at school. Nevertheless, his mother essentially blackmails him into helping out for one final Halloween.

Then the father finds an old record called Halloween Horror in an antique store and steals it, hoping it will make this year’s haunted house extra special.

“Home Haunt” is the third segment in V/H/S/Halloween that hits the accelerator and never lets up (“Coochie Coochie Coo” and “Fun Size” being the other two). In previous V/H/S installments, you’d be lucky to get even one segment like that. And that’s the thing—coming at the end of a two-hour film that’s already been pounding away nonstop puts it at a disadvantage. But “Home Haunt” has more than enough going for it to remain entertaining. If it had appeared in V/H/S/84, I’d probably consider it the standout segment. Here, I found it more middle-of-the-pack, and that’s perfectly okay.

And yes, “Home Haunt” ends up being perfectly comfortable with killing kids too. The record’s cover art even humorously foreshadows it.

V/H/S/Halloween is a fast-paced horror extravaganza helmed by an unusual mix of veteran filmmakers and newcomers that comes together surprisingly well. I got the sense that each director wanted to create something special for the franchise and understood what had worked best in previous installments. This is a film dripping with dark humor. And unlike the previous installment, V/H/S/Beyond, V/H/S/Halloween allows practical effects to triumph over CGI, bringing the franchise closer to its roots. I wouldn’t be surprised if the series returns to the Halloween theme again in the near future.

After eight installments, it’s hard to ignore the importance of the V/H/S franchise to the horror anthology format. Watching a new V/H/S film has become a welcome annual October tradition. There really is something special here, and I hope it doesn’t end anytime soon.