Delayed Reaction: Southbound

The Pitch: A horror anthology set in the southwest U.S. desert.

The first two V/H/S movies are two of my absolute favorites. I've rewatched them more times than almost any other movies from the last few years. As far as I'm concerned, they get horror anthologies right. They tell a full story without ever explaining too much. They are clever, creepy, and well made. Southbound was sold to me as another horror anthology made by a lot of people who worked on V/H/S. That's all I need to get excited. I waited to watch it until it was late at night and I was a little drunk*.

I was very pleased by what I got. The movie is told as five interlinked stories. Unlike V/H/S, there's no bridging narrative. When one story is done, the camera shift the focus to something happening in the background of the scene, and that begins the new story. The types of story all take advantage of the setting while telling very different tales. A rock band stumbles into a cult family when their car breaks down or a man finds himself in an abandoned town after a hit and run. None of the stories are something I haven't seen before. They aren't as inventive as the first V/H/S or ambitious as V/H/S 2. They all have a shared flavor though that I liked. It's dirty. It's remote. It's real and it's not. Best of all, if they opt to make a sequel, it won't be about some deeper mythology. It'll just be some other weird stories with a loose connection. That's what makes anthologies great for horror.

*Personally, I like to be a little disoriented when watching something scary. If I'm too alert, it's harder to surprise me and I might get too focused only solving the story rather than experiencing it.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend