PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Horror anthologies, since their inception, have become exceedingly popular over the years with genre fans. Films such as John Carpenter’s Body Bags, Creepshow, and Trilogy of Terror helped usher in a modern-day genre gold rush of horror short compilations. There have been several seriously solid additions to the annals of anthologies subsequent to the above mentioned titles, but some of the most notable are V/H/S and the sequels it has spawned.
V/H/S/94—the fourth installment into the franchise—will be injected into the eyeballs of audiences on October 6, 2021 on Shudder. Franchise alumni Simon Barrett (Seance, You’re Next) and Timo Tjahjanto (May the Devil Take You, The Night Comes for Us), along with newbloods Chloe Okuno, Ryan Prows (Lowlife), and Jennifer Reeder (Knives and Skin), have all combined super forces for this highly anticipated addition.
We were honored to have the opportunity to chat with Chloe, Jennifer, Simon, Ryan, as well as producer Josh Goldbloom, just hours before their World Premiere at Fantastic Fest 2021. The gang was in high spirits as they discussed their involvement in V/H/S/94, their most watched horror films, and more!
PopHorror: Chloe, your segment definitely set the tone for the anthology. With your killer contribution here for 94, and from what I can gather with your upcoming projects—those will also be genre fare—have you always enjoyed horror? Have you always enjoyed the storytelling capabilities found within horror?
Chloe Okuno: Yeah, thank you so much for saying that. I got into horror when I was in high school. When I was a kid, I was not really allowed to watch it, and it wasn’t really on my radar because my parents hated horror movies. They still will refuse to come to any premieres that involve horror movies, even my own. But I respect it. When I was in high school, I think the first horror movie I saw was Evil Dead. Or maybe it was Evil Dead 2, I can’t remember. But it blew my mind. It just felt like the most purely visual medium. I think anyway. It’s just such a fun way to tell a story. And I really gravitated toward horror movies where you can kind of incorporate humor, and horror and physical comedy. All of that really spoke to me and I’ve just loved it ever since.
PopHorror: Thank you, thank you for that! Next up, Jennifer, please. First of all, I need to tell you how much I adore Knives and Skin. Phenomenal movie. Jennifer, did you immediately know what direction you wanted to go here or did you have to sit and ruminate a little bit about what you wanted to deliver for this?
Jennifer Reeder: Well, you know I came in a little late in the process. David Bruckner was supposed to direct this wrap-around and then he got called away to do Hellraiser, so I came in after Ryan’s [Prows] section had been shot, Chloe’s section had been shot, and Simon’s section was about to go into production. And there were a couple different versions of the script that I got from Josh [producer Goldbloom] and I thought through a lot of that and came up with something that felt like a kind of feminist Videodrome. I wanted to think about this: a cult of underground video makers who were women taking agency over some of this territory. So I think in that regard, it was a combination of recognizing what was already there for me to deal with and then trying to insert myself into that already forward moving machine. It was a challenge, but it was a cool challenge. I’m normally used to building a film on my own terms from the ground up but having some parameters to lean into was an interesting challenge.
PopHorror: Well, I thought you met the challenge wonderfully.
Jennifer Reeder: Thank you!
PopHorror: Simon, I wanted to thank you for coming out to Phoenix with your film Seance not that long ago. That was really an enjoyable experience.
Simon Barrett: Oh, I had a great time at that Tempe Drafthouse screening. That was so cool! Thanks for coming out.
PopHorror: My pleasure! Your segment here reminded me of a Tales from the Crypt episode, and boy do I love Tales from the Crypt. After significantly contributing to the V/H/S franchise, what were you hoping to bring to V/H/S/94?
