VHS Halloween’s ending signals the availability of a beverage known as Diet Phantasma to the masses. But in keeping with the franchise’s ritual, of course the whole movie isn’t just about that fictional beverage. It has 5 horror shorts, and then Diet Phantasma is used in the form of interludes; and as suggested by the title, the overarching theme is that of Halloween. Anna Zlokovic’s Coochie Coochie Coo, Paco Plaza’s Ut Supra Sic Infra, Casper Kelly’s Fun Size, and Micheline Pitt-Norman and R.H. Norman’s Home Haunt all featured some kind of demented labyrinth where one’s darkest nightmares come to life. Then there was Alex Ross Perry’s Kidprint, which was a rather straightforward tale about a serial killer with a penchant for, well, kids. What were the underlying meanings of all these shorts? Did they have any meaning at all, or was it all just torture porn? Does every movie set in the horror genre need to be rich in metaphors? Can’t they just be an avalanche of gore? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
1. Coochie Coochie Coo
In Coochie Coochie Coo, Lacie and Kaleigh set out to spend their Halloween breaking every rule in existence, on top of being too old to go trick-or-treating. They insulted people who gave them candy. They didn’t respect the “take one item per person” rule. And since they weren’t crossing any legal boundaries and nobody could stop them, the duo felt invincible. That was until they met their match in the form of the Mommy. Everything about the Mommy’s house screamed “stay away from this place,” but since Lacie was feeling way too overconfident, she went in there and dragged Kaleigh along with her. There, they found a trio of adults with baby-like features, who acted like infants as well. They barely had any cognitive skills and cried out for Mommy at the slightest inconvenience. Meanwhile, the Mommy was a cross between a creature from hell and an overbearing parent. So, yeah, it didn’t take very long for Lacie and Kaleigh to figure out that they had made an insanely stupid decision, and they wanted to get out of the house. However, all the exit routes had disappeared, leaving the girls with one option: becoming the Mommy’s beloved children; and well, at the end of Coochie Coochie Coo, that’s what happened. The girls just gave up on running and succumbed to the spell of the Mommy. Why, though? Were they cursed just because they broke some arbitrary Halloween rules? Yes and no. We saw that they were marked when those kids approached the car that Lacie and Kaleigh were in. But I think they were fated to become these mutant infants because they kept behaving like babies despite being adults. They didn’t want to accept that they had grown up and needed to act responsibly. They didn’t make space for other kids. They didn’t want to stay at home and entertain kids who’d come trick-or-treating at their doorstep. They were dressed in onesies that resembled those that babies wear. They wanted to exist in this state of perpetual infancy, not realizing that acting like a child isn’t cute if you’re an adult. In real life, while many get away with this kind of behavior, Lacie and Kaleigh got exactly what they wanted. Did the Mommy’s other children suffer from the same problem? It’s possible. But what was the Mommy actually? Well, it’s evident that she was a human once (maybe from the 1800s). She had a husband. It was probably an abusive relationship; hence the markings on the husband’s face in the picture in the house. One day, she couldn’t deal with him any longer and decided to die by suicide while being pregnant with a baby. I’m guessing that the husband tried to bring her back—more specifically, he likely wanted his baby back—via some demonic ritual. That ritual probably backfired, and what he got was a malevolent creature tethered to the land where she had died who could turn immature adults into the children she never mothered as a human.
2. Ut Supra Sic Infra
In Ut Supra Sic Infra, Vicky took Enric and all their common friends to Roberta Marconi’s house to celebrate Halloween. As per Vicky, she was a famous medium from Turin who organized séances for the Madrilenian elite. On Halloween night, since the connection between the worlds of the dead and the living happens to be the strongest, Vicky hoped to woo her mates by probably setting up a meeting with Roberta. Now, when Vicky had come to the house and scoped out the hidden room where Roberta used to perform her seances, there was no rotary telephone in there. When she came with her friends, though, there was a phone in there. Hence, she advised everyone to not touch it, because it was an unknown object. However, once it started ringing—despite not being plugged in—after Enric uttered the titular phrase thrice, then there was no stopping him from picking it up. We didn’t exactly learn what Enric heard on the receiver; all we know is that he became possessed, killed all of his friends, and removed all of their eyeballs. As if that wasn’t traumatizing enough, the police forced Enric to recreate the crime at the crime scene because the authorities couldn’t believe that a scrawny guy like him could have done all the things that he was being accused of. Eventually, Enric and the police got to the telephone, and, just like before, as soon as Enric repeated the titular phrase three times, it began ringing. This time, instead of Enric, one of the law enforcement officials decided to pick it up. She didn’t get possessed, though. Enric started vomiting up the eyeballs of the victims, reversed the gravity of the room, extracted the eyeballs of all the officers while they were stuck to the roof, and then let their bodies hit the floor. So, what the hell was all this about? For starters, I think it’d be wrong to assume that Roberta possessed Enric and made him eat eyeballs. Because why would a deceased medium do that? The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is that, during one of Roberta’s seances, a malevolent entity from hell made its way into the mortal realm and turned her home into its den. Anytime someone enters its realm, seeking to meet with Roberta’s spirit, it turns them into its victims. But why does it go just for the eyes, though? Well, as they say, the eyes are the windows to the soul. Hence, while it looks like the demon, or the demon’s vessel, is just consuming eyes, it’s probably feeding on the souls of its victims to satiate its never-ending appetite. The titular phrase itself has a lot of philosophical interpretations. It’s sometimes used to talk about the effects of the sun and the moon on Earth. It could be a way of underscoring the correlation between the universe, the galaxy, the solar system, and the planets. Or it could mean that while our realm was initially divided into three layers—heaven, earth, and hell—the desecration of morality and ethics has blurred the lines. But in this case, I just think it’s a reference to the demon’s power to reverse the gravity of Roberta’s room. By the way, if there’s some other folklore-related reasoning behind the events of this short, feel free to share it in the comments section below.
3. Fun Size
In Fun Size, yet another group of adults—Lauren, Josh, Haley, and Austin—were going around the neighborhood partaking in some good old trick-or-treating. They came across a house that had a bowl full of really unconventional chocolates, and while the others hesitated to try them out, Austin ate the one that looked like a wiener—yes, the human kind. Now, although the sign underneath the bowl states “one per person,” Austin went for seconds and was pulled into the bowl by a pair of disembodied hands. The same happened to the rest, and all four of them found themselves in a demented candy-making factory haunted by a humanoid candy who kept yelling the titular catchphrase. Austin became the first victim of Mr. Fun Size as his whole body was chopped up in pieces, covered with chocolate and all kinds of confectioneries, and then packaged for unsuspecting customers. Next in line was Haley, who was filled with M&M’s, quite literally. After extracting the key to the exit door from Austin’s severed hand, Lauren and Josh hit a dead end. So, they went for the air-conditioning vent, the floor of which turned out to be a conveyor belt that led to a chopping machine. In a moment of sheer desperation, Josh chose that moment to read their vows to Lauren, who was his fiancée. And when it came to the “till death do us apart” part, Lauren blurted out what she had been wanting to say for a long time: she didn’t want to be with Josh through thick and thin. Josh got shredded to pieces by the device at the end of the conveyor belt, while Lauren seemingly got out. As she proceeded to remove her engagement ring, Fun Size showed up again and cracked her skull. If that wasn’t enough to confirm that Lauren was dead, when a mother and 2 kids found the aforementioned bowl, the daughter picked up the candy made of Lauren’s finger, with the engagement ring still on it. Unfortunately, the family wasn’t able to alert the authorities about this crime that was happening because the son took more than one candy, and all of them got sucked into Fun Size’s realm. Now, other than comeuppance for not following the “one candy per person” rule, what was it all about? What was the deal with Fun Size and his realm? The short doesn’t really give us an explanation, and I like that because overexplaining it might’ve diminished its dark whimsical nature. The way I see it, Fun Size might be an alien from outer space who saw Willy’s Chocolate Experience—you know, the illegal event based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was promoted with AI-generated images—and just ran with it. The other abominations that we see in there might be other aliens or “friends” that he has created. It’s possible that Fun Size doesn’t see himself as a homicidal maniac but as a benevolent being that’s teaching humans to follow the rules. Also, as a master procrastinator myself, I think there’s a message about not delaying the inevitable. I mean, if Lauren had told Josh that she didn’t want to marry him because he was a weirdo who joked about wanting her to be his “trad wife,” that would have started a chain reaction that probably would have canceled the trick-or-treating adventure, and they would have never come across Fun Size.