Simon Barrett: Honestly, just the opportunity to direct a segment was so creatively exciting. I just wanted to try to take the experience that I’ve had working on the product—the first two features—and really apply that to something that I hadn’t seen done before. I think with my V/H/S 2 wrap-around, I tried to do some static camera work and stuff and somewhat of a slow burn, but I wasn’t really satisfied with that, with the results of that. And with this one, I was like, “I’m going to try it again, because I don’t have any other ideas.” Because I was able to do much more of a contained thing, and there were a lot of advantages to the very challenging way we had to make this movie. It was very challenging making this movie during Covid with the parameters that we had, but within that, you couldn’t do certain things that would be a luxury on other shoots. For example, I was basically having to shoot my segment in sequence, which is the kind of thing you wouldn’t necessarily think about, but I knew would be crucial for what I was trying to do, which is my lead needed to be more and more disheveled as the evening went on and the room needed to get more distressed and you needed to be stuck in that reality. So in other words, I just thought I had a slightly different visual approach to doing a VHS with this one, based on my experience on what did and didn’t work with the previous films.
PopHorror: I really liked yours. And with that, I tried to go in as blind as I could, watching all these and trying to guess whose was whose. And I definitely guessed yours.
Simon Barrett: I’m actually curious, did you get others wrong? I mean, Timo’s [Tjahjanto] is a little obvious…
PopHorror: Yeah, Timo’s was a little obvious. Between Ryan and Chloe, I had no idea whose was whose and that kind of leads me to Ryan, next please. You kind of close V/H/S/94 with a bit of comedic relief but not without commenting on our current social climate with plenty of blood. Was it always your aim to incorporate the humor and the horror?
Ryan Prows: You just described my entire filmmaking style. Yeah 100%. (laughs) I mean, you got to laugh, you got to cry, you got to cringe, all those things. If you can achieve that in a 20 minute short, you’re cooking with gas. So definitely, the idea was put Nazis out there and just laugh at these fucking buffoons for however long. It was really fun that it shifts from like a documentary on the militia to a sort of monster movie and everything in between. That was actually the fun challenge of it.
PopHorror: It was a great way to close it out because for a second there, I was watching it and I was maybe guessing what was going on… and then of course, part way through, it revealed itself. All of yours were tonally different. How did all of you feel when you were initially approached to be a part of this project?
Ryan Prows: Elated, scared, overjoyed. (laughs)
Simon Barrett: I was a little insulted. I was like, “Really guys? Really?” (laughs) “Is there such a thing as a Simon Barrett security blanket?”
PopHorror: What about you ladies? Chloe?
Chloe Okuno: I was really excited, like Ryan. I think I was kind of nervous because it is, you know, two, three really good movies.
PopHorror: What about you, Jennifer?
Jennifer Reeder: For Josh [Goldbloom] to ask me and that was my first contact and to say like, “Do you want to come on and bring your vision to something that’s sort of like a moving train?” There was some trust there and I have to say that, very often as a woman writer and director, that oftentimes just getting over that trust hurdle, you know where someone says, “Can you do the thing that you are absolutely capable of doing?” just feels enormous. I’m not going to speak for Chloe, but it can be exhausting convincing people over and over again that I’m more than capable of doing what I have done many, many times previous to this. So, it was cool and I was given a lot of leeway in terms of revising the script and shooting the wrap. I was part of the whole process through post production also so it was cool. I think that ultimately, I would love to be able to take on more projects that I didn’t kind of invent from the ground up. I feel like this just gets to go on the current roster of projects that I’ve done and then include the things that I have built to the very beginning. Yeah, it was a cool ask and I said yes and I don’t regret it.
PopHorror: So, Josh, this is for you. Obviously V/H/S/94 has some franchise alumni along with exciting new blood that we just talked to. It’s already adding to the impressive list found throughout the series. What did Jennifer, Ryan, and Chloe respectively demonstrate that you knew they would help round out a winning combo?