4. Kidprint
Kidprint was centered around Tim’s Kaplan Electronics and Records, which had started the titular project to make a catalogue of all the kids that lived in the town of Ardmore in response to the serial child killings that were happening. The idea was that having a detailed description of the kids in the locality would help the authorities find them quickly. But the irony of the whole situation was that Tim’s own employee, Bruce, who was in charge of compiling the Kidprints, was the serial killer. Tim learned this horrifying truth when a local cop asked him to make a quick run to his shop and get Olivia’s Kidprint, and he witnessed all the torture tapes that Bruce had compiled. In fact, when Tim walked into his shop, Bruce was doing a taping of Olivia, and when Bruce spotted Tim, he took him to a room at the back of the shop, maimed him, and left him there with a boy named Drew that he was already holding captive. Now, Tim tried telling Drew that they could help each other take down Bruce, but Drew was so traumatized that he assumed that Tim was in cahoots with Bruce. So, he proceeded to brutalize Tim. When Olivia was thrown into the mix, she got in on the action too. Once they were sure that Tim was dead, they proceeded to take on Bruce. It seemed like they had managed to one-up him, but the epilogue of the short proved Drew and Olivia had died, and Tim had been framed as the “Butcher of Ardmore.” Tim’s employees turned against him. Tim’s family was hounded by society and the press. However, Bruce refused to let Tim’s “horrific activities” shut down a noble endeavor like Kidprint and promised to keep it going, which was just another way of saying that he will continue killing kids until he is caught red-handed. Yeah, there was nothing supernatural about Kidprint. It was just an old guy who liked killing kids whilst hiding his crimes in plain sight. I think it’s impressive that the short offers no elaborate explanation for Bruce’s actions. There’s just that short bit where Bruce can be seen making his own Kidprint, which, when combined with him saying Tim’s actions might’ve been a result of some kind of “past trauma,” paints the picture that Bruce is doing the same thing that was done to him on Halloween night. I don’t want to jump to conclusions and say that there’s a race factor to it. However, the short is set in the ‘90s in a small town with an overwhelming amount of White kids. So, yeah, it’s possible that Bruce is a victim of racism, and instead of processing that or pushing back against such discrimination, he is forcing White parents and kids to stay home. Because if White people stay home, people from minority communities can spend festive occasions without worrying about being treated differently. In addition to that, I must say that this short has the most blood-curdling screams that I have heard in anything fictional. I literally had to turn the volume down to get through those scenes. Kudos to the actors who did those screams; my ears will be ringing for a long time.