Josh Goldbloom: Everything I hoped they would. There’s a lot of trust in any role, any position, going into a movie, and any key hire right? It really takes a team. It’s so fun. I really just try to stay out of the way, and to make sure everybody has what they need to pull off their vision. And it’s encouraging and inspirational to just be able to watch people like Chloe and like Ryan and like Jennifer, and like Simon and all of our filmmakers kind of go in and take charge, and to deliver something that’s so incredibly special but yeah. I’ve said it before, it’s a collective group of artists. Everybody’s so great at what they do and it’s fun to just be a part of that collaboration. Really my job is just to connect the dots, and make sure that they have what they need to pull off their vision.
PopHorror: Thank you for that. Also, Josh, how did Greg Anderson become attached to the project as the composer?
Josh Goldbloom: Yo, Greg’s my fucking hero! I’m a fan of Southern Lord. I go to a lot of like punk rock hardcore metal shows and Sunn O))) was just one of the first shows that I thought my head was going explode. I’d never heard anything so loud in my entire life. They’re the kings of drone. He was my first thought. I don’t have any connections to Greg. I actually initially reached out to Stephen O’Malley, who is his partner in Sunn O))), and Stephen wanted the gig, but then Greg also wanted the gig, and it was so scary for me because I was like, “Uh oh. Am I causing a rift?” And then Stephen just agreed to give Greg the gig, and he was fucking amazing to work with all the way through. The dude is a legend in my eyes.
PopHorror: He is! My brother is the one that introduced me to them and that was a surprise addition to the lineup of V/H/S/94. That was really cool. I guess this is just like a fun question for each of you. What’s the horror movie that you’ve watched the most throughout your lifetime?
Simon Barrett: For me, it’s definitely Evil Dead 2. I actually haven’t seen it for like 10 years. But when I was a child I got a VHS copy of it and I must have watched it 300 times. I think, like when you’re a kid, little kids will just watch things again and again and again. I guess the modern relationship that children had with Frozen was like my relationship with Evil Dead 2. I just didn’t care. Like, I could just put Evil Dead 2 on, and when it stopped, I would just rewind it and watch it again. So that movie is just kind of embedded in my memory, even though it’s mostly I guess, a horror comedy.
PopHorror: No, that totally counts! Who wants to go next?
Chloe Okuno: If you consider Alien a horror movie…
PopHorror: I absolutely do!
Chloe Okuno: I’ve probably watched Alien the most.
Jennifer Reeder: I would say it’s a combination of two things that maybe are also not necessarily considered horror, but Rosemary’s Baby. I watch it on a very consistent level, but I also watch very consistently, Rebecca. Alfred Hitchock’s Rebecca, which I don’t know… It’s not horror, it’s more Gothic. I mean it really is a kind of love triangle ghost story. The kind of horror is really subtle and underlying. Of course, the book is just as brilliant. But I would say Rosemary’s Baby even more than that.
Ryan Prows: My cheat one is Seven just because I watch that constantly. I guess, in the sense that you’re doing more comedy counts, the serial killer/horror/crime thing/police thing…
PopHorror: Did you say Seven?
Ryan Prows: Seven, yeah.
PopHorror: Yes, I would totally accept Seven as well. I’m not one of those horror purists that’s like, “No, that’s not horror!. Absolutely not.” I feel horror has a very broad spectrum, and it has its roots in a lot of things.
Ryan Prows: With V/H/S/94, it’s so cool to see everybody’s, at least for me… Like how to come at or telling a horror story from a different perspective or how to put a twist on it and it felt as if everybody really did their own thing, and still kept it within. It still feels V/H/S but it also feels fresh and like it’s own approach, which was really exciting to see to build out.
PopHorror: I loved it and I’m a huge fan of the franchise. This was honestly one of my most anticipated movies of the year, so this was a real treat for me to be able to speak with every one of you. Thank you!
We would like to sincerely thank Fantastic Fest, Jennifer Reeder, Ryan Prows, Josh Goldbloom, Simon Barrett, and Cloe Okuno for their time.
V/H/S/94 is available October 6, 2021, on Shudder.