5. Home Haunt
Home Haunt told the story of a family of three: Keith, Nancy, and Zack. When Zack was a child, they used to work together to make a labyrinthian Halloween attraction called Dr. Mortis’s House of Horrors. But ever since Zack hit puberty, he refused to collaborate with Keith and Nancy for this annual affair. Nancy somehow managed to convince Zack to go with his dad for one last ride, and the kid obliged. While shopping for new items to put in the latest iteration of Dr. Mortis’s House of Horrors, Keith came across a vinyl recording labeled Halloween Horrors, which was composed of cursed sounds, also known as the Symphony of the Damned. Now, Keith picked that up from the restricted section. So, he didn’t bill it. He just left some money on the counter so that he wasn’t technically stealing from Janet, the shopkeeper. That ended up being a massive mistake because, after gathering a sizable audience for his horror show, when Keith played that record, every element of the House of Horrors came to life. The white-cloaked ghosts shredded people into pieces, the dead puppets in the crypt behaved like zombies, the executioner in the torture chamber tried to violently kill everyone, and the witch boiled folks in her cauldron; you get the gist. Keith, Nancy, and Zack somehow managed to survive the ordeal, and when they got to the exit door, it seemed like this nightmare was going to end. No, sir. All the supernatural creatures, including the demon on the entrance door, which had been hand-crafted by Keith, began attacking the children who were out trick-or-treating. So, in a way, Keith got exactly what he wanted. Even though Rich—played by legendary makeup artist Rick Baker, who has worked on Videodrome, Thriller, Wolf, Batman Forever, Hellboy, and more—ironically said that Keith wanted to be “Mr. Halloween,” it’s true that he yearned for the people of his community to associate him with that festive occasion. Now, every time anybody talks about Halloween, they’ll remember what Keith brought upon the town. Additionally, Keith knew that this was the last Halloween he was going to spend with Zack. Hence, he wanted to make it memorable. Well, “mission accomplished” in that aspect as well, because there’s no way Zack is forgetting about this rollercoaster ride. As for what caused this whole debacle and whether or not Janet had anything to do with it, that’s going to be a big mystery. Maybe Janet was like the Warrens (the fictional version) and collected cursed items after exorcizing houses. In that case, she should have done a better job of safe-keeping them. And now that the cat’s out of the bag, she should do something to put the demented genie back in the bottle. So, yeah, kids and adults, always be careful about what you wish for; you might get it, but not in the form you want it. Side note: is there a game where you play a witch terrorizing kids on Halloween? That POV shot looked nuts.
6. Diet Phantasma
Diet Phantasma was about Blaine Rothschild—with the assistance of Linda, Larry, and Lenny—bringing in one candidate after another and making them drink the titular beverage. All of them were violently killed by the soda—yes, literally—except for a child. How? So, from what I understood amidst all the screaming, screeching, and exploding bodies was that Rothschild was trying to make a beverage that’d turn people into his puppets. The formula wasn’t perfect. So, every time somebody got possessed and was about to die, they’d extract the “ectoplasm” (yes, just like in Ghostbusters) and supposedly store it. And they’d keep adding that ectoplasm to the beverage in varying degrees of concentration until it reached a stage where it didn’t kill the victim, but they became possessed. They hit the jackpot with that kid, and, as suggested by the mid-credits of V/H/S Halloween, they had started mass-producing it for public consumption. Diet Phantasma was blatantly advertised as “made with real poltergeist extract,” because the producers knew that people would think that’s a gimmick and then get possessed. Now, I don’t think you have to be a genius to understand that this horror short is about capitalism. No, cold drinks and beverages don’t literally turn people into monsters, but they are really unhealthy for your body. However, since they are tasty, people keep consuming them, thereby turning companies into multi-million dollar conglomerates that can get their tentacles into every industry in existence and control every aspect of our lives. Once these soft drink companies become powerful enough, they break and bend every law in existence to destroy the planet’s natural resources and exploit minorities. When all that fails to satiate these companies, they then move on to fund wars, invasions, and genocides. If that makes the beverage that possesses humans look tame in comparison, congratulations, you have come to the realization that real life has become so horrifying that the horror genre is failing to keep up. With all that said, I think this installment in the franchise was the best one since the first movie. The tone was consistent. The gore was disgusting. The performances were solid. I did miss the framing device of someone going through the recordings that serve as the horror shorts, but that’s a nitpick. Anyway, those are just my thoughts on the anthology. If you have opinions on the same, feel free to share them in the comments section below.
